Getting an IDT Position and Succeeding at it

I went to http://www.jobtarget.com/ and searched for library jobs in Texas. The first job I found that I was interested in was a posting for a librarian in Round Rock ISD. The skills were not listed but the following were given as duties and responsibilities. Supervise and manage the school library media center. Provide services and resources that allow students to develop skills in locating, evaluating, synthesizing and using information to solve problems. Serve as teacher, materials expert, and curriculum adviser to involve the library media center in the instructional programs of the school. They are looking for someone with a Master of Library and Information Science degree and at least five years of teaching experience. When I graduate in May I will meet the requirements for the job. Corsicana ISD is also looking for a certified librarian. The skills listed for this position are a knowledge of library science, ability to instruct and manage student behavior, and strong organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills. They require two years of experience in a library/media center setting in a public school setting. This would be a good position but since I do not have experience in a library, there is no point in applying for it. The third position that I looked at was for a Library Assistant in Odessa. The skills required for this position are a proficiency with keyboarding and file maintenance, ability to file books following district cataloging system, effective communication and interpersonal skills, and an ability to work well with students. I would over qualified for this position but it would be a good starting point to get my foot in the door in a school system.

For my self-assessment I went to http://www.careeronestop.org/. The Ability Profiler that I found on that site had to be administered by another individual. I went to google and searched self-assessments and found the online version of the assessment at http://www.iseek.org/careers/skillsAssessment. According to this self-assessment, the best job match for me is vocational education teacher at the postsecondary level. That is a big difference from my current job of teaching first grade. At least I know the profession is correct, even though the grade level is way off. The other career that matched up with my profile was general and operations managers. My career goal is to become a public school librarian. In some ways, that falls under both teacher and management. I guess I am headed down the correct path, even if my aim is with children instead of postsecondary adults.


The first professional organization that I whose website I visited was AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology). I chose this organization because it was one that I had heard of before. The website is http://www.aect.org/. AECT defines itself as “an international professional association dedicated to providing leadership in educational communications and technology by linking professionals holding a common interest is the use of technology and its application to the learning process.” Membership costs range from $75.00 for a student to $400.00 for a corporate membership. AECT offers its members ETR&D (Educational Technology Research and Development) and TechTrends as journals. They also offer The International Journal of Designs for Learning and Journal of Applied Instructional Design as online journals. Many other publications are offered at a discount for AECT members. The 2011 AECT International Convention was held in Florida during November. They will be holding the 2012 Research Symposia during July in Kentucky. Their website is difficult to navigate and I was not able to determine what types of professional development was offered. The second professional organization that I checked out was ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). This is another organization that I had heard of before but was not very familiar with. The website for this ISTE is http://iste.org/. In the United States, memberships range from $39.00 for a student to $291.00 for a premium membership. ISTE publishes Learning & Leading with Technology, Journal of Research on Technology in Education (JRTE), Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education (JDLTE), and Journal for Computing Teachers (JCT). Some of the professional development offered by ISTE is The NETS Leadership Academy, ISTE webinars, and a NETS aligned graduate-certificate. ISTE 2012 will be held in San Diego. The following video is for the convention.



Most of the journals that I have read during my term in graduated school have been related to the library science field or were just an article that was found using the ebsco databases. The first journal that I visited was T.H.E. Journal found at http://www.thejournal.com/. This was the first journal to cover educational technology. THE Journal is offered both online and in print. I did not find any evidence of it being peer reviewed. According to their website, “THE Journal is dedicated to informing and educating K-12 senior-level district and school administrators, technologists, and tech-savvy educators within districts, schools, and classrooms to improve and advance the learning process through the use of technology.” This website contains so much information that I was not able to find the submission guidelines. I did find a calendar and was able to determine that pitches for articles needed to be made approximately four months before the issue date. The second journal that I looked at was Learning and Instruction. This journal is peer reviewed and is available online. Learning and Instruction is an international, multi-disciplinary journal that provides a platform for the publication of the most advanced high-quality research in the areas of learning, development, instruction and teaching. I was not able to get to the submission information with being a member of Earli and signing into the submissions area of the site.
I think that joining professional organizations and reading professional journals are very important in my career. Technology changes so quickly now and reading these journals is the best way to keep up with current technology and finding out what has been successfully used by others in the same field.

If I was responsible for identifying the domains, competencies, and performance statements for a performance technologist, I would include design, development, utilization, and management because a performance technologist must be able to design instructional systems, develop the system into a usable model, utilize it and train others on it, and then continue to manage the system while it is in use. The competencies would be to determine the project that is appropriate for the performance area, write statements about learner outcome, utilize media and technology in training, and monitor instructional development programs. The performance statement would be that the performance technologists must be able to determine the need, train and assist workers with the use of technology, stay current with research, and monitor projects that are currently in use.