School Library Media Coordinators

First of all, I totally love collaborating.  My first steps will be to search out a lesson/resource for something I am teaching which I may need to remix-which hopefully will WOW the teacher into asking about the lesson/tool - which will be my segway into telling them about the tool, which will hopefully make them want to know more for themselves. On a wider scale I will share this tool with my mentee as a place to find quality ideas, lessons, resources she can use, remix, etc...

I like this approach. Sometimes, I feel like I'm not great at creating a resource totally from scratch. However, being able to remix something that is already a good start is totally something I can do. Presenting the remixed lesson is then a great way to "lure" the teacher onto the platform!

I'm with you, Stacy! I may not create resources or even come up with the best ideas for lessons off the top of my head, but I can totally remix something! In fact, it's easier for me to see how a lesson or resource can be tailored to my students than to try to create something from scratch specifically for my students. Sometimes I just need a good start!

YES!  I often feel deficient in creating resources from scratch.  I like the idea of being able to take what someone has and adding or subtracting things to fit the needs of my students.  I think the remix part really give those of us who are not as confident in our creating skills a fantastic tool.

I completely agree about collaborating! We can't teach skills in isolation and this is a wonderful way to help content teachers with something they need and get our feet in the door. 

I agress with you on collaborting. In my position that is one way that I can support my teachers. 

I will remix items to include tech and information literacy skills and shares those in PD and as needed. I am also excited about adding items that incorporate info and tech standards into core content areas in hopes that as teachers find them they will want to work together. 

I agree with this!  I think sometimes the teachers think that feel that the media coordinator is the only one that can teach tech skills.  

I like the idea of using it as PD and including Tech and information literacy skills.  I think this will increase the confidences in the staff to teach tech lessons and not just use the technology as an assessment tool but also as a reserach tool. 

I like the idea of combining the tech and literacy skills as well.    Many of the Media/Tech positions in our county are now combined into one.   Thankfully at our school we still have the two positions.   However, we do try to work together with resources and lessons, so this will be a perfect way to plan!

This is a great idea. You could even tailor it to the different subjects areas!

I like the idea of adding the tech and information skills!  That is an easy way for all to integrate these skills into their lessons and how we can easily collaborate.  

The easiest way for me to understand the remix was when I actually was able to remix a lesson.  I plan on meeting with each grade level during their PLC and let them find a resource they like and then show them how to remix it.  I think that will be my focus for my staff this year and then next year we can dive into the creating.  We mainly use Google Drive for collaboration and have had issues with creators of documents leaving the district and then grade levels losing access to them so I think creating on THIS platform will be exciting to my staff.  

I like the idea of a slow roll-out. Sometimes I get too enthusastic and show so much that my teachers get overwhelmed. I'm trying to back off of that a little and having specific roll-out goals like this would help. 

We've had that problem also - someone leaves and then all their information is gone.  While I can[t meet with grade levels during their PLC because I am teaching their classes, I am planning on getting the specials teachers at school on board as a first step.

I agree that I feel like it will be later on before we will be creating materials. The platform will make sharing so much easier!

I like this idea! As you roll out with different groups they will share and encourage each other!

I like how you are going to meet with your PLCs to expand their knowledge.  Working with a samll group will make it so much easier.

I am first going to share all of this with the other media coordinators in the district. With my staff, I want to go into PLC meetings and first show them the platform and they whys of it, then move into the hows. I know my staff well enough that I know I need to start with showing a math or ELA resource first, then moving into the remix part. Eventually I will get them to the create and collaborate part, but I want them to be comfortable with why they are using this first.

A lot of our SLMCs have been to at least one training and several have been involved in the review process since last summer.  We are going to do our own " launch" with a video the day after DPI does the official launch.  We will be doing some PD in Canvas with users and try to get folks in f2f over the summer for more extensive training. 

I love these ideas! I will share with our district as well!

I would love for our other media coordinators to jump on board with me! I will keep trying. In the meantime, I will do like you and start with math and ELA.

I like the idea of kind of hooking them with the math or ELA resource first to just expose them to the platform and then slowly move into encouraging the creating/collaboration part. I know that some teachers may jump on that a big quicker, but it's kind of taking things in baby steps which is good for now, I think, as many teachers have had A LOT thrown at them this year.

I love this idea! Tackling the FAQs first to conquer their fears/resistence and then moving into demonstrating the value.

By having these resources to share with our staff, it will allow for the chance to offer more collaboration.   The more opportunities we have to collaborate, the more we will be viewed as leaders in our schools.   I look forward to going through the materials and then connecting with the specific teachers for the lessons.    Sometimes, the one-to-one connection works better than trying to hold group PD sessions.   (at least it does for me! ) :)

I like this approach. I agree that very often you can reach teachers better in a one-to-one situation that in a group PD. I too plan to do small demos in PD and then connecting more indepth with individual teachers and helping with their lessons.

I agree. I like the one on one sessions.  I have teachers already that I collborate with and planon pulling this in now to help with lessons and the like.  

I think this is a great approach! There are some teachers who will be open to trying this and others who will be resistant, so starting out 1:1 can be a way to get people on board. I know a few teachers at my school who may be open to leading the charge for us.

The librarians in our small district will be doing a presentation for the district's beginning teachers on December 4th. I'm planning to use most of my time to introduce GoOpenNC. I'll select one or two choice resources from each grade level and either review or remix them to show the teachers as examples. Of course I'll be recommending that they work with their own SLMCs (some of whom will be learning about GoOpenNC themselves at this meeting) to develop the lessons. 

Getting BTs in on the ground floor is awesome!  I love BTs!  

How cool is it that your district let's librarians present to BTs! That's a great way to build a rapport with new teachers and have them already understand the value of the SLMC!

I worked pretty closely with our BT trainer when he was in the classroom & just asked him if that was something we might be able to do. He was excited about the idea, so one other SLMC and I met with this year's BTs for a few hours before school started. We did an activity with their standards, demonstrating that we can help them meet those standards, then did a brief resources presentation & a growth mindset breakout. It was fun & I know it helped the BTs in my building see me as a good building resource. Hopefully, it will be a new tradition!

That is awesome to be included in district training.  In my previous school, I would always try to find the new teachers and get in on the ground floor of showing them exactly what we have.   They were also likely to come back to me with any questions they might have on resources, etc.  Now in a new school, I do not know who is new and might need extra assistance.  

It's difficult to teach library and technology skills in a vacuum. There has to be content to show how to use the skills and tech tools. Remixing lessons to include the content a teacher is teaching into the lesson I am planning is a good start to the collaboration conversation. Instead of the teacher having to come up with the content, I can use what is already out there and tweak it to fit the skill I want to teach. 

Reviewing resources on GoOpenNC is daunting.  I see many resources that haven't been evaluated.  I know that the resources are vetted before they are placed here, but the people who use them need to add comments - not necessarily negative ones, but constructive feedback about how they use them or how to make them better.

Remixing is a game changer.  Being allowed to use them and make them suit our individual student and/or staff needs is what being "open" is all about.  I'm so excited about that!!  There are many lessons and activities that I've found over the years that have needed to be tweaked.  I'm allowed to do that here -- I just need to look at the creative commons license.   

Along with reviewing, remixing and then creating our own content to be placed on GoOpenNc, these activities will help me to collaborate with colleagues at my school and/or in my district.  Each one (teacher and media coordinator) will spend less time searching or paying for resources. Showing that to one of my overworked and overtired teachers will only be a plus to both of us.  Again, game changer!!  

I agree- some standards, especially in ELA, have hundreds of resources but very few are evaluated. Many others have 2-3 stars. I do think that when adding new resources, comments should be made as to why that particular one was chosen. 

I agree with you about remixing being a game changer and a time saver. I'm excited that we are going to get the opportunity in this early stage before the official launch to review some items and show the collaboration potential. That will mean teachers will see our comments as they look at the resource and will be encouraged to come seek collaboration with us as much as we are seeking collaboration with them.

 I think it would also be helpful to start shared folders for different grade levels/content areas where all of these resources could be easily stored. 

How will you use the tools of GoOpenNC (review, remix, create) in your school and/or district to advocate for collaboration with your teachers?

I have been reading a leadership book and it talks about us being social creatures.  I intend to encourage collaboration and create as many social situations for teachers to come together and work together, in person and in virtual places. Teachers don't get a lot of time to be social with other adults but we are using Google Hangouts/Meets a lot more this year to make connections and using Discussions in Canvas to get people to "talk" to each other and this will be another way to encourage that collaboration. 

I love the Remix.  Sometimes I think teachers are scared that their stuff isn't good enough or that someone will be critical of their work and with the Remix they get the opportunity to see that making a change isn't a negative thing.  They can share and allow someone to make a change for their needs--kind of put a different spin on "mine isn't good enough".  And when they Remix they can see that no harm is intended by making the change-concrete example of making it work for students.

I love this take on the benefit of remixing, Sondra! Making personalization the norm with no stigma attached is a huge plus!

I can relate to the thought that "mine isn't good enough".  Changing our mindset about why changes are made to resources is crucial.  I hope people will post the remixed resources, so others can see.  "Alone we are smart, together we are brilliant." Steven Anderson, educator

As a media coordinator, I think remixing lessons will be a great way to collaborate with teachers. It would be easy to find a lesson on the platform that is specific to a classroom standard and then remix it to add some literacy/tech skills into it for collaboration with the SLMC. Remixing and then posting lessons with this type of collaboration would be a great way to advocate across NC for all that media coordinators can add to lessons, schools, districts, etc. 

I agree! To not have to create everything from scratch and still be able to include grade level standards as well as library/tech is so helpful!

So true! Work smarter, not harder. :) But in all honesty, excited to have so many more avenues for sharing resources easily!

Remixing is a great asset to this tool. Often times you need a lesson but it has to fit your students or instruction style. Being able to remix is a great way to have the resource that you don't have to create a lesson from scratch but can personalize one to fit your needs.

I am much more of a remixer than a creator! I am so excited about this resource and the possibilities for library/media lessons. I am also beginning to see how I can review content area lessons and remix them to include collaboration with me!

I will definitely begin with doing some remixing/creating on my own and maybe bring in another general ed teacher who is open to collaborate with. This will be with the hope that word of mouth will give us some good "street cred". I may possibly video the lesson so that it can be shared and viewed at the teachers leisure. Then, at a faculty meeting, discuss how the resource came to be and discuss the platform so teachers will become aware of it and start dabbling with it. I would love to go into PLC's and talk more intimately with teachers about the platform to show them the different ways to review, remix and create and so they will see that it will really benefit them to use these resources as a collaborative effort!

I love how you point out that the first step starts with you actually using the resource and working closely with one teacher. You're so right about earning that "street cred"! Word of mouth about the impact of collaboration and a new resource is the best form of advertisement. It also convinces teachers that it's not just one more thing to add to their plate, but a transformational resource that will save them time and double their impact.

Collaboration with teachers is the only way to conquer and divide all the different aspects of lesson planning. The tools provided in GoOPen NC such as reviewing, remixing, and creating will give teachers the jump start they need to plan excellent lessons. The first step is to share the resources via small groups or individually that are available at this site. 

I hope that teachers will start using the platform for their planning and sharing their work. We all work so hard, it's a shame not to share our labor so that we can benefit from one another's expertise.

I am planning to first find and review some great resources that would align with late 2nd - 4th quarter standards and allow for great collaboration opportunities. I would then like to share those resources inside of folders with the teachers during PLC meetings. In those meetings, I will advocate for collaboration to use and remix the resources to fit our students' specific needs. Hopefully in starting small with targeted lessons/resources, I will encourage teachers to explore GoOpenNC on their own and empower them to also approach me with possible collaboration opportunities.

This school year I would like to at least share 2 -3 resources I've created in conjunction with a classroom teacher or integrated with grade level standards. Over the summer, I will work to share more created resources.

I plan to do a similar exercise with the teachers at my school, but I like the way you have it planned out -- to first focus on standards (and, I assume, currculum maps) for the remainder of the school year.  I think it might be helpful to remix at least one source together per grade level.

I can see the tools being useful to all of my teachers, no matter the subject matter. I am in elementary school, so collaboration is expected. We are starting a program to learn about coaching, so I know it will be ingrained in our culture even more. I see one of our biggest hurdles as showing leadership that librarians are valuable not just in their libraries, but in others' classrooms as co-teachers. I think showing some of these resources and just showing off the platform would make administrators very interested in what we can bring to the table. Hopefully this will encourage them to create schedules that value even more collaboration time~

I plan to meet with each grade level during our "Integrated Learning Sesson" (ILS) times each week and to show them resources that will fit their curriculum.  I will create a group for each grade level and pre-load it with usable resources.

Karen, I love the idea of creating groups with hand-picked resources!  If we do some of the work for them, they will be more receptive to giving it some consideration.

My goal is to reach out to other core content areas and first, introduce them to GoOpenNC. I'd like to start with ELA teachers, because I feel that they will find the most use for it and be able to readily incorporate the resources into their current curriculum. Once I introduce it to teachers, then I will show them how to remix a lesson, because this was pretty easy to do. Afterward, I plan to work with other teams and grade levels to introduce the tools to them, leveraging the power of word of mouth marketing to make a fuss over it and stir up interest. GoOpenNC tools are pretty easy to like! Resources are free, in one place, and have the copyright info readily available so educators know how and to what extent the resources can be used - what's not to love about the platform? I think the platform will catch on easily throughout the district!

I meet once every 6 weeks with the grade level teachers.  What a great place to find lessons to share on specific content areas.  Most likely you will be sharing things they haven't seen before.

I absolutely love the idea of remixing!  Why recreate the wheel, right?  There are so many great ideas that just need a little tweaking to make them perfect for my audience.  This will also make it easier to collaborate with teachers in my school.  We can choose a resource in GoOpenNC and remix it to meet the needs of our students!

I plan on sharing the remix information with our Specials Team - music, PE, art, and technology.  Even though we meet once a month, we don't plan together.  I think this platform will be an awesome resource for us.  After introducing it to this small group, I'd like to move on to grade levels in our school.

Great idea Sandra!  Sharing this information with special area teachers is a great place to start.  I can imagine that their struggle is similar to ours as far as finding ways to collaborate with classroom teachers, and finding resources for integrating curriculum.  Starting small scale will also allow you to fine tune things before sharing the resource with classroom teachers.

I will use the platform when I plan with teachers for our collaboration.  We will research ideas and work together to remix lessons to fit their students. 

I will also input lessons into the platform, and then email around what I uploaded.  I feel that this serves to help all as well as funnel the teachers to this platform. In doing so, I will be able to use the ones I may have uploaded or ones we found.  This will help to populate the platform and help teachers with lessons.

I can see myself starting with a few teachers to share GoOpenNC with - those who are open to trying new things. Hopefully getting a few on board can lead to some collaboration on lessons between classroom teachers and me in the library. Being able to see reviews and comments on recsources as well as make them myself can be helpful in knowing which resources will be helpful. Remixing resources that are already available will be a great way to tailor things to fit my needs and those of my students.

Yes, I agree-start small!  There are a few in my building who would probably be willing to go in with me.  As word gets around of what you're doing, others will probably want to join in too.

I like the ability to share remixing with my teachers as an entry into GoOpenNC.  Often teachers (and myself included) look for lessons from other sources and are frustrated that they are not exactly what is best for their particular students.  Teachers can use these resources and legally remix to suit their needs.  Once teachers become comfortable with searching and utilizing these lessons, the next step would be to encourage creating.  I'm thinking it may take some time to move into this level with my teachers.  Moving the mindset from consuming to modifying would be the first step in the process.

I have a media specialist PLC with my high school media peers the week following Thanksgiving break.  I plan on finding a lesson and remixing, so that they can see how it can work.  I also plan on finding lessons and resources for each PLC that I am responsible for (me and my partner have divided PLCs) and work on a remix for all of them, so that they can see how easy this platform is to work with.  

I'll be introducing the platform to my teachers at our January faculty meeting and encouraging them to use it. I'll show them a remixe to demonstrate how collaborating with me can further their objectives. I'll also promote the platform's use through our district Teams hub and encourage my media colleagues in the district to give it a try.

I have created a google doc. that I will send out to all teachers to find an area that they would like some help with.  Then I plan on gathering some resources/lessons and present the lesson to them and ask to come in and teach with them.   I hope that once others see the collabration they will also be will to have me come into their classrooms. 

I plan on using the tools of GoOpenNC to collaborate with the staff at my school as well as other media coordinators in my district. Beyond that, I hope we can all collaborate with other educators from across the state to access relevant, meaningful, updated lessons that will be beneficial to our students. I hope to be given time to do staff training on the hub as well as collaboration time to actually meet with teachers and discuss how I can be added to their lessons. I believe this is a great means to advocate for our role and the professional training we have to have for the position in the first place.

We have a couple of very creative teachers that are really great at stepping "out of the box" with project based learning and event planning activities that I will encourage to share. As the SLMC I have found some storytelling and traditional literature genre lessons that I hope to share and collaborate with our LA teachers. I will encourage them to use the resources to inspire some fresh ideas. I think seeing  new ways other teachers are using metods with sucess to engage students will be helpful. 

I hope to highlight various resources over the next few staff meetings or PLCs to demonstrate how easy it is to find materials and remix it into our own. I think once our teachers see what is availalbe to them on Go Open NC (and that I am here to support them in the classroom) it will open up a lot of opportunities. :)

I plan to work with my instructional coach to create a PD for my teachers and show them the resource. Then I hope to review resources and remix them to fit my teacher's needs. This will allow me to encourage collaboration among my teachers as grade levels and with me. 

I'm excited to share all of these resources with the teachers in my building. I often teach the same units of study with my social studies teachers each year, but we always make changes to the lessons from year to year. I can see us using this platform to track those changes and to continually improve our collaboration.

I can also see teachers I don't often collaborate with, such as math teachers, as a great oppotunity for me. I can explore some of their resources to get an idea of what they're teaching so I can do some work ahead of time to support their needs.

Teachers post their weekly lesson plans on a shared drive and I go through the lesson plans for each grade level to guide my lessons for the week.  I am so enthusiastic about introducing the GoOpenNC to the teachers. As a librarian, I am always looking for resources for my teachers and this platform offers endless opportunities for me to collaborate with the teachers.

I will gather some information about which topics teachers are covering in class and begin to search for and review OER resources they may find useful, and share those resources with the teachers. We can remix together during the planning phase and coteach. Personalizing for students will be a focus of the remix. 

Several of the media specialists from our district participated in the Hub Academy.  We have informally discussed collaborating with each other to share GoOpenNC with other media specialists.  Having the ability to review, remix, and create will empower our media specialists to be better collaborators.  It is often hard (especially in secondary schools) to find opportunities to collaborate with classroom teachers and with each other.  However, this resource will give us something to share with classroom teachers.  It will also give us a place where we can collaborate as media specialists.  I can already forsee the benefits of sharing lesson plans, and searching for lesson ideas via GoOpenNC.

Lauren, I think you bring up a good point about having a place where we can collaborate as media specialists. Sometimes, you start to feel like you are fighting the good fight all alone, so this would be a great place to support and help one another and get feedback from other people who understand our unique position in the school building.

I feel that I will use the tools of GoOpenNC slowly until I get the feel for each one.  During this process I will be reviewing resources.  Over the next couple of weeks I hope to get brave enough to remix some of them.  Once I a comfortable with that then I may begin creating some of my own.  I foresee the ones I create being ones that I will collaborate with my teachers.

Collaboration is an important part of our job as a school library Media Coordinator. This platform will allow us to collect evidence regarding areas of collaboration with teachers. It is also an area where librarians who are having a difficult time can start working on collaboration with teachers. The use of this platform will allow me to make suggestions regarding ways in which teachers and librarians can collaborate. This is often a difficult concept for SLMC's especially when they are being the collaboration piece. 

First of all, just using GoOpenNC is a great way to advocate for collaboration since it's basically a big collaboration project! But  I would really like to see hubs/groups of teachers within my building and within my district. I could see all high school English teachers being able to share lessons, units, projects and ideas across the district, which makes learning stronger and more consistent. It would be great to have an area where local teachers can find resources, remix them to fit our own district and individual school demographics and then share them with one another.

I love the idea of building hubs/groups within the building and district. That way it is not as overwhelming to our teachers when trying to start this ship on the great big sea of collaborative resources!

I plan is to engaged with GoOpenNC as much as possible and then train my teachers at my school. I also want to help push it out to our district. Hoping to use screencasts, virtual meetings like was done here (on a much smaller scale) and be an example for my school and district teachers. I also want to collaborate with district leaders in the instructional technology department and media coordinators to help to push this out to our schools.

I will have to start small, collaborating with a small group of teachers. I think that I will work with one grade level's language arts team or social studies team. I'll have to find a lesson that works for one of their standards, then review and remix it to incorporate skills that I need to cover. It is always easier to adapt or adjust (my old terminology) than to start from scratch and try to come up with something on my own. As a media specialist, I already know the teachers who are always willing to try something new and that is where I will begin. Once teachers find something good, they are willing to share it. They all like being the "expert" for something new. I see this spreading slowly throughout the school. Sometimes it is better to do things this way than in a large setting where it is viewed as "one more thing".

I would present the tools during a PD session for teachers. I also would have the PD sessions similiar to the format that was presented in the webinars. As teachers participate in the group dicussions I would respond accordingly. I would like to schedule time to meet with the teachers and collaborate using the lessons and/or remixing to meet our goals.