Reflecting on my coursework this term, I feel that I have laid the groundwork, or root structure for further development in the technology portion of my responsibilities as teacher librarian in my school. Growth has taken place both in collaborative connections with my peers and in personal media skills.
My connections with my community of peers has led to valuable resources which I have added to my toolbox for collaborative practices as well as personal viewpoints and topics of discussion with my staff and administration. All of this supports my strength of purpose and confidence that I am qualified to fill this position and make the necessary changes to serve my school effectively. A deficiency in the collaborative work that I have done with my staff includes ineffective communication of my purpose and possible projects and topics that can be accessed through the learning commons and the team teaching opportunities that are available to them. I have made strides to improve this communication with the development of newsflashes for both resources and collaborative options. (See blog post entitled, for direct links to these templates.)
One of the goals that I have set for myself early in my coursework in this field was to improve the internet outreach of the learning commons for all clients (staff, students and their parents). My frustration has been that there is a disconnect with district staff who are developing a common template for school websites, but as yet have not shared this with schools. I am determined not to wait for this process, but to forge ahead with my book report blog posts and make connections and links on a future developed website for our learning commons. I plan to make these book reports part of an outreach to all clientele, and ensure accessibility in the learning commons itself as a secondary book selection resource beyond the basic Destiny searches. My hope is that students will have peer suggestions for their pleasure reading and won't rely solely on teachers suggestions to inspire their literature choices. To this end, I feel that my growth as a blogger has been evidenced with this blog. I started with a simple narrative statement for my initial post. My first assignment post included a single picture along with my written information. I continued my development including resource lists with links, labels, more pictures and gifs. I began using a variety of fonts, text color and justifications to make my post more enticing. All of these skills will add to the teaching toolkit I am building to help students make connections with their peers using blogs as a safe bridge to social media outreach.
I must say that, though initially reticent or even resistant to the idea of blogging, I have come to embrace the practice and plan to continue in connection to my learning commons transitions. Though I have may some inroads into the use of Twitter as a peer connection opportunity, I am still reluctant to use this tool as a regular part of my personal development. Perhaps this skill or at least the desire to connect in this way will continue to develop in further coursework.
I have enjoyed the opportunity to use the video hangouts, and plan to explore this further in a personal connection with my private music studio. The use of Skype, Facebook Video Messenger and Outlook Hangouts has given me options to help with homebound lessons as well as students who continue their studies while travelling.
My mantra for professional development has always been that if there is one piece of information or a resource that is immediately useful in my teaching, then the workshop or course has been worthwhile. Obviously, there have been some successes in this area throughout my coursework for LIBE 477. Thank you, instructor Aaron Mueller for prodding us into risk-taking in the area of technology and collaboration.
RESOURCE LIST:
Image: pixabay
Gif: Percolate Galactic, retrieved from Giphy, https://giphy.com/gifs/percolategalactic-personal-plant-growth-26vUQL4aMNKuqQg24
A great final reflection on our course. Thank you for all your efforts, attention, explorations, and sharing. Our community of learners has come together in many powerful ways. Your highlights from the class are very astute and provide a good bookend to the beginning of the course. I hope your PLN continues to grow, and you are able to keep learning, sharing and connecting. Thanks for a great class, and hopefully see you on twitter sometime in the future!
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