Discovering Digital Scholarship

Before taking this internship, I had no experience writing for the educator, especially not K-12. My clients are mainly college students and their professors, so teasing out what information would be important to elementary, middle, and high school teachers was daunting.

I don’t think I’ve necessarily developed any new “skills” to do this work effectively. Much of what I do is using existing skills in ways I had never applied them. Research is, obviously, one of them. Rather than use my research skills to assist college students and faculty with literature reviews or finding bibliographic material, I was instead meant to be put into the mind of the educator. Thinking as an educator has been humbling, especially in a K-12 scenario. At World History Commons (WHC), I have primarily been researching websites that supply primary source and educational material on an international scale, spanning cultures, countries, and time periods. There is no shortage of interesting topics — Most recently I learned about Cuneiform tablets, the people who created them, and their importance to the area of the Middle East. While I find a student’s writing exercise and doodles from the Old Babylonian period absolutely fascinating, I need to further decide whether that object would be useful to an educator teaching a lesson in a primary or secondary education setting.

The second skill I’ve been using the most of is writing. There is so much important information that I want users to know about the sites I’m showing them, but I also know that an educator’s time is limited. Not just their time to prepare for their class, but also their time with students. While a teacher may spend all or most of the day with their students, I understand that much of their curriculum is heavily influenced by the standardized tests they know their students will need to take at the end of the school year. I can imagine that Cuneiform tablets are difficult to justify inserting into a lesson plan when that likely means removing something of equal importance. Both of these issues can be rectified by how I write my source reviews. The shorter and clearer I can write, the easier it will be for teachers to understand what they are looking at and decide if it is relevant to their class or not. The more I envision myself as an educator, the better I can display the properties about Cuneiform tablets that I believe are worthy of being included in a teacher’s lesson plan, even if only for a moment. These habits give teachers more time with their students, as they don’t have to prepare while stressed for time, and makes the time they spend with their students more engaging and special.

Have I developed any new skills while researching and writing for WHC? No. Have I broadened the scope of my existing skills by using them outside my comfort zone? Yes! I like to think that’s how I know I’m on the correct path in my academic/professional career. I have these skills as a librarian, but there are so many other ways they can be applied that had never considered, but am excited to be exposed to now.