Dive Brief:

• The Alliance for Excellent Education leads the Future Ready Schools movement and has a special framework for Future Ready librarians that outlines their role in school transformation.
• According to eSchool News, the Future Ready Librarians Framework came out of a growing recognition that librarians can play a critical role — especially if they get access to devices and training before teachers and participate in discussions about digital citizenship.
• The framework says librarians should be curating digital resources and tools, empowering students as creators, building partnerships within instruction, and designing collaborative spaces, but often librarians are left out of the planning and execution of Future Ready work.

Dive Insight:

At a recent conference for Future Ready schools near Boston, administrators from Massachusetts and Rhode Island school districts explained how they were approaching the challenge of transforming their schools with an eye toward the future. Students need to be ready for a different world than previous generations were prepared for. While students do need to be trained to use and feel comfortable with digital devices, that is not the only thing to consider.

Besides exposing students to digital technology, schools need to build in lessons about digital citizenship, administrators need to engage teachers and other school leaders in the planning and execution process, and instructional goals need to be aligned with infrastructure capacity. Building Future Ready schools simply does not allow for silo mentalities within districts in IT and curriculum and instruction departments.