Notes from lecture
Ulf Jämterud was invited today by the Stockholm Public Library to give a talk to the staff on how school teachers and pupils work with ICT. Jämterud works as a high school teacher himself but is also a freelance writer for Skolverket and a guest lecturer at Stockholms university. Jämterud talks from the perspective of being a high school teacher in general, and his own workplace in particular, where they use the software Fronter as a digital learning platform.
Many schools today use software platforms (or learning management systems, LMS) as a helpful tool for administration and teaching. Teachers use them to prepare lessons, upload material and communicate with their pupils, and pupils use them to keep up with school work or for group projects etc. The platform can also provide access to learning content such as databases and encyclopedias, which the pupils often can reach from home as well as in school – an important fact to be aware of as a public librarian.
Jämterud also talked about the pupils’ digital literacy and how it is something that needs to be on the curriculum. He meant that this is mostly not the case today, and that it isn’t clear who, or which school subject, should be responsible for it. Jämterud meant that many pupils don’t know how to search for the information they need, and that they often give up if they don’t find something instantly on Google. So what role does the public library play here, and what role does the school library play (in the case there is one)? Many pupils are sent to the library to get information for a project or to do homework – so shouldn’t teachers and librarians be communicating more than they are? A common challenge for the public librarian is pupils coming in to the library looking for books for a project that they haven’t fully understood which makes it hard for the librarian to help them. Another problem is a bunch of pupils wanting the same book at the same time. Perhaps teachers and pupils together could make more use of the library website and catalogue, to reduce the confusion pupils may feel when they are on their own in the library? And perhaps the public librarian could coach them via the library website while they are in their classroom, searching for information?
