Recently, I was asked to make a contribution to a fantastic website - Little eLit. Their mission as stated on their site...
Little eLit is a crowd-sourced, grass-roots professional learning network that works to develop promising practices for the incorporation of new media into library collections, services and programs for families with young children.
The website was established by Cen Campbell, Founder and Editor in Chief. Cen was recently named by School Library Journal as a Mover and Shaker for 2014 (Tech Leader)! She brings together professionals to share and learn from each other. From my perspective, this is the best kind of professional development!
When I was contacted by Cen, I was honored to be invited to contribute, but I was nervous that I might not be able to provide the readers of Little eLit with ideas that they could really use! Most of my students are a little older than the children that Little eLit focuses on. Also, though I write for my own blog several times a week, it is all together different identifying what followers of a different site might find helpful. As I began to ponder, I came to a few conclusions.
I owe such a debt of gratitude to the many educational and library web writers and bloggers who have inspired me! They are brave enough to share their ideas with their online audiences - one of which is me! Their ideas have not always been exactly what I could use in the setting I teach in, but they did provide me with a spark, a kernel of an idea that inspired me to create lessons adapted for the needs of my students! It is the all important spark that we try to provide for our students each day! So I chose to 'pay it forward' and share my lesson ideas, hoping that I could provide the spark for some of the readers of Little eLit.
To read the article with live links - Technology is Loose in the Library by Cathy Knutson
