By Jan W

As we work to build our professional learning networks (PLN) we selectively manage our information feeds and curate those gems of ideas and strategies that come to us during our working day.  We can both follow others and promote to our followers.

One valuable feed I receive is from the American Association of School Librarians.  The tips come from fellow practitioners, and are brief, sensible, and do-able.  I savour each one, and then choose the best ideas to spread around out there in the school library world. 

The post I received today drew my attention to the recently published Best websites for Teaching and Learning.  When navigating in uncharted world of IT and teaching/learning tools, it is a real boon to have a carefully curated list of sites to help us chart the course of our journey, especially when those sites are user-friendly.   This list contains a number of sites to share with students and teachers that will enable them to explore and discover media sharing, digital storytelling, managing and organising information, social networking.  It also includes sites that help users communicate within a learning community, participate and collaborate as members of learning networks. 

This list is a real gem to find, and I doubt that I would have stumbled over it anywhere else.

Become the ‘go-to person’ in your PLN when it comes to advocacy tips!  It is easy to sign up to the AASL Advocacy Tip of the Day.  You choose your delivery method: daily, weekly, or monthly; to your email or mobile phone.  You may opt out at any time.  New ideas come flying into your library 365 days a year, ranging from ideas for content curation, to using QR codes to promote book talks or to invitingparents to visit and explore library resources so that they can help their students to complete assignments at home.

‘Tip of the day’is a very useful service – in signing up to the tips and reading them each day you may be a follower, but as you identify and prioritise and then disseminate them to your networks or the teachers in your school you become a leader.