- Your School Type
- Solutions
- Resources
- Blog
- Events
- More
- Contact Us
- Book a Demo
- Get a Quote
In his article 7 Pillars of Digital Leadership in Education1 Eric Sheninger writes:
“With society becoming more and more reliant on technology it is incumbent upon leaders to harness the power of digital technologies in order to create school cultures that are transparent, relevant, meaningful, engaging, and inspiring.”
Sheninger proposes 7 Pillars of digital leadership, specific concepts embedded in the culture of all schools, which can be improved or enhanced through technology.
With school library staff increasingly positioned as digital leaders within schools, this blog series explores how library staff can apply the 7 Pillars Framework to their role, as well as practical examples of how Oliver v5 and Softlink Education can support this.
In part one we discussed the first four pillars - communication, public relations, branding, and student engagement and learning. Part two will look at professional development, re-envisioning learning environments, and opportunity.
Digital leaders model taking responsibility for their own learning. This will often include participating in professional development opportunities, sharing ideas across networks, and providing further learning opportunities within the school.
The digital world has created an avenue for leaders to access a broader range of professional development opportunities than ever before. Personal Learning Networks can facilitate learning and provide access to resources, support, and feedback.
As this digital world continues to expand and develop, these communities become invaluable to the digital leader, keeping them on the forefront of developments.
Softlink provides a number of avenues to help school library staff to connect and share ideas.
The Oliver v5 Community Portal is an excellent place for both up-skilling and connecting with other Oliver v5 users.
The Oliver v5 Community Portal allows you to:
You can learn more about the Oliver v5 Community Portal by reading Showcasing the Oliver v5 Community Portal or Oliver v5 Support and resources.
Softlink also produces feature documents on themes such as trending topics, promoting the school library, innovative ideas, and collaboration (to name a few). These feature documents are created using responses from the annual Softlink School Library Survey, which we use to collate and share the voices of school library professionals globally. To see what’s available, and to access these features, read Softlink’s School Library Survey Feature Documents.
Other professional development opportunities offered by Softlink include:
You can learn more about these opportunities by reading Multi-Format Professional Development with Softlink and Oliver v5.
With Oliver, school library staff can also provide opportunities for students and other staff to take ownership of their learning. They can upload their own training documents into the inbuilt help area or embed further learning and resources into the Oliver news page.
Softlink Education has also produced a video that teaches students how to use Oliver, which is free for you to use and embed into your system, your school website, or anywhere that it could be easily accessible for your school community.
With LearnPath, digital leaders can take this a step further. LearnPath provides a platform to collate valuable resources and learning materials for students and staff to access at any time. These resources could include specific resources to support the curriculum, resources to support good study or research skills, resources to support health and well-being, resources to support post-school pathways… any resources that would help support teaching and learning within your school.
LearnPath also comes with a large library of curated resources that has been produced by teacher librarians to help get you started.
“Once leaders understand the pillars and how to use them to initiate sustainable change, the next step is to begin to transform learning spaces and environments that support essential skill sets and are aligned with the real world.” Eric Sheninger
As the learning environment becomes more and more geared towards living in an online world, it is important to provide students with an online learning environment to help develop the appropriate skills to navigate this world.
In the article, The new librarian: leaders in the digital age2 they write:
“By virtue of their training, relationships, systems knowledge, and instructional roles … teacher librarians are ideally suited to lead, teach, and support students and teachers in 21st century schools.”
We have written three blog posts that explore how Softlink Solutions can support online learning.
In part one we showcase how Oliver can help support the online learning environment by encouraging reading, student engagement and library use, and by supporting learning and research.
In part two we look at LearnPath as a tool to support online learning and research, provide opportunities for collaboration, and as a tool to support the curriculum.
In part three we look at OverDrive for building a digital library that can provide more than a physical library can offer, a digital collection beyond eBooks, and promoting reading and engagement even with struggling or reluctant readers.
The digital world has also provided opportunities to support learning and reading engagement for students with specific challenges and barriers to learning. Through the use of audio books and eBooks, communication devices, eye gaze, and other advances in technology, even students with significant physical impairment can learn to read, engage with reading, and take ownership of their reading.
Stefanie Young, Literacy Learning Specialist at a special needs school shares how she has overcome barriers to reading engagement in part one and part two of a guest blog featured on the Softlink website. She also discusses how the tools she is using facilitate continued reading engagement for students once they graduate.
“Digital leaders leverage connections made through technology and increase opportunities to make improvements across multiple areas of school culture.” Eric Sheninger
As digital leaders, school library staff continue to develop and transform library services and find new ways to support teaching and learning within their school.
Responses to the 2020 Softlink COVID-19 survey demonstrate how school library staff met the challenges that arose from school shutdowns and other school challenges presented by the pandemic. Respondents shared that, while challenging, this time has provided opportunity for the library to demonstrate their value, to support digital learning, and to expand or develop the libraries digital offerings.
“For the most part, the changes to education brought on by the pandemic have meant several opportunities for us to showcase our skills in digital spaces.” APAC
“LearnPath has been a fantastic resource during this time and I have spent most of my time working remotely creating LearnPath guides for teachers to share with their students. I have also created an extensive ‘Online Resources’ LearnPath guide where I have collated all the fantastic free online resources that are available at this time. Everything from free manga and webcomics, to virtual tours and live cams, digital escape rooms and digital volunteering opportunities.” APAC
“Always keep on top of new innovations - you never know when they will become your primary and normal method of working!” EMEA
“I have found working from home a great opportunity to research websites, make resources for the library, complete online courses and attend webinars, keep in touch with other librarians via Twitter and library forums, and to look at how I can improve the facilities of our library when we return.” EMEA
They have also made the most of a range of digital platforms to support the school, and to connect with staff and students.
“Facebook groups for librarians have been supportive and fantastic. I have learned much and gathered much - seek advice and resources from there.” APAC
“Deliver every message across a range of media platforms using a variety of ICT tools (e.g. both video and documents).” APAC
“We are supporting online learning and continuing primary library lessons online through video recordings, Zoom classes, and downloadable lesson resources. Our staff are contactable during the day and we continue to respond to requests for assistance with our online resources including databases, ClickView, etc.” APAC
Responses to the annual Softlink School Library Survey demonstrate that this innovative approach is not specific to the pandemic but embedded in the culture of school library professionals.
In answer to the question “What exciting trends are emerging that could impact libraries in the near future?” in the 2019 School Library Survey, respondents shared about the rise in school library advocacy, which has been facilitated by the growth in international collaboration, made possible through online connections.
“International collaboration like this [survey] – promoting the necessity and importance of school librarians.” Ireland
Respondents also shared about the virtual library, their contribution to digital literacy learning, the evolution of the library and the many functions it performs, and the availability of online resources to support learning and reading for pleasure. To read more about this download our feature document What’s Trending #SchoolLibraries 2019-2020.
Comments from previous surveys further demonstrate the leadership, innovation, and adaptability of school library staff.
“This is an exciting time to be in libraries. Change is constant and a challenge to many, but there are so many opportunities to make new types of resources available to our users. Who knows what we will be doing in ten years’ time? That is both exciting and a little scary, but I say, ‘Bring it on’.” Australia
“Dedicated librarians have evolved in a relatively short period of time to acquire sophisticated computer skills, which allow them to promote and teach good research skills and information literacy to others. Yes, anyone can do a Google search and find some results. The skill is in assimilating, synthesising, analysing, understanding, and comparing these results, as well as knowing where else to look. This is what a qualified and experienced librarian can do well.” United Kingdom
“Changes in technology are always paramount. However, there is a concerted move towards the library playing a direct role in the best use of this technology and the ability of students to access good quality information. Libraries continue to have a valuable role to play in assisting teachers and students to become information literate.” Australia
Softlink has produced 10 feature documents using curated comments from the school library survey that reflect the level of commitment and enthusiasm that library professionals bring to their role. To access these, read Softlink’s School Library Survey Feature Documents.
To learn more about the 2020 School Library Survey - Australia, New Zealand, and Asia Pacific, or to participate and join the conversation click here.
References
Oliver Library Software
LearnPath
