Nicole Evans

Graduation Portfolio
SUNY Buffalo – Graduate School of Education – Department of Library Sciences
MS in School Librarianship

Standard 1: Candidates in school librarian preparation programs are knowledgeable in literature,

digital and information literacies, and current instructional technologies.

Artifact: Online Resource Website –LIS 568 - Allen

Reflection on the representation and mastery of the program goal:

This school librarian preparation standard ensures that all candidates have mastery of the

knowledge that is essential for being an effective school librarian (and simply a librarian in

general). The three sub-standards break that essential knowledge down, specifying that a school

librarian must be engaged in current and classic literature and promote reading engagement (3.1),

must have knowledge about information itself, including its use, evaluation, assessment, and as a

critical-thinking tool (3.2), and must be able to use and integrate current digital tools and

resources into their teaching experiences and library space (3.3). The artifact chosen to show

mastery of this standard is mostly concerned with sub-standards 3.2 and 3.3 as it shows the

knowledge and use of multiple literacies to promote information literacy and the ability to help

students learn through and about technology in many ways.

This artifact is from LIS 568, a class specifically focused on online digital tools and

resources, especially those that are newer and less used in schools. One of the larger projects for

the semester was to create a website that students and adults could use to learn about different

aspects of digital literacy. There is, on this site, a section both for students and staff, so that all

patrons, no matter their age or position, can access knowledge and learn about digital citizenship.

The section for staff, though helpful, is less relevant to the proof of mastery of this standard. It

includes an animated video about student data and privacy that was created using ‘powtoon,’ a
Evans Standard 3

digital citizenship poster for teachers to display in their classrooms from ‘canva’, and a PDF

version of a presentation about the specifics of copyright expectations in schools created using

google slides.

The student area of the website has three resources, all of which use different online

technology tools and address various aspects of digital citizenship. The first is a graphic novel

excerpt created using ‘pixton’ in order to teach students about safe and appropriate online

chatting. I used two students having a conversation over two weeks to show how easy it can be

for people to be brought in by poor online communication decisions, as well as how friends can

help get them out of that and the dangers it poses. The second is a comic created by using

‘makebeliefscomix’ that teaches about the use of keywords in order to improve searching on

google and other search engines. This simple conversation between two characters makes it easy

to see how helpful this simple change in searching can be, and how much difference it can make

in the accuracy and usefulness of search results. The third student resource is a list of books for

students about digital citizenship. On this list, there are a total of 12 books, including a mix

between narrative non-fiction, nonfiction guidebooks, everybody books, and realistic fiction

novels, all of which are grade level appropriate for middle school students and should be

enjoyable reads for those students. The last resource is a ‘choose your own adventure’ novel

created using ‘book creator’ that takes students through how to create and maintain safe

passwords. Not only is this an interactive activity for children, but they can also use it to create

their own safe and strong password when they have the need. These resources show a wide array

of the use of technology in order to communicate with patrons, modeling and promotion of the

inquiry process, the use and mastery of digital tools and emerging technologies, and the explicit

teaching of digital citizenship skills.