This week’s module task ask me to think how a blog could be used in the school library. There are the obvious ideas that spring immediately to mind: a journal of book recommendations and reviews, possibly of new titles into the library. Perhaps reflections on class activities, students could jointly construct posts about the target information literacy concept from the day’s lesson. Students could contribute content on reading recommendations, polls about whether the content on a particular site is reliable or suitable for academic work. Articles could promote upcoming events in the library or the school more widely. Posts about transferable academic skills, such debating, referencing, writing skills etc, could assist students and families at certain times but would need to be searchable and set in categories so students can find what they need asynchronously.

One of the ideas suggested by Morris (February 11, 2020) is to use the school blog as a way to engage families and the wider school community. Offering updates about programs running in the school, school events, tips to help at home, parenting information and so on, schools can encourage families to be involved in the life and education offered at the school. Morris goes on to suggest that a class blog can be used as an organisational agenda for the school day. I have used one in kindergarten in this way where, at the end of lessons, the students and I would jointly construct a report for parents about what we learned, incorporating the WALT statements and photographs or videos showing how they met the success criteria. This acted not only to engage the parents, but also to solidify and reflect on learning for the students. It does take time, but was a good way to teach students about interacting appropriately in an online environment.

An important consideration with any project being undertaken in the library or classroom is an analysis of the benefit against the amount of work involved in maintaining it. Creating an maintaining an online presence as described above is an important part of the role of the TL, but it is not without a time commitment. Students can be recruited to help, especially older students, but they need training and supervision also. This time needs to be factored in to the workflow of the library team.

Morris, K. ( 2020, February 11). The top 10 ways blogs and WordPress are used in schools. The Edublogger. https://www.theedublogger.com/blogs-wordpress-schools/