I often post here and report through the Edtech Co-Op podcast about my experiences working as a partner with teachers and administrators. A primary collaboration area is having one’s Information and Communication Literacies (ICL) team work with the classroom teachers, the learning support staff, and administrators to review the curriculum.

The ICL team at our school comprises the Tech Director, the Library Media Specialist, and the Instructional Technologist. Besides working to find ways for ICL to enhance student learning, we also look to precisely differentiate the content, process, and products of each unit of study we review. It is beneficial to work with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach to designing the curriculum for special needs and all student learners.

With this collaborative approach to support learning, the logical next step is to have one’s ICL team join the Student Services Team as they meet to discuss individual student needs or give them access to the digital learning plans/IEPs. Just as the ICL team can access unit plans via one’s online curriculum mapping tools to add their ideas, they could also access individual learning plans (via the Student Information System) to list ways that technology and web resources can be utilized to support the learning needs of each student.

This approach also involves helping students develop their Personal Learning Systems (i.e., personal toolkit) of software, apps, websites, widgets, etc using Symbaloo, creating a Google Site with links to helpful websites, finding apps, and adding shortcuts to one’s mobile device, etc. are a few ways to create this personal learning system.

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