Conduct, Connect, Continue: Foster students' digital literacy at a school library for a smart city

Abstract

The school library of Lam Tin Methodist Primary School has a drastic change of its library programs for students, teachers and parents on digital literacy after joining the gamification research of the University of Hong Kong and the seed project of the Education Bureau on eLearning in 2013 and 2017 respectively. The on-going changes of the school library programs and services not only fit for the educational needs of the digital generation but also echo the development of Hong Kong as a smart city. Starting from the proposal of transformation Kowloon East into a Smart City District in the 2015 Policy Address and consolidating with “The Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong” in 2017, Hong Kong is ready to be a smart society.

This paper will report the capacity of the Teacher-Librarian on coordinating the valuable resources within and outside the school on subsequently facilitating “equal and free access to information and knowledge” (IFLA Global Vision 2018 highlights) of different school stakeholders in addition to improving students’ engagement in learning. It focuses specifically on the digital tool adoption and online resources which have profoundly transformed students’ Reading to Learn performance, teachers’ professional development and parent education in a short period of time. To name a few, students were introduced to the Google-connected world, eBook creation with online tools, Makerspace as well as STEM collections with OR code on each book to access related video. Teachers were especially alert to the...