September 2025 – A Librarium of Adventure

ETL 504 Reflection

My understanding of leadership within the role of the teacher librarian has evolved through this subject. Initially, I viewed the position as a sidestep to leadership; however, my perspective has shifted. I was influenced by (Greenleaf’s, 1970) articulation of servant leadership, which aligns closely with my philosophy of the library as the learning hub of the school. In this view, leadership is enacted through resourcing, supporting, and meeting the needs of others. As (Dawkins, 2025) notes, however, such service must be intentionally and thoughtfully enacted to ensure it is both well-received and effective, without diminishing the authority of the teacher librarian’s leadership within the school context.

It is tempting to question the effectiveness of servant leadership when considering broader school outcomes, particularly given (Mortimore’s, 2013) description of ‘heroic leadership,’ which often represents the kind of leadership we believe we must pursue. For teacher librarians, however, I believe the more valuable approach lies in strategic leadership. The lessons of this subject have reinforced for me the importance of being deliberate and purposeful in how I lead. Strategic leadership is essential for advocating for the library’s role and for promoting innovation. As (Dickey, 2023) explains, innovation should not represent change for its own sake, but rather be driven by purpose and meaning. For me, this purpose often involves integrating new technologies and supporting teachers in recognising the sound pedagogy underpinning them. Innovation requires foresight (Dawkins, 2025), which can in turn ignite motivation in others.

Leadership has proven particularly critical when I reflect on the challenges facing education today, especially the rapid pace of technological change. (Friesen and Brown, 2025) describe these as adaptive challenges—problems that require creativity, innovation, and continual learning. Teacher librarians, with their unique skill sets, are well positioned to guide others in adapting to such change, including responding to the rise of generative AI. Teacher librarians are able to identify patterns—such as increasing demands for digital literacy or the need to embed ethical AI practices—and bring these insights to the leadership table. In this way, they act as both innovators and bridge-builders, connecting research with classroom practice and ensuring that the school is future-focused, adaptable, and responsive to change. I have also come to see teacher librarians as leaders who can model enthusiasm for change, as our role continually requires us to adapt programs and processes to meet the evolving needs of students. (Grigsby, 2015) highlights how libraries have consistently evolved in response to the demands of the 21st century. Staying current with literature trends, makerspace technologies, and through daily interactions with students, teacher librarians demonstrate expertise in change management and flexibility. Because their influence extends across most areas of the school, they are well placed to support staff in navigating change, not only through the provision of resources but also via mentoring, buddy systems, and professional support.

I also recognise the need to be a more proactive leader, advocating strongly for the library and for the needs of students in my school. While embracing change and speaking up can be challenging, it is essential for the library to remain relevant and to contribute meaningfully to the direction of modern education in my school context.

References

Dawkins, B. (2025, July 27). Proactive Approaches to Leading Change. A Librarium of Adventure. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/bdawkins/2025/07/27/proactive-approaches-to-leading-change/

Dickey, S. (2023). School Librarians as Innovators. The Tradition Endures and Expands. Knowledge Quest 51(3), 28-33.

Friesen, S. & Brown, B. (2025). How Adaptive Leaders Turned Crisis into Opportunity. Leading and Managing 31(2), 19-40.

Greenleaf, R. (1970). The servant as leader. Indianapolis, IN: Robert K. Greenleaf Center.

Grigsby, S.K.S. (2015). Re-Imagining the 21^st Century School Library: From Storage Space to Active Learning Space. Tech Trends 59(3), 103-106.

Mortimore, P. 2013. Peter Mortimore: Nordic leadership: Something worth keeping. In L. Moos (Ed.), Transnational influences on values and practices in Nordic educational leadership: Is there a Nordic Model? (Forewords, pp. vi–viii). Dordrecht: Springer.

Critical Reflection – Digital Literature

Over the course of this subject, my views have evolved from seeing technology as a teaching aid that adds an eye-catching element to lessons, to recognising it as a transformative medium with the potential to change access, participation, and communication. Engaging with theoretical perspectives, creative works, blog reflections, and peer feedback has highlighted the dynamic, participatory nature of digital environments and reshaped my thinking about how powerful this tool can be within my teaching pedagogy.

Initially I would have viewed digital narratives as a passive activity, one where students are merely consumers. (Shi et al., 2022) challenged this assumption with his discussion around how media changes how we interact by breaking the fourth wall and we become part of the narrative, which ultimately changes our role from consumer to participatory. The types of digital narratives that are being created today offers and also demands higher-order interpretative skills (Dawkins, 2025), which means endless differentiation is available for teachers to employ to meet the individual needs of students. Creating my own digital narrative helped me to refine my thoughts further as the creating forced me to think about how students would engage with my story and what options I could build into the technology to offer a variety of experiences, such as audio and visual reading. I was encouraged to take it a step further in my peer feedback when (Fox, 2025) challenged me to add an extra activity for my students to compare my story to primary history sources, which extends their skills in critical thinking and research. By incorporating her suggestion, I was able to further differentiate the narrative to teach students new skills that would aid them in their higher order thinking. This experience underscored that digital technology offers boundless possibilities for integrated learning, shifting my role as an educator from one of knowledge transmission to designing for interaction, immersion, and co-construction of meaning. Even though Book Creator was fairly intuitive and easy to use, I would have loved students to have more of an interactive role – such as being able to respond digitally or potentially record their responses to my prompts at the end of the story, which would provide flexibility for me as a teacher in assessing their responses.

I was challenged by the work of (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996) who state that even though culture creates the tool, the tool can change the culture. Those participants using the tool can appropriate tools to meet their goals, thereby transforming their participation in the culture. This highlighted the reciprocal nature between technology and our own practice. While these digital tools emerge from cultural contexts, once they are created, they have the potential to reshape how individuals engage with knowledge, communication, and learning. This was especially pertinent when I reviewed the New York Public Library Insta novels. The culture creates the tool (Instagram), but the tool can change the culture – modern users engaging with canonical texts, perhaps for the first time. How might using technology open up opportunities for access to those who might never pick up a book or enter a library? (Dawkins, 2025). In constructivist terms, this means that learners have the potential to appropriate digital tools, whether through collaborative platforms or interactive applications, not only for their own personal learning, but it can transform how they participate within the broader learning community. Every culture has their own watershed moments, such as the invention of the Gutenberg press in the 15th century, to steam powered printing presses in the 19th century, to more modern advances such as film and animation in the 20th century, to the 21st century tools such as smart phones and streaming services. Each culture has engaged with the tools and in turns, the tools have shaped the culture.

I see now that my view on my role as an educator in digital environments has expanded considerably. It is no longer enough to see digital technology as a novel teaching tool. Instead, it is a medium that can dissolve boundaries, requires new literacies for engagement with it, and can open up space for access and inclusion. My role as an educator morphs too – to design, curate, scaffold and guide students in the complexity and creative opportunities of these digital worlds. This kind of technology is not simply an add-on but can be transformative. By engaging with theoretical perspectives, creative practice and peer feedback, it has helped to reshape my views and given me encouragement to delve deeper into these tools, knowing that many benefits it holds for my students.

References

Dawkins, B. (2025, July 21). Digital Literature Review, Core Values. Librarium of Adventure. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/bdawkins/2025/07/21/digital-literature-review-core-values/

Dawkins, B. (2025, July 21). Digital Literature Review, New York Public Library Insta Novels. Librarium of Adventure. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/bdawkins/2025/07/21/digital-literature-review-new-york-public-library-insta-novels/

Duffy, T. M., & Cunningham, D. J. (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the design and delivery of instruction. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Educational communications and technology (pp. 170-199). New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.

Fox, K. (2025) Peer Feedback on Digital Storytelling Project Proposal. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/bdawkins/2025/07/22/digital-story-telling-project-proposal/

Y. Shi, T. Gao, X. Jiao and N. Cao (2022). Breaking the Fourth Wall of Data Stories through Interaction in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 29(1) pp. 972-982. doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2022.3209409.

Context for Digital Storytelling

Part A: Context for Digital Storytelling

My digital literature artefact will be a historical story created in Book Creator about a significant Australian—Mary Reiby. This project has two key purposes:

a) To support students in identifying the genre of historical fiction within a Stage 3 library unit of work on significant Australian personalities.
b) To provide a model for students as they develop their own digital stories about significant Australians.

The target audience will be Year 5 students, who during the term their curriculum focus is on the history of Australia’s penal colony and the individuals central to its development. As they engage with the digital story, students will be presented with a series of questions and prompts, aimed not only at building digital skills but also at strengthening their ability to recognise the conventions of historical fiction. This aligns with (Malita & Martin, 2010), who highlight the educational benefits of storytelling, including its role in meaning-making and challenging assumptions. Exposure to this form of narrative fiction also introduces students to a style of storytelling they may have previously dismissed as ‘boring’ or outdated. As (Miller, 2019) notes, digital storytelling holds particular value in offering new perspectives, simply by altering the visual point of view. By creating an engaging and positive experience of historical narrative, students may become more open to exploring texts from this genre. Furthermore, the integration of modern digital technologies with historical content helps bridge the gap between past and present. (Foss & Kumar, 2025) argue that while traditional methods can fail to capture students’ interest in the complex narratives of history, digital storytelling provides a powerful tool for making these stories more accessible and meaningful to today’s learners.

This artefact not only supports the development of students’ literary skills but is also designed to build their digital capabilities through practice and application. (Botturi et al., 2012) explain that one of the key skill sets in creating digital stories lies in shaping narratives in three modes—verbal, visual, and aural. This multimodal approach creates layers of accessibility for students with diverse abilities. By providing multiple pathways to success, the task allows students to focus on one or combine all three, enabling educators to differentiate outcomes. The learning task can also be scaffolded in stages, beginning with visual storytelling, before incorporating sound, hyperlinks, and interactivity as students gain confidence with the platform. This reflects (Bjorgen’s, 2010) view that digital storytelling fosters new ways of learning and expressing identity. Furthermore, by practising and reinforcing these skills across several lessons, students can develop transferable competence that extends to other school and social technologies, echoing (Walker and Nocon’s, 2007) findings on how skill acquisition supports engagement across different sociocultural contexts.

The use of Book Creator provides further advantages, as the platform allows additional pages or interactive activities to be added with ease. This flexibility means the digital story can be adapted for different age groups—simplifying text for younger learners or introducing more complex narratives for older students. A key strength of digital platforms is their adaptability, which enables teachers to reuse and modify resources efficiently, an important consideration in light of increasing administrative demands.

Beyond history lessons, this artefact also has broader applications. It could be used to teach biographical and personal narratives or to explicitly develop digital competencies, such as image uploading, copyright and fair use, integrating generative AI for image creation, or embedding the artefact in larger digital spaces like websites. Such accommodations align with (Nokelainen’s, 2006) criteria for usability, including applicability, flexibility, learner activity, and goal orientation.

This artefact and its associated activities are particularly relevant to the school context, where students have had limited explicit instruction in digital technologies and may feel hesitant when faced with complex tasks that demand more than simply pressing or swiping a start button. Engaging with this project not only promotes greater participation but also fosters learner autonomy as students take ownership of the task. (Nokelainen, 2006) highlights that learning is most effective when it involves practical, hands-on methods—such as students designing and producing their own digital stories. Simply showing students the artefact would restrict their learning to what they can retain in working memory, which is limited. By contrast, engaging them in the process addresses concerns about cognitive load and enables pedagogy that supports more effective and sustainable learning outcomes for all students.

In conclusion, this digital literature artefact combines historical content, narrative conventions, and digital technologies to create an engaging and adaptable learning resource. By modelling historical fiction and encouraging student-led digital storytelling, it supports both literacy and digital capability development. Aligned with research on storytelling and digital pedagogy, it offers practical, hands-on opportunities for creative expression while making history meaningful, accessible, and relevant to contemporary learners with a variety of abilities and interests.

References

Botturi, L., Bramani, C., & Corbino, S. (2012). Finding Your Voice Through Digital Storytelling. TechTrends, 56(3), 10–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-012-0569-1

Bjørgen, A. M. (2010). Boundary crossing and learning identities – digital storytelling in primary schools. Seminar.Net, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.2429

Foss, C. & Kumar, S. (2025). The role of digital story-telling in bringing history to life in the classroom. International Journal of History, 7(5), 19-28.

Malita, L., & Martin, C. (2010). Digital storytelling as web passport to success in the 21st century. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(2), 3060–3064.

Miller, C. (2019). Digital storytelling : a creator’s guide to interactive entertainment (Fourth edition.). CRC Press.

Nokelainen, P. (2006). An empirical assessment of pedagogical usability criteria for digital learning material with elementary school students. Educational Technology & Society, 9(2), 178–197.

Walker, D., & Nocon, H. (2007). Boundary-Crossing Competence: Theoretical Considerations and Educational Design. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 14(3), 178–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749030701316318