Digital and Media Literacy Resources

I have been gathering resources for both students and teachers to build their media and digital literacy, and working on the best curation methods for each.  My goal is to empower learners, both student and teacher, to have these tools at their fingertips and utilize them when they are authentic and meaningful to their educational experiences.
Several of the ISTE Standards have focused this work.

Digital Self (Citizen 3b: Establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency.

I have curated a list of online resources relevant to the instruction of Media and News Literacy, and shared these with faculty members through several mediums.  I utilized Wakelet to Curate online resources in a visually appealing way.  To spotlight this topic and maximize access to the collection, I featured Media Literacy in my most recent Faculty Newsletter.  In addition to the Curated collection I included new print titles related to the topic, as well as an article on the importance of this topic.  This is a tool that I have utilized often to provide Professional Development content to teachers, for them to use them when and how they find them most meaningful.  

Digital Agent (Citizen 3C): Mentor students in safe, legal and ethical practices with digital tools and the protection of intellectual rights and property.

I often create screencasts for students on how to follow ethical practices when using information and media created by others, but the access to these screencasts has not been consistent.  I typically share them within a Google Classroom for a specific project.  I want to empower students to be able to find and access this information independently anytime they need it, so I put together a YouTube Playlist.  I originally intended on creating a separate channel, but in the end that was too complicated, so I opted to make a Playlist dedicated to this topic.  This Playlist will be shared consistently with students during each project or inquiry instruction opportunity, and I will encourage them to bookmark/ save the Playlist for future use. By providing a consistent access point I hope to Empower my student Learners to follow safe, legal and ethical practices.

Cultivating Curiosity with Curation

I have been really inspired by the AASL Standards (Library) to incorporate curation intentionally into my instructional practices (Shared Foundation IV: Curate).  Curation is something that I have always done as part of my library resource sharing, but building it into student learning strategies to Empower them as learners is something new for me (ISTE standard I. Empowered Learner).  This year I incorporated curation into my Research Seminar class as one of their learning objectives.  Students had to think critically as digital citizens to evaluate web sources and collaboratively curate a list (ISTE Standard II. Digital Citizen). They are required to consider relevance and reliability of source content, and defend the usefulness of these sources to our intended purpose.
Research Seminar has a blended learning structure, which I organize around student generated questions about the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.  As they gathered sources, students contributed to shared collections, such as this one on "Clean Water", within our school libraries Destiny Collection.  This was both a new learning activity and new tool, and a great learning process for both myself and the students.  Some things worked well and others need to be adjusted after reflection. 
In looking at additional tools available, I explored Wakelet, which I really liked.  This digital curation tool allows you to easily gather all different types of sources and displays them in a visually appealing format.  There are so many applications for these curation tools within the library curriculum, and resource sharing for faculty.  I may utilize this tool with Research Seminar students next year, rather than Destiny Collections, because of the visual appeal and ease of access.  It generates a link to invite collaborators, which I could share through Google Classroom, streamlining that process for collaborative curation.  This would benefit students who struggled this year with the sign in process for Destiny Collections.  The visual format of Wakelet also lends itself to embedding content into a website, so I could share these resources beyond the context of the classroom.  Below you can see what that format looks like, which would be very functional, not only for student access to resources, but also sharing instructional tools and professional articles with teachers and faculty.  In the past I have created Smore Newsletters to share with colleagues, but I may try Wakelet as an alternative, because I can continue to curate topics and consistently share those resources.

MakerSpace Progress

We have come a long way in our MakerSpace since the inaugural 2014-2015 school year.  We started small and made it manageable, so that it could also be sustainable.  I am so invested in inquiry instruction and my need to focus on collaborative teaching opportunities that I didn't want to build a MakerSpace and expectations that I couldn't maintain.  I believe that this progression has actually allowed our MakerSpace to grow organically and naturally, gaining momentum as students and our school community catch the vision and understand the possibilities of a MakerSpace.
The progression in our space is outlined in the Infographic shared here.  We have also attempted to incorporate collaboration, and are still working on this element.  I would love to have an active MakerSpace Advisory with students, faculty, and community members, but I have not yet been able to figure out the logistics of this kind of group.

This winter and spring we seem to have reached a tipping point in the MakerSpace though, with students coming to me with project ideas, asking for specific resources and training to be able to engage in making that is meaningful to them.
Our space is beginning to transform, with some of the furniture selected through the 7th grade project, arriving and changing the look of our MakerSpace.  The clear drawers of the mobile carts made a big impact, with students feeling empowered to access resources themselves and becoming self directed in their making.  I am excited to see it all come together, as the rest of the furniture arrives.

I am working to keep up with the student requests in the MakerSpace, and to facilitate the self direction of making, by building a Badging System.  As I generate new projects I am using a template and project pattern that can become a "Library of Badges".  In addition, I have enlisted the help of our technology specialists to build a system for tracking student badges and displaying a MakerSpace Leader Board in the library learning commons.  We have been using the language of badging and the Badge Project Sheets for the last few months, as a kind of soft launch to this idea.  I am also creating 10 Summer Maker Kits for students to check out over the summer, which incorporate project ideas, materials, and books to explore.  The kits, which range from "Fashion Design" to "Music Making" to "Arduino Coding" to "Weaving" will become 10 additional badging options, which can easily be pulled for students to work on
independently during the year as well.  Inside each kit are 3-4 project challenges or ideas, with basic materials to get started, and links to additional resources.  These kits and badges will be launched full force over the summer and into the fall.  I needed to generate enough options to make it sustainable before bringing it to students.  My hope is that this will add motivation to complete and share projects as students catch a vision for the MakerSpace Leader Board.
My next focus and challenge for the MakerSpace will be getting an
Advisory group off the ground.  My first priority is to get students engaged in the planning and direction of this space, but I would also love to have faculty and community members involved.  There is such a wealth of knowledge and skills that I would love to see shared with our students.  In addition I am looking for opportunities to add a global purpose to our making.  I would love to find "real" challenges and problems that our students could be working on during their time in the learning commons.


The possibilities with MakerSpace are endless, which is so exciting, but can also become overwhelming.  It has been incredibly important for me to explore what others are doing, glean ideas, and be inspired by all the making happening out there in and outside of schools.  I attended the NY State Maker Summit in Albany this spring, which was a great opportunity.  I continue to spend hours on Pinterest gathering ideas and inspiration, and am constantly encouraged by the blogs of other librarians and makers.  Through the resources for this project I will be adding #makered to my Tweet Deck to use as another resource.

Becoming an Evidence Based Library

"Growing Innovators, Building Community, Connecting Globally"

This is my mantra, my attempt to concisely capture all that I want our library program to be for our students and teachers.  This mantra stems from our goals for instruction, programing and professional development, and I would like to use them as the base for gathering evidence to speak to the success of the high school library program.  These are big ideas and goals, and I am continuing to work through specific, concrete methods for identifying and gathering evidence.  I have started by breaking each of these big ideas into concrete goals for this school year:

Growing Innovators:

• Continue to develop inquiry skills in our students.
• Identify and gather meaningful data in our library program.
• Implement a badging system in the MakerSpace.

Building Community:

• Move forward on the redesign of our library learning commons.
• Create and work with a library advisory club
• Increase promotion of literacy

Connecting Globally:

• Begin to infuse lessons with design thinking concepts.
• Build authentic audiences
• Invite in real world voices

In order to move forward with gathering evidence, and not becoming overwhelmed at the enormity that this task could become, I have developed a few steps I can take immediately within each element of my vision. As I am gathering evidence I also want to be aware of ways that I can share this information with stakeholders, so this is also outlined in the chart below.

Goals	Evidence Gathering	Sharing Strategies
Growing Innovators
Continue to develop inquiry skills in our students.	Identifying benchmark lessons/ inquiry skills at different grade levels to identify "holes" in the implementation of our WISER inquiry curriculum.	Teachers: Newsletter Blog PD opportunities Infographics Administration: Student Achievement       Connection- Infographic Strategic Planning
Implement a badging system in the MakerSpace.	Participation numbers in the MakerSpace	Students: Social Media
Building Community
Create and work with a library advisory club	Numbers participating in library programs... though I also want to capture quality participation and not only quantitative data on this topic.	Students: Survey Social Media Presence
Increase promotion of literacy	Literacy Promotion ---- Book Checkout (Do the books I promote/ display/ booktalk get checked out at a higher rate than other titles?)	Students: Displays Social Media Presence
Connecting Globally
Begin to infuse lessons with design thinking concepts.	Track opportunities to implement Design Thinking	Teachers: Newsletter
Build authentic audiences Invite in real world voices	Participation from community members (both local and global) in library programs and/ or instruction.	Students: Social Media

Why I'm a Teacher Leader, and You Can Be Too

Sometimes when I am passionately sharing my latest professional development project or an inquiry lesson I'm collaborating on I receive a puzzled look and the question, "But I thought you were a librarian?"   I am a librarian, a teacher librarian, but if your perspective on my role is that of a traditional librarian I can understand this confusion.  So I would like to share why, as a teacher librarian, I am qualified to be a teacher leader.

1.  I actively seek out and participate in professional growth opportunities that will broaden my perspective and understanding on both instruction and content specific standards.

2.  I share new information and resources with my learning community, both locally and digitally.

3.  I embrace new challenges and educational shifts as I look for the opportunities within them.

4.  I am willing to fail, to reflect, and to grow as I try new things.

5.  I recognize and value the expertise of other educators.

6.  I collaborate and communicate with colleagues both locally and digitally.

7.  I celebrate the success of both students and colleagues.

8.  I try to always keep students central in my planning and decision making.

I don't believe leadership is reserved for those with a particular degree, title, or certification.  I believe leadership is an action that can be taken by any educator.  It means taking responsibility to be part of a team looking for solutions rather than focusing on problems.  It means being proactive, while listening to the concerns and voices of other educators.  

I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to be a part of an amazing leadership team, and I will not apologize for the work I do there.  If anyone would like to join me in leading there's always room for more voices.

Learning Commons News

Faculty Newsletter: Winter 2016