My Top 5 Blog Posts Of 2017








This is a list of my top 5 most read blog articles of 2017 on Library Media Tech Talk:
Thank you for a great year. More content coming in 2018!
My table of contents for the blog is here!


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Library Orientation Breakout EDU

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📌 Updated May 2026: This session was originally designed in 2016. Breakout EDU has expanded considerably — see the bottom of this post for current platform notes and tool updates. I was first introduced to Breakout EDU while attending the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert Forum in Denver, Colorado this summer. After experiencing a session at the conference, I knew it had lots of potential for library programming. I shared it with Kaitlyn Price, my new partner teacher librarian at Lakeside High School. We couldn’t wait to try it out for 8th grade library orientation! I am grateful she is joining me for this blog post. P lanning (Kaitlyn & Stony) We actually started talking about this potential early in August. Tiffany Whitehead even brainstormed with us in a webcam session prior to school starting. She gave us many good pointers (she had done several last year with her students). Then school started, and things got very busy. Brainstorming session with Tiffany...
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What They Remember

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Complete transparency: my first year back in a school library was a challenge. After five years balancing roles as an Army National Guard Company Commander and a public library administrator, I had forgotten the sheer pace of the K-12 world. I traded administrative meetings for constant foot traffic and a 30-minute lunch crammed somewhere between checkout lines. But as the final weeks of the year arrived and the shelves began to fill back up for summer, I decided to try something new. I wanted to see the year through the lens of a student. How did the library impact them? What would they remember? The best way to find out is to ask! Field Day provided all-day traffic to the school library The Simple Prompt During Field Day, I rolled out a long sheet of bulletin board paper and wrote one simple question: "What will you remember most about the library from this school year?" I left out markers and let the students respond—some signed their names, others stayed anonymous. The f...
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Our First Mystery Skype! (#mysteryskype)

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📌 Updated May 2026: Skype was discontinued in May 2025. The activity described below works equally well with Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom. See the note at the bottom for current platform recommendations. I have heard of Mystery Skype sessions and Mystery Hangouts for many months while trolling social media. A few weeks ago, Heidi Harris (@heidibobeidi), a teacher in Lincoln, Maine contacted me on Twitter to see if we were available for a Mystery Skype session. I checked with our 8th grade social studies teacher, Mr. Brooks Lee, to see if he would be interested in allowing one of his classes to participate in the event. He was very intrigued by the idea, so I set out to investigate exactly how one of these sessions needed to work. Mrs. Harris was very helpful and shared with me a typical way to setup the library (or classroom) for the activity. We decided to set up these station areas in the library: Inquirers/ Responders (all at the webcam), Atlas Checkers, Google Map C...
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