For my Vision of the Future Project, I chose to expand on what I had begun exploring in my Reading Assignments A and B: Digital Literacy. I wanted to further explore and expand on the ways to bring it into my school. However, I have to confess that my exploration and interest in digital literacy goes beyond this class and is something that I’ve been wanting to work into our school’s culture for a few years now (as mentioned in my Reading Assignment A post).
Over that time period and throughout this course (as well as other LIBE courses), my understanding of digital literacy has continued to grow and expand. I am excited that this course provided me an opportunity create a space to share my learnings about how to support my school community in their own digital literacy journeys through a culminating artifact that can actually be used.
Of course, our learning is never done, so I also look forward to continuing my learning after this course through continued additions to my artifact and through the opportunity to continue to share my learnings with my school community for whom my artifact was created.
My artifact is a Digital Literacy based website to be shared with my school community (parents, teachers, and students) with the purpose of supporting digital literacy learning opportunities in our school community.
Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of takomabibelot
The photograph above shows a mosaic at the Library of Congress which is in Washington, DC. You'll notice that within the mosaic there is a quote, "knowledge is power". Most commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, this is such a fitting quote for a library, whose purpose it is to provide accessible knowledge to patrons, and felt like the right choice for this blog as we consider the importance of libraries and access to information in general, but especially in developing nations and throughout the world.
They have many projects on the go as a part of their IFLA Strategy 2019-2024 program in which they are looking to unify libraries across the globe. And while they had lots of really interesting (and worth-reading) initiatives (such as standardizing library practices in Nicaragua and Iraq), I didn’t find quite what I wanted to explore for this blog.
Eventually I stumbled into IREX. IREX describes themselves as “a global development and education organization [that] focus[es] on people” (Who We Are, IREX). They mention that they work in “more than 100 countries on issues such as education, leadership, information, and youth” (Who We Are, IREX).
This means that they have multiple locations in Africa; the Americas; Asia; Europe and Eurasia; and the Middle East and North Africa (Our Work, IREX). Their broad spectrum of locations is also coupled with a multitude of project focuses including; civil society, education, gender equality and inclusion, media, technology, and more (Our Work, IREX). I was pretty surprised by their vast breadth of projects, and enjoyed looking at many of the initiatives that they are undertaking in a variety of areas.
However, given that we are talking about technology this week, I ended up focusing on the technology aspect of their work. Here I should take a moment to note that most of IREX’s projects do seem to focus on communities that already have access to technology, rather than getting technology into the hands of individuals.
However, their projects remain impactful for many communities because they identify a focus on “[d]esigning and launching online resources, such as digitized learning resources for teachers, chatbots, and distance-learning content” (Strengthening Media Literacy in the Ukrainian Education System) which indicates that they are working to increase information accessibility for individuals overall through the use of technology. With IREX being so broad in their projects, I had a hard time choosing just one to focus on. However, after a little browsing, I landed on this one:
What is this project and how is it being delivered?
This project is based on the “Learn to Discern in Education” (L2D-Ed) coursework and training (designed by IREX). Its purpose is teaching teachers and other education stakeholders how to integrate Media Literacy skills into secondary schools to increase awareness about media misinformation, propaganda, and other forms of manipulation.(Strengthening Media Literacy in the Ukrainian Education System). It is being delivered within secondary school curriculum and teacher training programs (and teacher in-services) in a partnership between IREX, the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science, and other education stakeholders (Strengthening Media Literacy in the Ukrainian Education System). Interestingly, this program has also been used and adapted in a variety of other countries as well (Learn to Discern).
See the video below for further explanation from project stakeholders about this project and the reasoning behind its creation
Why I picked this?
I chose this project because it demonstrates the powerful impact that access to both in-person and digital learning resources can have and how access to training and information in digital literacy skills, such as media literacy, can significantly impact communities in positive ways.
In this project, combined in person and online training/resources has allowed IREX to train “more than 1,100 eighth- and ninth-grade teachers” in “650 schools” (Strengthening Media Literacy in the Ukrainian Education System). These educators are now able to use that training and those provided resources to move forward in working with more than “47,500 students” with the purpose of facilitating an important increase of media literacy skills (Strengthening Media Literacy in the Ukrainian Education System).
This expansion of digital literacy skills for teachers and students in media literacy will change the way that they access and consume media which is identified as “a critical skill for citizens these days”, as it is imperative that individuals have the ability to recognize when information is intentionally filtered, misinformative, undemocratic, or censored (Learn to Discern in Schools: Kyiv Launch Event [English], 0:42). This awareness then positively impacts the community as citizens can now make more informed opinions and choices. On a personal level, I also found this project a significant choice in that it recognizes that simply providing people with increased access to information, technology, or media on its own is not enough to improve literacy skills. We must also ensure that they have a means of acquiring the necessary digital literacy (in this case media literacy) skills to consume media effectively and safely.
If you are interested in reading a bit more about this programming and the impact it is having, I definitely recommend checking out IREX’s information here, but would also recommend checking out the articles below discussing IREX’s project as well from a few different perspectives:
Below is my short-list of resources that I encountered and found the most valuable during my search. I've never created an annotated bibliography before, so this is my rough first attempt. As my understanding is that an annotated bibliography is meant to be generally objective about the source, I've included my own personal thoughts, rationales, and opinions about each source below the annotation!
Hopefully these are helpful!
Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy | Cultivating Digital Literacy
"Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy | Cultivating Digital Literacy" Youtube, uploaded by Adobe for Education, 13 Dec, 2021. www.youtube.com/watch?v=svIcRFpOnxQ
This video outlines what digital literacy is and different ways that it can be cultivated by educators, as told by different educators. It posits that digital literacy is “a way of thinking” that needs to be nurtured through exposure to technology in different contexts and experiences. While each teacher’s process is different, the general focus is on active learning opportunities for students coupled with collaborative opportunities. In these opportunities students are encouraged to create and make artifacts of learning. Additionally, there is a focus on explicit scaffolding for supporting student learning in Digital Literacy to ensure that students understand why and how to use different technologies for their purposes.
My thoughts:
I enjoyed this resource as an opportunity to re-affirm some of my own personal thoughts about what digital literacy is and how we can support it in classrooms. I also found that the different approaches for how teachers are teaching digital literacy in their own classrooms was valuable for me to hear since we all know that there are certainly many ways to teach the same thing. Interestingly, I found that there were many foundational similarities, just that the path they took to reach those goals was different.
This framework has been designed for classroom teacher usage in British Columbia for teachers who are instructing digital literacy concepts. It outlines the skills and knowledge that students need to have in order to be successful as 21st century learners from grades k-12 based upon six characteristics identified by “B.C. educational leaders”. The language used here provides teachers and students opportunities to see what skills and knowledge they should expect to learn and teach. . Additionally, the page that this document is found on, includes the ways in which digital literacy skills from the framework are linked to BC’s Core (or “Cross Curricular” Competencies) for grades k-12.
My thoughts:
I chose this resource because I believe that this is one of the key resources that my district has based our own digital literacy framework on. As I am hoping to work closely with my district's plan throughout this course, it made sense to revisit this resource and refresh my memory in places. Additionally, it served as a good reminder that the digital literacy skills we are working towards are embedded within the core competencies, and are therefore not an additional thing to teach necessarily, but a way to teach something that we should already be teaching!
Classroom Guide: Integrating Digital Literacy into your classroom practice
Classroom Guide: Integrating Digital Literacy into your classroom practice. Media Smarts, Ottawa, Canada, 2018.
Designed as a guide to accompany a workshop for teachers, this document is a guide for how teachers can embed digital literacy content into their classroom practices. Along with describing the general skills and technology exposure you might expect students in different grades to have, it suggests ways to further their skills that will be developmentally appropriate for their ages. There are additional suggestions for ways that Digital Literacy learning can be integrated cross curricularly into things like language arts, social studies, health and more.
Finally, tips are provided for teachers who are less confident in their own technology skills, classroom management while using technology, online identity, and more. The resource concludes with a variety of links to lesson plans for teaching digital literacy, a webography of further resources (based on the workshop that this is meant to be paired with- though they are also useful just as links to have regardless of the workshop), and an extremely useful list of resources that can be used by students to make media in classrooms (ie/ animation programs, audio editing programs, blogging platform options, video editing programs and more).
My Thoughts:
This would be an excellent resource to use with teachers as they are beginning their digital literacy instruction journeys. I'd also be interested in seeing the accompanying workshop, though I've been unsuccessful at finding it so far. I think that the way this is laid out is incredibly user friendly, and gives just the right amount of information without creating overwhelm. The lists of resources are useful and a a great addition of information for when staff are ready to move into the actual teaching phase with students, and/or just for personal exploration and development if they are interested in learning new programming themselves.
Creating Access to Digital Citizenship and Media Literacy Education: A Legislative Solution to Support Digital Learning in Public Schools
This article outlines how schools in the United States have recognized the need for students to learn and be taught digital citizenship skills and media literacy skills. To that end, it describes how in 2016, Washington state “championed the nation’s first comprehensive digital citizenship and media literacy legislation”.It further includes 5 steps of recommendations for how the state intends to move forward in their promotion of instruction of digital citizenship and media skills, including school library’s roles in that teaching. Finally, it includes a glossary of terms and definitions for commonly used words/phrases related to digital literacy.
My Thoughts:
I found this article to be interesting in that my district is currently using a newer digital literacy implementation plan and I found that there seemed to be a lot of parallels in the way that our district program is being implemented and supported vs how their plan is described (of course, we don’t have “legislation” but rather the BC Digital Framework also listed as a resource on this post).
Developing Digital Literacies: A framework for Professional Learning
Summey, Dustin C., and SAGE Knowledge Complete A-Z List. Developing Digital Literacies: A Framework for Professional Learning. Corwin, a Sage Company, Thousand Oaks, California, 2013, doi:10.4135/9781483387901.
Seemingly made for supporting anyone looking to support a school staff in forming digital literacy skills, Summey’s book provides an extensive look at Digital Literacies and a framework for how to best support teachers in developing their own digital literacy practices and their teachings of digital literacy.
Items of particular interest include: ways to increase teacher engagement in digital literacy, how to best provide professional development opportunities to staff, different types of professional development that are effective, and how to create a needs assessment survey for staff. This resource is valuable to anyone looking to encourage staff to include digital literacy as a part of their classroom programming to enrich student learning.
My thoughts:
As this is the only "book" resource of the ones I've included on this list, it is certainly incredibly extensive. It covers far more topics than I had time to read within my few hours of searching and looking. However, in the sections that I did read, I found the information to be useful. For example, as a focus for me is finding out how to bring digital literacy to staff in accessible ways, the section on different types of professional development that could work, and the needs assessment survey suggestions were particularly helpful. While this would be a long read, I do think it is a valuable resource, and would be one worth potentially delving into further or having around as an extra reference for how to approach different situations in supporting teachers through digital literacy implementation.
While I haven’t had the opportunity to work in a TL position yet, one of the items that I keep coming across in my courses for this diploma and in my own teaching is a need for Digital Literacy and the desire to support students and staff in becoming 21st century learners. In fact, it comes up on this blog a few times from past coursework...
The Canadian Library Association says that:
“Without an excellent school library functioning as a learning commons, students are severely disadvantaged. Students need to be working with the best technologies and resource collections available. They require expert instruction and guidance to become sophisticated users of information and ideas in our complex world. To meet their learning potential and participate fully as successful learners and contributors our students need learning opportunities and new environments deliberately designed to engage and inspire” ( 7).
And if that doesn't sound like it means we should consider using School Library Learning Commons programming to encourage and include digital literacy skills as an important part of learning that needs to be promoted and supported, by staff and the wider learning community, I don't know what does...
Below is my brief story about how I ended up here and why I'm after digital literacy in my school as a hopeful one-day TL:
For me, my introduction to the idea of digital literacy started a few years ago with a coincidence of circumstances and a text message from my then teaching partner, who also happened to be our wonderful VP at the time. To begin, I should mention that our regular school TL had gone on a leave part way through the year. She was replaced by a lovely older librarian who came out of retirement to do the job. She was very sweet, but had no interest in technology or new district initiatives whatsoever, and was certainly out to run the library program in what we might consider a more “old fashioned” way. I was sharing a grade 5 classroom with our vice principal; entirely oblivious to the ways of the school library learning commons, and digital literacy (and honestly just trying to keep my head afloat as a new-ish teacher), when one day our VP texted me and said something along the lines of “Hey, how would you feel about partnering with me for a tech initiative that the district is working on? We need an intermediate teacher from our school and I think you’d be great. Normally it would be TL and Intermediate teacher combo, but I think the two of us can do it”. I believe the phrase digital literacy may also have been mentioned. And, being a newer-to-the-school teacher with a bit of a “yes” attitude, I warned her that while I was no tech-guru, I’d be happy to be on board and help however I could. So, to greatly shorten what would otherwise be a long story of me learning about a really interesting district-wide initiative to support Digital Literacy in schools, working with and learning from other district teacher librarians (Hi Darcy!), and making my first ever awkward (read: I am a nervous staff presenter) but hopeful presentations to staff during staff meetings… What essentially happened is that I realized how absolutely necessary Digital Literacy skills are for students (and staff!) and that they were just not happening at my school and are continuing to not really happen even now (for a variety of reasons). At the time that I received that initial text message though, I had no idea that this would be a bit of a rabbit hole that I’d fall down that would actually ultimately lead me here to the path of teacher librarianship!!!
As I’ve learned more about technology use in classrooms and digital literacy skills related to that, one of the most interesting components of the concept is that it is not meant to be taught in isolation from the curriculum. Instead, it is meant to be integrated into what teachers are already doing and it can be related to the core competencies that we are also already meant to be teaching (see the amazing work done by teacher librarians in my district to put together slides outlining connections to core competencies here - I should note that my only contribution to this presentation was simply editing a copy of it for school names, colour theme etc.).
It isn’t meant to be a “one more thing to do” piece, but rather, a complement to the teaching and learning that is already occurring.
For me, the wonders that I still have surrounding Digital Literacy Promotion at my specific school center around helping teachers get on board and get excited about this. As the student in this ted talk mentions (among other poignant things), kids instinctively know how to use devices when we put them in their hands, or are quick to figure it out (though, this does NOT make them digitally literate). Students love using technology. When I tell my class that we are headed to the computer lab, or that I’ve booked out our class set of iPads, I’m generally met with cheering. They love being responsible for caring for our tech carts of iPads and are always asking when its their turn to put away and plug in the iPads. These kids are in grade ⅔. They are eager to learn about how to best use tech. It is our job to give them those opportunities and ensure they grow the skills they will need to be successful and safe online citizens.
Adults, however, are not the same. Many of the staff I work with find that technology is outside of their comfort zone and isn’t something that they want to actively pursue as an addition to their teaching. This doesn't mean that they're unwilling, or in denial of its importance (unlike the meme below!) but rather that they're overwhelmed and unsure where to start.
And so, my wonder in many ways is about supporting staff and learning communities in their Digital Literacy journeys:
What programs, frameworks, teaching, and collaborative opportunities can we use to support Elementary classroom teachers and our learning communities in incorporating meaningful technology use and digital literacy skill instruction into their classrooms so that students remain engaged and excited while growing their Digital Literacy skills?
Keywords/ phrases that I might use while exploring this topic:
-digital literacy skills
-digital literacy as related to success in other areas of learning
-collaboration to support technology use in classrooms
-collaboration to support digital literacy learning
-what digital literacy can look like in elementary schools
-providing professional development to teachers
-promoting digital literacy with parents and students
-programs for digital literacy skills
-importance of digital literacy for learners
-digital literacy as related to access to information and privacy concerns
-Makerspaces and their connections to digital literacy and digital media creation/sharing or Digital Makerspaces as a means of digital literacy opportunity
frameworks to support technology use in classrooms
I’m hoping that throughout this course, I can continue to grow my understanding of how and why I can and should promote digital literacy learning in my school with both staff, students, and the wider school community!
Let me know if you have any ideas :)
Works Cited
Canadian Library Association. (2014). Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School
Throughout this theme, we have discussed a wide variety of reference resources that might be used to support student and staff learning and teaching experiences. What continued to strike me throughout our weekly lessons and my group’s weekly discussions is how deeply our student and staff needs impact the way that we build our reference collection and in the way that it is used (Lesson 8-12 Discussion Posts; Oxley). Leading Learning states that it is our role as Teacher Librarians to “develop and support excellent school libraries responsive to the diverse needs of learners today and into the future” and that this comes from “provid[ing] access to teaching expertise in the library as well as best resources, technologies and physical and virtual learning spaces to support learner needs as they evolve” (Canadian Library Association, 7).
Keeping this in mind, it was interesting to note how each person within our discussion group viewed each weekly resource as either valuable and necessary within their library space or something that was less needed for their learning community (Lesson 8-12 Discussion Posts). This varied even within schools that have students in the same age groups.
To my mind, the largest piece from this theme that resonated as needing attention in my school’s library is access to digital resources and the digital literacy skills to utilize these resources safely, critically, and effectively.
The video below explains why digital literacy is so important and highlights how teachers, including teacher librarians whose goals are “[k[nowledge-building, creativity and innovation, and honing of information management and literacy skills” (Canadian Library Association, 15) should not be skipping on teaching students these skills.
Our library has a reasonable supply of the quality print resources discussed throughout this theme but continues to be sorely lacking in having staff and students who are confident and able to utilize the digital resources that are available to them, such as BC Digital Classroom. This is detrimental not only to students’ opportunities to engage with content (as our print resources can truly only contain so much), but detrimental to their developing skill set, as they are missing out on a larger part of what will be expected of them moving forward in life.
Leading Learning tells us that “[l]earners also need to ‘learn how to learn’ through deliberate design of opportunities to build metacognition of learning skills, process and content. It is essential to support both student and teacher growth and success in these areas” (Canadian Library Association, 15). Currently, we have the print resources to support the learning of skills related to print resources, but do not have what is needed to engage students in these same ways with digital resources.
For that reason, my takeaway from this theme and my personal goal as a teacher librarian for my specific school would be to work with students and staff using Riedling’s general and resource specific evaluation criterions to source quality and needed resources in digital formats (18,33,43,50,58,67,82). From there, the key will be to explicitly and deliberately teach and support staff in their digital literacy skills using these resources (much as I've outlined in assignment 2) so that we can then teach and support students in that same resource use and the digital literacy opportunities that go along with using digital resources because...
“Without an excellent school library functioning as a learning commons, students are severely disadvantaged. Students need to be working with the best technologies and resource collections available. They require expert instruction and guidance to become sophisticated users of information and ideas in our complex world. To meet their learning potential and participate fully as successful learners and contributors our students need learning opportunities and new environments deliberately designed to engage and inspire” (Canadian Library Association, 7).
So, unless teacher librarians work with students and teachers to create reference collections which provide access to robust digital and print learning resources and experiences that support digital literacy skills as well as print literacy skills, we risk doing students a major disservice. This disservice can ultimately lead them down a path where notions of flying penguins become an alarmingly possible reality and crowd sourced information sites like Wikipedia are used without care or caution (Harris, 2).
