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