Taaaaa Daaaaa (Final Vision Project 3)

https://selkirkannexlibrary.wordpress.com/

 

Thinking back about the process of creating my Final Vision Project, I am left feeling satisfied. I’ve written papers about the benefits of library websites in several TL courses. It feels good to have created a K-4 school library website that I think would be useful. Even if the teacher-librarian at my current school chooses not to use it, I now have a template that I can use when I get a job as a teacher-librarian. 

To explain a few of the many benefits of library websites, I will share some quotes. Back in 2005, Valenza said, "A virtual library can become an integral part of the instructional culture of the school." It's still true. The British Columbia Teacher-Librarians' Association (BCTLA) explains that “virtual collections of tools and resources are essential to inquiry and to 21st century learning” and goes on to say that "social media is important as a reflection of the participatory and connected culture" (2017). Leading Learning, published by Canadian School Libraries, states that a “virtual LLC empowers learners to co-create and share ideas and knowledge with a broader learning community” (2020). In short, library websites are important!

Before creating my library website, I had to choose a platform to use. This was an important decision and I took the time to figure out the differences between wordpress.org, wordpress.com, Weebly and Wix before committing to one. Wordpress.org requires payment for website hosting, and both Weebly and Wordpress.com require payment to connect to Instagram. Wix can connect to Instagram for free, but charges for a domain name that didn’t include my name. After much back and forth, I decided to go with Wordpress.com because it seemed to give me the most programming control and room for growth. Once I’d decided, it was relatively straightforward to create a site.
 
In the future, I plan to purchase the Instagram plug-in feature for my library website. With the plug-in, posts appear on the blog and the library Instagram account at the same time. Teachers and parents on Instagram wouldn’t need to go to the website to read the blog – it would show in their Instagram accounts automatically. Meeting the community on online platforms that they already use (like Instagram) is a fabulous way to educate them about what the library offers (Murphy, 2022) and seeing the collaborations happening in the library may encourage other teachers to participate. However, I did not include Instagram in this project due to cost. My website has a blog, but not the Instagram/blog combo package I had originally envisioned.
 
The blog is one of 5 pages that make up the website, which is designed to be simple enough for students in Grade 3 and up to navigate independently. Chow et al (2016) recommend lots of pictures and colour when working with young internet users, and I tried to follow those recommendations throughout the website. Links are large to make it easier for inexperienced mouse users to click them and pictures help students with limited reading skills navigate. The limited number of links also simplifies navigation.
 

The homepage is a picture of the library, three links (catalog, online resources, and questions), and a picture/excerpt of the two most recent blog posts.
 

The Online Resources page is a list of links for teachers and parents, along with the password information to gain access. Each link has a picture beside it to make it easier to find. The district pays for a variety of online resources and they are not often accessed. By promoting their existence and making recommendations as to how they might be useful, teachers may choose to use them in their classrooms (Mardis, 2021). The Online Resources page also houses two more pages: games (due to a student suggestion) and an individual classroom page (created by teacher request, and could include links, instructions, or whatever is needed). Listening to library stakeholder requests will make the website better (Hartshorne et al, 2008).
 

The Questions page is mostly for parents and has to do with the nuts and bolts of how the library is run. However, there is a section about the Collections tab on the website that might be useful to teachers. 
 

The About Us page introduces the teacher-librarian. This page is linked whenever TL contact info is mentioned so that when the TL changes, the contact information only needs to be changed in one spot (Jacubowicz, 2022). The TL changes often at my school, so planning for this is important.
 

The Blog page showcases what’s happening in the library to the wider community. I’m aiming for many short posts (with pictures!) of collaborations, student work, new books, thank you notes, events, book recommendations, etc. Student interactions with the blog will provide opportunities to improve digital literacy skills, as recommended by International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 2023).

 

The blog is also the section where students can "leave a footprint" by commenting on the blog posts (Chow et al, 2016). Currently, the comments on the blog are not moderated and do not require an email address. It is set up this way so that students can see their comments appear immediately. Removing the moderation step does leave the blog open to abuse and would not be an option in some school situations. In hopes of avoiding problems, I would teach all classes how to leave an appropriate comment. K-2 classes could come up with a group comment typed in by the TL. Grade 3-4 students could comment individually or in partners. Commenting on a blog post is an authentic opportunity to teach digital citizenship and a great example of ISTE Standard 2.3.c, which states that educators “mentor students in…ethical practices with digital tools” (ISTE, 2023).
 
In addition, I also programmed some safeguards into the setup for the comments. I specified a list of words that would send someone’s entire comment to trash and prevent it from appearing (poop being a gentle example). I also limited the amount of time the comments are open. After 2 weeks, the comments get closed and will no longer need monitoring.

 
After that loooooooong introduction, I invite you to come check it out:

https://selkirkannexlibrary.wordpress.com/

 
Please use the comments here to let me know what you think!
 
Works Cited: 
 
BCTLA. (2017). From School Library to Learning Commons. bctla.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/from-school-library-to-library-learning-commons.pdf. Accessed Dec. 5, 2023.
 
Canadian School Libraries. (2020). Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada. llsop.canadianschoollibraries.ca. Accessed Dec. 5, 2023.

Chow, A. S., Morris, R. J., Figley, A., Regan, K., Lam, S., & Sherard, J. (2016, June 10). How Usable Are School Library Websites? A Random Sample from All Fifty States. Journal of Research on Libraries & Young Adults 7, https://www.yalsa.ala.org/jrlya/2016/06/how-usable-are-school-library-websites-a-random-sample-from-all-fifty-states/#_edn26. Accessed Sept. 29, 2023.

Hartshorne, R., Friedman, A., Algozzine, B., & Kaur, D. (2008). Analysis of Elementary School Web Sites. Educational Technology & Society, 11 (1), 291-303.

 
ISTE. (2023). ISTE Standards: For Educators. iste.org/standards/educators. Accessed Dec. 5, 2023.
 
Jakubowicz, C. (2022, July 12). 6 Essentials Every School Library website needs. Mrs. J in the Library, https://mrsjinthelibrary.com/library-website-essentials/. Accessed Dec. 5, 2023.

Mardis, M.A. (2021). The Collection Program in Schools. Libraries Unlimited.

Murphy. P. (2022, December 12). Social Media Mavens: How Teachers and Librarians Are Harnessing Online Platforms. Publishers Weekly. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/91107-social-media-mavens-how-teachers-and-librarians-are-harnessing-online-platforms.html. Accessed Dec. 5, 2023.

Valenza, J. K. (2005). The Virtual Library. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 54–59.

Who is it for? (Future Vision Project 2)

This week, I'm thinking about who my library website is for, and how it will be helpful.

The school that I work in does not currently have a developed library program due to the job being filled by whoever happens to be the vice-principal at the time. I am planning to set up the website for my current school, but with the goal of gaining experience with designing a library website so I can copy and edit it for myself when I get hired as a TL in my next job. I envision this library website being useful for students, parents, and teachers, all of whom are education stakeholders. As recommended by the ISTE Standards, I'm attempting to "model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning" (2023).

The website will be designed for student use. Since my school is a K-4 school, it will have a very simple and picture-based home page to allow young students to navigate it. I imagine a TL demonstrating the website for the K-2 classes using a projector. Starting in Grade 3, I imagine students independently interacting with it. These students could use the catalog, look up their account, and use the online resources for simple research projects. If time in the library permits, students could develop their digital literacy skills by creating projects such as Powerpoint slides with book recommendations. These projects could be shared online via the blog.

The library website will create an excellent home-school connection for parents. It will contain instructions on how to use the library - hours, contact info for the TL, borrowing limits - as well as a link to the catalog so that parents can look up what books their child has out. I'm also planning a blog section to showcase the library's contribution to the school. For example, it could include pictures of new books and projects done in library (like the book recommendations mentioned above), thank the library monitors, and share library statistics (like the number of books checked out) at the end of the year. If (and this is a big if - see below) I can get the blog portion of the website to show Instagram posts, the blog can be updated via Instagram and the post can go out in both formats. Educating the parents about what the library does will hopefully increase support for the library!

The part of the library website that teachers might find useful is the part that explains what online resources are available and how to access them. Due to the inexperience and high turnover of the TLs at my school, these resources have never been mentioned. My hope is that the website would highlight a few useful online resources (National Geographic for Kids and the Collections tab on Destiny come to mind) and make those particular resources easy to access. Recommending resources that are applicable and useful to my school setting will encourage teachers to use the website.

Image from pixabay.com

I think the two main challenges for a TL with a library website are 1) finding the time to update it, and 2) convincing people to look at it. To increase visits, I would share the website via staff meetings, email and the school newsletter. I also have high hopes for an Instagram connection. Lots of parents and staff are on Instagram. If I can link an Instagram feed to the library website, then I can update the library blog with an Instagram post. Additionally, when a parent checks Instagram, they will see posts from the library and have access to a link to the website. Having said that, I'm not finding it easy to create the link. 

Weebly is an easy and free platform on which to build a website, but there's no built-in social media link. There used to be, but it seems that now I need to sign up for another program that can provide the link between the two. The reviews for such programs are...not good. 

Wordpress is another (more complicated but more powerful) program for website building, but the free version does not allow an Instagram link. 

I'm looking at a third free platform, Wix, that claims it can link to Instagram, but I haven't played around with it enough to see whether it is actually possible. I also need to check that I would be permitted to post a link to a Wix site on the district site. I know Wordpress and Weebly are fine, because other libraries in our school district use them, but I've never seen a wix.com site.

I've got the next couple weeks to work on my project, and then one more post to share it with the world! I'm excited to get started!

Works Cited:

"ISTE Standards: For Educators." International Society for Technology in Education, iste.org/standards/educators. Accessed Nov 19, 2023.

A Library Website? (Future Vision Project 1)

Image from pixabay.com

This week, I'm doing some brainstorming about possible options for my final vision project. It is meant to be a representation of my vision of teacher-librarianship. I have three main ideas for digital artifacts I could create:

1. A professional X account focused on staying current as a TL

I've started to create this already. It is a great way to connect with other teacher-librarians and hear about very specific teacher-librarian things. The X account allows me to create a personal learning network (PLN) that will stay with me wherever I go, which is a wonderful long-term thing to have. However, I don't think anyone at my school has a professional X account and it wouldn't be easy to share my learning with the people I actually work with. If I were to create a school library X account, it would look very different than the professional X account I'm creating. When I think about social media as my final project, I get confused on who I'm posting for - parents? teachers? myself? - and how it connects to my actual day-to-day job.

2. An elementary school library website

Conveniently, I ran into the person in charge of the Microsoft Teams page for all the TLs in my district the other day, and she added me to the VSB TL Team. I was curious as to why so few schools in my district have a library website, so I searched the Team for information. I found a post from 2021 in which someone asked the group about the pros and cons of creating a library website. While a few TLs had websites, the general tone of the answers was that library websites take up a lot of time and don't get used much. Some TLs commented that there was a spot on the Destiny Discover version of the catalogue that could be edited for individual schools. Others said they ask their administrator to put the basic info on the library page of the school website. One had a school library Instagram account. It was an interesting post to read, because I see so many positives to having a webpage. I wrote a bit about it here. If I took the time to create a website for my final project based on my current school, it would (hopefully) be relatively straightforward to update for my new school. I know I would find it useful to help me keep all my resources organized and available.

3. A series of videos explaining how to use Destiny Discover

Destiny Discover is the library catalogue used both in my current school district and the district I hope to work in one day. It is simple to use, but elementary school students still need to be taught how to use it. I could create a series of 'how to' videos for students explaining how to find the catalogue, how to log in to the catalogue, how to find out if the school library has a specific book, how to find out what books the library has on a topic, how to do a basic works cited page, etc. How-to videos for teachers could focus on the 'Collections' tab. There are a lot of classroom teachers that don't know about that tab, and it can be very useful. These videos would be useful for as long as the Destiny Discover program is being used.

I'm leaning away from an X account as my final project, because the connection between it and my job is less direct. I want to create something that will be directly useful for when I am hired as a TL (hopefully next year). Both the library website and the series of videos check that box. I like both ideas, but I've been thinking about library websites for so long that I want to explore that option. The ISTE Standards ask educators to "seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning" (2023). I believe a library website is an example of such an opportunity.

Works Cited:

"ISTE Standards: For Educators." International Society for Technology in Education, iste.org/standards/educators. Accessed Nov 12, 2023.

Pause (Inquiry Blog 5)

 

"What are your key takeaways, learning and direction after all this exploration? What are the new avenues for development in your personal and professional practice? What are you going to take with you, moving forward from your own explorations and also from the explorations of others in this class? If you could pick just one topic from Phase 2 that resonated with you, which is it and why?"

- Inquiry Blog Post 5, LIBE 477B, UBC 

Phew! I can’t answer all those questions in one blog post…but I’m hoping to touch on parts of all of them. I have come up with four takeaways from the last four weeks of the course:

1 - I was surprised to learn that I am interested in how to choose and lead effective professional development! It’s not an area that I have been drawn to in the past. I might actually enjoy being part of the pro-d committee!

2 - We are very lucky to have the amount of resources that we do. There are many places out there without any books, let alone internet and ways to access it. Good people are working hard to improve this situation, using vans, donkeys, buses and boxes with fancy satellite connections, as written about by Suzanne Bartel (2023). Sometimes their efforts work well, and sometimes they don’t (Haymen Leong, 2023). I appreciated the reminder that most Canadian schools have a lot of resources.

Screenshot from @LondonPublicLibary, Nov. 3, 2023.

3 - Social media is great for professional development! I recently learned via my shiny new X account that Wednesday, November 8 is #IReadCanadian Day. I’m a classroom teacher, so I headed to the school library last week and hunted down a box full of books by Canadian authors. I plan to share them with my Grade 3/4s next Wednesday. I hadn’t paid much attention to the nationality of children’s book authors and was happy to learn some favourites are Canadian - go Melanie Watt (Scaredy Squirrel) and Barbara Reid (Birds)! On the less positive side, I find time disappears when I am using social media. I blink and an hour is gone and I haven’t accomplished anything specific. Discipline is necessary to use X effectively. Having just started my X account, I am also disappointed to hear that the BCTLA will be retiring their X account and focusing on using Instagram/Facebook. I don’t have the time to interact with multiple platforms!

4 - I’ve enjoyed this format of learning! I learn more with a group of people all researching, writing, commenting and discussing than I do when I just think about a topic on my own. Blogs are much more flexible than the Canvas platform, and I like following the links, pictures and videos everyone has added. We created a PLN. I understand it’s a forced one, because we’re all taking the same course, but it’s a pretty great way to learn. I hope to keep in touch!

Moving forward, I want to try putting the ideas we’ve been discussing into practice.

Images from Laura Robinson, 2023.

I am going to bring more opportunities to develop digital literacy skills into my Grade 3/4 classroom. I already tried an online research project (see pictures above). It was a flipbook containing facts students had found about local landforms. I learned that my students are very easily distracted by all the other things that computers offer. I had students taking photos of themselves, googling their names, etc. Clearly, I need to set better expectations about what the computers are to be used for. The research part also took a lot longer than I thought it would. My students got there eventually, but I see several potential ways to make the process more efficient! Next, I want to try out either Powerpoint book recommendations or Padlet.

Additionally, I’m going to maintain my X account. I’m learning new information (see previous comments about #IReadCanadian) and finding more local TLs to follow every time I check it, although I have developed some FOMO because I’m not on every social media platform (see previous comments about BCTLA and Instagram). I’ve discovered that many of the names I was thinking of changing my X name to are taken (LauratheLibrarian, LRobinson, etc). I tried to change my name (twice!) and ran into separate technical issues each time, but I finally got it figured out. I haven't posted anything, so it's not very interesting yet, but my official new name is @MsRobinson_TL.

The next phase of the course is our Final Vision Project. As I’m leaving this phase with a new X account, I’m wondering if the X account I’m developing might turn into my final project. I originally thought I was going to develop a website for my school library, but I’m really enjoying exploring professional development via social media. I can see I’ll be thinking more about this over the next week. Stay tuned!

Works Cited:

Bartel, S. "Mobile Libraries in Kabul." A Learning Journey, Wordpress, October 26, 2023, suzannebartel.wordpress.com/2023/10/26/mobile-libraries-in-kabul-inquiry-4/. Accessed Nov. 4, 2023.

Leong, H. "Mobile, Financial, and Information Literacy through Public Libraries to Alleviate Poverty in Gujarat, India." LIBE 477B 63A 2023W1, Wordpress, October 25, 2023, blogs.ubc.ca/haymenleong/2023/10/25/mobile-financial-and-information-literacy-through-public-libraries-to-alleviate-poverty-in-gujarat-india-inquiry-blog-4/. Accessed Nov. 4, 2023.

@LondonPublicLibrary. "Start celebrating #IReadCanadian Day with our list of Canadian books for young people. Borrow them instantly until Nov 12th at: lpl.overdrive.com." X, Nov. 3, 2023, twitter.com/londonlibrary/status/1720429632548167838. Accessed Nov. 4, 2023.

Libraries in Kenya (Inquiry Blog 4)

"Your task this week is to explore online and learn about specific library projects in a developing nation. How can they best move forward to support the local needs of their communities?"

-LIBE 477B, UBC, 2023 

Dr. Marlene Asselin was one of my professors when I did my teacher training at UBC several years ago. Our class took place in a children’s library, and she taught us to use fictional children’s books to make a big idea more accessible (friendship, for example, or biodiversity, or Remembrance Day). It doesn’t surprise me at all to find out that now, almost 20 years later, she is involved in an organization (CODE) that believes “children learn best when they have access to reading material that is relatable, interesting, and easy to understand” (Literacy Programs, 2023).

CODE stands for Canadian Organization for Development through Education. They are a non-profit and aim to build literacy skills world-wide, with a focus on developing countries in Africa. The Understanding Literacy (2023) section of the CODE website shares a variety of statistics showing how low the literacy rates are in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as some benefits of literacy:

• 88% of of children aged 6-14 (202 million) are not meeting minimum proficiency levels in literacy.
• A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live past the age of five.

The website also has an interactive map showing which countries CODE has worked in. I was interested to see that they have worked in Kenya, as I briefly visited a school in rural Kenya in 2007.

Image from Where We Work.

I went digging through my old photo albums (physical ones, with printed photos and hand written labels haha) because I thought I had a photo of the Kenyan school I visited…and I found it!

Images by Laura Robinson (2007)

We visited this school as an extra stop on a tour and didn’t know we were going to be visiting it until we stopped. I remember my husband and I having a discussion afterwards about whether the school was actually as poor as it seemed, or if they played up how poor the school was in order to solicit donations from (comparatively) rich tourists. Regardless of the intent, it was a thought-provoking stop. We walked through the back of the dilapidated library containing extremely old and tattered books. The children at the school stood up when we walked in. After the library visit, we watched a group of children playing soccer in the courtyard with a ball made from plastic bags tied together with string. Compared to Canada, the school had very few resources. It lacked paint, soccer balls, books, and many other items. The lack of high-quality, relatable children’s books in schools is one of the problems CODE tries to solve.

CODE sets up programs to “mentor local authors and artists on the production of children’s books in …local languages” with the goal to “stack library and school shelves with colorful and engaging picture books that are appropriate for different reading levels, written in languages that children understand, and that reflect their local realities” (Literacy Programs, 2023). Their goal is to improve literacy by providing resources that students can relate to and enjoy reading. The books I saw on my trip would have been weeded immediately if they were in a library in Canada due to their age and physical state. I fully support CODE’s efforts to help solve this problem.

In 2017-18, CODE distributed more than 20,468 books to disadvantaged Kenyan schools (Where We Work, 2023). An example of a locally developed book called The Mango Mountain that was created for schools in Sierra Leone is posted on the CODE site.

Sallieu, S., Kaira, I., and Davies, W. The Mango Mountain. Reading Sierra Leone & PEN Sierra Leone & CODE, 2018. code.ngo/2019/10/10/a-peek-inside-our-favourite-new-childrens-books/#the-mango-mountain/1/

I think it’s unfortunate that many children born in developing countries struggle to develop literacy skills, and I am glad that Professor Asselin, CODE, and similar organizations are working to change that. I hope that the statistics shared earlier improve from year to year. The statistic on the website - 88% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa don’t meet minimum literacy standards (Understanding Literacy, 2023) - doesn't include information on when it was calculated. It would be interesting to see how that percentage changes over time.

Works Cited:

A Peek Inside Our Favourite New Children's Books. CODE, 2023, code.ngo/2019/10/10/a-peek-inside-our-favourite-new-childrens-books/. Accessed Oct 29, 2023.

Literacy Programs. CODE, 2023, code.ngo/approach/literacy-programs/. Accessed Oct 29, 2023.

Dr. Marlene Asselin. Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, 2017, lled.educ.ubc.ca/marlene-asselin/. Accessed Oct 29, 2023.  

Sallieu, S., Kaira, I., and Davies, W. The Mango Mountain. Reading Sierra Leone & PEN Sierra Leone & CODE, 2018, code.ngo/2019/10/10/a-peek-inside-our-favourite-new-childrens-books/#the-mango-mountain/1/. Accessed Oct 29, 2023.

Where We Work. CODE, 2023, code.ngo/approach/where-we-work/. Accessed Oct 29, 2023.

Understanding Literacy. CODE, 2023, code.ngo/understanding-literacy/. Accessed Oct 29, 2023.

Positive Professional Development (Inquiry Blog 3)

 

"Your blog post this week should focus on finding ideas, solutions and suggestions for meeting the ICT professional needs of your many communities in your own school. What can you do differently, or new, this year that better support their inservice?" 

-Inquiry Project 3, LIBE 477B, UBC

I found this topic surprisingly interesting! I enjoyed reading the research about what makes professional development effective, and it was fun to brainstorm some ways I could support professional development in the school.

Image from pixabay.com

First, the research. Hill and Papay did a literature review on effective professional development (2022). They came up with six recommendations:

• Encourage peer collaboration
• Use focused coaching
• Add follow up meetings
• Target instructional practices over content knowledge
• Prioritize practical materials over theory
• Deliver more PD focused on relationships with students

Image from pixabay.com

I also read an article by Melnikova, who wrote about microlearning. She led a professional development course as a “group chat on a messaging platform…which we had already used for work-related communication at our school” (2023). Every month, she would post an article and 3-5 teaching tools and challenge her course participants (practicing teachers) to try one of the tools out in their classroom. The participants would reply to her post with their positive and negative experiences. At the end of the course, Melnikova received positive feedback that she attributed to having made the course accessible by using social media and microlearning.

Personally, I enjoy professional development more when I am doing it with a team. For example, several teachers at my school applied for a collaborative inquiry grant from our district to investigate how we could bring elements of outdoor learning into our urban classrooms. We were given money to spend on materials and the group would meet every couple of months after school to discuss the topic. I enjoyed this professional development experience because it was a safe, low pressure space to talk about trying new ideas. I also liked being able to explore an idea over the entire school year. The fact that this experience was collaborative and happened over time matches two of the recommendations from Hill and Papay.

Considering both articles and my personal experience, I get the sense that studying practical teaching strategies with the same group of people over time is a good recipe for positive professional development experiences. Canva helped me make a pretty infographic to share my specific ideas on how I could support professional development about ICT:

1. Becoming part of the Pro-D Committee at the school would allow me to share my opinions on which topics are most important and help steer what professional development is offered at the school.

2. Recommending digital literacy events put on by the district is a relatively easy thing to do. If teachers get the information, they may go.

3. Teams is a digital tool that my district uses to share information. As Melnikova used a messaging app to teach her microlearning course, I could use Teams to post information about an ICT teaching tool (maybe this Padlet Tutorial) and ask what people think of it. People who engage with the post might be interested in trying it in their classroom.

4. Demonstrating the use of digital resources with students would be an excellent and practical moment of ICT professional development. If I offered to co-teach units with classroom teachers, and included digital resources where possible, I could model the use of ICT during class time

.

5. I participated in a collaborative inquiry group a few years ago. I could see if any teachers at my school would be interested in doing another inquiry, with the goal of exploring ways to increase digital literacy in primary students.

6. A paper poster shares information with whoever reads it. Putting up posters with useful ICT facts in places where people linger (staff room, photocopier) encourages them to read the poster. Check out Potty PD by Burns (2021)!

Out of all six potential pro-d ideas, I suspect that demonstrating the use of various digital tools while co-teaching a unit would be the most successful. I'd be collaborating with peers, sharing an instructional strategy, prioritizing practical materials, and (likely) having post-lesson discussions with the co-teacher. That list incorporates four recommendations from Hill and Papay's research. Therefore, I would focus my teacher-librarian energy on learning to use new digital tools and sharing them with others at my school. I'd also join the pro-d committee at my school.

Works Cited:

Burns, M. "4 Reasons to Consider Potty PD This School Year." Class Tech Tips, December 22, 2021. https://classtechtips.com/2021/12/22/potty-pd/ . Accessed October 21, 2023.

Canva. www.canva.com. Accessed October 21, 2023.

Melnikova, V. "Setting Up In-house Microlearning for Teachers via a Message app." Edutopia, October 10, 2023. www.edutopia.org/article/microlearning-teachers-message-app. Accessed October 21, 2023.

Hill, H. and Papay, P. "Building Better PL: How to Strengthen Teacher Learning." Research Partnership for Professional Learning, October 25, 2022. https://annenberg.brown.edu/sites/default/files/rppl-building-better-pl.pdf. Accessed October 21, 2023.

"Padlet Tutorial for Teachers + 8 Ways to Use With Students." YouTube, uploaded by Pocketful of Primary, November 22, 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9IQVofS43I.

Exploring Twitter (Inquiry Project 2)

"What strategies, tools, resources and networks can you implement to maintain your explorations and development? What are some of the ways that educators and professionals are connecting and sharing their learning? What can you do during this class and after it is over to maintain your connections and networks, to further develop your knowledge, experience and skills?" 
 - Inquiry Project 2, LIBE 477B, UBC

Image from pixabay.com

I had heard that Twitter is a great place for teacher-librarians to connect, so I started my exploration by googling the word ‘Twitter’. Britannica informed me that as of July, Twitter is now known as X (2023). It went on to define X/Twitter as an “online social media platform and microblogging service that distributes short messages of no more than 280 characters.”

The previous 2 sentences are 231 characters (including spaces), so a post on X (formerly a tweet on Twitter) is roughly equivalent to two sentences. That’s not a lot of words! How does professional development happen in such short bursts of text?

Friedman says X/Twitter can become "a way to participate in education-focused conversations and idea sharing with other educators" (2020). He goes on to quote Meighen as saying X/Twitter is "where you have more conversations about ideas" compared to other social media networks. I agree that discussing ideas about education is a great form of professional development.

Similarly, Anderson finds X/Twitter valuable because it allows him to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN) where he can ask questions and share resources with many people who are interested in the same things he is interested in (2011). Since a teacher-librarian is often the only person doing that specific job in their workplace, I can see how helpful it would be to be part of a network of other people who are passionate about school libraries.

Next, I headed over to X to create my very own account. I was assigned a name, @LauraRobin13353, that I will be changing to something more professional shortly.

As I explored X, I followed accounts. Following an account makes posts from that account automatically pop up on my feed. I used an article by Sullivan for some initial teacher-librarian account recommendations and found others by looking at who the recommended TLs followed. I also found some local teacher-librarian resources. Here’s a list of six accounts I followed:

• @shannonmmiller – Professional account by Shannon McClintock Miller, the author of our textbook
• @FuseEight - The account of Betsy Bird, a blogging, authoring, podcasting librarian from Illinois.
• @ISTEofficial – ISTE is home to a passionate community of global educators who use technology to revolutionize learning.
• @JrLibraryGuild - A collection development service providing libraries with the best new-release books for children and young adults.
• @VTLA39 – The Vancouver Teacher-Librarians' Association is a chapter of the BCTLA. 
• @BCTLA - British Columbia Teacher-Librarians -a specialist association of the BCTF, dedicated to supporting school library programs for the children of BC.

I found it easy to get distracted in the sea of posts on X. Hashtags are another way to sort posts based on topic. While poking around X, I kept a list of hashtags I think an aspiring teacher-librarian might find useful: #tlchat #vtla39 #sd39 #vsblearns #ourVSB #schoollibrary #kidlit #SchoolLibraryJoy #librarytwitter #librarianship.

I haven’t posted anything on X yet. I’m a little intimidated to do so, because all the accounts I followed seem so put together and I still feel very new and unsure. I will probably lurk around the edges for awhile, reading other people’s posts and figuring out the program before actually posting anything. I also need to come up with a better name!

Works Cited:

Anderson, Steven. "The Twitter Toolbox for Educators." Teacher Librarian, vol 39 (1), October 2011, pp. 27-30. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/magazines/twitter-toolbox-educators/docview/902627349/se-2.

Britannica. "X." Encyclopedia Britannica, Oct. 12, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twitter

Friedman, Jordan. “Using Social Media for Teacher Professional Development.” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 23 June 2022. www.hmhco.com/blog/using-social-media-for-teacher-professional-development.

Sullivan, Brittany. "10 school librarians to follow on Twitter." On Our Minds Scholastic, Dec. 15, 2014. https://oomscholasticblog.com/post/10-school-librarians-follow-twitter#.