LIBE447B: Developing your own ICT Skills and Pedagogy

Ongoing Skills development and Pedagogy are important aspects of being an educator. There are many ways to do this, but one way that has been helping me this school year are various professional networks of other teachers.

This year, I have been a part of the Surrey Schools mentorship program for both new and new-to-role teachers in the librarian cohort. This is a slightly different mentoring style that involves 2-3 mentors and several mentees, rather than one-on-one. This relationship has been very helpful in my first year as a teacher librarian, both for lesson and layout ideas as well as having a support network to bounce ideas off of and see what others are doing. If you are part of Surrey School District, I highly recommend the program.To find out more, please check the link below.

https://mentor36.com/

I am also part of a large email thread of all the teacher librarians in the district, which functions like a message board. Everyone has an account on the basis of needing it for work, which is both good and bad; it risks cluttering email inboxes and messages getting skipped. I am wondering if a different medium might be more efficient for the same functionality, but for what it is I think it works well for asking a question or starting a short discussion. As a new TL, this has been great for a quick question or resource share.

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of jon satrom

One challenge area for me is becoming more active on broader professional networks such as twitter, if nothing else but to follow and contribute. I see the value in these networks but I sometimes find it difficult to properly engage and feel like I am contributing.

Another area I hope to improve upon is sharing and putting my work out there in a general sense. As Richardson notes in Why School?, “We can raise the teaching profession by sharing what works, taking the best of what we do and hanging it on the virtual wall” (2012). It’s so great to see lessons and other materials shared by other teachers, so it only makes sense to do the same.

Earlier this year, I shared a full lesson centered around the book Faraway Fox by Jolene Thompson that incorporates core competencies and a STEM activity. We put it up on the book of the year website (see last post), although when those areas update for next year it will likely change. Here it is again if you are looking for a lesson to try:

Works Cited

Richardson, W. (2012). Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere. TED Conferences Publishing.

Satrom, J. (Photographer). (2011). Reconnecting... [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/aWNi6e