Madsen's Musings

How many times do teachers say to themselves, “I can’t believe it’s December already!” 

Well, I can’t believe it’s December already.

It has been an insane school year so far. After 24 years of teaching and becoming (somewhat) comfortable and confident, I jumped off a cliff and joined a new district, a new school and signed on to a program with new pedagogy, new technology, new courses, new assessment practice and new structures. And I took this course. Insane.

However, the bright spot has been how much my course learning has complemented my professional life. I had to blog in this course. I had to teach blogging to my students. I had to create a digital artifact for my final project. I am having my kids create digital artifacts. I am learning about the role of a teacher librarian while being mentored by a teacher librarian. So, insane, but connected and valuable.

My biggest challenge is not a new one: biting off too much. When I look at the topics and research I did early in the course, that same word pops into my head: INSANE. You can’t dive into all that AND be a full-time teacher in a new context. 

But something did click for me in terms of focus when I did my research blog post on equity: this may be my most important role as a potential teacher librarian: advocate for greater technology equity (or “tequity” as I call it in my project). I have worked among the have nots and I am currently working among the haves, and the gulf is tremendous. My favourite part of my final project is the lunch hour I spent interviewing three of my grade 8s about their use of the iPad in their learning. THEY ARE THE REASON THIS MATTERS. Because they’re awesome. But so are the thousands of of other students around the province who graduate thinking it’s acceptable to say, “I’m not really comfortable with technology.” (I heard that all the time in my before life. It’s hard to get comfortable with something when you use it only sporadically.) All these awesome kids, regardless of where they live and who their parents are, deserve to be set up for success. And we as a society NEED them to be set up for success. (My curious brain took me to the OECD website. Suffice to say, our current context is not good enough for the demands before us.)

So where does good advocacy start? It starts small and close to home. As we learned in Leading from the Library, the teacher librarian has a powerful role to play in building the professional capacity of teachers to meaningfully implement technology into their practice. Teachers are busy and overwhelmed; having a colleague say “let me help!” is not a hard sell. And purchasing all the hardware in the world is meaningless if the teachers don’t know how to use it. That has been a big part of my professional learning curve this semester: increasing my skill set at a fast enough rate to help my students. Thank goodness for my teacher librarian coach!

For my final project, in true Erin style, I bit off more than I could chew. While stressful, I’m kind of glad I did. Despite the many times I said over and over, “Why can’t I just write a paper?” I recognize the value of the experiential learning I was doing. Not only was I thinking about the learning and putting together my research, I was learning how to use some important technology tools (specifically Keynote and iMovie) that are important in both my current context as well as my potential role as a teacher librarian. This was definitely an exercise in empathy: putting myself in my students’ shoes, learning the tools, challenging my skill set. I also used technology to keep notes on the process: grab my phone and dictate some thoughts into a Pages document because you never know when and where inspiration will hit. 

My own ambition, of course, came up against the reality of a busy teacher and I just couldn’t accomplish all I wanted to. (I will have to learn Keynote animations over winter break!) However, what was most valuable is the realization that technology can do for me everything that I preach that it can do for my students. If it increases their creativity, it increases my creativity. If it increases their reach and ability to share their thoughts and work, it increases my ability to increase the reach of my thoughts and work. 

I definitely didn’t have time to devote to the actual movie making skills and create the published piece that I would’ve liked to have seen. This film is a DRAFT. It is not ready for its intended purpose. But it’s a start, a prototype in the parlance of PBL. But I like the concept and I’m proud of what I did accomplish in a short time. Going forward, I would love this idea to be made better in student hands!

Working with the technology is definitely engaging. My natural preference would have been to write a traditional paper. It would have been easier and quicker. But while I worked longer and harder, I enjoyed the process. I liked the creativity and I appreciated the feeling of accomplishment. Huh. Isn’t that precisely what we want for our students? ALL students.

 

Thank you to Matteo, Neko and Kennedy for generously giving me their time and for speaking so passionately about their education. It only cost me a box of donuts!🍩🍩🍩

 

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