Web guide: Leadership and the Digital Learning Environment – Designing an effective digital learning environment in a primary school setting Audience: Leadership team (Primary) Digital artefact: Designing the Digital Learning Environment. A presentation for the leadership team in a primary school setting. Assessment 1 challenged my research skills, encouraging a move away from simple bookmarking of […]
“Social media used for educational networking helps to connect learners in exciting ways and therefore should be considered as a vital part of the DLE” (ETL 523 module 4.2: Social, cultural & global perspectives) As Papert (1980, as cited in Watters, 2013) predicted, computers have entered the private worlds of children everywhere. The seemingly […]
The Digital Learning Environment The traditional idea of the school learning environment as a physical construct is no longer relevant as educational institutions turn to the notion of a learning environment that embraces the presence and use of technology to support connected, collaborative and global learning. However, successful Digital Learning Environments (DLE) require careful planning […]
Digital Literacy – A reflection on Greenhow’s (2010) article. Greenhow, C. (2010). A new concept of citizenship for the digital age. Learning & Leading with Technology, 37(6), 24-25, The notion that digital citizenship is the ability to practice and advocate online behaviour that demonstrates legal, ethical, safe and responsible uses of information and communication technologies (NETS, 2007, […]
Reflective Practice – What have I learned, what does the future look like? When initially confronted with deliberating the nature of information (Parker, 2020a) my long held (semantic) view was challenged with an alternative and far more interesting approach. Examining ‘The information Hierarchy’ (AEW, 2008) I could see information as a process, existing on a […]
Reflective Practice When considering the nature of a school library collection I first connected with the interpretation given by the NSW Department of Education (2015, p. 2) of collection development and collection management (Parker, 2020a). With no attempt to separate the two terms I reasoned that both development and management were part of a holistic […]
The TL and inquiry learning A review of Levitov, D. (2016). School libraries, librarians, and inquiry learning. Teacher Librarian, 43(4), 28- 31, 34-35. Whilst coming from an American POV it nicely summarises the differences between traditional and inquiry based research. Levitov (2016) continues with a description of the inquiry approach implementation process and the central role the TL should […]
Reflecting on Inquiry Learning I perceive my greatest barriers to developing an effective inquiry learning environment are time (timetabling), the Principal/Exec and the classroom teachers. Delving into the inquiry models available – understanding the most appropriate for our school setting, research, getting all the stakeholders onboard are some areas I perhaps need to consider moving […]
Leader? Adviser? Team member? All of the above? Where do we fit in? Brown (2008) suggests that School media specialists or TLs “hold the key to ensuring successful research projects that bring our world, and its vast amount of information, into a manageable perspective.” (p. 16). An undeniable fact yes, the TL is a curriculum […]
The Teacher Librarian – An Expert, a Leader, a Necessity? Reflections on Karen Bonanno’s 2015 article ‘A profession at the tipping point (revisited)‘ Bonanno (2015) reviews findings shown in surveys undertaken by Softlink to support her discussions around the viability of school libraries and TLs (p. 20). Her “glass half full” (p. 14) approach to […]