Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Refreshed, renewed, and ready to reboot, the new school year is upon us. Many library media specialists and other educators have spent time this summer creating resources, leading professional development, and discovering tools to improve learning experiences for students. Rather than creating another new folder on a computer that may get buried in a sea of other important work, why not share all those great ideas with other Wisconsin educators and find even more fabulous resources in the process?
WISELearn provides a centralized location for connecting Wisconsin educators and sharing classroom and professional learning resources, and if you have not visited lately, it is time to explore the fabulous new platform introduced last year. The WISELearn Resources Library is a customized microsite of OER Commons. This personalization allows us to make choices about terminology and include our state standards. So, for example, if you want to add or find a resource to help integrate the Wisconsin Information and Technology Literacy Standards in grades 3-5, these are searchable fields. WISELearn also allows you to link resources out to Twitter and Pinterest or include them in your Google Classroom, and you can connect with the creator to provide feedback and make connections.
As a library media specialist, be an ambassador for WISELearn in your district. In addition to using WISELearn for your own instruction and research, coach a team of teachers in your district through forming a Group in WISELearn and using the site to share their resources and lessons. Demonstrate WISELearn to your staff and illustrate its great features using the guide, video, and links available on the Training page. You can also showcase some of the great work recently done by visiting the New London Math Interventions/Enrichment Group, the Lakeland Union OER Grant Group, or the CESA 11 ITL Resource Work Group for examples to inspire your peers in coaching sessions.
Your school library most certainly has a section devoted to professional learning. WISELearn allows you to expand this section into the digital world in a way that is inviting, useful, and social. Let’s build our Wisconsin educational community!