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Vision of the Future Reflection

 As I was reading Leading from the Library, this quote from Miller and Bass really stuck out to me: “Equity of experience doesn’t mean that all classrooms have identical experiences. Rather, it’s a focus on recognizing the time in which we live and utilizing the tools of the day. It’s no longer acceptable for technology usage to be an option based on adult interests or comfort levels” (2019, p. 73). It made me reflect on whether I avoid any technology because of my own comfort levels despite what the students are interested in. I consider myself to be very comfortable with technology, but I wondered whether there was any aspect of technology I would encounter barriers with in the future as I am still early in my career and technology is changing all the time. I realized that I had a very negative viewpoint of the metaverse without really having any experience or knowledge about it. Keeping Miller and Bass’ ideas about equity of access and digital mentorship in mind, I decided to le...
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Inquiry Blog Post 4 - Library Projects in Developing Nations

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     In our schools, we try to make our libraries hubs of information, literacy, and learning. Organizations and projects throughout the world seek to extend this concept to individuals in developing nations to provide access to literacy and ICT resources. While exploring library projects in developing nations, I learned about many amazing organizations who seek to put books into the hands of children to help them access literature and develop their literacy skills. Room to Read seeks to create “a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality” (Room to Read About Us, n.d.) by providing books and literacy programming to children in 15 countries including Grenada, Vietnam, Rwanda, India and, Indonesia (Room to Read Impact and Reach, n.d.).  Charmaghz is an organization that provides mobile libraries for children in Afghanistan. They have 5 mobile libraries which each contain 400 books and host 1000 visitors each day (Charmaghz Mobile Libraries, n.d.).  The Bo...
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Inquiry Blog Post 3 - Providing Professional Development

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     In my previous blog post, I discussed how I am going to continue to build my PLN on Twitter so that I can continue my own self-guided professional development. This learning will positively impact the students in my classroom in my current role and will also be beneficial for sharing with my colleagues in a future teacher librarian role.       One of the challenges of providing professional development to a large staff, such as the staff of 33 classroom teachers I currently work on, is that each teacher has their own unique strengths and challenges, so no one PD topic will meet their needs. Trust, Carpenter & Krutka (2018) discuss the need for building PLNs rather than focusing on a more traditional PD model stating that “traditional top-down professional development (PD) models have historically sought to mold educators to institutional aims through synchronous, face-to-face activities . . . Such PD can be engaging, interactive, and effective...
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Inquiry Blog Post 2 - Professional Development

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     As educators, it is important that we are continuously learning and improving our skills to improve student learning. I also believe it is important for students to see their teachers engaging in learning and modeling lifelong learning habits. Most of my professional learning outside of traditional PD days currently takes place both in my UBC Teacher Librarianship Diploma courses and in meetings with my grade level teaching team. I am fortunate to work on a team of 5 grade 3/4 teachers that regularly co-plan, share resources and ideas, and support one another in our learning. It will be important for me to consider how I will continue to learn and grow professionally after I am finished my diploma courses, and potentially move to a smaller school and/or to a teacher-librarian position where I am no longer a close member of my current team. One tool that I think will be helpful to me as I continue independently professional learning is Twitter.      Whe...
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Inquiry Blog Post 1 - Fostering a Culture of Reading

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     In order to build a culture of reading in schools, children need to encounter many engaging opportunities to develop a love of reading and be surrounded by other who they perceive as being readers. Librarians, administrators, and teachers must work together to build a school and community culture in which reading is accepted as a socially acceptable practice (Merga & Mason, 2019) to overpower the “negative stereotypes connected to reading [that] bombard kids: readers are intellectual snobs, socially inept nerds, and bookworms” (Kelley & Miller, 2013, p. 91). It is the responsibility of all adults within a school to help develop a reading culture. I have reflected on what I am already doing in my classroom to foster a culture of reading and have also considered other strategies to try in my classroom and school community.  Strategies for Fostering a Culture of Reading – Classroom strategies  Book Twins - Each student was assigned a Book Twin (or Trip...
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Reading Assignment - Part B

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Hirsh-Pasek, Z. J. K. M. (2022, March 9). A whole new world: Education meets the metaverse. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-whole-new-world-education-meets-the-metaverse/       Hirsh-Pasek et al.’s article outlines the educational opportunities within the metaverse and through their vision of students engaged in a fully immersive virtual reality experience of Ancient Greece led by their classroom teacher. Hirsh-Pasek et al. argue that educators cannot fall behind on emerging technologies such as the metaverse, as their expertise in pedagogy and content knowledge is needed to ensure that virtual worlds for education are developed with meaningful, valuable learning opportunities. Hirsh-Pasek et al. articulate the potential for the metaverse in education through setting clear and specific learning goals and connections to the 6 Cs (collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, confidence).       This a...
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Reading Assignment - Part A

 I anticipate the Metaverse will be an arising topic of interested in my teaching that will be an important topic to develop a better understanding of. Metaverse spaces targeting children are already created and, I expect, will continue to be created. As educators, I believe we need to be on top of these emerging technology trends to ensure we provide students with the tools and strategies they need to be safe and appropriate. While the idea of the Metaverse makes me uncomfortable, I would like to step out of my comfort zone in my research to learn how I can support other teachers in meeting this developing issue with lessons on keeping students safe in the Metaverse. Miller and Bass’ statement, “school isn’t the only place where values are created. Hobbies and interests that aren’t valued in school are often highly valued in other areas of the community” (2019, p. 61) reminds me that avoiding the technology that makes me uncomfortable, such as the Metaverse, in school doesn’t mean...
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