FINAL PROJECT - DIGITAL ARTIFACT
FINAL PROJECT - A DIGITAL BLOG SHOWCASING PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
It has been made clear to me over the years that my own learning never stops. As soon as I try to settle in to complacency, or worse yet try to be an expert, I am humbled by all that I do not know. Sometimes that reality hits me with a moment where I realize I know the least in the room, other times it is a grade received on an assignment when I thought I did so well, and then there is the constant movement in education to improve the way our students learn. It truly is an ever vibrant profession. I have learned that the flashiest ideas are not always the ones I want to adopt. Sometimes they are, but not always and that is okay. The project I chose for this class is very personal to my own journey as a teacher librarian. It embraces many of my mentors' ideas that I have been connected with over the last five years in the library learning commons and in the two decades I have been teaching. It is part of a learning continuum.
The Early Days
In the earliest days of my digital artifact journey I created a Weebly account. It took four years for it to be a successful means of communication and a useful tool for accessing data bases required for inquiry projects and research. Students, teachers and TLs in the district refer to this website and blog. I am really proud of it. https://catherinenickerson.weebly.com
The Middle Years
As I began to take courses through the UBC Teacher Librarian Diploma program I was led towards creating a twitter account for the purposes of communicating with the greater librarian world. This has taken over a year to be purposeful. Now I am connected with authors and leaders in inquiry and administrators and board members and the community at large. Twitter exposes me to great ideas and has given me confidence pushing forward as professors, the chair of the board, trustees, popular authors, administrators, the BCTLA and the Canadian Library Association are following me back and retweeting posts! @CathNickerson
The Present
I find myself today with a little more confidence and a lot of encouragement from those around me to share my learning journey. I no longer only focus on outcomes and shiny moments of glory. For my final project for this course it is a digital artifact that is in progress. Our school has decided to post our learning on our schools inquiry process web page. Here you will find blogs about the learning that is happening throughout the building. This site is open to all educators, parents, trustees and the adult community at large. "Advancing the learning community to achieve school goals: LLC leadership team develops clear goals to align programs with school goals and share and showcase teaching and learning achievement."(Leading Learning, 2014). For my part the district has given me a password to showcase the learning in the Library Learning Commons. Here is the link to my final project.
The most recent blog to be put on the site was part of a three year process. As we progressed though the work of Truth and Reconciliation it became clear to me that the Library Learning Commons has not kept up. With the help of my administrators we engaged in a spiral of inquiry around indigenizing the library and what that could mean for us. "It is though a disciplined approach to collaborative inquiry, resulting in new learning and new action, that educators, learners, their families and involved community members will gain the confidence, the insights, and the mindsets required to design new and powerful learning systems." (Timperley, Kaser & Halbert, 2014). This week teachers will meet during collaboration time to analyze the survey results. Next week we go to a day long workshop with Syilx elders to engage in what is sure to be an educational experience for all of us. Teachers, administrators and the TL attending together. Our learning now has a place to be showcased with my district blog. Visibility, vulnerability and transparency are the goals.
Final Reflection
Learning takes time and patience. It has taken me ages to get to the point where I felt I could be vulnerable enough to share my learning with others. However, the goings on in the LLC involve many stakeholders and all should have access to the process. "Getting into a transparent, digital sharing practice can actually save you time in the long run (think of the amazing archives). And it's increasingly becoming imperative in this age of abundance." (Richardson, 2012). No longer is the LLC the domain of the TL alone. I still struggle with the room being messed up or a failed lesson. I struggled with this process knowing my final project wasn't going to be a flashy visual or super fun. For me I knew the digital artifact needed to be purposeful for my own school community. "The learning environment strongly promotes horizontal connectedness across areas of knowledge and subjects as well as to the community and to the wider world." (OECD, 2010). This digital artifact is truly a living document of ongoing learning that is happening in our educational community.
The Future
I offer a variety of flex time activities that I work through with teachers. As you can see from the "menu" there truly is nothing that would reflect our work with Truth and Reconciliation. I am hoping the learning we are engaging in will change that.
I am grateful for the assignment though because thanks to it I am working with my district principal, John Reever and my administrator, Monique West and now closely with the the grade 4 teacher, Catherine Reynolds Wallis. Together we struggled with how to get the spiral of inquiry started and still feel uncomfortable with the word indigenize. It is nice to not be alone and moving forward I look forward to this Friday when a group of us will gather to analyze the data and develop a hunch about how to proceed. This project has been extremely valuable to me.
References
Canadian Library Association. (2014). Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada.
Richardson, Will. (2012). Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere (Kindle Single). TED Conferences. Kindle Edition.
Timperley, H., Kaser, L., & Halbert, J. (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Centre for Strategic Education Seminar Series 234.
Center for Educational Research and Innovation (2010). The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice OECD Publications.
Comments
Post a Comment