LIBE 477-Inquiry Blog 3: Supporting Staff ICT Development

 

Inquiry Blog 3- Supporting Staff ICT Development

Where to Start?

After our last blog, where I explored ways to continue my own ICT development, I’m now exploring ways I could share this learning with the staff at a future school where I was a teacher librarian, (TL). Supporting professional development in ICT is an important part of the TL’s role as there is a wide range of abilities and confidence levels at most schools.

The first step would be to gather some data and find out where the staff are in their ICT knowledge, what would be useful for staff members to learn, and what technology would meet the students and teachers' needs. One way to gather this information is through informal conversations, which would also help to build relationships and trust so that the teachers would be more open to learning something new, and potentially intimidating.

Another strategy is to use surveys to get teacher input. Two different platforms I could use to create these forms are SurveyMonkey, or if your school board is using Google like mine, there is Google forms. 

Where to go from there?

Once it's determined what ICT professional development would best benefit the staff, the question is how to offer this development in a way that doesn’t make more work for teachers, is linked to their curriculum objectives, and is perhaps fun to make it seem less intimidating. In a school division like mine that has gone to using Google G Suite for Education, I could share ideas about how the different tools can be used in the classroom outside of the basics. A casual way to do this could be to host a Google fun ideas lunch, with some snacks provided, to run through some new ideas with a presentation. There are many teachers out there who are willing to share great ideas and it’s more positive to approach it as teachers sharing with teachers, than “hey let’s teach you some stuff you don’t know”. I would then back this up by emailing the links to these ideas to the staff. I would also make it known that I was happy to provide one on one assistance with implementing any of these new ideas. 

One example I found was a podcast from Eric Curts that was posted on the blog, The Coolcat Teachers Blog, and also on youtube, which I’ve posted below: 

That’s just an example from Google G Suite for Education, but there are other tools and apps out there that can be useful for teachers as well. I could provide an in-service that teachers could sign up for, or do a highlight presentation at a staff meeting and make sure staff know I am happy to help any teacher try out the new ideas. One other idea is to do a featured “app/tool of the month” and share information about it with the staff through email. As Miller and Bass mention, the “continuous shift in knowledge creates an opportunity for librarians to be digital age mentors”, (pg. 15). Here’s a youtube video by Evgenii Permiakov that talks about some top apps and tools for teachers:

 

 

One last thing I could do to support teachers is to provide tech support. I can do this myself, but if I’m unable to help at that moment, we could create a team of older students who are enthusiastic about technology and willing to help others to support teachers and their students.

 

 

Works Cited 

SurveyMonkey. (2022). Get Answers With Surveys. Retrieved from www.surveymonkey.com/Create/Surveys

 

Google Forms. (2022). Get Insights Quickly with Google Forms. Retrieved from www.google.com/forms/about

 

Curts, Eric. (2017). 23 G Suite Ideas to Excite Your Students About Learning with Eric Curts. Retrieved from www.coolcatteacher.com/e112/

 

Miller, S., & Bass, W. (2019).  Leading from the Library: Help your School Community Thrive in the Digital Age. International Society for Technology in Education.

 

Permiakov, Evgenii. (2019). Best Apps for Teachers. Retrieved from Best Apps for Teachers