Information and communications technologies in library facilities in disadvantaged rural schools in South Africa: Lessons from Limpopo province

Universally, information and communications technologies (ICTs) have revolutionised multiple ways of executing tasks in many sectors. In the education sector, ICTs provide a scaffold to enhance technology-driven teaching and learning information needs of the teachers and learners in a school environment. The aim of the study was to investigate the availability and use of ICTs in library facilities in primary schools in disadvantaged rural communities in Limpopo province, South Africa. The study targeted all 18 primary schools in Lebopo Circuit of Mankweng Cluster. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from teacher-librarians who attended a school library workshop at a local high school. Purposive sampling was employed in the selection of the teacher-librarians and all 18 schools were represented by one teacher-librarian. The findings indicate that there are few ICTs used by the teachers to enhance teaching and learning in different library facilities in disadvantaged rural schools. The study recommends that additional ICTs should be procured by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) for distribution to all schools to mitigate technology-driven information needs of teachers and learners. Furthermore, as vandalism was cited as a challenge in all schools, security needs upgrading to protect the few available ICTs.

Teachers' Perceptions of Students' News Literacy

People need to consciously and critically analyze and evaluate mass media messages, especially in the light of increasing fake news; they need to be news literate. The logical time to start teaching such literacy is in K-12 educational settings so that all individuals have the opportunity to learn and practice news literacy. To concretely ascertain California middle and high school students’ level of news literacy, their teacher librarians were surveyed. Not only did the respondents indicate a need for news literacy instruction, but they also indicated that little curriculum attention was given to that need. Moreover, teacher librarians and classroom teachers need training on news literacy. Fake news is a wake-up call to educators and the community at large to gain competency in critically analyzing fake news in particular, and information in general.

Librarians: Bridges to College Readiness

Teacher librarians often have to show their value in order to continue to provide their services, so being able to demonstrate how they help prepare students to be college-ready would reinforce the importance of professionally-led school libraries. This situation led to the research question: what relationship exists between the presence of a high school teacher librarian and freshmen college students’ academic success? To answer this question, this study examined five years of a large comprehensive university’s freshmen data about their course load, their first semester GPA, and characteristics of the high school from which they graduated. Findings revealed the impact of the high school librarian and students’ economic status.

"Single threads woven together in a tapestry": Dispositions of Teacher-Librarian Leaders

This generic qualitative research study examined if and how the dispositions of six exemplary teacher-librarians evolve after a move into a formal leadership role. All of the participants were classroom teachers and teacher-librarians prior to moving into leadership roles in their schools/university or districts. Findings from this study are organized and presented based on the leadership dispositions identified by Kimmel, Dickinson and Doll (2012) in their Dispositional Continua and include descriptors used by teacher-librarian leaders that help clarify each disposition. Further research is needed to create a valid and reliable disposition assessment tool for pre-service and in-service teacher librarians and TL leaders.

Supporting STEM Education in the School Library with Digital Tools

The prominence of technology in STEM education provides opportunities for teacher librarians to collaborate with teachers across multiple disciplines and embrace leadership roles through integrating digital tools for teaching and learning. This presentation will discuss work from the federally funded REALISD project which is providing professional development for K-12 teacher librarians for designing and facilitating STEM learning in their schools. Participants will learn about locating, accessing, and evaluating digital resources, along with strategies for utilizing resources to provide learning experiences in the STEM areas through both formal and informal instruction.

Availability and Accessibility of Educational Information to High School Learners in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Despite recent achievements by the South African government in enhancing the provision of access to education, the quality of educational information access with regards to the provision of learning resources to high school learners by the government in one of the country’s most impoverished provinces, was the focus of this study. The study was an attempt to establish the reality of the availability and accessibility of educational information available to students, especially those in Grade 12 preparing for their Matric examination. Ribot and Peluso’s theory of access was utilised for this study, while a survey design was adopted to answer the following research questions on data collected from Grade 12 learners, teachers and librarians: What are the types of educational information available to high school learners in the Fort Beaufort Education District in the Eastern Cape Province? To what extent is the available educational information accessible by high school learners in the Fort Beaufort Education District in the Eastern Cape Province? The results revealed accessibility constraints regarding some categories of educational information resources, including information resources on soft skills as well as information and communication technologies education (mean item scores 3.45 and 3.07 respectively). The engagement of teacher librarians to facilitate robust collection development and support access to educational information is imperative and recommended.

Meeting Drug Information Needs of Adolescents

Drugs are an important life concern of adolescents, yet statistics show alarming and disturbing increases internationally in drug abuse. This paper reports on research that examines how adolescents cognitively process information about drugs. It explores why they chose and rejected information, and how they put it to use. The findings have important implications for the role of school libraries in the provision of drug information, the teaching and learning process, information literacy education, as well as for the role of teachers and teacher-librarians in shaping the knowledge and attitudes of adolescents toward a drug-free lifestyle.

High School to University: What Skills Do Students Need?

The problem of transferring library and information searching skills from high school to college is not new, but has become intensified in the last decade by the pressures of the information explosion, new technologies and budget reductions. While skills objectives for both high school and first year university are similar, the context and emphasis for the use of these skills differs in several respects. The survival skills students acquire in high school, particularly in the areas of periodical index use and computer search strategies, need to be expanded. Increased communication between high school teacher-librarians and academic librarians is recommended.

We've Done Research, Now what? Multimedia Authoring as a Report Tool

The professional literature and research conclude that new technologies produce either similar or superior results to conventional classroom instruction, arguably because technology has positive effects on students’ attitudes towards learning and gives students more control over their learning. Teacher-librarians, as information specialists, facilitate the student’s gathering and understanding of information from all available sources, including electronic. The use of multimedia authoring as a forum for reporting follows logically. Teacher-librarians, as technology coordinators, can facilitate the many aspects of a multimedia project—working with various-sized groups, deciding on the best use of resources, planning with classroom teachers, timelines, and handling challenges.

It's the Same the Whole World Over: Bridging the Gap in New Zealand

Since 1990, education in New Zealand has undergone dramatic changes. A new K-12 framework has been put in place with the curriculum divided into Essential Learning Areas and Essential Skills Areas. For the first time all students are required to develop information skills yet New Zealand has never had a tradition of full time teacher-librarians. There is now a diploma course for teacher-librarianship but most high school teacher-librarians have only five hours per week in the library. Primary teachers usually have no release time. This paper aims to show how New Zealand teachers and school libraries are facing the challenge and attempting to “Bridge the Gap.”