I am most fortunate to work in a school district (Cherokee County) that has invested time and resources into technology integration training not only for teachers, but also for school librarians. Our school district recognized early on that our hardware and network infrastructure could not be truly utilized to the fullest extent without instructional support to help district educators effectively integrate technology for improving student learning. Our district’s innovative Teach 21 and Media 21 programs focus on strategies for engaging students and creating a learning-centered, participatory environment for students. Ultimately, the overarching program goal is to increase teacher and school librarians’ Level of Technology Integration (LOTI), which is assessed with a pretest and then a final assessment with the rubric for each participant’s culminating Capstone Project.
The Media 21 program, launched in the Fall of 2007, provides school librarians in my district an opportunity not only to hone their teaching craft and expand their toolkit of learning strategies to use in the library, but school librarians can also obtain strategic equipment or hardware that may be needed to support learning initiatives that they have collaboratively planned with classroom teachers. Jackie Hopkins, Assistant Superintendent of Accountability, Technology and Strategic Planning, explains the significance and value of the Media 21 program:
The MediA21 program provides collaborative opportunities for the school media specialist and the classroom teacher, integrating information literacy skills and competencies into daily classroom lessons and projects.
Esther Brenneman, Instructional Technology Facilitator for my Cherokee County School District, cites five positive benefits of the Media 21 program:
- The Media 21 program provides collaborative opportunities for the media specialist and classroom teacher.
- The program provides extensive professional development training in both pedagogy and skills development with latest web 2.0 tools/technologies.
- The program can help establish the school library media specialist as a leader in her/his school (new Empowering Learners role) as they provide professional training, collaborative efforts and become recognized as a curricular expert.
- The program is a great opportunity for personal and professional growth..what a great role model for others in the school building!
- The program establishes information literacy competencies for the entire school, promoting digital citizenship for all (both students and teachers as well as administration).
School librarians apply to the program in the spring of the year they wish to begin enrollment. The program, which is designed to be completed in a two-year period, begins with a course “The Engaged Learner” that is a mandatory prerequisite for all participants. In this course, participants explore contemporary learning theories and educational research related to technology and new media literacies; the focus is on how teachers and librarians can apply that research and those learning/teaching paradigms to their practice.
Once you have completed this introductory course, you then have a mix of required and optional classes you can take over the course of the program. Courses may include but are not limited to offerings such as SmartBoard/Promethean Board 101 and 102, Podcasting 101, Blogging, Digital Storytelling (Beginning and Advanced), Information Literacy, Scratch, Google 101, Wiki 101, and Web 2.0. Most participants complete their coursework within the first 12 -18 months and follow the suggested timeline so that they have a solid foundation for the culminating Capstone Project. Participants also complete a virtual course in online safety so that they are better prepared to teach digital citizenship and have a better awareness of how students can use the web safely. Another feature of the program is ongoing blog entries participants compose to actively reflect and engage in metacognition on their practice and activities/concepts they are exploring in their coursework. Throughout the program, participants build a learning portfolio housed on the district’s SharePoint site that includes the blog reflections, student learning artifacts, and librarian created technology integration projects. Technology integration project guidelines are available by viewing this document; in addition, librarians may submit ideas for additional tech integration projects for approval.
The Capstone Project, which is completed during the final year of the program, provides school librarians an opportunity to design and implement a learning initiative that focuses on one or more aspects of information literacy. Project proposals are submitted in the spring and once approved, may be implemented anytime during the subsequent academic year. The proposal consists of a mini-research paper on the technologies and/or learning theories associated with the project, a proposal that outlines what information literacy skills will be integrated into the project and how the librarian’s Level of Technology Integration (LOTI) will be improved through the project, and identification of standards addressed in the project, which may include ISTE’s NETS-S for Students, ISTE’s NETS-S for Teachers, the AASL Standards for 21st Century Learners, and Georgia Performance Standards. Each participant presents his/her project at the district’s annual Capstone Expo held annually in May. I will be presenting my Capstone this spring and am excited that my collaborating teacher, Susan Lester, and some of our Media 21 students will be helping me present our project.
For me, the Media 21 program and my Capstone Project I have implemented since August 2009 have provided a vehicle to develop and pilot a rich collaborative project that has focused on information literacy issues including digital citizenship, social scholarship, cloud computing, evaluation and assessment of the authority of information sources as students have planted the seeds of a personal learning network/environment. This collaborative project I have co-piloted with classroom teacher Susan Lester has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my librarian career and one that I believe is having a meaningful impact on learning for the students who are in our two classes in this pilot project. Media 21 has opened a door to the kind of collaboration of which I once only dreamed, and it is a program model I believe that could support other school districts’ efforts to enhance 21st century school librarianship.
You can read, see, and hear more about my Media 21 Capstone project by visiting either my personal Media 21 Capstone Project page (this version is hosted independently of my internal district portfolio) or visit this page to hear more about it, view some terrific supporting videos, and watch an archived version of a webinar I recently participated in as part of the CRSTE Cyberconference in Feburary 2010.
What do you think about this model of professional development for school librarians? Do you see possibilities for this model to be used in other settings, such as public or academic libraries? Please share your thoughts!
Recent Comments