Week 8 -- Exploring Assistive Technology

I found out this week that 17% of the students in my district have IEPs and this figure doesn't include those who have 504 plans. This was a wake up call to assess our high school library and see what we can do to make it a more accessible learning environment to all students.  This is especially important because only a few of the SPED classes come to the library as a group--why don't they come? In addition, many of the students on IEPs are in mainstream classes so we don't even know who they are.  When we help students develop library skills and access to information, we need to take down barriers, not put them up.  There are some simple things we can do to make the library physically more accessible--better signage, comfortable chairs, a quiet area with dimmer lights. We have headphones that students can use if they need to listen to text.  But for me, the main take away is that I need to check my own assumptions when helping students access information. If a student is looking for a book to read, we need to understand their reading level as well as their interests and make sure we stock books at a variety of levels (this is good for ELL students too).  At the high school level, we work with both science and social studies classes teaching students how to conduct research. We need to be coordinating with teachers to be aware which students could benefit from lower lexile levels and the text to speech options built into databases. And, as I continue to work on our new website, I will use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as well as these Accessibility Tips
 from Libguides regarding layout, colors, fonts, images and assets, among other things.

One of the most important points, however, is that designing a library's physical spaces and its resources with all users in mind benefits everyone. Further, assistive technology can be useful to those who don't require it for learning--audiobooks or text to speech/speech to text are becoming universally enjoyed. 

I found this week’s to be extremely interesting. As the parent of three teenagers, I have often despaired over how much time the spend on their phones. I’m not exactly anti social negus, but I sure wished they would less time on it.  “Why don’t you go outside, invite your friends over, do something!” I would implore.  I also absorbed all the fear mongering about bullying and mental heath issues.  So this week, when I started doing the reading, I was surprised to find there are quite a few people out there talking about the benefits of social media, which, quite honestly, had never occurred to me, First I read KJ Dell’Antonia’s article saying it’s not all bad out there and that social media allows teens to make connections with real friends online but also enables them to meet new ones, which reminded me that I connected with one of my classmates online and we have now met in person a bunch of times (hooray for virtual learning!). I then read danah boyd’s It’s Complicated and was so taken by the introduction that I quickly read the whole book. I love her positivity around the teenagers use of social media and her explanation of how they use it, why they use it the way they do and some of the myths  that make many of believe it pernicious and even dangerous. I particularly related to the chapter on privacy and how adults need to stop following their kids and generally butt out if their online lives. Finally, I appreciated her take on the prevalence of racism and how simply  shaming perpetrators is not the answer. Since this book was published in 2015, I was curious if more recent studies offered up evidence that would counter boyd’s.  What I found was some of each type: underlying vulnerabilities, not social media itself, cause the problems; the amount of time spent on social media has a negligible effect on teen's sense of well being; and studies that point to social media causing depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances.  So I guess the jury is still out.

With respect to online gaming, I admit to not be a gamer or having any serious gamers in my family. The closest we get to gaming is my son playing xbox with his friends (usually soccer).  Since we don't have xbox live, he has to play it with them actually in the same room.  He plays Fortnite occasionally but seems to have grown bored with it of late.  So even though I appreciated the premise of Reality is Broken, it is just wasn't personally appealing.  I do understand how role playing games can be fun, educational and even life-saving, but no thanks. I'll take broken reality anytime.

Into the Wild: My Adventures With Social Media

My experiences with social media are similar to my experiences in the great outdoors: I love to be outside and go for day hikes, but I draw the line at camping--give me the comfort of a B&B for the night please. In other words, I dabble. I lurk. I linger. But I'm not an active, deeply invested participant.

I've used Facebook for years, originally signing on so I could play Scrabble with a law school friend (and it is still my main use). I then realized that Facebook is a mostly enjoyable way to see what people who I know but don't see often, are up to.  
I have found Facebook to be good for one other thing: groups.  I'm part of several community and school groups. I also just joined a few library ones which are great: Future Ready Librarians and Fellowship of High School Librarians.  So many great posts and ideas.  I will definitely continue to haunt those, though I'm worried they could be a huge time suck!

Another form of social media I've used is blogs, especially when getting ideas for our high school library. I was already acquainted with The Blue Skunk Blog, The Daring Librarian and Adventures of Library Girl. This week I really enjoyed searching out others and found Joyce Valenza's School Library Journal blog, as well as Pernille Ripp's blog which has so many great posts.

As for other forms of social media, I know about them, mostly through my kids.  Instagram came first, when my oldest asked to get an account when she was in 7th grade (she ended up deleting it a few years later when she decided it was too distracting).  Vine was popular for a while but then folded.  Then came Snapchat with its dangerous, disappearing pictures.  And most recently TikTok which apparently none of them use but which is popular among their friends.  My high school senior uses twitter, but mostly it seems to follow political issues.

But, other than Facebook, I didn't use any of these apps myself.  So this week I took the plunge, signing up for Instagram and Twitter.  I have to say, I totally see the appeal of both.  It's nice to be able to be able to easily see posts from people who you care about or find interesting (like my daughter, my Twitter feed so far is mostly political news).  And I will talk again to my LMS about creating an Instagram account for our library. There are lots of times we want to reach students and let them know about new books, activities and such and right now the only way we can do that is through morning announcements so we leave that for the really important stuff. But one thing that concerns me is that the students get so many social media pings throughout the day, won't ours just get lost in the morass?  

Here is the Animoto video I made of our family trip to Iceland.  It was fun to make though I'm still finding some of the limitations frustrating. I decided not to narrate but added my own music instead--Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1: Morning Mood, Malmo Symphony Orchestra, Bjarte Engsest conductor--which fit well with the scenery.  Adding it was super easy--just downloaded  the free and downloadable mp3 file  to my computer, then uploaded it to Animoto.

And if you have never been to Iceland, I hope this video makes you want to go!