Alberta ORC

Earlier in the week, I had the opportunity to access Alberta’s Online Resource Centre which provides teachers with free access to many online resources.   As I am not a TL yet, and have only worked at small independent schools, I am very ignorant as to what online reference materials are available.  I believe that this resource gave me some insight to some of the scope of materials that are available.  As a primary teacher, I was surprised (happily) to see all of the reference materials available for primary-aged students.  I was also excited to see all of the Canadian resources that were available.

It seemed that most people in the class liked the site and thought it would be a great idea for the BC government to start a similar initiative.  Some of the reasons that my classmates had for having a similar site in BC were things I hadn’t thought about.  For instance, if all districts could access it, it would create equality between districts in respect to their online resources and it would mean that districts wouldn’t have to individually evaluate, select and purchase subscriptions for resources. 

Our instructor, Anne, though, brought up a point on why having it at the provincial level is not always as good as it seems.  She said that some teacher-librarian positions may have been lost because the bureaucrats thought that if they can provide this resource to teachers than why is a TL necessary.  I wouldn’t have ever thought that jobs would be lost because of this resource.  I believe that schools would need a TL to spearhead using this website.  Many teachers do not have the expertise to just be given this website and then be able to use it efficiently in their classroom.  They would need to collaborate with a teacher-librarian in order to have their class use it effectively and for many to have their class use it at all.  For instance, my mom taught in elementary school for many years and only retired last year.  She would never have used this resource with her class without help from her TL.  She simply would not have had the skills to use it.