I have been working as a secondary technological applied studies teacher (TAS) for around 8 years. I work mainly in the fields of Design and Technology and computing and feel quite passionately about digital literacy and the changing environment that we are preparing our students for. The fourth industrial revolution is quickly approaching and it is our students who will be enduring the most of a massive shift in culture and information gathering – and I believe that librarians have the unique opportunity to help facilitate this change (Marr. B (2014 May 22).
I have spent my years in a TAS classroom building soft skills in students and concentrating on developing project based learning styles. Being a design and Technology teacher has allowed me to focus on building what I believe to be integral skills in student efficacy and social currency for the 21st century. Unfortunately, the syllabus and learning environment in NSW education has and is becoming more and restrictive – meaning that hopefully, my move to librarian will allow me to further these skills in my students in order to prepare them for the digital world. I have also noticed strong trends towards the development of STEM skills and the development of human potential that I personally think are not being carefully adopted into our current teaching styles.
At my current position, I have been fortunate enough to be working within a library environment during the course of this year (I will unfortunately not be completing the year out due to an impending maternity leave term 4). My experience within the library itself has been both of a part time role – due to still teaching two senior classes, and a steep learning curve in regards to the admin and efficient running of resources. As our previous position had not been filled for around 4 months , my main role in the library has been building behavior management and creating a physical space that will allow me to start to incorporate new features into what I ideally want our library to be – A learning resource center. I and many other staff however, use the library as a classroom-learning environment as it is mainly made up of the digital learning spaces with access to desktop computers. It is constantly filled with classes to the large capacity of the school, which currently sits at 1700.
The teacher librarian needs to adept at managing a very large, unstructured learning space, but also be aware of current digital trends in order to stay relevant. Long gone are the days of a traditional library space filled with books as there is a move towards creating the library as a “learning resource center” and the interior design of these areas should accurately reflect that thought. Libraries should serve as areas of discovery as well as recovery and allow students access resource they might not otherwise have at home. This is of particular importance into the digital era, as students are required to use more advanced critical thinking and problem solving skills (Leow, F.T, Neo, M. Hew, and S.H 2016).
This leads to the emerging issues of the use of digital technology and where it fits in the role of Teacher Librarian. We are at a crossroads, where the digital is currently overtaking the traditional at an alarming rate and this has been a focus in the creation of educational policy. As Ken Robinson states in his TED talk (2014) “One of the real challenges is to innovate fundamentally in education, innovation is hard because it means doing something that people don’t find very easy”. I think the that position of teacher librarian, we have unique opportunity to help and encourage both students and staff to navigate what is a very new and exciting era of information technology and digital space.
References
Marr, B. (2019, May 22). 8 Things Every School Must Do To Prepare For The 4th Industrial Revolution. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/05/22/8-things-every-school-must-do-to-prepare-for-the-4th-industrial-revolution/?fbclid=IwAR3g8FJSmUhgEIwtCvJ6QLDdo2IvH7McIUKGWUD-oKC2IaENfNN-WBiZkE4#11ca784f670c
Leow, F., Neo, M., & Hew, S. H. (2016). Investigating the key attributes to enhance students’ learning experience in 21st century class environment: EJEL EJEL. Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 14(4), 244-256. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1860724890?accountid=10344
Speaker, Robinson. K. (2010).Bring on the learning revolution!. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution/transcript?language=en 10 June 2019
