Sertic's Library Musings

Libraries Are Helping People Help Themselves This week I explored how libraries are helping their patrons with access to information and/or services.  While exploring global libraries, I came across this fun article that lists some quirky mobile libraries and bookstores that have been creatively set up in many areas of the world.  From outfitting food trucks into mobile libraries, to hand made push carts, to donkey-carrying libraries, these examples demonstrate a passion to share reading, regardless of economic privilege or not.  But is this enough? In our internet-driven world, where information is at our fingertips, how are communities, especially those in impoverished or developing areas, gaining access to information?  Public libraries are the answer, locally and globally. I discovered this fantastic video that nicely outlines how impactful public libraries are in our internet-driven world.  Although this particular video was filmed in the United...

Teacher-librarians as ICT Professional Development Leaders Image Courtesy of: https://info.askalibrarian.org/ Through the work I’ve been doing during this course and other courses I’ve taken toward the teacher-librarianship diploma, I’ve learned so many skills that I hadn’t known or used before.  For instance, blogging, using data-bases for information, using different tech tools for demonstrating my learning (Padlet, Symbaloo, Powtoon, etc.), information to teach digital and media literacy - the list goes on and on. As a previously self-labelled “technologically delayed individual”, I feel incredibly accomplished learning how to use these different tools.  As a teacher librarian (TL), I think we are in the perfect position to help our colleagues feel this sense of accomplishment in developing their ICT skills at schools. Carl A. Harvey II in “Are You the Next Leader in Our Profession” (2011) states that “We have to be one of the folks in the building to whom students a...

LIBE 477: Inquiry #2  Developing your own ICT Skills and Pedagogy Image courtesy of: https://www.aeseducation.com/career-readiness/what-are-21st- century-skills Education practices need changing as the world we live in is changing. No longer are traditional teaching methods sufficient for the digital age we are living in.  With information at our fingertips, memorization and regurgitation of information is no longer relevant.  We as teachers/teacher-librarians need to help our students develop the 21st Century skills that will better prepare them for the future they will be living in.  Our students are digital natives and we, as educators, need to help them develop digital and media literacy.  Technology is changing at such a rapid rate, how does one keep up?  How do we find the time to explore and develop our own ICT skills? Image courtesy of: http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/life-long-learning-for-campaigners/ I believe the first step is ackn...

LIBE 477: Inquiry #1 Read, Read, Read: Fostering a Reading Culture in Classrooms Students are required to read for academic purposes all the time in classrooms, but what about the time to read for pure pleasure?  Time needs to be set aside for independent reading; time that requires no more than immersing oneself in a good book.  For many years, I’ve taught upper intermediate students and have found, year after year, several students who struggle to find the joy in reading simply for pleasure.  How can we help develop a reading culture in classrooms that gently nudges students in that direction?  How can we help them want to read and find joy in it?  Through some reflecting of my own practices, discussions with colleagues, and visiting other educational blogs and websites, I have found three broad categories to develop a reading culture in classrooms: selection of reading material, ways to make it a social activity, and ways to help make it fun. Selectio...

LIBE 477 - Reading Review Part C:  My Research Experience to Better Understand: How Can Digital Technologies in the Classroom Promote Collaboration? I will begin, with how I ended my last post: There is so much information out there, it was difficult to scale it down to just a few resources! As I was first looking into the topic of  “How can digital technologies in the classroom promote collaboration?” I was slightly overwhelmed with the amount of information out there.  Upon looking closer at the sites, I realized some of the information wasn’t quite relevant to school, children, or even technology; they were more generalized to the workplace or universities.  When I began honing in on key words and focusing on sites that were more educationally based, I was able to find more relevant resources.  This made me think about the process students go through when searching for information for research projects.  We, as teachers, need to share our learning ex...