In New Hampshire, all preK-12 schools have access to high-quality digital content through the NH DOE. This content includes instructional activities that educators can use as-is or edit to meet their needs. These resources can be shared and tweaked to support all learners and tailored to meet specific learning goals. This type of sharing and collaboration reduces stress and saves educators’ time. Now that’s incentive! This process can also alleviate confusion about what tools educators should select.
3. Keep technology staff in the loop
Depending on district and school technology acquisition policies, your tech team might not be aware of what you’re acquiring, what it does, who it’s for, what it requires, and if it complies with district or state regulations such as student data privacy and data protection. Go beyond those basic tech requirements and show them what the tool does, how it works, and what integration it requires (with Student Information, Learning Management, or Single Sign On Systems).
This can also be done by your edtech partners. In New Hampshire, we have statewide access to the Discovery Education platform and the DE Manager coordinates between technology staff in the district and the company’s technology integration team. This creates a partnership and provides an opportunity to ensure technology staff learn about the system. By informing the tech team, they are more likely to understand the impact when services are impacted or unavailable.
I’m incredibly proud of the work New Hampshire’s library media specialists are doing to drive the ROI of digital resources now available to educators. I believe they are equipped to serve as leaders during your school’s digital transformation by ensuring communication gaps are closed, technology teams are informed and engaged, and that educators are supported with clear expectations, shareable examples, and exciting ways to engage learners while saving time.
4. Solidify professional learning for edtech
We get it, we know there are so many initiatives that districts must address such as compliance training, new challenges around social emotional learning, competencies, new curricular initiatives, and accelerating learning for all students due to factors from the pandemic. By building a strong facility in navigating and leveraging edtech, administrators empower educators to work towards all these goals.
As leaders with a whole-school focus, library media specialists are poised to assess and address professional learning gaps and opportunities. Let your library media specialists help build PD plans, plan PD days, and play a leading role in building internal capacity among educators to help them help their peers. Training on digital tools does not need to happen in a vacuum. New learning in SEL can be delivered through schools’ learning management systems. Resources for competency learning can be built with digital tools, both the competency process and edtech training are happening at once. Combine your PD goals!
The days of solving one problem at a time are behind us. Let your library media specialists lead your school’s digital transformation through edtech coordination, motivation, information, and education.
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