#teacher-librarian

The internet is overwhelming. According to this Forbes article from May 2018, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced every day. To use terms that you’re probably a bit more familiar with, that’s around two and a half million terrabytes of data. That’s 1 736 111 100 000 (one trillion seven hundred thirty-six billion one hundred and eleven million one hundred thousand) three and a half inch floppy-disks for those of you who remember what the save icon stands for.

In 2018, over 456 000 Tweets were sent out each minute, along with 510 000 Facebook comments made on top of 239 000 status updates. How on this green earth are we to find ANYTHING amongst all that? 

The good news is that most of this information isn’t relevant or useful for you. But it is the chaff through which you will need to search for the wheat that is useful pedagogy, skills and tech tools. The good news is that I think there are lots of ways to find those gems, and not all of them involve being technologically savvy. Here’s my list of ways to keep my fingers on the pulse of edtech. 

ISTE

Joining Professional Learning Networks through the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) or becoming friends with someone who is a member so that you can hear about cool opportunities, learning and professional development through them is my current top tip.  ISTE itself is

home to a passionate community of global educators who believe in the power of technology to transform teaching and learning, accelerate innovation and solve tough problems in education.

ISTE inspires the creation of solutions and connections that improve opportunities for all learners be delivering: practica; guidance, evidence-based professional learning, virtual networks, thought provoking events and the ISTE Standards.

ISTE. (n.d.). About ISTE. Retrieved February 13, 2020, from https://iste.org/about/about-iste

This document describes the differences between the levels of membership to ISTE that are required to gain access to these PLNs. I think a basic membership, with it’s access to the PLNs and more for only $105 USD is a fantastic option.

I will admit that I have not yet personally joined – but I am interested in several Professional Learning Networks that they offer. These networks allow us to connect with other members in such focus areas as Digital Citizenship, Early Learning, Global Collaboration, Games and Literacy; they even have a PLN for Librarians! They provide us the ability to connect and collaborate with other educators across the world, allowing us to “network resources to help students collaborate”; one of the teacher skills required in the area of knowledge deepening in the ICT competency standards for teachers set out by UNESCO in 2008 (p. 12).

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According to ISTE members these online groups are rated as the most popular membership perk. Other benefits include things like online streaming of conferences, webinars, and general global networking. Membership also allows you to sign up and attend the annual ISTE conference! When I have access to PD grants again after completing my diploma, I hope to attend it. The timing is not ideal, the last week in June every year, but I have only heard amazing things about it. 

I am mindful that ISTE is heavily supported by Microsoft, and I try to be aware of the impact of corporate sponsorship. 

Virtual Connections

I think that Twitter may have become an established routine of mine now. I don’t spend much time, just a minute or two (okay 5) at the end of the day before I curl up with my book, but I do a quick scan through those I follow. If something interesting jumps out at me, I share the link via email to myself to read/share at another time. If I feel like I have a few more minutes of time to spend, I do a search for #edtech. Inspiration can strike from anywhere. Twitter is also a great way to reach out and connect with experts around the world – last year while reading the novel Exo by Fonda Lee, it was a tweet that connected her to my class, and then she was able to skype in to answer some of our questions about the novel. 

As mentioned in my earlier post about the Library’s role in a school’s culture of reading, one of my current favourite sources of couch PD is the “Future Ready Librarians” group on Facebook. Here Librarians from around the world post asking for ideas, connections, or sharing cool things that they have going on in their Libraries. There are even free webinars from admins on the page. Some things relate to more traditional library life, but a significant portion involves making and new apps and learning tools. It should be noted that this group is supported by Follett. 

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Local Networking

I am fortunate that the division I teach in has a consultant at our head in with to check in with, and who plans multiple professional development opportunities for us throughout the year. I attend these sessions, despite the dreaded sub planning, because they provide me the opportunity to meet with my peers, see and hear what they are doing in their schools, and we are often provided information or brief introductions to new tools that are available. They also advocate heavily on our behalf to be provided coverage to attend other PD initiatives related to technology. 

At a provincial level there are numerous organizations to join or attend PD with. The Manitoba School Library Association offers a full-day professional development session in November and other member benefits throughout the year, and these events and their journals allow exposure to new ideas and networking opportunities. In Manitoba, another group to consider joining would be the Manitoba Association of Computing Educators, or ManACE. Like MSLA, they provide a November PD, as well as occasional evening events throughout the year,and bi-monthly journals. ManACE is very connected to the maker movement in Manitoba, and a great way to make connections. Your province or state has these organisations too. Reach out, join, and contribute!

My friend, Google

One of my favourite things about the end of the calendar year is looking for ‘best of the year’ lists. Lots of these things are for my personal enjoyment, but many are also connected to the LLC. As I read through lists of the best music and books of the year, I also make sure to check out lists of the best educational technology. My usual search terms are “best + edtech + tools + YEAR”

Larry Ferlazzo’s list of apps has been one that I have been checking out for years now. His background is in English Language Learning, but the apps that he selects are all free and easily accessible to non-tech savvy users and ELL students. Here’s his list of ‘The Best Web 2.0 Applications for Education in 2019 – part one”.

Another of my favourites is Jennifer Gonzalez’s blog cultofpedagogy.com; she posts at least yearly about the newest apps for teachers to test out in their classroom. My only complaint about her recommendations is that they often require purchasing – but if the tools are transformative enough, I’ll consider it. Here’s her post about ‘6 Ed Tech Tools to try in 2020’. If podcasts are more your style or meld with your hectic schedules, hers is also well worth a listen. Every year she posts a Teachers Guide to Tech for sale on Teacher’s Pay Teachers; which this year is a 282 page hyperlinked PDF file with all kinds of tools, exemplars, screenshots and links to YouTube videos.

It’s also usually worthwhile to do a search right after the ISTE conference – here’s one from weareteachers.com about their favourites from last year’s conference, which was the first time I had heard about the Bulb App for digital portfolios. 

I hope this list has been a supportive list of suggestions for tools to keep you up to date with an ever-changing topic. It may feel like you’re being chased by a Great White, but with a little help from our friends (and global collaborators) we’ll make it through okay.

Sources

Gonzalez, J. [Cult of Pedagogy]. (2020, January 6]. How to Use the 2020 Teacher’s Guide to Tech [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8HBmrcw9ig&feature=youtu.be

Ferlazzo, L. (2019, April 15). The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2019 – Part One. Retrieved from https://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2019/04/15/the-best-web-2-0-applications-for-education-in-2019-part-one/

Gonzalez, J. (2020, January 8). 6 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2020. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/6-ed-tech-tools-to-try-in-2020/

ISTE. (2019, June 27). Experience the bold learning at ISTE19! [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJCCLMEprQk

ISTE. (n.d.). About ISTE. Retrieved February 13, 2020, from https://iste.org/about/about-iste

Moran, K. (2019, June 25). 5 of the Coolest Ed Tech Tools We Found at ISTE 2019. Retrieved from https://www.weareteachers.com/ed-tech-tools-iste-2019/

UNESCO. (2008). ICT competency standards for teachers: competency standards modules. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000156207

Cover Image Source

FINDING NEMO (2003). [Photography]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.
https://quest.eb.com/search/144_1541717/1/144_1541717/cite

What I love most about researching is that often the thing that you start out to find is just that – a starting point. One question leads to another and then another as you continue your winding path through your sources. It’s part of the reason that I was so drawn to social history during my undergrad years – we live our lives within the confines of what we know to be true,  but the world is so vast and we are so small that there is so much out there that we don’t even know that we don’t know.  

In some ways that is comforting, in others terrifying. But for the first time in our existence, almost half of the world has access to the internet and the tools and apps that come with it. What we don’t know that we don’t know doesn’t have to be such a scary idea any more, and what matters instead is instilling connection, critical thinking, creativity, communication, curiosity, and the various literacies that students will require to access that knowledge – whether from connecting with others around the world, searching through the databases provided by the local public library, or listening to the stories of others on YouTube, podcasts or through social media. 

My goal was to focus my research on ways of encouraging fostering digital connection, along with a toolkit of strategies to help students manage working with technologies that are almost deliberately distracting. My initial list of search terms was the following: 

– Empathy and storytelling 

– Empathy development and technology

– Storytelling apps

– Digital storytelling tools

– Cognitive Load Management theory and skills

– Open source educational software

What ended up shifting

I ended up dropping some topics (like empathy and storytelling, empathy development and technology, and open source technology) because I felt that with them my topic wasn’t as focused, and that empathy was briefly discussed in the materials I had found about digital storytelling already. It also made sense, as I wanted my focus to be more practical than theoretical. I had significant success pulling together materials on digital storytelling and the applications and other tools that can be used in their creation. Cognitive load management,  however, was the most troublesome topic. I left the experience feeling that the two divides of philosophy in education about technology referenced by Richardson in Why School? eight years ago are still alive and well today. 

What I couldn’t find

My initial search terms were connected, but they were not necessarily things that a person would find all in the same place, although to successfully work in the Digital Storytelling medium you would need to have some sort of understanding of all of them. The one that didn’t make it into my Part B assignment was anything that had to do with Cognitive Load Management. Most articles that I could find, either through the UBC library, Google Scholar, or just a plain old Google search tended to be very academic and slightly off topic; instead many focused on cognitive load theory. Most zeroed in on successful retention in e-learning or more traditional teacher-led learning methods, not with hands-on learning experiences, and how to deal and sort between loads of incoming information. When I used quotation marks to search for “cognitive load management” + children my results plummeted from 110 069 to 54. The most frequently cited articles focused on strategies for persons with autism. I did happen to find one promising article on how “Eye-closure enhances creative performance on divergent and convergent creativity tasks”, but that and was research on one very specific cognitive load management task – not the practical toolkit of strategies and skills that I was looking for. 

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There is so much more room for research on this area. As mentioned previously, as I struggled with finding materials I was reminded of Richardson’s claim that there were two visions for the future of education – one of them for teaching the old curriculum with new tools, and the other looking to discover (2012, Loc 265). Eight years after writing Why School? these search results make me worry that academic and research choices have for the most part chosen to stay with the status quo. Ultimately, I suppose it is not surprising that materials on the topic of cognitive load focus more on how to reduce the effects and effectively instruct someone to have them retain more information. However, with a transformative view of educational technology, I think it becomes more and more important for us to be able to TEACH students these strategies, rather than use them solely to manipulate their understanding of instructed materials. Kids need these strategies in their toolkits. 

What went well

I felt more at home in my research on the topic of digital storytelling. During my first course in the LIBE program, I stumbled across the 1994 Manifesto of the Public Library from the IFLA. That list, although 25 years old , made clear to me why being a Teacher-Librarian was something I was so interested in. So many of those missions of the library connect beautifully with digital storytelling:  

…3. providing opportunities for personal and creative development; 4. stimulating the imagination and creativity of children and young people; 5. promoting awareness of cultural heritage, appreciation of the arts, scientific achievements and innovations;… 7. fostering inter-cultural dialogue and favouring cultural diversity; 8. supporting the oral tradition;… 11. Facilitating the development of information and computer literacy skills…   

from the 1994 Manifesto of the Public Library by the International Federation of Library Association

I also thought it was particularly telling that the titles and abstracts of research papers and articles about the topic were sprinkled with words that seem lifted right from 21^st century learning skills: words like co-creating, creativity, citizenship, culture, multilingual, modalities and connections to name only a few. When compared to results from my search for cognitive load management, results seem to come from a wider swath of the globe. Some results were focused on Indigenous Education or referenced specifically the importance of storytelling to other indigenous world cultures. Just this week, while sharing my focus for this class with a divisional colleague (who is currently working on their PhD in education in the area of the intersections between educational experience and race), I was forwarded two other journal articles that focused on the task of digital storytelling as a just way of working towards reconciliation, and as a way of respecting Indigenous oral traditions (Castleden et al, 2013, p. 495). This is important to me. I need what I do to bring voices to those who have not had them amplified historically. In digital storytelling I can provide 21^st century skills alongside social justice. 

In terms of results, I had fewer for digital storytelling than I did for cognitive+load+management+children (just over 50 000), but the quality of the results and their applicability to my topic of study was significantly higher. I also had more luck with searches on Twitter and Google. Results tended to be more connected to my given topic, and more readable; I suppose that’s not surprising for a topic about storytelling. 

Applications

When reading through the literature about Digital Storytelling, I realized that there are probably hundreds of ways to develop this into projects and activities for the library and in my work with other classrooms. There definitely isn’t a one size fits all approach. In an ideal digital storytelling project situation, students are coming up with their own focus points, choosing from a wide range of tools and apps and troubleshooting as they go. It becomes impossible for a teacher to know all the answers, and I think matches up nicely with Richardson’s section entitled “Discover, don’t deliver, the curriculum”, in which he describes teachers as those who ask questions and guide the students along the different paths of their own learning (2012, Loc 426).  

In the TEDx talk above, Azul Terronez tells us the things he has learned by surveying students about what makes a good teacher great. The more I learn and think about DST, the more I think that it helps us get to know and build relationships with students, while hitting curricular outcomes and teaching other important skills as well.

Conclusions

I left this assignment feeling like I had a good handle on the who, what, when, where, why of digital storytelling. How was a bit murkier, but with the shared examples of others and the benefits of time and experience I think that will come together. I found examples being created in many different courses and on many topics, which I hope will help me promote this method of learning and creation with my peers.

This is a scary shift for many people, especially those of us who probably succeeded at the game of school – and let’s be real, many teachers are likely teachers because school was a comfortable place for them, and the source of some of their best memories. This isn’t a bad thing – but sometimes it puts blinders on us when we need to make changes. And so, this is often the spot that I find myself coming back to –  how do I transition to this model? That’s the resource that I want to exist out there somewhere in a database. I want a how-to guide! I think I’m doing so now, but the going is slow. Coming into classes, sharing tools, asking supporting questions, planning activities in the LLC that model these shifts, working with teachers that are implementing these changes, and planning activities for the students in classes where those shifts aren’t happening are my chisel at the rock of traditional classroom teaching. 

Research Sources

Brailas, A. (2017). Digital storytelling in the classroom: How to tell students to tell a story. International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, 1(1), 1. doi: 10.1504/ijtcs.2017.10003059

Kaupler, D. (2018). 30 Sites and Apps for Digital Storytelling. Tech & Learning, 39(3), 8. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=132130210&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Moradi, H., & Chen, H. (2019). Digital Storytelling in Language Education. Behavioral Sciences (2076-328X), 9(12), 147. https://doi-org.wpl-dbs.winnipeg.ca/10.3390/bs9120147

Nam, C. W. (2017). The effects of digital storytelling on student achievement, social presence, and attitude in online collaborative learning environments. Interactive Learning Environments, 25(3), 412–427. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1080/10494820.2015.1135173

NCTE. (2019, November 7). Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age. Retrieved from https://ncte.org/statement/nctes-definition-literacy-digital-age/

Powerful Tools for Teaching and Learning: Digital Storytelling. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-storytelling

Others Sources Referenced

Castleden, H., Daley, K., Sloan Morgan, V., & Sylvestre, P. (2013). Settlers unsettled: Using field schools and digital stories to transform geographies of ignorance about indigenous peoples in Canada. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 37(4), 487-499. doi:10.1080/03098265.2013.796352

IFLA. (1994). IFLA/UNESCO Public Library Manifesto 1994. Retrieved from https://www.ifla.org/publications/iflaunesco-public-library-manifesto-1994

Richardson, W. (2012). Why school: how education must change when learning and information are everywhere.

Terronez, A. (2017, February 2). What makes a good teacher great? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrU6YJle6Q4

Cover Image Source

Light beams silhouette a human shape standing at the end of a digital tunnel.. [Photograph]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.
https://quest.eb.com/search/107_299526/1/107_299526/cite