SCHOOL LIBRARIANS’ ANNEX A
THE USE OF ICT IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY
LOTTERY-FUNDED TRAINING
EXPECTED OUTCOMES FOR SCHOOL LIBRARIANS
DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION FOR NORTHERN IRELAND
This document has been
developed by the TTA and BECTa in association with:
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND
EMPLOYMENT
SCOTTISH OFFICE AND INDUSTRY
DEPARTMENT
WELSH OFFICE EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT
THE
USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY
NOF-FUNDED
TRAINING
EXPECTED
OUTCOMES FOR SCHOOL LIBRARIANS
INTRODUCTION
ICT is more than just
another tool. Its potential for
increasing the range, relevance and accessibility of information and
communication used in schools is significant.
Equally, its potential is considerable for supporting school librarians
in their everyday role and in their continuing training and professional
development.
This document sets out
the expected outcomes for school librarians participating in the NOF-funded ICT
training initiative. It covers the wide
range of ICT now available, e.g. computers,
the Internet, CD-ROM and other software, television and radio, video, cameras
and other equipment, but places some emphasis on the newer
technologies. Every attempt has been
made to “future-proof” the content of this document, but ICT is changing rapidly
and it will be necessary to keep these outcomes under close review. The use of jargon and technical language
has been avoided, but correct terminology has been used where appropriate.
The expected outcomes
do not attempt to cover everything that school librarians need to know if they
are to use ICT effectively in their work.
Approved training providers may include other aspects of ICT, which are
not specified.
The expected outcomes
do not prescribe the way in which providers deliver the training, nor specify
the materials or activities which should be used as part of the training. However, training must meet the requirements
set out in the specification for the approval of training providers. Providers should devise training which is
coherent, intellectually stimulating, professionally challenging and related to
school librarians’ roles and responsibilities.
It is important to
guard against over-interpretation of the content of this document which would
set expectations which are beyond what is realistic or manageable, e.g. the content listed in paragraph 5
should be interpreted at a level appropriate for a general ICT user and not at
a level which would be required by a network or system manager. The
content should therefore be interpreted at a level which supports effective use
by any non-ICT specialist.
1. Using ICT to develop the role of the library within the school
The school librarian
should:
a. understand how to maximise the effectiveness of
pupils’ and teachers’ work in the library through the use of ICT;
b. assist in the development of pupils’ ICT skills
by:
i) using ICT terminology appropriately;
ii) employing and expecting good practice in the use
of ICT;
c. understand the likely impact of new initiatives,
such as the National Grid for Learning (NGfL), and take a proactive role to
ensure awareness of ICT information sources and external resources;
d. plan and develop the library resources as a
contribution to the ICT development plans for the school. Library resources must be reflected in whole
school ICT planning and purchasing activities.
2. Supporting teachers to ensure effective teaching
The school librarian
should:
a. enable and support teachers to review and access
a range of electronic resources which can be used to support effective teaching
across the curriculum;
b. support teachers in achieving their objectives
by developing the appropriate use of ICT in the library;
c. advise teachers on relevant intellectual
property issues, e.g. copyright and data protection.
3. Ensuring the effective management of resources
The school librarian
should:
a. be able to review, evaluate, select appropriate
electronic software resources;
b. manage ICT resources, including library IT
systems, CD-ROM, Internet and e-mail to maximise access for teachers and
pupils;
c. understand the implications of using multimedia
in a library environment,
e.g. quality of sound recording for multimedia presentations, noise disturbance
from accessing multimedia resources;
d. organise library ICT resources with due regard
to health and safety;
e. have knowledge of, and organise, ICT resources
to enable pupils with special educational needs to make good use of the library
and its information sources.
4. Supporting the development of pupils’ skills
The school librarian
should:
a. support the development of information handling
skills with particular reference to electronic resources, such as CD-ROM and
Internet, including:
i) supporting pupils’ decisions about when it is,
and when is not, appropriate to use electronic information sources;
ii) developing pupils’ search skills to maximise
access and success rates;
iii) judging whether
the demands of using ICT in the library are within the capabilities of the
pupil;
iv) judging when pupils’ use of ICT is appropriate
and effective in relation to the objectives set and that their time is being
used well;
b. support the development of pupils’ skills with
communications technologies,
e.g. e-mail and on-line conferencing, including:
i) understand the appropriate use of different
technologies;
ii) understand the roles of synchronous and
asynchronous (simultaneous and time-independent) interactions;
c. support the development of pupils’ presentation
skills, including:
i) multimedia authoring;
ii) the creation of web pages.
5. School librarians’ knowledge and understanding
of, and competence with, ICT
Section 5 sets out the knowledge and understanding of and
competence with ICT necessary to carry out the responsibilities of a school
librarian. Training providers will
decide how best to incorporate the content of this section. While some of the content may require direct
training, most should be integrated with aspects of sections 1-4.
5.1 School
librarians should be competent in those areas of ICT which support their work,
including that they:
a. can employ common ICT tools for their own
benefit, e.g. word processing,
e-mail, presentation software, data handling and can use a range of ICT resources, at the level of general
users (rather than as network
or system managers), including:
i. the common user interfaces, using menus,
selecting and swapping between applications, cutting, pasting and copying
files, and cutting copying and pasting data within and between applications;
ii. successfully connecting and setting up ICT equipment,
including input devices, e.g. a mouse,
touch screen, overlay keyboard, microphone and output devices, e.g. printers, screens and loudspeakers;
iii. loading and
running software, e.g. CD-ROM;
iv. file management, e.g. copying, deleting, naming and renaming files;
v. seeking and using operating information,
including from on-line help facilities and user guides;
vi. coping with everyday problems and undertaking
simple, routine maintenance, with due consideration to health and safety;
vii. understanding
the importance of passwords and the general security of equipment and access to
it, e.g. including checking the power is
on; checking for loose connections; managing and replacing consumables; good
practice in avoiding viruses;
b. know and understand the
characteristics of information, including:
i. that information must be evaluated in terms of
its accuracy, validity, reliability, plausibility, bias, e.g. drawing information from a CD-ROM (encyclopaedia or newspaper
collection);
ii. that information takes up memory (storage space)
and that there are implications when saving and compressing files, e.g. a colour image contains more
information than its black and white equivalent and can be saved in different
ways to increase the amount of available memory;
iii. that information
has to be stored somewhere, e.g. in memory, on disc, on a local server, on the
Internet;
v. that information can be directly and dynamically
linked between applications,
e.g. changes to numbers in a spreadsheet
can link directly to changes in a word processed report; a video clip can be
linked to a button on a multimedia application; a picture or text may be linked
to on-line information on a network or the Internet;
vi. that applications and information can be shared
with other people at remote locations, e.g.
for a collaborative project between pupils or teachers in the same or different
locations.
5.2 School librarians should in relation to
the age and ability of pupils in the school:
a. know how to use ICT to find things out, including:
i. identifying sources of information and discriminating
between them,
e.g. disk, CD-ROM, Internet; up-to-date
information from a weather station; low status sources on the Internet with no
editorial scrutiny; CD-ROM information which has been through some editorial
scrutiny but may be out of date;
ii. planning and putting together a search strategy,
including framing useful questions, widening and narrowing down searches, e.g. translating enquiries expressed in
ordinary language into forms required by the system;
iii. how to search for
information, including using key words and strings and logical operators such
as AND, OR and NOT, indexes and directories, e.g. in searching a database or employing an Internet search engine;
iv. collecting and structuring data and storing it
for later retrieval, interpretation and correction;
v. interpreting what is retrieved;
vi. considering
validity, reliability and reasonableness of outcomes, e.g. knowing the probable
outcome of a calculation rather than just relying on the calculator.
b. know how to use ICT to communicate and
exchange ideas as appropriate to the age of pupils:
i. presenting ideas, including: identification of
audience and purpose; deciding the best means with which to communicate, e.g. text, numbers, images, sounds or a combination;
selecting the appropriate technology to produce the material; adapting the
material to ensure that it achieves what it set out to do;
ii. exchanging ideas, including identifying the most
appropriate medium, and information, e.g.
fax, e-mail or a conferencing system, taking into account the number of people
involved, urgency and cost-effectiveness.
5.3 School
librarians should know those features of ICT which can be used, separately or together, to support their work,
including:
a. capacity and range - the function of ICT, as appropriate to the age of
pupils, to access and to handle large amounts of information; change
timescales, or remove barriers of distance; give teachers and pupils access to
and control over situations which would normally be outside their everyday
experience, including:
i. the range of forms in which ICT can present
information, e.g. voice, text, images,
sounds or video;
ii. the range of possible appropriate ICT sources,
including local sources such as CD-ROM, and remote databases such as the
Internet and the National Grid for Learning;
iii. how to judge the
accuracy of the information and the credibility of its source, e.g. discussing the fact that anyone can set
up a web site and there is no quality control over its content;
iv. how ICT can be used to gain access to expertise
outside the classroom, the school and the local community through
communications with experts;
b. provisionality - the function of ICT
which allows changes to be made easily and enables alternatives to be explored
readily, and as appropriate to the age of
pupils:
i. how to make best use of the ability to make rapid
changes, including how to create text, designs and models which may be explored
and improved in the light of evaluation, e.g.
word-processing, computer aided design and manufacture, spreadsheet models,
animations, sound or video presentations;
ii. how
to judge when and when not to
encourage exploration and change using ICT, e.g.
whether the clarity and accuracy of writing might be improved through drafting
and redrafting;
iii. how
saving work at different stages enables a record to be kept of the development
of ideas;
c. interactivity - the function of ICT which enables rapid and
dynamic feedback and response, as
appropriate to the age of pupils, including how to determine the most
appropriate media to use, e.g. the
changing values in a spreadsheet or the feedback provided from a simulation;
the responses to queries of an Internet search engine.
a. the intended audience, the subject matter and
objectives, pupils’ prior attainment, reading ability or special educational
needs; recognising the efficiency with which such adaptations can be made using
ICT;
b. the most appropriate forms of presentation to
meet identified objectives, e.g.
illustrating or explaining using: text; sound; still or moving pictures; live
video links; illustrations, graphics or animations; numbers, graphs or charts,
separately or in combination.
5.5 School
librarians should:
a. be aware that the statutory curriculum
for pupils at each phase and in each subject contains
ICT requirements.
5.6 School
librarians should know about each of the following:
a. generic procedures and tools, including:
i. understanding the key features and functions
used, e.g. word-processors, graphics
and desk-top publishing packages, spreadsheets, databases, multimedia and web
page authoring tools;
ii. using ICT to prepare material for pupil or
teacher use, e.g. the use of a
word-processing package to create templates;
b. reference resources, including;
i. how to search reference resources. e.g. reference CD-ROMs and World Wide Web
sites on the Internet;
c. sources of information available on the
major teaching programmes or “courseware” available, e.g. multimedia distance
learning activities; a series of educational television programmes.
5.7 School
librarians should be aware of:
a. the
current health and safety legislation relating to the use of computers, and can identify potential hazards and
minimise risks;
b. legal
considerations including those related to:
i. keeping personal information on computers, as
set out in the Data Protection Act;
ii. copyright legislation relating to text, images
and sounds and that relating to copying software;
c. ethical issues including:
i. access to illegal and/or unsuitable material
through the Internet;
ii. acknowledging sources;
iii. data confidentiality;
iv. the ways in which users of information sources
can be (and are) monitored;
a. using ICT
to aid administration, record-keeping, and transfer of information;
b. knowing about current relevant
research and inspection evidence about the application of ICT to the work of
school librarians;
c. knowing how to use ICT to join in professional discussions and to locate
and access material and other sources of help and support, including through
the National Grid for Learning;
d. knowing how ICT can support them in their continuing professional
development.