Technology in school is no substitute for professional librarians
The Bend Bulletin, May 22, 2007, C6
Libraries and the contributions of professional librarians in our public schools could easily become undervalued and misunderstood. A lack of support and resources in this area may seriously compromise the quality of education we provide.
Repeated studies show that many students lack the information literacy skills necessary to succeed and compete in the world. According to the latest report by the Princeton, N.J.-based nonprofit Educational Testing Service, “Despite the assumption that today's students are tech-savvy, many fall short in demonstrating the information literacy skills necessary for success in college and the workforce.” The same report indicates that both high school students and college students badly lack the skills to retrieve, analyze, and communicate information available online. Mind you, this is the “Net generation” we are talking about, a generation of students who, according to the report, are generally poor at identifying biased Web content and who, when searching a database, are unable to distinguish irrelevant results from relevant. These are the kids that have grown up with technology, who daily are surrounded by computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and ipods. They are the generation most well-versed in using all these devices, yet they are often unable to cognitively apply them in meaningful ways.
There are emerging reports of schools dropping their laptop programs that brought computers to all students in the hopes of equalizing access to technology to enhance learning. Just a few days ago the New York Times reported that some schools find no evidence that such access to technology improves learning and that technology has become an actual nuisance, distraction, and obstacle to student achievement, even interfering with academic honesty (students are found to use such devices to perfect their skills in cheating rather than learning!). Such reports are also backed up by studies that find technological access having no impact on achievement scores.
Being a librarian myself and working quite closely with technology on an everyday basis, it’s difficult to refute the impressiveness and potential benefits of electronic access to all different types of information. With computers and the Internet so pervasive, our schools are addressing the importance of investing in the integration of technology in the curriculum to make students competitive in a world enabled by technological tools. However, as schools themselves are finding out, technology also has the potential of actually becoming a hindrance in a learning environment where access per se becomes the goal instead of meaningful access. In other words, the mere presence of computers in the classroom is not enough to guarantee the positive effects of technology as a significant contributor to student learning. What we must also realize is that an essential component for such success should be the support of active school library programs with qualified teacher-librarians to train classroom teachers how to best design meaningful assignments and to guide students in the exciting process of accessing, evaluating, and synthesizing information.
Google is not all the world of information has to provide (and if our schools are funding our technology initiatives just for Google searches, then consider the waste of money in accomplishing such a simple goal!). That’s the reason why our state government currently subsidizes, on our schools’ behalf, very expensive and extremely valuable tools such as the Ebsco and The Oregonian databases. Unfortunately, such tools can easily become under-utilized if there’s limited teacher librarian support and lack of active, fully funded library programs to promote their use and to integrate them into the curriculum. Similarly, the “free” Web offers an additional wealth of resources to enrich the curriculum; however, these tools could remain little known without the presence of qualified librarians who have the experience and expertise to select and promote their use in classroom activities.
There is an additional important factor in how critical it is to advocate for well supported, active school library programs: enhanced academic achievement! Since 2000, studies in 16 states of more than 8,700 schools and over 2.6 million students have shown a consistently high correlation between exemplary school library programs supported by teacher librarians and student achievement on state standardized tests across the country. So, why are we still having a hard time becoming informed on the value of school libraries and librarians, putting all our bets that technology by itself suffices to produce the best critical learners out of our schools? It might be because, like our children, we too are guilty of paying too much attention to the medium that brings us such news rather than its actual content.
Let the promise to provide the best in our kids’ learning experience target school library programs that make savvy learners, not just savvy gadget users.
Tina M. Hovekamp, Ph.D., is Head of Public Services and Associate Professor at Central Oregon Community College.