Top 10 Things Teachers Should Know About Technology

10 things teachers should know about technology? Only ten? One could, and countless have, written entire books on the role technology plays in education for both students and teachers. One even takes classes dedicated to such topics, classes required to become a licensed School Library Teacher. Dry humor aside, the Emerging Technologies for Libraries, and Managing and Evaluating the School Library Program class has not altered so much as added to my list of the Top 10 Things Teachers Should Know About Technology. How can I do this without going beyond ten? By combining items 3 and 4 of course, which can be done since both were AI-related. Anyway, the number 4 listed below (which I have bolded for assignment purposes) is new and reflects something I learned from this class.

1. Students are digital natives. Gone are the days when kids come to school and learn about computers in the School Library's Computer Lab. Now they have school-issued chromebooks/laptops and I have seen them find ways to play games on them the school has supposedly blocked. They can often as not Google search like pros and know the ins and outs of their Smartphones better than most adults. Never underestimate a student's digital know-how, in part because many hope you will and use it to their advantage.

2. Wikipedia is officially less trustworthy but in reality almost if not a great deal better than real Encyclopedias. For years teachers have warned students away from Wiki like doctors do the Plague, however, having been a semi-official Wiki editor and article-writer for the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, I can say that, now, the site is inherently trustworthy. Why? Because contrary to popular belief, while it is true that anyone can write and edit articles, all contributions had better be well-written and properly cited if you want it to stick around. The academic standards are topnotch and constantly monitored for dis or misinformation.

3. AI, for better or worse (and likely plenty of both), is here to stay. Instead of fearing and avoiding it, teachers should learn how to use it to their advantage. Making or brainstorming lesson plans, for example. Every AI program, even the seemingly semi-sentient ChatGPT, has its strengths and weaknesses. Learn them by challenging them to do the very things you fear students doing so you can learn how urgent the fear is. I tried it with writing and, believe me, no AI written novel would make it past even a sub-standard literary agent.

4. That there are countless varieties of Adaptive and Assistive technology, and that it is wise not only to know what one's school and/or district offers, but also be able and willing to improvise with what you have.

5. Students live double lives. Not in the villain or superhero sense, but online, chatting with friends and acquiescence about any topic under the sun. Last year my students created a group chat dedicated to solving a beyond hard riddle I gave them. All the concerns about cyber-bullying still exist, only now in a world of digital natives.

6. Students do not come with to the School Librarian with research or technological questions much anymore, since they are digital natives and ask the research questions of the teachers who assign the research projects; and, given student laptops, that research can now be conducted in the classroom.

7. Remind students to backup their work beyond the Cloud. Google Docs and other such things are excellent, but individual documents/files can get corrupted suddenly and for no reason. Therefore students should create multiple copies by sending drafts to their email.

8. Utilizing technology can enhance student engagement. Teachers should explore interactive tools, multimedia resources, and collaborative platforms to make lessons more dynamic and interesting. Better yet, give the students freedom to use technology as they see fit within academic guidelines, and their skill and creativity will shin through.

9. If you see a student using an obviously harmless program/app, ask them what it is, not as a teacher but as a curious person. One can learn a lot this way and, in addition, learning how students think and what programs are trendy can be useful in its own right.

10. Technology is rapidly evolving. You do not need me to tell you this seeing as AI has jumped into the game before most realized it was a serious player, but it does illustrate the point that teachers should keep themselves informed of and open to learning about new, emerging technologies. Because if we do not then our students will first, and then where would we be?

Yes, I know I did not mention such classics as Digital Literacy, Online Safety, and Professional Development. You do not need me to. The above, however, are things I feel are often ignored and have proven quite useful to me personally.

Why did this list not change more? Not because the Emerging Technologies for Libraries, and Managing and Evaluating the School Library Program class was not informative so much as it was naturally librarian-centric. This post, however, asks for the Top 10 Things Teachers Should Know About Technology. Teachers in general, not School Librarians specifically – an important distinction since the prime knowledge and tools a Library Teacher uses are not the same as, say, a Math of History Teacher. There is overlap, to be sure, but classroom teachers need seldom worry about or learn the intricacies of, for example, an OPAC. Nor do they need to try to lure students in; they can merely direct their classes whereas Library Teachers have to actively and visibly promote their ideas to get students to participate. Also, they are bound by their individual curriculum while a Library Teacher is not. Had this post been titled Top 10 Things Library Teachers Should Know About Technology it would have looked a little different. Point of order, I have learned much in this class about the technologies, tools, and related methods of Library Teachers, but I do not think they fall under the top ten things I think all teachers should know about technology and its role both in school and in the lives of our students.

Cataloging: What to Remember

What I want to remember about cataloging comes down to my two fields of experience with it, the personal and professional. The personal stems from the fact that both my parents are Harvard University Librarians, with my father being a literal cataloger. Hence I have grown up hearing his takes on the subject – both the positive and negative – within the context of cataloging books both new and old for one of the world's largest and most researched school libraries. And one thing my father has always said is, "you have to look in the book. If you take some time to study it then you can catalog it so more students who need it can find it more easily." This, above anything else, is the cataloging rule I have always sought to remember in my own school librarian career. As the Introduction of Allison G. Kaplan's book Catalog It! says:

"From the time knowledge became greater than one person could accurately store and recall mentally, humans have sought ways of organizing and storing information. Why do we have this need? For the most part, we do this so that we can easily and efficiently retrieve and access specific information. True, there are those of us who happily exist in cluttered and chaotic environments, but to make the best use of information it should be well organized and easily accessible."

Quite true and, better yet, accessible to the most number of people across as many applicable fields as possible. When one picks up a book about, say, the Solar System one can easily and instantly catalog it as being a Science book about Outer Space specifically and, even more specifically, not about Deep Space but purely about our own tiny celestial neighborhood. This is good cataloging. So what is great cataloging? Following my father's advice. For example, say I spent several minutes browsing through this hypothetical Solar System book and found a section of it dedicated to the history of our understanding of it – from Flat Earth, to Geocentric, to Heliocentric and the scientists Nicholas Copernicus and Galileo Galilei. Suddenly, while the physical book would still be shelved in the Science sub-section about Outer Space, it can be digitally marked as having historical information as well. Not just scientific information either, but the role religion played in shaping early beliefs about the Solar System and what early astronomers had to do to discover and, often at great personal risk, prove their truths. A great cataloger will make sure this is reflected in the digital tags attached to the book – and now a student researching the the Middle Ages, the Roman Inquisition, and the Renaissance could find and use it.

That was the personal. Now we get to the professional. Chapter Five of Catalog It! begin with the words "Dewey or don't we?" before noting that "detractors say the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system is dated, difficult, and dysfunctional" and that other more modern systems such as BISAC and Metis better supports browsing. While "DDC supporters, on the other hand, maintain that the organizational scheme of DDC fits perfectly with the curriculum design of K-12 education and that it supports efficient discovery of information." Then there is the MARC Format and the Library of Congress cataloging system. I had never heard of the former, while the latter is the only thing my father uses (indeed, he has never used Dewey). However, as Chapter Five of Catalog It! also notes in a quote which could arguably sum up the entire book: "Both traditional and alternative systems will be presented here, and it will be up to you, the school librarian, to make the decision based on what is best for your community."

This final quote is to me among the most insightful in the book, because it came close to my own philosophy: You use the system, do not let the system use you. At the school library where I work we use Dewey for the Nonfiction books because it helps us organize them into coherent topic-based sections. That said, my supervisor and I are not above bending the so-called rules of Dewey based what we think is best for the school. In short, if we think a book classified as one thing really belongs somewhere else, we will change the call number accordingly.

So what do I want to remember about cataloging? That Dewey – and indeed every cataloging system – is a tool, not a tyrant. Meaning individual libraries/librarians can fiddle with them as they please so long as they keep the digital records straight and consistent. That, and my father's advice about taking the time to go through each book; it may make cataloging a longer enterprise, but the results will be more thorough and, most importantly, make the books more accessible to a greater number of students.

To Genrify or not to Genrify? The answer is obvious

Usually when I read an article by an experienced Librarian and/or Library Teacher – much less a School Library Coordinator for a city's Department of Education’s Department of Library Services, as this one is – I often agree with much and, at minimum, at least part of it.

Not this time.

I utterly reject Leanne Ellis' "Genrify Your Catalog, Not Your Collection!" article, for it flies in the face of all my experience as a middle school librarian of a school of 500+ 6th graders. In fact, it flies in the face of all my library experience period, which is more than one might think since both my parents are Harvard University Librarians (cataloging is literally my father's job), my Aunt was a public librarian, and basically the entire family otherwise are teachers. Now behold as I take this article down section by section.

"I still recall with a shudder the second school library I worked at in NYC: a small, cramped space that needed to be weeded, a large circulation desk taking up valuable real estate in a 500 square-foot room, and worst of all, a collection organized by category like a bookstore. And it wasn’t in any logical order. The music section was not by the arts but by science. The fairytales were separate from the folktales. The catalog was fine – the books were listed by their correct call numbers; they weren’t placed on the shelves that way. The result was a hard time finding books for students when they wanted them and months of work reorganizing the collection to be searchable and accessible. Ugh. The problem wasn’t the intention of my predecessor; she arranged the books according to a system that made sense to her. But the result was the problem because it made sense only to her."

Let us be clear here, fairytales being separate from folktales and the music section being in science rather than art is obviously illogical placement. Yet that is not why the books were hard to find. I know because when I first came to my current school we had a similarly illogical arrangement issue yet, while my supervisor and I went on to fix it, there was never any difficulty finding books. Why? Because, unlike in the library Ellis describes above, the books were properly shelved by call number. Odd subject placement just means one has to walk more between shelves when browsing and searching, but books that are not shelved by call number turns browsing and searching into a nightmare. Ellis' problem was not that the genre placement was odd but that her predecessor was a horrible shelver.

"Why Genrifying Your Collection Makes It Harder to Find Things
And therein is the fault with genrifying our libraries on the shelves; a title one person might classify as a mystery might be considered romance to another. Or what if it’s both? Or both and also dystopian? You can add different tags if the book is in your library catalog. The book probably has multiple subject listings. Students and teachers have various search pathways: keyword, subject, title, and an advanced Boolean search. But it only has one location on the shelf."

As a matter of fact, my supervisor and I are currently genrifying the library and naturally confronted this exact issue. So what? Genre-crossrover books are as common as otherwise and, point of order, the solution to this so-called problem is laughably simple. If you decide a mystery-romance book better fits the Mystery genre, then you only physically tag it as Mystery – that way you automatically know what section it goes in. So do we just ignore the romance element of the book? Hardly. My supervisor and I create digital Resource Lists of books of all types and genres, so we would simple add this mystery-romance book to both the Mystery and Romance lists. In fact, I just finished tagging the books for our new Mystery Section two weeks ago. Wont this make the book hard to find? Not if you add a digital marker designating it as belonging in Mystery.

"Teach students to find books they want
Students need to have an informational, organizational structure that they can learn and understand. We can’t unpack the complex algorithms underlying the Internet and social media. Still, we can give learners the knowledge to empower themselves to find books on the shelves they want to read. And we can teach them searching strategies to locate books and series in our library catalogs like Boolean, related terms, subject v. keyword, and viewing curated lists and tags."

Fine in theory, but in practice students – especially elementary and middle schoolers – seldom have the patience to do so (and that is assuming they even know the call number system well enough), particularly when they can just ask the librarian. Finally, and this is the key issue above all else, what happens when students come asking, "where is the (insert genre) section?" "Can you recommend a good (insert genre) book?" You tell the students the books are not organized by genre but by author's last names and watch their faces fall, an experience which drives my passion for genrifying.

It is not about the ease finding specific books, but rather the ability to browse. Students often have a favorite genre and want to read a new book in it without having a specific book in mind. In short, they want to browse and see what the school library has available. But that cannot if the library is not organized by genre. I have sadly seen many students leave the library empty-handed because they wanted to browse but could not, and I was too busy with other students to go through the digital catalog with them seeking books of that genre. Indeed, the English teachers all visibly brighten when I tell them we are genrifying the library because they see how hard it is for students to browse intelligently if at all. Leanne Ellis keeps talking about helping "students locate books they want" when in fact most students do not have a specific book they want. They want to read a Mystery, or a Romance, or Historical Fiction, or Sports-themed Realistic Fiction. They have no tittle in mind, no author, and until a library is organized by genre little way to browse for one. I have had several students ask me when the new genre sections will be ready to implement.

Well, there is my first and hopefully last article take-down. If I sound impassioned, it is because I am.

 

Ellis, Leanne. "Genrify Your Catalog, Not Your Collection!" Knowledge Quest, November 29, 2022. https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/genrify-your-catalog-not-your-collection/