Bitmoji in the School??

Bitmoji in the School??

Librarians wear so many different hats within the school building.  I know that I sure do from running my library, to issuing textbooks, and even serving as the school's state testing coordinator.  Sometimes I really feel like I need a girl scout vest with badges representing all of the jobs that I do on a daily basis.  One of the biggest jobs which I have in my school relates to technology.  Yes, most of the time it involves my 7-month pregnant self, running around to the school fixing technology.  Sometimes, I feel like that's all I get to do with technology, but I do see myself as being a technology leader in the school.  While I may have to take baby steps with the teachers so as not to overwhelm them, because "although teachers are excited about the potential instructional benefits of digital resources and technology, many are overwhelmed, and need assistance and leadership in incorporating the most appropriate technology efficiently and meaningfully for both teaching and learning." (Johnson, 2012)  In the article School Librarians as Technology Integration Leaders: Enablers and Barriers to Leadership Enactment, "school librarians provide leadership, instruction, and collaboration in the use of instructional technologies and should move beyond the role of provider of resources to one who leads in the use or integration of these resources for learning."

Keeping Johnson's idea in mind, school librarians help teachers find resources that will grab the students' attention and keep them engaged in a lesson or in the classroom.  In the blog, "The Daring Librarian," just released an interesting twist a resource more commonly associated with Social Media instead of the school building.  The title of her blog post "Back to School with Bitmoji" really grabbed my attention.  Bitmojis are probably used by most students on a daily basis, how cool would they find it if their teachers and librarian began using them around the school!  Daniella Smith, (2010), would support this idea because "today’s youth are fluent in the use of technology in their

everyday lives," and when they see their teachers using it, they are automatically more engaged in the lesson or activity.  

 

"The Daring Librarian" offers quite a few suggestions of how you could integrate Bitmoji into the school by creating dynamic signage or positive behavior programs.  Of course, this requires you to think outside of the box, but the possibilities of Bitmojis really are endless, especially with Google Chrome's Bitmoji extension which was recently released.  Johnson also stated in her article School Librarians as Technology Integration Leaders: Enablers and Barriers to Leadership Enactment that  "school librarians can act as agents of change to support, encourage, assist, and facilitate the integration of technologies into daily practice."  Using Bitmojis in a classroom would definitely be one that would require some support.

One thing that I wished "The Daring Librarian" would have addressed more in her blog, was how students could potentially use Bitmojis on their own assignments because I think there is potential in that area as well.  How neat would it be if students could use bitmojis in digital presentations or when sharing their reactions to books which they have read?  It would be a concept worth looking into, and one that I would like to test out in the library with a few students especially since we do have access to Chromebooks at my school at the chrome extension could be added.  If anyone has any other neat ideas of how bitmojis could be used by teachers and students, please share because I am very interested in this concept.