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School Librarians and Digital Textbooks

Another thought piece recommendation from School Library Journal:

Turning the Page: Forget about those bulky backbreakers, digital textbooks are the future
by Rebecca Hill

Some soundbites:

* PBS’s 2009 national survey, “Digitally Inclined,” showed that 76 percent of K–12 teachers already use digital media in their classrooms (up from 68 percent in 2008). And 78 percent of those teachers believe that digital media increases a student’s motivation for learning.

* “When we make the move to digital textbooks, … it will be about open content. When it is about open content, we are going to see huge opportunities for school librarians.” – Marcia Mardis, a professor at Florida State University.

* ““Our children live in a different world,” says Sheryl Abshire, the chief technology officer for Louisiana’s Calcasieu Parish Schools. “We’re going to have to step up smartly to meet their needs or we are going to be irrelevant to them, and I don’t think that public education can afford to be irrelevant to our prime customers.””

* “While a flexbook or even a digital textbook provides an organizational structure from which to plan lessons and teach, the vastness of open educational resources can be overwhelming. Who should organize and cultivate the resources to use with digital textbooks or to incorporate into flexbooks?”

Done correctly, teacher librarians have the opportunity to influence overall school, board and classroom success and ultimately every learner.

Stephen

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Posted on: October 16, 2010, 8:52 am Category: Uncategorized

One Response

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  1. Marie Belanger said

    implicit in this is that teacher librarians (and following that, librarians in public sphere) must have a command of and confidence with and in the technology; a clear understanding of the pedagogical implications and advantages of the use of this (or any new and developing) technology, and an appreciation of the difference between techno as an ancillary pleasure diversion (i.e. novelty act)and a constructive literacy/numeracy instructional device.. so, the question is: what opportunities are teacher librarians given to appreciate, manipulate and command the technologies before they are obligated to demonstrate them to students? It begins with the post-graduate education of teachers and librarians – the “information professionals”.