Learning To Lib

Supporting Teachers' Ongoing Pro-D  LIBE 477 - Inquiry Blog 3 - Oct 2020 How can we, as educators and Teacher-Librarians share what we’ve learned with our wider communities of practices? As Teacher Librarians we carry such a vast array of knowledge, truly fitting into a niche in which no other teacher will specialize. Disseminating this knowledge onto ears willing to listen is a difficult task. This is why I think, within a single school community, it is so important that TLs get a slot in every staff meeting. Some weeks it may be that there are simply some new books on a table that the TL can point out and teachers can take a look at. That will take one minute of the staff meeting time. But other times this slot could be filled with a reminder of how to access our online library catalogue, a reminder of our databases, or a little mini lesson on why digital citizenship is so important.    How can we best respond to the needs of our staff, in their wide spectrum of abili...

  Searching for Network Connections LIBE 477 – Inquiry Blog 2 I am thankful to be part of a district where we have a built in PLN within our TL community. District wide we have a vision that Teacher Librarians should carry some type of leadership within their school and with this we should be receiving ongoing professional development. In fall 2019 we received funding for every Teacher Librarian to get TTOC coverage for one afternoon a month. On that afternoon we meet at the School Board Office and either collaborate on a given topic or receive Pro-D. My learning at these sessions has occured informally through break-out groups where we learn from each other simply by sharing our challenges, solutions, and ideas. It also occurs formally where we are taught new skills with the idea that we disseminate the skills within our own schools. Last year we had a representative from Apple come and give a two-session seminar on ICTs in the classroom. After her presentation we met and disc...

  Team Mentality – Creating a Reading Culture Don Vu in his YouTube video “Creating a Thriving Culture of Reading” states that the main issue in students reading under grade level is that, kids don’t read. He states that, identical to any skill, the more you practice, the better you get. Therefore, it is imperative that the staff teams create a Reading Culture within the school. He breaks down creating a Reading Culture into key Pillars that he considers important. I have had the privilege of being at a school where we have a teamwork culture among the staff. This has meant that when we set our school goals, we have staff ownership, collaboration, and team implementation to reach them. Two years ago, we set a goal to get our students who were not yet reading at grade level, at grade level. We created a staff sub-committee called the Action Plan for Learning. This special group is comprised of a representative of each department – primary teachers, intermediate teachers, admin...

  An Inquiry -- digital citizenship and information literacy LIBE 477/ /Assignment 1// Part C  My research experience evolved. Truly, my experience exemplified the inquiry process. Sometimes in the inquiry process, a question guides the research, but in my case, the research guided my inquiry. I would find a resource that was fascinating, and it would cite another resource or an expert who I would then go and research. It is paradoxical, as Albert Einstein states, that “the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know”. Each of the keywords and potential topics I outlined in Part A are huge topics and my rabbit trails of research led me somewhere I didn’t know existed when I began my inquiry. Prior to my inquiry, I did not realize that the internet (WWW) was a contentious topic: that our human connection could be so dangerous; or that access to the WWW could widen the global socio-economic disparity. What I like about the resources I found, some of which I cited in...