Teacher librarians (TL) have many jobs within their school.  To support curriculum, promote reading, often tech savvy and are innovative, to name a few attributes.  As a part of their role in a school, that assist in supporting the curriculum by sharing great resources to enhance teaching and learning, also finding the next great book for a student.  In the digital age, digital texts are becoming more prevalent and available for education.  This now opens up a new environment of resources for TLs to find and share – very exciting times!  The web is a plethora of information and available content, not always quality though. However, having access to digital literature provides another level of sharing stories, and information.  Stories and knowledge have power, as readers and writers, allowing worlds to come to life to be able to express, understand and connect with our lives and selves within our world (TEdx Talks, 2012).  To ‘power up’ with stories including digital texts is important.  The importance comes from providing opportunity to understand, relate, connect and learn from stories, not matter what the format.

Humans no longer exist in just physical world but also in the digital environment.  Access and interaction is easier digitally, therefore students are actively engaged in the web, through social media, online learning platforms and submission of school work – particularly in recent times with remote learning (Zammitt, 2010, p 8).  To successfully support the curriculum and reading it is vital that TLs present a wide variety of texts, both physically and digitally.  In recent times lockdown and school closures, due to COVID-19, has highlighted a greater need for “multi-platform, cross-genre and transmedia experiences” (Lamb & Johnson, 2010, p76) and what better place to find, explore and share them than the school library.  Over the last 12 months, in my school, we have been developing our school digital environment to support teaching, learning and leisure reading which was a practice that was appreciated during remote learning.  This has taken the form of LearnPath, accessible through our Library Management System (LMS) Oliver (provided by Softlink).

Digital texts are “screen based, multimodal texts” (Walsh 2013, p181) that can be access across different platforms for consumption or production across curriculum.  They provide the opportunity for readers to understand their world, an “innovative way to synthesise ideas” (Lamb & Johnson 2010, p 76), and express knowledge.  A good digital text provides context and depth to an idea; provokes thinking; connects the reader with the concept or story, and more.  The Australian Curriculum has embedded the skills of inquiry and divergent thinking – more than one solution to a problem.  The ‘Big Ideas’ is a familiar concept in schools, a quality digital text will serve the purpose of supporting this form of thinking and inquiry.  Similarly, any good literature provides meaning to questions about life, an opportunity to escape and enjoy the ‘power of story’, there is no difference to digital stories.  Zammit (2016), Walsh (2013) and Lamb & Johnson (2010) explain that quality digital texts are those that the reader authentically connect and are engaged with, as well as one that provides meaning to learning and reading.

My views towards digital text and reading print are similar.  As an online learner and a teacher, and it comes down to options.  As a learner, I will read modules online, in fact I prefer it mostly because I see progression and can access the links within the text easily.  However, when it comes to articles I will read the print version and I can highlight and make notes.  As a teacher, and a TL who curates digital collections for staff and students, I feel the same applies.  Options allow for differentiation and meeting the needs of my clientele.  Some prefer reading their chosen novels on our online platform, whereas others will wait it out on the reservations list.  However, digital text is not limited to just reading of paragraphs and accessing articles through a link.  Digital texts include interactive transmedia and a variety of platforms, which are both educational and pleasure.

As previously mentioned, LearnPaths are a portal for students to access digital material relating to their current research task.  These are curated with the ‘in time’ resourcing idea in mind and richly connected to the topic and content of the unit and contain reliable resources ranging from articles, websites, literature, videos and databases.  Beyond how each of the reviewed digital texts can support the curriculum is ClickView provides cross curriculum “Hybrid Texts” (Walsh, 2013, p 192).  This has become a great online version of information, curriculum links and fiction for students to access.  To make this resource more valuable than watching a video, staff create an interactive version of the chosen source.  This means teachers embed a quiz for students to engage with, providing data for teachers to assess Visual Literacy and comprehension.  The options are endless in how teachers can incorporate digital texts into the curriculum.

 

 

 

References

Lamb, A., & Johnson, L. (2010). Divergent convergence part 1: Cross-genre, multi-platform, transmedia experiences in school libraries. In Teacher Librarian. 37(5), 76-81. http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ehost/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=05596398-7f38-4b79-a380-10d3a69f23c4%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=52571274&db=lih

 

Parker, J. (2013, December 18). When stories are more than paper: Transmedia trends in Young Adult Literature. Presentation at the YALSA 2012 YA Literature Symposium in St. Louis, http://prezi.com/l0j03_mb1dma/when-stories-are-more-than-paper-transmedia-trends-in-young-adult-literature/

 

Softlink Education. (2019, February 20). Introducing LearnPath – and information curation tool. [Video] YouTube. https://youtu.be/hw00gN4lwOE

 

TEDx Talks. (2012, June 28). The power of story: Susan Conley at TEDx Dirigo. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/jkqb6uDRNQs

 

Walsh, M. (2013). Literature in a digital environment (Ch. 13). In L. McDonald (Ed.). A literature companion for teachers. Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA).

 

Zammit, K. (2016, June). Responding to literature: ipads, apps and multimodal creation. Literacy Learning: the Middle School Years 2(24), 8-16. http://search.ebscohost.com. ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=115073153&site=ehost-live