Future Vision Project Part 3: Introducing @singinglibrarian33

My Future Vision Project for LIBE477 has been to create a interactive infographic (see below) that describes the benefits and uses of having a professional Instagram account as a Teacher Librarian (TL). In addition to this, I created my own TL Instagram account where I can learn from others and build the confidence to share my own ideas with others. My username is @singinglibrarian33 – come check out my account and follow me:)!

Rationale

I realized early on in this class that an area that was lacking for me was my own professional learning network (PLN). While I had this earlier in my career as a classroom teacher, I have taken a 10 year hiatus from engaging in these platforms professionally due to having a young family and busy life. I have yet to create a PLN as a TL.

Richter et al’s (2022) article says that “Teacher collaboration is an important source of social support for teachers that reduces professional isolation and allows teachers to learn from each other. While collaboration among teachers traditionally occurred primarily within schools, nowadays many teachers use social media platforms for various self-directed collaborative activities”. Carpenter et al. (2020) stated that there are numerous benefits for educators in participating in social media platforms such as Instagram. Two of these benefits that stood out to me are the easy access to facilitating connections with other educators who have similar interests and an increase in educator self-efficacy, content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge (Carpenter et al., 2020). This will naturally have an enormous impact on both teacher confidence and student learning experiences. Farch (2022) also highlights the benefit of using Instagram to create a positive vibe for your library and to tell your story to your community. Visuals are powerful story-tellers and an Instagram account can show the story of your library growing and changing over time, giving you something to look back and reflect on (Rendina, 2022). This story can be powerful for both your community and the stakeholders who make decisions about your library (Rendina, 2022).

I am choosing Instagram as a platform for this project because it is a place I can search for and share information (Richter et al, 2022) becoming a more confident, networked TL. It is also a space that I know my community and colleagues are already using. Murphy (2022) says that “we use social media to meet people where they are”. Using Instagram can provide new ways to interact with your school community, promoting interest and curiosity in your library (Farch, 2022).

Carpenter et al. (2020) stated that “Instagram appears to be a portal to access professional affinity spaces where teachers exchange ideas and affirmation.” Spaces such as this will address my concern that being a digital mentor is not a stagnant endeavour, but one where we have to lead in a space where the “landscape of digital tools and access is constantly shifting” (Miller & Bass, 2019). Becoming a digital mentor takes “commitment to continuous learning and exploration” (Miller & Bass, 2019). A professional social media account will address these challenges and give me a space to tap into keeping myself current in my own commitment to continuous learning and exploration.

As I went through the process of developing the Instagram account, I realized the need to support other TLs and educators in developing simple, but effective Instagram accounts. It was a challenge for me to find all the information I needed to be successful in one spot. So I decided to create my Infographic to support the project and share my learnings with others. My infographic highlights my learnings from Richter et al’s (2022) article around collaboration on Instagram (information seeking, information sharing, and co-creating) and my research on ways to promote your library (Alexandria, 2020) (Farch, 2022) (Rendina, 2022). It also includes a compilation of ‘Tips for Engaging on Instagram’ that I learned along the way. Finally, the Infographic seeks out feedback from its users to help support my ongoing efforts in learning about the best practices of engaging on Instagram. The infographic is created in Canva and is a live link, so it can be easily updated and changed based on the feedback I receive.

Goals

• To begin to build a robust digital PLN of digital and TL mentors to support my development as a teacher librarian
• To develop the confidence to share my own learnings and ideas with my PLN in areas of digital citizenship, librarianship, and available resources
• To keep a visual record of my library space and program – showing how my space transforms, what my collection looks like, and how students engage in my programs (Rendina, 2022)
• To develop a meaningful and useful tool that I will take with me as I finish my TL Diploma after this course
• To explore social media as a tool for microlearning for my colleagues. Microlearning is “the process of breaking information into bite-sized, usable chunks” (Melnikova, 2023)
• To create an Infographic to share my learnings and research with other TLs educators

Where I started

As of November 3, 2023, my Instagram account had 1 follower and 1 post. I had committed to the username @singinglibrarian33 in an attempt to eventually use this account to tap into both my career as a TL and a music teacher. I spent my initial days finding other teacher librarians to follow, making my privacy settings public, and reading a plethora of posts. My early goal was to learn how I could use Instagram posts best to further myself as a TL – connecting with other TLs and my community. Through reading many posts, I discovered what kind of posts were useful to me and what kind of photos made a post more impactful. I also did some research on how to use hashtags and which ones were most commonly used in the TL community.

I was initially surprised by how Instagram doesn’t allow me to put links in my posts (only in the stories and in my profile). I did some research to find out how other users navigate this, and discovered that many people use linktree as an quick easy way to share links. I set up an account for myself and linked it to my instagram profile for situations where I wanted to share links.

^{My @singinglibrarian33 Linktree profile}

Memorable Moments

One of my first posts was my post about the book “Diwali in My New Home” by Shachi Kaushik. I had tagged Shachi Kaushik in my post and was excited to receive my first like (from someone other than my husband) and comment from her! She even shared my post to her story. This instant connection to the author gave me a boost of confidence in post creating. I also experiences this when I shared my review of the Library Bus by Bahram Rahman. Both the author and @charmaghz.library in Kabul liked and shared my post.

Another thing that surprised me was how quickly my own colleagues and community members found my account. Within a couple of days, I had several colleagues and parents from my school following me without any attempt to do so. Removing this layer of anonymity added to my anxiety of posting publicly. As an avid and lifelong ‘over-thinker’, I had to fight against the urge to consider what each individual person would think of me when they read my posts. Since adding local teachers and colleagues had been a long term goal of this project, I decided to stick with it and accept that my PLN was growing quicker than I had initially planned.

In response to having my colleagues start to follow me sooner than expected, I made more of an attempt to make my posts and stories connect to them. For example, I shared this Diwali resource from @joysofkinder, but personalized it by letting the teachers at my school that we had the resources they needed to do this activity if they wished.

Implications of Vision

At this point, my Instagram account is growing and I am posting regularly. I am excited about the PLN I have developed but would like to focus growing it in my local community.

Now that I have met many of my initial goals through building this account and infographic, the next steps are that it is time to share my learning with my colleagues and continue to maintain and build my social media presence and PLN. My plan is to share my Infographic via email initially so see the response I get. I also plan to continue to post regularly on my Instagram account, and engage with the connections I’ve created throughout this course. In building my PLN, my next step is to tap into my school community. I have a couple parents following me, but I would like to expand this so that I can put into practice what I have learned about promoting my library via Instagram.

Final Thoughts

LIBE477 has been a course immersed in inquiry type learning that has taken me on a journey through learning about PLNs, mentorship, and digital citizenship. I has taught me about being a leader and advocate in my library, and a champion of a vibrant reading culture in my school. Moving forward, I plan to take these learnings with me to help me create a meaningful inclusive library learning commons for each student that walks in my door.

My key take aways from this course are:

• A deeper understanding of the value of collaborating with my colleagues and PLN
• The importance of being an advocate for reading, learning, and digital access
• A final project that both gives me a robust PLN – developing my skills as a mentor and mentee.
• A final project that is easily shareable with my colleagues so that they can learn with and from me as they attempt to use Instagram to develop their own networks

As I wrap up this project and my TL diploma, I think it is appropriate that I leave it with this growing PLN of peers and colleagues, on the same journey – all of us focused on bettering ourselves as TLs, providing meaningful, authentic learning experiences in our spaces, and making connections with other like-minded educators. TLs and educators who engage in meaningful ways on social media are more likely to develop enthusiasm for their job and a sense of self-efficacy (Richter et al., 2022). Educators also receive and give emotional support in these online communities helping them to combat professional isolation (Carpenter et al., 2020). I know that this project and course will stick with me as I move beyond this diploma and into my career as a teacher librarian.

Works Cited

Alexandria (2020). 7 Ways to Promote Your School Library Using Social Media. Retrieved from https://www.goalexandria.com/7-ways-to-promote-your-school-library-using-social-media/

Apels, A. (@joysofkinder), (2023). Can you create a Diwali napkin book? Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/CzVQeuYuFTN/

Carpenter, J. P. et al (2020). How and Why are educators using Instagram? Teaching and Teacher Education. 96. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X20313408

Farch, H. (2022). Why do I use Instagram to promote my school library? Schools Catalogue Information Service. 120. Retrieved from https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-120/why-do-i-use-instagram-to-promote-my-school-library/#:~:text=%27Social%20media%20can%20help%20you,your%20library%20welcomes%20student%20involvement

Lin, M. (2023). Module 10: Final Vision Project Design Considerations. Match-ing into the World, Blogspot. Retrieved from https://michellelovesmatcha.blogspot.com/2023/11/module-10-final-vision-project-design.html

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

Murphy P. J. (2022). Social Media Mavens: How Teachers and Librarians are Harnessing Online Platforms. Retrieved from https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/91107-social-media-mavens-how-teachers-and-librarians-are-harnessing-online-platforms.html

Rendina, D. (2022). The power of Instagram to connect with students. Renovated Learning: Building a Culture of Creativity + Discover in Education. Retrieved from http://www.renovatedlearning.com/2022/04/30/instagram-connect-students/

Richter, E. et al. (2022). Instagram as a platform for teacher collaboration and digital social support. Computers & Education. 190. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131522001956

Robinson, L (2023). Pause (Inquiry Blog 5). Laura’s Learning about Libraries, Blogspot. Retrieved from https://lauraslearningaboutlibraries.blogspot.com/2023/11/pause-inquiry-blog-5.html

Future Vision Project Part 2: Learner Considerations

For my Future Vision Project in LIBE477, I am planning to create a interactive infographic that describes the benefits and uses of having a building a professional Instagram account. I plan to also lay out the steps that I have taken this term to help me create an effective Instagram account that provides me with access to a personal learning network (PLN) both locally and globally.

This project will meet two goals for me:

First, I will create a PLN that I can take with me after my Teacher Librarian (TL) diploma is finished (this is my last course!!!). Richter et al (2022) says that “Teacher collaboration is an important source of social support for teachers that reduces professional isolation and allows teachers to learn from each other. While collaboration among teachers traditionally occurred primarily within schools, nowadays many teachers use social media platforms for various self-directed collaborative activities”.

Second, I will have a tool (infographic) to support other educators in creating their own effective social media accounts that lead to meaningful connections and collaboration. Currently, I engage in some of these networks by quietly ‘shopping’ for information and ideas through my personal accounts, but I do not share my own ideas or join the dialogue around posts and topics I find. I hope to change this to become someone who can also share and initiate collaborative connections through use of a professional account. Miller and Bass (2019) share that becoming a digital mentor takes a commitment to continuous learning and exploration. This project is a major step for me in building a PLN to help me do this.

In the following post, I will discuss my reasons for choosing this project, the audience I hope to reach, challenges I expect to encounter, and my next steps.

Design Rationale

In my last post, I discussed doing some research on social media options including Instagram, X, Tiktok, and YouTube.

My research shows Facebook and Instagram to be the top most visited Social Media Networks in Canada as of September 2023 (Similarweb, 2023). If my goal for this project is to share information ‘where people are at’ – this means that these options are among the best places for me to have an active presence. Tiktok does seem to have a quickly growing network of educators sharing resources. Teachers are saying that ‘watching each other’ on this platform is allowing them to quickly develop strategies and resources for their classrooms (Ahmed, 2023). According to Richter (2022) these platforms, such as Instagram and Tiktok, fall short in that they do not engage teachers actively in co-creating and collaborating. However, while the platform may not actively do this, I have seen many teachers who use these posts to connect with others, both locally and globally, to collaborate and work together on different platforms. So I think it is a great starting place.

I am choosing Instagram as a platform for this project because it is a place where teachers search for information and share information (Richter et al, 2022). It is also a space that I know my community and colleagues are already using. I also like that Instagram easily allows me to connect my posts to other social media platforms such as X and Facebook. However, it does not yet have a function that allows you to share easily with Tiktok.

I have chosen an infographic to share my learnings with others because of its ability to be visually pleasing to the learner, easy to share on many platforms, and interactive for its user. I also think an infographic. I also think an infographic embodies the ideology of learning through microlearning that is so needed for busy and inundated educators.

Audience

I plan to share my infographic via email and Instagram with my school colleagues and district TLs in hopes that they can see the benefits of engaging with an online PLN to improve learning opportunities for our students. I will include a link on the infographic to a Google form so that I can seek out feedback and input on my project and learnings. The info graphic is a live link created in Canva – so it is easy for me to update and change based on the feedback that I receive.

The primary audience that I am planning to create my instagram account for for are local and global teachers and TLs. Richter et al (2022) argues that social media platforms have taken on a important role in helping teachers to drive their own collaboration with others and improve student learning experiences in schools. They (Richter et al, 2022) also discuss how these platforms can facilitate ‘just-in-time professional collaboration opportunities. This reminded me of Melnikova’s (2023) article (shared with me by classmate Laura R) about the importance of providing microlearning opportunities for teachers. Instagram is a great way to provide these microlearning opportunities for educators.

I believe the needs of my audience are the same as my own needs. To collaborate with each other to improve our own practice and the learning experiences of our community. To find new ideas and share our own ideas (Richter, 2022). In connecting with this audience, I hope to be both a mentor and a mentee. Sharing my vision and learnings, and simultaneously learning from my audience. A step I need to take in reaching my target audience is learning about the relevant hashtags that are already used by TLs and beginning to participate in the existing conversations and communities that I discover on these hashtags.

The secondary audiences that I hope to tap into as this project grows and follows me beyond this diploma is music teachers and the families in my school community. 50% of my job is being a music teacher in my library. I am proud of how I have integrated my library and music classes in a seamless way where students see music as an extension of being in the library. My library is a place with music infuses our activities and helps to build literacy skills in a joyful way. So I believe melding these two communities is essential for this account to portray who I am in the library.

I also want my school community to eventually follow this account to see what is happening in their child’s library. I want to share books available and events being planned. I hope this is a way to connect to my community on a platform that they are already using.

Potential Challenges

I think that I am my biggest challenge in this project. It makes me think of U2’s (2017) song, Get Out of Your Own Way. “Nothing’s stopping you except what’s inside” (U2, 2017). Welcome to the story of my life! Confidence in who I am as a TL and sharing with others is a major hang up for me. Putting myself out there and then overthinking what everyone else is thinking about it – whether or not they ‘liked’ my post, whether my ideas are good or not, is something that will be a major challenge for me. As I carry on in my plannings for this project, I keep wanting to go back and change my mind – because creating a simple website (that would likely never be visited or shared) would be so much easier for my mind and heart! But I know the value in sharing and learning from others and I am committed to seeing this through and using this tool when this course is completed.

Another challenge I received from a colleague this past week was the idea that “it’s easy to post and build up your followers on Instagram, but it’s entirely more difficult to engage with people and build connections”. So I think I will add this goal to my project, that in an attempt to build a meaningful PLN, I am engaging in posts that I see – commenting and liking. I think this would be most impactful with local (SD33 and BC) TLs.

Next Steps

In the next week, I will be planning out what are the key ideas I want on my infographic and looking at organizing my thoughts around how many posts I should do for this project and what the topics of these posts will be. Also, will I use my own photographs from my library, or create my posts using words on Canva? or a combination of both? Maybe I’ll even try to make my first reel? Below, I’ve expanded my brainstorming from last week to include ideas for post topics that I may want to cover.

I will also begin expanding my PLN by finding lists of TLs to follow and undo my privacy settings so people can easily follow me back. Finally, I need to discover where the conversations are already being had by learning about what hashtags are used commonly in the TL community.

As I go through this process, I plan to make regular reflections to help me create a meaningful, authentic infographic to describe the process and benefits.

As of November 3, my professional Instagram account looked like this. I chose the username @singinglibrarian33 because I am both a TL and a music teacher in SD33. I had made no posts but committed at that point to make several posts a week. I had followed some teacher librarian accounts, but I only had one follower – my husband! LOL. At that point, I still had a lot of privacy settings on. So I’ve recently removed these privacy settings to unleash my posts to the world. I invite you to follow me I move forward and share my learnings and ideas publicly as my digital artifact.

Last Thoughts

As I finish this second post, I know that my next steps are to continue designing my Future Vision project are to begin to plan my ‘future vision’ posts, build my digital PLN, and map out my infographic. I look forward to doing this in a thoughtful way that truly displays who I am as a TL to my community.

LIBE477 community – I know a lot of you are probably already using Instagram as TLs – Do you have any ideas for me on what would make a good post – visually? topics to include? Who to follow? Hashtags you find useful?

Works Cited

Ahmed, Nairah (2023). Canadian teachers are gaining a following on TikTok by sharing experiences, style. The Canada Press. Retrieved from https://www.airdriecityview.com/lifestyle/canadian-teachers-are-gaining-a-following-on-tiktok-by-sharing-experiences-style-7468142

Melnikova, V. (2023). Setting up In-house microlearning for teachers via a message app. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/microlearning-teachers-message-app

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

Similarweb (2023). Top Social Media Networks Websites in Canada Ranking Analysis for September 2023. Retrieved from https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/canada/computers-electronics-and-technology/social-networks-and-online-communities/

Richter, E. et al. (2022). Instagram as a platform for teacher collaboration and digital social support. Computers & Education. 190. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131522001956

Future Vision Project Part 1: Design Considerations

The final project for LIBE 477 is meant to represent my personal vision for teacher-librarianship and learning for the 21st century. I’ve been asked to create a digital artifact or resource that can be shared widely with my local colleagues, community, district, and global community. The final artifact is supposed to be both meaningful and useful – something that we will continue to be used in the future.

Design Considerations

I am considering developing a professional social media presence where I can be mentored and mentor others in the area of librarianship. At this point, I am most attracted to the idea of an Instagram account, as I know a lot of my local Personal Learning Network (PLN) already uses this specific platform to share their learnings. Prior to deciding on a platform, I want to do some further research on other platforms such as X and Tiktok to determine if either of these options would serve me better. I know that often social media accounts can be linked from one platform to another, so it may be as simple as setting up linked accounts in order to post simultaneously on multiple platforms.

Design options to learn about for this learning project (before committing to a specific platform) include:

• Instagram
• X
• Tiktok
• The Educators PLN
• YouTube

Purpose and Goals

When Miller & Bass’s (2019) said “Whether you see it as a digital distraction or essential information, this continuous shift in knowledge creates an opportunity for librarians to be digital age mentors, cultivating digital skills, online learning, and understanding of the information age” – I sketched in the column beside it “I don’t do this.” My K-5 library does not have a digital aspect connected to it. Part of the reason for this is access and time, but sometimes I think that might merely be an excuse for me to not have to do the “hard work” that it takes to become a digital mentor in my community (Miller & Bass, 2019).

The reason I want to create a professional social media account as a digital artifact is that it will be something that I would continue to use when I am done my librarian diploma. It would also address the concern that being a digital mentor is not a stagnant endeavour, but one where we have to lead in a space where the “landscape of digital tools and access is constantly shifting” (Miller & Bass, 2019). Becoming a digital mentor takes “commitment to continuous learning and exploration” (Miller & Bass, 2019).

A professional social media account will address these challenges and give me a space to tap into keeping myself current in my own commitment to continuous learning and exploration after this course and diploma ends. It is an authentic, useful digital artifact that will not just sit in a Google Documents file waiting to be revisited, but will rather become a part of my everyday life and development in my role as a TL. A robust PLN will allow me to be a lifelong learner always ready to deconstruct what I already know – willing to unlearn and relearn as information and technology changes.

Below is a picture of my initial brainstorm around my Future Vision Digital Artifact – specifically related to Instagram. The words around the topic in the centre of the diagram represent my why. Why I think this is the right direction for me to go.

Creating this project will allow me to focus on several goals including

• To begin to build a robust digital PLN of digital and TL mentors to support my development as a teacher librarian. Below Marc-André Lalande (2012) gives a brief overview of what a PLN is and what it is essential to becoming a lifelong learner.
• To develop the confidence to share my own learnings and ideas with my PLN in areas of digital citizenship, librarianship, and available resources
• To create a specific amount (still to be determined) of initial posts that articulate who I am as a TL and my beliefs around a variety of topics including digital citizenship, teacher-librarianship, equity, and learning communities
• To develop a meaningful and useful tool that I will take with me as I finish my TL Diploma after this course
• To explore social media as a tool for microlearning for my colleagues. Microlearning is “the process of breaking information into bite-sized, usable chunks” (Melnikova, 2023). Platforms such as Instagram and X are designed for this type of learning through their use of visuals and short blurb descriptions.

Current Project Status

Currently, I am creating my Instagram account and considering different usernames that might effectively work for my account.

I am familiar and comfortable with social media platforms and how to use them, but have taken a 10 year hiatus from engaging in these platforms professionally due to having a young family and busy life. As a TL, I have yet to venture into this world.

On a side note, while I am comfortable with the social media platforms, I have a lot of personal apprehension about engaging on these platforms. Mostly this is due to personal reasons, but as someone who once knew the value of a robust local and global PLN and how that can benefit my learning and my students’ learning, I would like to use this as an opportunity to dive back into this.

Final Thoughts

In some ways, creating an instagram account may seem too simple for such a large project. But I can not imagine a more useful project focused simultaneously both on developing a robust PLN and becoming a mentor to others. My colleagues and community are already on this platform, so I do not need to ask them to go to ‘one more website’ or ‘watch one more video’ or ‘read one more newsletter’. Rather, I can be where they are at and share in a space that they already visit daily. So I plan to put my energy and effort into learning about what makes a post powerful, creating meaningful posts, and building a robust PLN to take with my beyond my diploma. Through several meaningful posts and pictures (and reels??? I’ve never made a reel! lol), I hope that this project can speak to others about my vision of teacher librarianship today and in the future.

So LIBE 477 PLN – How can you help me out? Do you have suggestions of who to follow? Are you already doing this? What social media platform do you find to be most useful? Any other advice you can give me?

Works Cited

Lanlande, Marc-André (2012). What is a PLN – Marc-André’s take. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLpWqp-owo

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

Melnikova, V. (2023). Setting up In-house microlearning for teachers via a message app. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/microlearning-teachers-message-app

Summary of Inquiries in LIBE 477

The following is a summary of my learnings from my inquiry blogs in LIBE 477. I have included my key take aways and new directions for development that have grown out of these blogs. The four inquiries include:

• How to be a Champion of Reading Culture in Your School
• Finding My Digital Mentors
• Mentoring: Relationships Come First!
• Mobile Libraries in Kabul

Key Take Aways

• Building a reading culture is not something an individual does, but rather it is a team effort. When school communities work together collaboratively (students, parents, and staff) to create a reading culture – members of the community will develop the pleasurable habit of reading in everyday life and become lifelong learners (Alex-Nmecha & Horsfall, 2019).
• In order to become a digital mentor, we must create a Personal Learning Network (PLN) of our own digital mentors in our schools, our district, and globally. If we want to be digital leaders in our schools, we must first be able to show our students what it looks like to have a positive digital identity ourselves (Miller, 2022). We must be willing to show ourselves as digital learners with digital mentors. 
• Relationships and learning community are the key ingredients in creating the trust and dependability that people are looking for in an educational mentor. Finding effective and simple ways to deliver support for teachers in regards to resources and curriculum is a key role for a TL.
• Mobile libraries in developing countries are able to bridge some of the accessibility gaps in regards to getting resources to children in rural and remote areas. Companies such as Idea Boxes are ensuring that these mobile library options can also provide digital access to these children. Charmaghz is an organization that provides 16 mobile libraries to areas in and around Kabul. Finding ways to begin to provide digital access in these areas is a must in addressing issues of accessibility and equity.

New Avenues for Development

In my inquiry about becoming a champion of reading cultures, I explored many learning commons and PLN’s to discover a plethora of ideas of how to promote a reading culture. These ideas are summarized in my graphic, Building Reading Culture: Next Steps. The one area that I would like to try this year is the area of Reading Competitions. I would like to host either a March Madness Competition or the Forest of Reading Competition (Blue Spruce Award). Picking one of these two will be my first challenge! Then I will have to carve out a timeline that is suitable for the competition is the next.

In regards to finding digital mentors, I want to pursue my development of a global PLN. My global PLN currently is extremely small, but useful. I primarily follow in the Facebook group, Learning Librarians. This groups has given me numerous ideas to implement. I would like to move forward in developing my PLN by building a trusted network around a professional Instagram account for my Future Vision Project in this class. In doing this, my goal is to begin to share my ideas with others as well as learn from them.

In regards to becoming a mentor to others, I think it’s time I take a step past my priorities which are relationship and learning communities and focus on providing ProD opportunities. This is the third year in my role as TL and I can be proud of the relationships and learning community that I have promoted in my learning commons. It is time to focus on how I can use my skill sets help others. The two goals I have made for myself in this area are:

1. Create more and update Destiny Collections for common topics of interest in my school (This week I am working on my Remembrance Day Collection and my Diwali Collection). I have had a positive response from teachers who use my Destiny Collections to determine what they want to use in the classroom. Especially a couple of my classroom teachers that find it physically difficult to get to the library every time they need a resource for a variety of reasons. These teachers look at my Destiny Collections in their classrooms and email me so I can deliver the resource.
2. Create a menu of services I can provide and share it with others. This would be a 1-page PDF that helps teachers know what I can offer. I often hesitate to do this because I think it might limit what I can do. I love to get creative and try new things, but I think the menu will be particularly important for newer teachers to the career and my school to begin the journey of building a relationship with me.

A Topic for Further Inquiry

Learning about the Mobile Libraries in Kabul was eye opening to me. Although I knew about mobile libraries, learning about a specific one opened up my mind and eyes to some of the equity challenges faced for children in the developing world. But beyond that, this inquiry inspired me to learn about the necessity of mobile libraries in the developed world as well. Ferreira’s (2022) paper about mobile libraries all around the world states that mobile libraries can have a major impact on learning gaps and the digital divide. She says that mobile libraries are a way that libraries can reach communities that otherwise do not have access to resources and technology (Ferreira, 2022). In North America we have many rural and impoverished areas that need access to libraries and technology. Mobile libraries such as buses or The Idea Boxes can play a huge part in bridging learning gaps in Canada. This made me wonder if these types of services are already used in our remote Indigenous communities in Canada.

I want to take this inquiry further in a number of ways:

• Become a supporter of mobile libraries around the world, such as Charmaghz, both financially and through educating others about these efforts and the value of mobile libraries.
• Continue my research further by learning what services are provided to our remote Indigenous communities in Canada – and how we can better address these digital access and literacy gaps in our own country.
• Begin a journey of inquiries that are inspired by picture books in my library. I believe that this inquiry gave me a far deeper understanding of The Library Bus by Bahram Rahman that will make my read aloud of it with my students that much more powerful. I would like to do this for other picture books in my library and keep track of my inquiries on my blog and Instagram account for others to use.
• Use picture books such as this to inspire grade 4-5 inquiries into issues connected to the curriculum. At the BCTLA Conference a couple weeks ago, Devon McLeay (2023) showed how her grade 6 students used picture books about human rights to inspire inquiry projects about the topic.

Last Thoughts

I have enjoyed the freedom to learn about these topics, reading culture, personal professional development, digital mentoring, and developing libraries in an authentic way that allows me to ask questions and look for answers. I have enjoyed learning from others in my cohort. The dialogue has enhance my learnings in this course and I look forward to implementing many of the strategies that I have learned about and appreciate the new perspectives my inquiries have given me.

Works Cited

Alex-Nmecha, J. C. & Horsfall, M. N. (2019). Reading culture, benefits, and the roles of libraries in the 21st century. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 2836. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2836

Charmaghz. An Opportunity for Critical Thinking. Retrieved from https://charmaghz.org/

Ferreira, L. (2022). Mobile libraries: the past, the present, the future. Western University. Retrieved from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=fims_evolvingtech_finalproj_winter2022

McLeay, D. (Oct. 20, 2023). Teaching Social Justice with Picture Books. At the BCTLA Conference, Surrey BC.

Miller, S. M. (2022, October 4). Digital Leadership (with Jennifer Casa-Todd). In Leading From the Library, season 2, episode 6. Future Ready Schools. https://leading-through-the-library.simplecast.com/episodes/digital-leadership-GVavnp3thttps://leading-through-the-library.simplecast.com/episodes/digital-leadership-GVavnp3t

Rahman, B. (2020). The Library Bus. Pajama Press Inc. Toronto, Ontario.

Mobile Libraries in Kabul (Inquiry Post #4)

The opportunities for children to feel safe, to experience learning opportunities beyond their school have deteriorated so much. That’s why our work is becoming even more important, and we are committed to continue for as long as we can.

Freshta Karim – Founder of Charmaghz Mobile Libraries in Kabul (NcNeilly, 2023)

Bahram Rahman’s book, The Library Bus, caught my attention as I was considering libraries in developing countries this week.

The Library Bus is about a young girl, Pari, who accompanies her mama as they drive their Library Bus through small villages and refugee camps just outside of Kabul. On their journey, Pari learns about how girls were not always allowed to attend school and had to learn to read in secret.

Bahram Rahman, born in Kabul, grew up during the civil war and the Taliban regime (LibrisNotes, 2021). The Library Bus (Rahman, 2020) was inspired by the first library bus to operate in Kabul by a non-profit organization called Charmaghz. The goal of Charmaghz’s library busses is to “encourage critical thinking in children so that they can grow up to be positive and open-minded individuals” (LibrisNotes, 2021).

Mobile Libraries in Kabul

Charmaghz, founded in 2018 and directed by Freshta Karim, currently has 16 active mobile libraries (5 buses, 1 van, and 10 library boxes that go inside schools) in and around Kabul. Each library has over 400 books – servicing over 2000 children under the age of 18 each day (NcNeilly, 2023). Only 7% of children in Afghanistan can read by age 10 and nearly 4 million primary children (mostly girls) are not attending any school at all (NcNeilly, 2023). “Girls education has been hit particularly hard by the Taliban’s return to power, as millions of girls across the country have been barred from secondary education in state schools” (Euronews, 2021). Chaarmaghz provides space for children to play, learn, and envision a new future for their country (NcNeilly, 2023). They give children who do not have the opportunity to go to school, a chance to learn new things. Their tactic is “restorative in nature – aimed at healing the wounds that decades of conflict have had on Afghanistan’s youth” (NcNeilly, 2023).

^{Image found from McNeilly (2023), Afghanistan’s Mobile Libraries: A Conversation with Freshta Karim. Website: https://www.newtactics.org/conversation/afghanistans-mobile-libraries-conversation-freshta-karim#:~:text=Charmaghz%20has%2016%20mobile%20libraries,than%202%2C000%20children%20per%20day}

In NcNeilly’s (2023) podcast interview with Freshta Karim, Karim discusses how providing these safe places for children to come and have a choice in what they do and read is essential in creating a sense of dignity and agency in the children. Karim also points out that when the children read books they are able to imagine and broaden their worldview – they can see what is beyond. For example, if they read a storybook and feel empathy for that character – they can begin to understand complex emotions and experiences. Karim says that she thinks “this helps them a lot in their creativity, understanding, empathy, compassion – all those really important things”.

What’s Missing?

Since the Taliban have returned to power in 2021, Afghan women are seeing more and more freedoms slip away (Nusratty & Crabtree, 2023). Access to education, particularly secondary, was the first thing to go and recently the Taliban have banned women from attending universities. Access to the internet could potentially help to increase access to education, but in a 2022 poll, only 15% of Afghans said they had access to any internet at all. Internet access in Afghan is only available to a small segment of the population, and even that access is censored by the government. Nusratty & Crabtree (2023) argue that any improvement to the country’s internet infrastructure may provide additional learning opportunities for girls and women in Afghan.

Mobile Libraries in other locations around the developing world already have developed the capability to offer technology to their communities. An example are the donkey libraries in Biblioburro, Columbia, which now include a digital program – supporting rural populations to access technology by bringing in laptops and modems and teaching children about the internet (Mitchell, 2018). Another example is the Idea Boxes that are put into rural areas of Australia, Senegal, and impoverished communities in the US. These mobile digital libraries are energy independent and easy to set up – they give rural communities access to satellite internet connection as well as multiple devices (Ferreira, 2022).

Mobile libraries around the world already contain access to digital resources such as e-books, audiobooks, and online databases (Lisedunetwork, 2016). These integrated technologies “ensure that even in areas with limited physical resources, individuals can still access a vast array of knowledge. Mobile libraries leverage technology to bridge the digital divide, empowering individuals with digital skills needed in today’s world” (Lisedunetwork, 2016).

Is this a possibility in Kabul? No doubt, if it was, Charmaghz would be navigating this. So how can we begin to bridge this massive digital gap? Where the equity issues around experience and content are so incredibly enormous and digital access is pretty much non existent. Miller & Bass (2019) state that “libraries and librarians should see themselves as leaders in this work and be constant voices advocating for equity of devices and internet access for all.”

Does this include Kablul?

Conclusion

And so I am left inspired – by Karim’s massive efforts in working to educate children in and around Kabul.

And I am left discouraged – by the fact that even with these efforts, the gap in education for these children is overwhelmingly immense.

But mostly, I am left with hope.

Because something is always better than nothing. Mobile libraries are essential because they represent what libraries value – equal and equitable access for all (Ferreira, 2022). These libraries may not be a magical solution to the substantial challenges Afghan children face, but Karim says, “they do offer a place where they can “improve their critical thinking skills, ask questions and as a result imagine a world beyond war, then hopefully create it when they grow up” (Cuthbert, 2022).

^{Image found from Freshta Karim’s Instagram Account (July 12, 2023), https://www.instagram.com/freshtakarim/?hl=en}

Inspired to help?

• Donate to the Charmaghz non-profit organization
• Follow Charmaghz.library and Freshta Karim on Instagram to learn of new initiatives and to help educate others on their initiative

Works Cited

Charmaghz. An Opportunity for Critical Thinking. Retrieved from https://charmaghz.org/

Cuthbert, O. (2022). Mobile Libraries Bring Books and Hope to Afghan Children. Retrieved from https://ideasbeyondborders.org/afghan-childern-libraries/

Euronews (2021). Mobile libraries restart for the first time in Kabul since Taliban takeover. Retrieved from https://www.euronews.com/2021/12/07/mobile-libraries-restart-for-the-first-time-in-kabul-since-taliban-takeover

Ferreira, L. (2022). Mobile libraries: the past, the present, the future. Western University. Retrieved from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=fims_evolvingtech_finalproj_winter2022

Karim, F (2023). Today is @globalgiving July bonus day. It’s your chance to support the @charmaghz.library Van library. Instagram, 12 July 2023 https://www.instagram.com/freshtakarim/?hl=en

LibrisNotes (2021). The library bus by Bahram Rahman. Retrieved from http://librisnotes.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-library-bus-by-bahram-rahman.html

Lisedunetwork (2016). Concept of Mobile Library. Retrieved from https://www.lisedunetwork.com/concept-mobile-libraries/#:~:text=Many%20mobile%20libraries%20now%20integrate,a%20vast%20array%20of%20knowledge.

McNeilly, M & Karim, F. (2023). Afghanistan’s Mobile Libraries: A conversation with Freshta Karim. New Tactics in Human Rights. Retrieved from https://www.newtactics.org/conversation/afghanistans-mobile-libraries-conversation-freshta-karim#:~:text=Charmaghz%20has%2016%20mobile%20libraries,than%202%2C000%20children%20per%20day.

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

Mitchell, C (2018). For the love of books: Mobile libraries around the world. Aljazeera. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/4/23/for-the-love-of-books-mobile-libraries-around-the-world

Nusratty, K. & Crabtree S. (2023). Digital freedom out of reach for most Afghan Women. Retrieved from https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/471209/digital-freedom-reach-afghan-women.aspx#:~:text=In%20Gallup’s%202022%20World%20Poll,has%20been%20stable%20since%202016.

Rahman, B. (2020). The Library Bus. Pajama Press Inc. Toronto, Ontario.

Mentoring: Relationships Comes First! (Inquiry Post #3)

Recently, I heard a story of a teacher who was seeking support and help for their classroom practice from a mentor teacher. When a district leader heard this, they told the teacher that they should have reached out to them because “they are their mentor”. This later ignited a lengthy discussion with me about what a mentor is. Our admin and district staff are our leaders by appointment. Teacher librarians (TLs) control resources and books because of their job title.

However, being a mentor is not a title that you give to yourself or is apart of our job description, but rather a title you earn.

Being a mentor is about trust.

Being a mentor is about relationship.

So it is no small task to ask TLs to become a educational mentors to our colleagues. And it is certainly not a role we get automatically because we got the job. Miller & Bass (2019) argue that building relationships with teachers and staff is one of the most important things you can do as a TL. They say that these relationships are the starting point to becoming a digital mentor to your colleagues and that in building these relationships, more opportunities to collaborate and learn together will naturally begin to present themselves (Miller & Bass, 2019).

After creating relationships, I would argue that the next step is developing a reputation that your school’s learning commons is a powerful learning environment where all community members (staff, families, students, etc.) are both teachers and learners, sharing ideas and learning co-operatively in a rich authentic learning context (Smeets, 2005). When staff see you as a collaborator and a learner, when they know that you are as excited to learn from them as they are from you, then you have created a space where you are ready to become a mentor to others (and a space where you will have many mentors to support your own learning!).

Only after these relationships are formed can we turn our attention to building meaningful frameworks of delivering useful and specific professional development opportunities.

Professional Development: I am here to help!

The following graphic, Mentoring Mindset (Mentor Virginia, 2023), shows three out of the four concepts of becoming a mentor connected to relationship (I see you, I got you, and we’re in this together). Only in the red box, developmental, does a mentor take action to teach. In this box, developmental, a mentor will say “I am here to help”. This is where we get to share our stories! Show what we have, and what we can offer to our learning community.

^{Image found from Mentor Virginia (2023), Becoming a Mentor. Website: https://mentorva.org/become-a-mentor/}

Strategies I have tried

• Destiny Collections: I have created many Destiny Collections for my staff that I can share via email of chat groups to show them what resources I have on a specific topic. Each time I have a teacher ask for a collection of books on a new topic, I create a new collection in case a teacher in the future has a similar request. Here is an example of a collection that I created with Orange Shirt Day resources available at my school.

• Staff Meetings – I often bring resources with me to share at staff meetings, or set them up on tables so staff can sign them out while at the meeting.
• Emails and flyers – I use emails and flyers to share digital and nondigital resource ideas for hot topics being addressed by teachers.

Strategies I would like to try

• A regular newsletter to highlight digital literacy resources (online resources) that I am currently learning about and district online resources available to all community members. Using a newsletter is a great way to share your story and show the school community what it is you are doing in the library (Miller, 2022).
• Placing physical resources available in spaces where teachers spend a lot of time such as the copier room or staff room. This will allow them the time to consider them and look through them in a comfortable space.
• Bathroom posters – My TL colleague creates posters with QR codes of teacher resources and puts them up in staff bathrooms.
• Creating a menu to advertise what I can do for teachers such as the one shared by Vocab Gal (2019)

^{Image found from Sadlier School – Role of Librarian in Schools- Seven Ways They can help Teachers, Coaches, and Admins}

• Lead professional development opportunities: these can be lunch hour visits, or sharing briefly at staff meetings (Millar & Bass, 2019). The idea here is to find brief periods of time that can be used meaningfully to share resources or skills. Keeping this short and meaningful is crucial in order to respect the time that each person has available.
• 5 Minutes of Harassment (Miller & Bass, 2019) – I really liked this purposeful idea where a TL ensures that they spend 5 minutes with each teacher learning about what curricular outcomes they are covering in their classrooms so that the TL can find ways to better support that teacher.
• App ideas: our classroom teachers all received a new teacher IPad this past month. I like the idea of sharing an ‘App-of-the-Month’ – giving a brief demo and offering extra support to teachers in using it in the classroom.

Conclusion

I leave you with this diagram of what I believe is the essential building blocks of becoming an educational mentor to your learning community.

If we are seeking to become educational mentors to our colleagues – encouraging them to be lifelong learners who are curious and open to new ideas, technologies, and resources, then we must always remember to be lifelong learners ourselves. We need to focus first on creating authentic relationships that embrace trust and connection. We must also remember to intentionally develop mutual, inclusive learning environments where teaching and learning occur simultaneously amongst all community members. Finally, we need to find simple, yet effective ways to deliver the many ideas and supports that we can offer through our digital and nondigital libraries to our colleagues.

Works Cited

Canadian School Libraries (CSL). 2020.  “Leading Learning:  Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada.” Available:  http://llsop.canadianschoollibraries.caLinks to an external site.

Miller, S. M. (2022, October 4). Share your story! We need accurate naratives of the school library (with Courtney Pentland). In Leading From the Library, season 5, episode 3. Future Ready Schools. https://leading-through-the-library.simplecast.com/episodes/share-your-story-we-need-accurate-narratives-of-the-school-library-with-courtney-pentland-UyOKb4aX

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

Mentor Virginia (2023). Become a Mentor. Retrieved from https://mentorva.org/become-a-mentor/

Vocab Gal (2019). Role of Librarian in Schools – seven ways they can help teachers, coaches, and admins. Retrieved from https://www.sadlier.com/school/ela-blog/role-of-librarian-in-schools-and-how-librarians-can-help-teachers

Smeets, E. (2005). Does ICT contribute to powerful learning environments in primary education? Computers & Education, 44(3), 343-355.

Finding My Digital Mentors (Inquiry Blog #2)

Miller and Bass (2019) suggest that becoming a digital mentor is hard work. They say it takes a commitment to continuous learning and exploration. I would argue that that one can not be a digital mentor if you do not have your own digital mentors. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills are changing rapidly everyday, and if we are still dependent on the same ICT skills we developed 15 years ago, we are doing a great disservice to the role in our schools.

This post examines the many places we can tap into digital mentors both locally and globally to support ourselves as digital leaders in our school communities.

School Networking: Discovering the Unsung Digital Mentors

In Miller’s (2022) podcast about Digital Leadership, Jennifer Casa-Todd encourages TLs to look for the teachers who are already digital leaders in our schools. Which of your colleagues are already showing students the positive things that digital citizenship can offer them?

TLs should be careful not to attempt to view themselves as ‘the digital mentor’ of the school, but rather as ‘a digital mentor’ in a community of many digital mentors. Our colleagues are the first place to look for digital mentors. An example of this is one of the grade 4/5 teachers at my school is a digital mentor to me in some of the areas of hardware fixes and glitches, where I may have more resources to share on information literacy.

Secondly, our students are digital natives (Thorhuage, 2017) and we need to be on the look out for which ones can act as mentors to us. I have had grade 5 students who come up with solutions to my digital problems far quicker than I could of. Tapping into the potential of these young digital mentors and leaders in our schools is a way to build a more authentic and meaningful learning community.

Finally, let’s also be on the look out for which parents in our community can be of support to us as digital mentors. Do some of them have IT jobs? Online jobs? Can they come in and share about important digital citizenship issues that they face in their jobs?

Creating an environment where we can all learn from each other and with each other is essential.

Local Networking

I am fortunate to have several digital mentors in my school district that can support me in my continual development of my ICT skills.

• Chilliwack Teacher Librarian Association (CTLA) – we have a supportive groups of TL who are always available to support in many areas.
• Colleague from another school – I have one colleague who is my digital mentor – every time I send him a ICT question he responds almost immediately and often sends a video or screencast to support my learning.
• IT Department – my district’s IT department is quick in their responses to my questions and inquiries to them.

Global Networking: Sharing Stories

Teacher librarians and educators are connecting and networking globally by sharing their stories freely and openly. Tapping into these networks via Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, and blogs is essential to continually developing my ICT skills.

Prior to the birth of my children, this was an area of strength for me. In the past 9 years, my engagement in learning ICT skills from these numerous global networks has become nonexistent. This concerns me as I begin to think of myself as a digital mentor to others because I do not have a network of digital mentors for myself.

Initial steps I am starting to take to rebuild my global networking community are:

• Purusing this list of 90 Best Library and Librarian Blogs for blogs of interest and creating a feedly feed to refer back to them.
• Creating an education specific Instagram account to both share my story and follow other TL stories.
• Listening regularly to podcasts including
  • Leading Through The Library Podcast
  • School Librarians United Podcast

Now What?

If we want to be digital leaders in our schools, we must first be able to show our students what it looks like to have a positive digital identity ourselves (Miller, 2022). We must be willing to show ourselves as digital learners with digital mentors. We must understand that what we know today, will look different tomorrow. The learning will never end. Taking action steps towards creating local and global ICT communities around us is absolutely essential if we want to pursue being a digital leader to our communities.

Works Cited

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

Miller, S. M. (2022, October 4). Digital Leadership (with Jennifer Casa-Todd). In Leading From the Library, season 2, episode 6. Future Ready Schools. https://leading-through-the-library.simplecast.com/episodes/digital-leadership-GVavnp3thttps://leading-through-the-library.simplecast.com/episodes/digital-leadership-GVavnp3t

Thorhauge, A. M. (2017). Let’s turn our digital natives into digital citizens. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_mette_thorhauge_let_s_turn_our_digital_natives_into_digital_citizens

How to be a Champion of a Reading Culture in Your School (Inquiry Blog #1)

“A reading culture is an environment where reading is championed, valued, respected, and encouraged.”

Hawthorne, 2021

What is Reading Culture?

When reading lies at the heart of a school, students benefit personally, socially, and academically (Hawthorne, 2021). If we define culture as “the way things are done here” then a reading culture is a visible expression of how each member of a school community values reading and engages with it. A essential aspect of reading culture is that it goes beyond teaching reading for academic purposes. It will also promote reading for leisure (Madison, 2022) and creates a pleasurable habit of reading in everyday life for its community members (Alex-Nmecha & Horsfall, 2019).

Access to quality books and resources is necessary in creating a reading culture, but it is absolutely not enough. It is critical that we are also developing role models and champions of reading with in our communities (National Library of New Zealand, 2021b). Some of the characteristics of a reading culture include:

• Collaboration – many people working together to create this culture. Creating this culture cannot be the responsibility of an individual – it takes dedication and effort. Led by a leadership team and advocated for by every student, guardian, and staff member in the community (Hawthorne, 2021)
• Staff who read to learn and for pleasure (Merga & Mason, 2019)
• Parental support and involvement for reading (Merga & Mason, 2019)
• Regular silent reading blocks – dedicated time to read during every school day (Merga & Mason, 2019)
• Reading celebrations and unique reading experiences – reading is promoted across the school through inspirational events and opportunities. (National Library of New Zealand, 2021a)
• Student choice over reading material
• Access to diverse, appealing reading resources and library staff to help them choose and locate books (National Library of New Zealand, 2021a)

The video below from the National Library of New Zealand (2021b) gives a great overview of what a reading culture can look like in a school.

^{National Library of New Zealand (2021) video about creating a school reading community}

What I already do?

The following graphic highlights the many things I already do in my library to foster a reading culture in my school.

The things I already do that I am most proud of is being flexible with my library protocols to meet student needs and creating an inclusive collection and space for all students.

In regards to protocols, my library blocks look different than many of the schools I’ve been in. First, I ask the classroom teachers to do the sign ins and check outs at the computer so that I can be freed up to build relationships with students, find out what they are interested in, and find books to meet their needs and desires. This gives me time to search for books, put books on hold, and conduct casual interviews with students as to what they are looking to learn about. Next, my students and teachers know that my library rules around borrowing limits and overdue policies look different for each child and what they need. Students know that I’ll ask them to show responsibility for lost and damaged books, but that each child will show this to me differently. Ellis (2016) says that low borrowing limits and strict overdue policies may discourage both keen and reluctant readers. Welcoming students into your library by removing policy barriers to library use can encourage reading and help develop positive attitudes of readers (Ellis, 2016). I have found this to be true.

Secondly, students in my school know that my space and collection is inclusive of everyone. If they can’t find a book that represents who they are, they can request that I purchase one. We acknowledge, learn about, read about, and celebrate all of the special holidays that our students participate in, including Ramadan, Eid, Ukrainian Christmas, Lunar New Year, Indigenous Days, and Diwali.

An area that isn’t working as well as I would hope, is my ability to conduct meaningful book talks that capture student attention and find time to host events such as book tastings or guest readers. Carving out time in my busy complicated schedule is difficult. Also, I would love to take a deeper dive into instilling a love for ‘reading to learn’ by engaging with my students in inquiry and genius hour types of projects.

Next Steps

The following graphic highlights ideas that I have found through this inquiry and through conversations with other TLs in the district that can further enhance the reading culture at my school.

Building a positive reading culture involves providing support, encouragement, modelling, resources, and opportunities to read for leisure (Merga & Mason, 2019). Building a reading culture is essentially the primary goal of a teacher librarian. However, we must remember that doing this is not a solo project but involves collaboration and teamwork from the community. Inspiring others to join in in these initiatives is essential. This is an area I plan on working on this year. Rather than doing everything myself, I plan to form committees of students and teachers to help in designing what our reading culture can look like. In Miller’s (2022) podcast, Building a Culture of Reading in the Library and Beyond, Melissa Thom suggests building a student crew or student ambassador team to help lead and organize library events. I already use student volunteers, but I think I could formalize the team to make it more meaningful and effective in helping to build a reading culture.

Moving forward, I hope to continue to be a leader in creating a reading culture at my school. I hope to extend this leadership opportunity to my colleagues and students to join in so that they can feel ownership over this community. And I hope to try many new things in making my library a magical space in my school that supports and celebrates a culture of reading (Hawthorne, 2021).

Works Cited

Alex-Nmecha, J. C. & Horsfall, M. N. (2019). Reading culture, benefits, and the roles of libraries in the 21st century. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 2836. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2836

Ellis, S. (2016). School libraries supporting literacy. Retrieved from https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-99/school-libraries-supporting-literacy/

Hawthorne, H. (2021). How to promote a reading culture in schools. Retrieved from https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/how-to-promote-a-reading-culture-in-schools/

Madison (2022). Building a reading culture part 4. Madison’s Library: Passionate about School Libraries. Retrieved from https://madisonslibrary.com/2022/06/23/building-a-reading-culture-part-4/

Merga, M. K., & Mason, S. (2019). Building a school reading culture: Teacher librarians’ perceptions of enabling and constraining factors. Australian Journal of Education, 63(2), 173–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944119844544

Miller, S. M. (2022, March 8). Building a Culture of Reading in the Library and Beyond. In Leading From the Library, season 4, episode 3. Future Ready Schools. https://leading-through-the-library.simplecast.com/episodes/building-a-culture-of-reading-in-the-library-and-beyond-NZA0wUL1

National Library of New Zealand (2021a). A school-wide reading culture. Retrieved from https://natlib.govt.nz/schools/reading-engagement/understanding-reading-engagement/a-school-wide-reading-culture

National Library of New Zealand (2021b). Creating a school reading community. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmmPmM3sLGc&t=430s

LIBE 477 – Reading Review Part C: Reflections and Bibliography

My search for digital citizenship research sources and teaching resources helped me to see the great need for explicit teaching of digital literacy skills, ideally prior to students navigating the digital world. I have often heard it said that because our youngest learners are not on social media, we do not need to be teaching digital citizenship just yet. However, this is like saying children don’t need to understand what puberty is until they are going through it. The research and resources that I found support the idea that children are learning about being digital citizens before they are navigating the digital world on their own (Hasse, 2022) (Lauricella, Herdzina, & Rob, 2020).

The gap between what we know students need to know about digital citizenship and what we actually are teaching in schools is huge (Hasse, 2022). Research points towards the importance of teaching digital citizenship in our early childhood classrooms to support students’ understanding of how to be safe and responsible digital media users (Lauricella, Herdzina, & Rob, 2020). I discover about 7 research journal articles that shed light onto this topic and numerous TedTalks and podcasts that also are relevant the research. The highlights of my research can be found in my previous blog post, Reading Review Part B: Digital Citizenship Resource List and the complete bibliography of my research can be found at the end of this post.

I found my inquiry also led me to discover the plethora of teacher resources available to teach digital citizenship to elementary school students. A great starting place for me was Miller’s (2022) article, 5 Awesome Resources for Learning about Digital Citizanship. I created a Symbaloo page to help me keep track of these resources for future reference. Below you will find my updated Digital Citizenship Symbaloo page with links to resources that support teachers teaching concepts of digital literacy in elementary schools. Do you have any suggestions to add to my list?

I have a lot of questions about how teaching digital citizenship may or may not have changed since the COVID pandemic. I know my thinking about it has changed, particularly in the area of critical literacy. I believe that everyday conversations around critical thinking and media literacy have changed drastically in last 2-3 years. I found that most of the research I found on these topics was from prior to the pandemic and there was a bit of a gap in research done in the the last 2 years addressing the topic of how society has changed its thinking on digital citizenship and how we approach it in schools.

I find great satisfaction in learning via podcasts and TedTalks, so I enjoyed the deep dive I took into finding these resources to support my learning in this area and have bookmarked and downloaded many of these for my continued learning.

My key take aways from this inquiry about Digital Citizenship are:

• Digital citizenship needs to be taught to our students prior to their involvement on social media.
• Our youngest learners can grasp concepts of what is right and wrong online
• Digital access and experience is an equity issue (Miller & Bass, 2019). Diverse schools often have less access to technology which is all the more reason for a librarian to be an advocate for technology in their school.
• There are numerous resources available to support teachers and librarians in teaching digital citizenship to young learners.

The complete bibliography of the resources and research I found during this inquiry can be found here:

Works Cited

Hasse, A. (2022). Teacher Perceptions and Implementation of Digital Citizenship in Elementary Classrooms: A Mixed Methods Study. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/docview/2685505691?accountid=14656

Lauricella, A. R., Herdzina, J., & Robb, M. (2020). Early childhood educators’ teaching of digital citizenship competencies. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131520301871

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

Miller, S. M. (2022). 5 Awesome Resources for Learning about Digital Citizenship. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/digital-citizenship/5-awesome-resources-learning-about-digital-citizenship

LIBE 477 – Reading Review Part B: Digital Citizenship Resource List

Below is a list the top 5 resources I found in my inquiry into the topic of digital citizenship in elementary schools using many of the key words listed in my previous post, Reading Review Part 1: Becoming a Digital Mentor. One thing that was important to me in my research was that I limited my search to recent information as I feel like topics around digital citizenship are constantly changing. In particulary, I feel that the pandemic impacted our view and understanding of digital citizenship drastically, so articles written during or post-pandemic were of high interest to me in this inquiry.

Resource 1: Journal Article

Lauricella, A. R., Herdzina, J., & Robb, M. (2020). Early childhood educators’ teaching of digital citizenship competencies. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131520301871

This article addresses the idea that our early childhood classrooms have an increasing need for us “to support students’ understanding of how to be safe, responsible, and cooperative digital media uses” (Lauricella, Herdzina, & Rob, 2020). It uses survey data to document how teachers are teaching digital citizenship to our youngest learners, and how this varies based on demographics and educator experience. Results show that suburban schools are more likely to receive digital citizenship education than more racially-ethnically diverse schools. I bookmarked this article for further reading as it address equity issues around digital access, as well as, educator expertise and training.

Resource 2: Journal Article

Hasse, A. (2022). Teacher Perceptions and Implementation of Digital Citizenship in Elementary Classrooms: A Mixed Methods Study. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/docview/2685505691?accountid=14656

This article explores implementation of digital citizenship lessons and the perceptions of the value of these types of lessons in elementary schools. Hasse (2022) addresses the gaps in curriculum and what is actually taught in the classrooms – and the idea that most digital citizenship lessons were taught informally rather than explicitly. I was drawn to this article because it was written post-pandemic and addresses some of the concerns that arose in regards to digital citizenship during the pandemic.

Resource 3: Leading from the Library Podcast

I enjoy learning via podcasts, so I was thrilled to discover the Leading from the Library Podcast (Miller, 2023). Miller is the author of our class book, Leading from the Library. This podcast focuses on ways that Future Ready Librarians can lead through the library by sharing interviews and stories from other TLs. I have gone through and bookmarked the episodes that connect to my current learnings and plan to listen to many of them over the next weeks.

Resource 4: TEDx Talks 

Another resource I enjoy learning from is TEDx Talks. This YouTube page has numerous talks on topics of digital citizenship, media literacy, digital education, and critical thinking. Learning through these inspirational talks is not only informative, but enjoyable. For the sake of this course, and my career in the library, I have bookmarked numerous talks that may be applicable to my learnings around digital citizenship.  

Resource 5: 5 Awesome Resources for Learning about Digital Citizenship

This article put out by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has been tremendously helpful to me in helping me discover some simple tools to use to teach digital citizenship to my students.  Written by the author of Leading from the Library (Miller & Bass, 2019), this article dives into some practical suggestions school teachers and librarians can use to teach digital citizenship. While I have explored Common Sense Media to some degree, Google’s Be Internet Awesome and The Achievery are new platforms to me.  I was also excited with this articles suggestion to use Pear Deck alongside Google’s Be Internet Awesome. The lessons I found using Pear deck were simple and effective tools for leading discussions with students around digital literacy.  Each Pear Deck can be saved and edited as a slide show in Google Docs. Finally, the fifth suggestion this article makes is using picture books that support digital citizenship.  I think every librarian can get behind this! The article links to a Padlet page created by Miller (2022) that lists numerous picture books on this topic.

_{Miller S. M. (2022). Picture books for Digital Citizenship and Media Literacy Conversations and Learning. Retrieved from https://padlet.com/shannonmmiller/picture-books-for-digital-citizenship-and-media-literacy-con-z8b16d3mqddf}

_{An example of a single Pear Deck slide connected to Google’s Be Internet Awesome. Borrowed from Pear Deck’s Google’s Be Internet Awesome Curriculum. Unit 1: Lesson 1: Slide 16.}

Works Cited

Hasse, A. (2022). Teacher Perceptions and Implementation of Digital Citizenship in Elementary Classrooms: A Mixed Methods Study. Retrieved by https://www.proquest.com/docview/2685505691?accountid=14656

Lauricella, A. R., Herdzina, J., & Robb, M. (2020). Early childhood educators’ teaching of digital citizenship competencies. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131520301871

Miller, S. M. (2022). 5 Awesome Resources for Learning about Digital Citizenship. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/digital-citizenship/5-awesome-resources-learning-about-digital-citizenship

Miller, S. M. (2023). Leading from the Library Podcast. Retrieved from https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/leading-from-the-library/id1529505908

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