enabled+empowered

Enabled, Engaged, Empowered WHAT WORKS

A survey of 294,399 Students 42,267 Parents 37,720 Teachers/Librarians 4,969 Administrators/Tech Leaders Each year, Project Tomorrow conducts massive surveys of K-12 teachers, administrators, teacher librarians, technology coordinators, parents, and students.

The report, The New 3 E's of Education: Enabled, Engage, Empowered: How Today's Educators are Advancing a New Vision for Teaching and Learning, May, 2011 (available for download at: www.tomorrow.org) provides a very interesting glimpse into the role of the teacher librarian in technology.

As expected, we are masters in helping select and push quality resources from the digital world. The report states:

"The role of the school librarian is increasingly focused the use of digital content in the classroom. Librarians specialists in many schools have the responsibility for identifying, evaluating and recommending digital resources to teachers. On one level, the school librarian is the "go-to" person to identify websites for classroom use (78 percent), create collections of resources for curriculum support (56 percent) and to find specific digital content, podcasts and videos to support classroom lessons (47 percent). However, librarians are also enabling and empowering teachers' skills with digital content answering questions about technology tools (85 percent), participating with teachers in professional learning communities (66 percent) and training teachers how to locate and evaluate digital content (33 percent). With the increased variety and depth of the digital resources available for classroom use, the librarian is emerging as a critical player in enabling the use of these tools in the classroom, taking on the twin roles of cheerleader and exploration sherpa." (p. 13)

Teacher librarians are not quite as astute in recommending various types of technologies as shown in the table below (from p. 13). We suspect they are punting to tech coordinators for that role.

Later in the report, the writers make a major statement of the value of the teacher librarian that needs broadcasting all over the education world:

"This disconnect between the value propositions of principals and teachers has interesting ramifications as schools and districts explore how to expand the role of digital content within instruction. In some schools, teachers have the authority to select their own digital resources; in others, that responsibility is held by a district committee. In the middle of many of these discussions is the school librarian. The librarian view on how to effectively evaluate digital resources is an interesting blend of the teachers' and principals' points of view. Within the librarians' evaluation rubric, the most important factors when recommending digital content to teachers are:


 * Content accuracy (81 percent)


 * Ease of use by teachers and students (76 percent)


 * Alignment to curriculum standards (73 percent)


 * Credibility of the content publishing organization (66 percent)


 * Cost (60 percent)


 * Level of engagement and interactivity (50 percent)" (p. 16)

So, we can be proud that someone else, other than ourselves, with a major national report recognizes our value in teaching and learning.

However, not covered in the report is a new set of tools that teacher librarians can use to push even further into the center of teaching and learning. These are Web 2.0 tools popularized and supported by Sig MS in ISTE, the AASL tech committees, and such leading professionals as Joyce Valenza, Buffy Hamilton, and Vicki Davis.

Of the myriad of Web 2.0 tools now available for free, there is a class of these tools that provide innovative potential for collaborative learning and collective intelligence creation. We all recognize the need for an individual student to master various skills and build deep personal understanding in the various content areas of math, social studies, fine arts, science, and the language arts, but there are new opportunities to combine "what I know" with "what you know" to create even deeper understanding and new collective knowledge.

We refer to tools such as the Google Document where groups of writers can create, edit, and build. Using the Google Form to collect data or ideas that end up in a Google Spreadsheet in real time allows learners to do analysis and synthesis not possible in any other medium. Collaborative mind maps allow groups to build and structure collective knowledge. Google Presentations allows up to seven individuals to simultaneously create visual summaries of what they know. Collaborative brainstorming tools such as TitanPad allow real time exploration of ideas. These and many more belong to a new class of tools that teacher librarians should use and promote to help illustrate that collective thinking is a powerful way to prepare for careers and for college.

It is all a part of "the use of ideas and information" called for by the AASL Standards which also promote the effective use of quality ideas and quality information to build both individual and collaborative skills and knowledge.

TABLE: Table 6: Digital Content in the Classroom What are teachers using and librarians recommending?

Table 6: Digital Content in the Classroom What are teachers using and librarians recommending? Digital Content Teachers' Teachers' Teachers' Usage Usage Usage Gr K-5 Gr 6-8 Gr 9-12 Librarians' Recommendations Virtual labs 4% 9% 11% 11% Games 32% 21% 13% 16% Animations/simulations 18% 21% 26% 16% Online textbooks 26% 28% 26% 19% Virtual field trips 22% 14% 11% 31% Podcasts/videos 28% 34% 36% 38% Skill development software 52% 31% 21% 39% Real time data 27% 24% 10% 40%

13127142881312714288 By David V. Loertscher

David Loertscher: Coeditor of Teacher Librarian; professor, School of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA; president of Hi Willow Research and Publishing; and past president of the American Association of School Librarians. dloertscher@teacherlibrarian.com.

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