Library Media Tech Talk

There are always students ready to lead book club discussions When the library began having summer hours during the 2013-2014 school year, I decided to make book clubs available to students during the summer months as part of our library services. During that same school year, we had our first student led book clubs. We have discovered that there are always students willing to lead book clubs in the library. This will be the third summer we have held a club. We decided to read The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. One of our upcoming juniors, Nathan, volunteered to lead discussion activities for three sessions. We started promoting this club during the last few weeks of school. Ten students signed up by the end of the school year. I used Remind to send text messages to book club members to help them remember the book club meeting dates and page assignments. One of our principals even sent out a phone message to all parents in grades 8-12 advertising the summer club. Nathan and I al...

I've been sharing library annual reports since I have been a school librarian. Administrators often get small snapshots of the library during the school year. They are busy people pulled in a million different directions each day. For me, sharing an annual report during the summer gives us a chance to show our administration what happens in the library from a statistical perspective. Administrators are also more likely to have a moment to look at a report during the summer months. A screenshot from the completed Sway Why Share Annual Reports? Annual reports are just another way to tell our stories from the library and share the value of what we do for students. It also gives a return on our stakeholders' investment. Libraries are expensive. If we share circulation statistics and other usage information, it can help change perspectives. Some teacher librarians have complained that their administrators don't have time to view their reports. This is a valid concern, b...

I'm beginning my fourth year as a 12 month public school teacher librarian. I'd like to share some of the things I do in the summer months that have helped our learning community and our library program. It is rare in Arkansas (and in most states) to hear of 12 month school library positions. I want to pose some ideas for those of you that have considered working some of your contracted days in the summer months (if that is permissible in your school district). A Great Opportunity The library is a great place to host summer PD sessions! I have always envisioned the school library being available to students and teachers year round. This was something that came to pass for our learning community starting in the 2013-2014 school year. Since that time, I have witnessed a great increase in the use of summer library services, most notably following our recent library renovation earlier this school year.  Many people ask me "what do you do in the summer?" or ...

Our administrative team witnessed our first International Mystery Hangout earlier this year. As a result of seeing the high level of student engagement, they began to brainstorm how the activity could be spread to our other schools in the district. The assistant superintendent over curriculum asked me if I might be able to share about the Mystery Hangout/ Mystery Skype activity to our district teacher librarians on a professional development day in February. I was delighted to have this opportunity! This was a chance to show our district teacher librarians the power of connecting their students and teachers at each level (Primary K-2, Intermediate 3-4, and Middle School 5-7). After thinking about it, I decided to see how the assistant superintendent felt about me actually making Google Hangout connections during the time we were provided for the meeting. Talking about the activity is good, but actually modeling a Hangout or Skype session is even better! Before I checked with the sup...