Supporting Teachers' ICT Curriculum

Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dy3xQgsi1o

The preceding video is from a series called In the Know, produced by Vancouver Public Schools and hosted by Mark Ray. In this short clip, Mark Ray explores the changing role of school librarians, and collaboration between TL's and classroom teachers is mentioned as one of the ways that school libraries are going to stay relevant in the 21st century. As educators, we need to work together to ensure that students are getting the best, well-rounded, education that we can provide, where they are learning to navigate the digital world just as confidently as the paper-based world.

As I have not had any experience with teaching in a classroom or library of my own, I don't have any personal stories that I can draw from that illustrate how I was able to establish a strong collaborating relationship with my colleagues. In other areas of my life, I have collaborated with others in a variety of settings, such as school, work, family gatherings, and workshops, so I know that there needs to be a certain level of trust and desire to work together to accomplish a certain goal.  It is also important to be open to other points of view, or different ways to approach, new tasks.  I have thought of a few ways in which I would like to build a foundation of collaboration with my fellow educators, and they are as follows:

-          start a blog/school podcast/Facebook page that introduces and demonstrates new and useful ICTs, ask teachers to follow me so that they can receive notifications when there is something new added to the page

-          create a school library web page that advertises exciting events, resources, or functions that are being brought into the library; have interactive links for students, parents, and teachers to explore, share, and learn from; book club suggestions; book ratings; new arrivals; and book themes of the month

-          I would organize Pro-D days that were based on common ICT interests/curiosities expressed by my colleagues

-          at the beginning of the year, I would go from class to class to introduce/reacquaint myself to new/returning teachers and give teachers a list of services that I am able to provide to assist in their classroom teaching, as well as ask if there is anything that they would be interested in me bringing into the library to further develop their teaching practice

-          provide availability times to collaborate for thematic units, lesson plans, and cross-curricular units

Below is an infographic that outlines the ways that a TL can benefit a school community through various forms of collaboration. 

Infographic article link: http://www.ala.org/aasl/research/ncle-infographic

Other useful links:

Link to site that has a list of books and articles that discuss the relationship between TL's and teachers, the benefits of collaboration, how TL's can become technology leaders, and many other useful resources:

https://sites.google.com/a/ualberta.ca/becoming-and-being/teacher-librarians-becoming-and-being-technology-leaders/articles-and-books

Link to site from the Manitoba government that has the answers to frequently asked questions about literacy with ICT: http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/tech/lict/s_leaders/faqs.html

Link to site for a study on Teacher/Teacher-Librarian Collaboration - A Review of the Literature conducted by Karen Lindsay who was the Teacher-Librarian at Reynolds Secondary school in Victoria, BC:

https://learn.eku.edu/bbcswebdav/courses/LIB800_14288_F12/LIB800_14288_F12_ImportedContent_20120808022316/Modules/Module%203%20%20Forging%20Partnerships%20in%20the%20School%20Library%20Module%203%20content/teacher--teacher%20librarian%20collabortion.pdf