It is important to stay current in any career, but remaining current as a librarian is especially necessary seeing as librarians need to be able to use all types of resources to help their patrons. As a school librarian, teachers, staff, students and their families have many different needs. School librarians need to offer the most current information and resources in order to be the most effective. This course has offered me a wealth of resources to help my patrons when I am a school librarian.

One of the resources from this week’s Sandbox that stuck out to me was the Free Technology for Teachers. This treasure trove has many free resources for the various subject areas, including resources for English learners. Some of the resources are themed for the various holidays, which can help peak student interest. I also really enjoyed the Tech 4 School Librarians. This blog offers so many ideas and recommendations of various resources for teachers and librarians. It seems like a great resource to put into my Evernote to save for use at a later date. Another resource that stuck out to me was Mastodon. This resource is similar to Twitter, but I like it because it does not feel quite as busy as Twitter. I also like that it is ad-free. It can be annoying scrolling through social media sites, like Facebook, only to be bogged down by ads.

Artificial Intelligence is yet another resource type that will become more and more useful in school libraries. Children are using AI in their everyday lives, including at school. There are programs that can translate information into various languages making that information more accessible, and programs that can help students with their reading or math. I think AI will continue to be used in more incredible ways within the school setting. The fact of the matter is that AI is not going away and it is vital that schools adapt and take advantage of the benefits AI can provide, but remain cautious of possible pitfalls.

References

Byrne, R. (2023). Teachermade. https://freetech4teach.teachermade.com/

Mastodon (2023). Mastodon. https://mastodon.social/explore/links

Tech 4 School Librarians (n.d.). Tech 4 school librarians: Musings from a teacher librarian. https://www.tech4schoollibrarians.com/