Blog Post 4

     It is a given reality that use of technology in schools has the potential to stimulate student engagement, skill acquisition and retention, and prepare the learner for career success.  Factors that widen the gap between ‘e-learning’ and traditional paper and book learning are teacher confidence, cost to the district, equitable student access to the web at home, and network sharing within and between districts.  How to lessen the gap is the goal of educators and librarians across the nation.  Librarians in particular have an increasingly significant role in integrating technology throughout their schools and across the curriculum.  The real-world application of technology is the inevitable future of student learners in our society (AASL, 2007).  Differentiation of instruction tailored to an individual learners’ learning style and needs is appropriately suited to technology-based instruction in classrooms.  Increasingly diverse populations are more dependent on diverse learning resources than in years past.

               Librarians are especially able and willing to collaborate, share, and instruct the use of device technology, instructional technology, social technology, and Web2.0 resources that will bridge the gap between learner and outcome.  Collaborative technologies, such as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs has allowed students with different personal devices to work together in learning with device-agnostic, web-based tools (Raths, 2013).  Librarians are also instrumental in helping student teachers begin their careers on the technology platform by modeling teaching through technology in their libraries and through collaboration with teachers.  Young beginning teachers are crucial to transforming classrooms into 21^st century learning environments through building lesson plans and implementing lessons that incorporate web-based technology tools (Smith & Green, 2013).

               Teacher-librarians will find that onsite enablers and barriers at their campuses will determine the pace of their program of technology integration (Johnston, 2012). Some enablers are librarians’ professional organizations, district level administrators’ support, and the perceived role of librarian-as-technologist.  Barriers included the competition between librarian and district technology specialists, administrative support at the campus level, and ambiguity of the role of the librarian as a technology-integrator.  Despite this, teacher-librarians deserve a major role in leading students to the technological success they must achieve in order to successfully participate in productive citizenship.

 

References

American Library Association (ALA) American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

     (2007).  Standards for the 21st century learner. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/

     aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/

 

Johnston, M. (2012). School librarians as technology integration leaders:  Enablers and

      barriers to leadership enactment. School Library Research, 15, 10-33.  Retrieved

      from http://www.ala.org/aasl/Slr/volume15/Johnston

Raths, D. ( 2013). Crossing the device divide. THE Journal, 40(5), 9-13.  Retrieved from

      http://thejournal.realviewdigital.com/"88d=89207#folio=9      

 

Smith, J., & Greene, H. (2013). Pre-service teachers use e-learning technologies to

      enhance their learning.  Journal of Information Technology Education: 

      Research, 12. 121-140.  Retrieved from http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol12/

      JITEv12ResearchP121-140Smith1223.pdf