Blog Post 3: Technology Implementation Strategies

In her article Implementing Technology and Gaming Lessons in a School Library, Khalida Mashriqi describes the use of technology and gaming in her school library. She espouses that the use of technology and gaming are essential to a “librarian’s main responsibility… to promote the love of reading and learning” in his or her students (Mashriqi 2011, p. 26). While Mashriqi uses a number of different technologies in her library, one of the most focused on in this article was her use of an interactive whiteboard to engage her students in lessons and games.

            Although it takes time to build up technology resources in a library the effort is worth the engagement of students. Giving students the opportunity to interact with information during a lesson helps reinforce learning and important technological skills. One of the ways that Mashriqi engages students is through the use of an interactive whiteboard. Younger students who are still learning to read can work and be engaged by a project or game at the same time and collaborate more effectively. With older students Mashriqi uses the interactive white board to give lectures on “cyber-safety, how to avoid plagiarism, and how to do Boolean searching so that students can take advantage of search engines’ advanced features to narrow or expand searches” (Mashriqi 2011, p. 26). Mashriqi also takes advantage of the interactive whiteboard’s features to create games that her students can play that not only engage them, because of the competitiveness of the game, but “indirectly strengthens their testing skills” by utilizing multiple choice questions (Mashriqi 2011, p.27). Mashriqi also described her use of other technologies in her library lessons, including the student use of cameras to create commercials and public service announcement type videos. While all of the technologies that Mashriqi mentions in her article are interesting and have the merit of engaging students, the use of the interactive white board to create games and engage students is interesting and definitely something I would consider doing if given the proper funding.
            One of the possible problems that a librarian could run into is the expense of an interactive whiteboard. Interactive whiteboards are amazing tools and should be utilized more in schools, but they may be considered costly by certain school districts. While school funding may be an issue when the use of an interactive whiteboard is in question, the instructional strategies that Mashriqi describes, such as collaborative learning and games can be utilized without the use of an interactive whiteboard. Although the interactive whiteboard would certainly be the best technological method to complete the games and collaborative efforts that Mashriqi describes, other technologies, such as computers and projectors, could be utilized to achieve the same effect. I think that the use of games to promote and solidify learning is a good idea, and it is definitely something that I will do in my future library, whether I have an interactive whiteboard or not.
Reference:

Mashriqi, K. (2011). Implementing Technology and Gaming Lessons in a School Library. Knowledge Quest, 40 (1), 24-28.