Graphite: A new service connecting teachers to technology

Last month I joined a group of teachers, the Graphite Accelerated Educators, that have been recruited to help develop content and review websites for Graphite .  Graphite is a service provided by Common Sense Media to “help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.” (Graphite.org “About us.”)  In the course of my explorations of Graphite I began to ponder how the role teacher librarians could play in making Graphite a better tool.  After all, the purpose stated in the “About us” statement on the Graphite website is a very close match to part of the Sample job description for the position of school librarian provided by the American Association of School Librarians.  I can imagine using Graphite as on of my information tools and I will recommend it to my teachers as a source of information about websites.  However I would not use it exclusively.  The information world is not static and no one gate-keeper can possibly include all the “good stuff” inside one walled garden.  Meanwhile I am actively working with the Graphite community, fostering connections between the teachers on Graphite and their school librarians.