Implementing an iCentre approach: Your destiny, by design

Editor's Notes

• #2: Australia schools are transforming their school libraries into iCentres, where the technology, library and curriculum leadership staff all work together as a team in a new facility that has been designed as a digital leadership and learning hub in the school. Results of a case study on iCentre design has shown the convergence of information, technology and curriculum expertise can lead to greater support of learning and teaching innovation in schools. In this session, participants will:  be introduced to the fundamental elements of an iCentre, and presented a range of examples of iCentre design in schools; will examine a range of iCentre staffing models currently being employed in elementary and high school contexts; and will be given the opportunity to explore different ways they may be able to implement an iCentre approach in their school or district.
• #4: The notion of pedagogical fusion centres on the school library providing a common place across the school for investigating and experimenting with information, examining multiple perspectives in an environment where students are guided by professionals and given appropriate instruction to effectively utlilise information and the most appropriate technology tools to support student achievement. As such, it is conceived as a unique learning environment–common, central, flexible, open, providing the opportunity for teams engaging in pedagogical experimentation to access and use information and web tools to empower learning through creativity, discovery, inquiry, cooperation, and collaboration. The school library was seen to play a central and important role in bringing together and enabling the intersection of virtual and physical resources, and virtual and physical spaces–providing that common ground to support the development of students’ information-to-knowledge competencies in ethical and safe ways. The school library, with access to information technology to support both information seeking, as well as the tools for engaging with found information to build deep knowledge, was seen as a critical landscape to foster students’ appropriate and ethical engagement with diverse information sources, and to be critical and safe users of this. Accordingly, the school library becomes an important zone of intervention and socialisation processes for learning how to function effectively in the complex informational and technological world beyond school.
• #8: I believe different stakeholders in schools will approach the iCentre concept with different perceptions, motivations and agendas. For example, if you are a school principal, you may view the iCentre approach as a way of maximising your investment in facilities, technology, and people to gain the best student outcomes. I would interpret this as a principal looking forward, to building a new vision of what is possible, seeking continuous improvement. I could also see the iCentre approach being viewed by a school principal as a possible solution to ‘breaking down the silos’ or domains of technology, library/information and curriculum that may exist in his or her school, where the principals sees a lot of his staffs’ time and energy being invested in maintaining the existence of these silos, rather than working as a more integrated whole, which has become a barrier to effective change and improvement in the school. After all, what principal doesn’t want their school running as a well-oiled machine?What about the vision, perceptions, motivations of the Curriculum Coordinator, or the Director of IT, or the e-Learning Technologies Coordinator, or the Head of Information Services, or the Teacher Librarian? Is the technical tail wagging the dog, or is pedagogy driving technological innovation at your school? Each of these stakeholders will more than likely have a different vision for an iCentre. This vision will be influenced by their own perceptions and motivations, the problems they predict will be resolved by developing an iCentre may be different to other stakeholders. Each stakeholder will have some kind of agenda, I think we would be naive to think otherwise. What silos exist in your school that may hinder the convergence of information, technology and learning domains that I am proposing with this iCentre concept. Whose ‘territory’ will be threatened, and whose territory (and power) may be expanded? I think these are very hard questions that a school community needs to face when exploring the idea of building an iCentre. But they must be asked, they are essential to moving forward.
• #16: The three principles of form, function and brand provide a useful framework for schools wishing to explore the convergence of facilities, resources, people, funding, policy, programs and services to develop an iCentre. The information, technology and learning specialists in your school can play a leadership role in building a vision towards an iCentre approach. Begin with starting strategic conversations with your school community. What do you want your iCentre to do? This is the South Sydney College (Leichhardt) iCentre’s inCubator – a design and making facility within the iCentre. The TL at SSCL believes the new branding of their facility as an iCentre has dramatically shifted the school community’s expectations of the facility, programs and staff, including additional financial support from the school’s Parents & Citizens (P&C) association, she states:   Students have realised that it’s a fun place to be as there’s lots going on during breaks from makerspaces to gaming, knitting groups, etc. There’s something for everyone! Parents are supporting the space with the P&C by funding some of the changes I have instigated including the purchase of new furniture and decal signage, and the technology to create our new ‘iBar’ reference section (an iPad-based reference section for students). The features of the inCubator lend themselves to a different type of teaching, group work is encouraged lots of ‘thinking material’ supplies like post-it notes, portable white boards, writeable walls and tables, and butchers paper. The iCentre team continues to up-skill the staff to use more design thinking and critical thinking in their teaching as a direct result of creating this learning space, which is being embraced by some teachers, while others are slower to change the way they work with their students, “We are supporting the change by offering team teaching in the space to help teachers transition.”
• #18: In other words, it’s not about what you say. It’s about what you do!
• #25: At Assissi College, the Information, Communication Learning Technologies (ICLT) coordinator’s office was relocated to the iCentre, an iHelp desk was established to assist with student and staff technical issues, and a group of thirty students across years 8–12 completed a training program to become iHelp assistants.
• #26: The design of an iCentre goes beyond the physical learning and production space to a strong online presence that provides a 24/7 information and instructional service. Mt Alveria’s iCentre team ensured the branding of their iCentre portal used exactly the same branding as that within the iCentre facility. Over the two years since rebranding as an iCentre, the college community have come to view ‘library’ services as both a physical space and a digital space… Curation services are seen as integral part of information services and this expectation has led to a teacher-librarian being employed for the equivalent of one day each week to work on the website newsfeed, Facebook Page, Twitter and Pinterest accounts.  
• #32: In terms of iCentre facilities design, also explore the designs of Ideas Stores in the Tower Hamlet shire in the UK which are a community-based facility which brings together public libraries, technology/digital learning services, and community learning commons.
• #33: Bringing together staff across library, technology and curriculum leadership requires careful people management skills and processes – the ultimate goal being the formation of genuine partnerships between team members. iCentre managers advise the most strategic way of assisting this formation is the planning and implementation of projects that bring key people and their expertise together.
• #37: The teacher librarian at SSCL iCentre has been given the responsibility of managing a couple of innovative projects across the school in 2015, including an iPad for Learning trial and Project- based Learning in Year 7, both of which requires significant collaboration with teachers across the curriculum. She has also been asked to lead whole school professional learning and College professional learning workshops. She concluded, “I really believe that taking the initiative to design a 21st century learning space has raised the profile of the TL and afforded me those opportunities.”
• #38: Based on the experiences of these schools, when opportunities for collaboration appear, members of the iCentre team need to grasp these and run with them. ‘Keeping one’s eyes widen open’, and ‘Being proactive’ needs to become the mantra of team members. After the SSCL iCentre also introduced ‘The inCubator’ space it became the home for the Schools’ Year 9 and 10 Project-Based Learning elective, all Photography classes, and in the week of the school year, the iCentre hosted an Hour of Code program with over 200 Year 7-10 students enrolling for the full week program.
• #39: “She could see the positives that were coming out of the blending of staff... So then it was the principal who began to expect and demand that we work as a team, and set up the culture in the school that the iCentre was where it was all going to happen.”
• #40: A proactive principal can contribute with vision-building, managing the reconfiguration of staffing, building a culture that supports change and innovation, and identify opportunities for resourcing new iniatives. For example, the Principal of SSCL has employed an additional 0.2 technology specialist for 2015 to work from the iCentre to team teach classes (both with classroom teachers and the TL), and to host teacher workshops targeting technology integration in the curriculum. According to the teacher librarian, “the Principal has [also] instigated the formation of a teacher team called ‘The Space Makers’. It is our brief to move more traditional classrooms to this kind of design over the coming year using the model of the inCubator”.   This demonstrates just how powerful principal support is in building an iCentre’s momentum and school community expectations.
• #41: This support can also lead to the development of a professional culture that supports teachers to take risks as learning and technology innovators; and the provision of learning design support encourages a shift in pedagogical practice. This has occurred at Mt Alvernia College, where the iCentre team is now seen as a major contributor to the coordination of digital citizenship curriculum, and the ‘shared learning’ movement in the school, as described by the Curriculum Leader of Information Services & iCentre:   The perception of literacy support and teaching has broadened from traditional literacy and information literacy to include digital literacy, media literacy and network literacy… [and] the curriculum has changed and a subject called Research and Technology (ReTech), coordinated by the iCentre has replaced the traditional subject of IT. The difference is that ReTech focuses on 21st century skills instead of learning software…   The teacher-librarians are seen as leaders in digital citizenship throughout the college... The profile of the information services team has also changed over the two years since rebranding as an iCentre. It is a strategic direction of the College for staff to engage in shared learning and the iCentre team have been identified as providers of professional learning within the college… Working with college leadership to provide professional learning for staff will continue to be a focus into the future. As new iCentre programs and services are offered, school communities begin to expect further development and new initiatives. It becomes a cycle of continuous improvement, where change becomes the norm. Within this culture, the iCentre team thrives.
• #43: Digital normalisation, school evolution and BYOT Positioning the school library by Mal Lee ACCESS, Vol. 27, Issue 4, 2013. retrieved http://www.asla.org.au/publications/access/access-commentaries/digital-normalisation.aspx