21st Century Learning Common Website

This final vision project feels very satisfying to me as it represents a summation of all that I have learned this past year.  I have my final 2 courses left before the completion of my Diploma in Teaching Librarianship but it doesn't end my journey to keep learning and discovering new ways of learning.  It has been wonderful, thought stimulating, and invigorating going back to school and learning from the instructors, articles, videos, other teachers, and my inquiry searches.   I am excited to go back to teaching, LC, and working together with students, teachers, and parents  again.  I am amazed with all the innovation from teacher librarians who are advocating for change and leading the way to move our students toward 21^st century learning. I believe that the ultimate goal is to have our students be engaged, independent, constructive, flexible, and active participants in their learning. We want our students and ourselves to continue to be life long learners, critical thinkers, problem solvers, innovators, collaborators, and have a thirst for knowledge.

This course has also  made me reflect on my journey in teaching that started 25 years ago. I would have never thought that at the start of my teaching career that I would be using smartphones that are the size of chocolate bars, books that can be read on tablets, using apps to teach digital literacies, accessing vast information at the stroke of a key, connecting with anyone around the world through social media, or adding to the world-wide web by creating my own blogs and websites.

I was quite excited to create a LC website for my vision project that would be a useful and helpful literacy resource tool for the school community that would provide quick access to inquiry needs.   I wanted the website to reflect our dynamic 21^st century learning and be an advocate for the TL, great resources, literacy, and programs in the LC.  Another positive aspect of creating my own website is that it is another ICT skill that I can introduce to the students and teachers to share their learning.  My website can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/msmaslearningcommons/home and the following is a screenshot of the first page:

Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/view/msmaslearningcommons/home

Since, I am presently not working in a LC, I tried to include key elements that I as a teacher and parent would like to see in a website.  I wanted it be a learning tool, easy to navigate, personable, meaningful, flexible, and build community.  The main focus of the website is on reading, learning, muliti-literacies, and collaboration.  My boys provided input for the website and found it useful. 

Some limitations that I found is that without knowing the population and learning needs of the school community, I can’t make the LC website more personable.  For example, if the school has a large population of ELL, I would include an additional webpage on ELL resources.  Also, if I was in a LC, I could get more input from the teachers, students, parents, and administrators to see what their interests are so that I can have the website be more constructive for them. In addition, Google sites makes it easy to upload private student YouTube videos but it doesn’t stop the suggestions of other videos to view afterwards.  I will be sending an email to Google support and asking questions on the forum for help.  I will be inquiring about other options for video clips.

Indeed, this course, other TL courses, TLs, LCs and the new BC curriculum make me reflect back to the San Francisco Bay Area where I lived for a decade.    We lived in the heart of the Silicon Valley where it continues to be the hot bed of innovation which has created many technology companies such as Apple, Google, Intel, Yahoo!, Facebook, and Twitter.  I see the spirit of inquiry, creativity, risk taking, collaboration, and problem solving in the many start-up companies that are trying to find new ways to help society in fields such as medicine, technology, and gaming.   I see the same thing happening in BC education too where it is our responsibility to open the eyes of our students to beyond their school communities.  The students need to see the infinite possibilities that the world offers as well as what they can offer to the world.  The TLs and LCs are catalysts that will ignite the spark to continue to read, learn, and dream of future innovative visions for students and educators.