One of my super-smart, super-observant relatives has been going to a series of parent informational events in her local school district.

She has noticed that all of the presentations share two key features.  First, the presenter talks about the school’s use of technology and how forward-thinking they are.  And secondly, the presenter isn’t touching the computer.  Instead, there’s someone –introduced to the group as the school’s wonderful librarian — sitting at the computer pushing the button to advance the slides.

Being super-smart and super-observant, my relative is drawing these two conclusions:

1. The people who are promoting the use of technology aren’t confident enough to run even a simple PowerPoint. I have sat through way too many presentations where an administrator runs the PowerPoint in edit, not slideshow, view.  Trust me - people in corporate America notice these things.
2. The librarian is being introduced to future parents as an accessory/crutch, not an active leader.  Not only is the librarian not a presenter, but she (it’s always been a she) is subservient to the message. In fact, the presenters seem to apologize frequently for the fact that the librarian advances the slides at the “wrong” time. In the school hierarchy, she’s at the bottom, and she doesn’t seem very good at what she does.

Now flash forward to those many working parents whose only exposure to the school is at these informational evenings. What is their perception of the role of the school librarian if “eliminate elementary librarians” comes up on the cut list? Does the human remote seem expendable? Absolutely.

Please, please, please.  If your principal or teachers don’t know how to run a PowerPoint, you need to teach them.  Find a nice way to point out that running one’s own PowerPoint communicates a sense of authority and knowledge.  (Honestly, they’re not doing a TED talk – they don’t need an A/V crew.)

Get out of being the human remote.

Now I’ll bet there’s a reader out there who’s going to say, “Now, Kristin, you tell us we need to be integral to the school experience and to step in where it’s needed.  How come you are telling us to back off?”

Yup, that sounds like something I’d say.  But here’s the thing: if we walk the talk, we’re professional development facilitators and technology leaders.  If our folks can’t run their own PowerPoint, we haven’t done a very good job at empowering or even training our staff.  Buy them a $40 remote (it looks cooler than we do!) and get yourself on the speaking agenda instead. Stand by if they need help until they are confident to present on their own. Write tips sheets. Help hand out leaflets if needed.

But keep your hands off their keyboard.

Please.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Role of the SLMS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.