Technology and the Teacher-Librarian

Marcoux, E. (2011). Technology and you. Teacher Librarian, 38 (5), 66. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=62570046&site=ehost-live

Teacher-librarians are positive about the leadership role of technology in the school library. Marcoux (2011) states that “there are many opportunities for us to be learning about technology and how to integrate it into our practice.” However, there are many questions that need to be addressed before integrating technology into the classroom. Some questions to think about beforehand surround funding, lack of time, when to use technology and when not to use it, and most importantly, “will this create an even greater burden on parents as they try to provide the best education they can for their children? Will this widen the well-known digital divide?” (Marcoux, 2011) More questions: What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks? What are the more subtle implications? Marcoux”s (2011) advice is posed as a question: “Why not use these concerns for teaching a lesson by putting technology into a larger context as well as using it as a learning tool?”

Collaboration with classroom teachers is a great way to provide the best learning practices using the correct devices for the lesson. My experience has shown me that only a few teachers know how to use many of the devices out there; however, they are trying out these devices on a personal basis, and not for teaching purposes. It would be great to collaboratively create lessons that benefit student learning. As Martha Gabriel in Doiron and Asselin's (2005)text show, the Internet opens up many possibilities and ideas that "classroom teachers and teacher-librarians can act on to create digitsl learning experiences."