Archives: August 17, 2009

Ever since I came to work with online courses and teachers with classroom access to the internet, I have imagined that there would be a natural push to integrate free, open, high-quality digital content. As the National Science Digital Library and Teachers’ Domain came online, I thought for sure it would happen soon. That’s one reason why I was willing to invest in creating the North Carolina History Digital Textbook which can serve the classroom teacher as a replacement or supplement to the print text. I expected that this work, which integrates digitized content from universities, libraries, museums and historic sites, would be proof of concept, and we’d have insightful education leaders across North Carolina lining up to develop digital texts for environmental science and geometry, for starters.

Natural push to integrate? Not so much. But why? Seems logical that teachers and faculty developers would integrate the cool applets on Shodor’s Interactivate in their online, hybrid or face-to-face classes, but somehow we’re not making the connections between learners and high-quality digital content.

Sounds like a job for…. the Media Specialist! I know, you are already charged with class novel sets, checking out textbooks, replacing projector lamps, and troubleshooting everything that plugs in, but as the central curriculum resource in the school, who better to integrate quality digital content-area resources? And, where better for teachers and students to encounter these resources than the online public access catalog?

Thanks to Gerry Solomon, Media Mage of North Carolina, for alerting me to a study at Florida State University to explore ways of bringing digital content to school libraries. Digital Libraries to School Libraries (DL2SL): A Strategy for Lasting K-12 Open Content Implementation will explore how school libraries can successfully integrate digital library “open content” in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM materials) into their collections and services.

Clearly, the availability of free, open digital content is not enough. We need to make connections for teachers, align and describe the resources, and provide a central location, one they already turn to for quality, vetted content, for accessing these items. I still wonder at the disconnect between classroom instruction and quality online content, so I will be following this study closely.