Library Media Tech Talk

  Turning Our Handbooks Into a Q&A Tool with Gemini Notebook Summer PD at the Local Education Cooperative Since returning to education over the past year, AI has been quite the topic of discussion. While very proud I had successful collaborations with teachers this past year, I wanted to know more so I could become a stronger AI teaching partner and asset for the learning community. I decided to attend a few summer professional development sessions via Dawson Education Cooperative in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.  I decided to attend one in person session with Brian Buffington and two virtual sessions with Arkansas' own Dr. Tyler Tarver. I have to admit, I was excited to attend an in person session since it had been so many years since I'd last attended one in person. Brian's session was great! We learned about so many wonderful tools. The ones that stood out to me were Gemini Notebook, Suno (music/ songwriting generation AI tool), and Canva. I had a similar experience wit...

"An empty, quiet, library is a useless resource." I have worked in education for over 26 years. More than half of that has been as a school librarian. Teaching research and creating book displays matter. But relationships matter more. I'm very sure of that now. At the end of the previous school year, I had students respond to a simple prompt about what they would remember most about the library. Their feedback was very encouraging. This summer, it finally occurred to me how important school libraries are to the school community. I had to write these thoughts down since it hit me so hard. I needed to write this down. For school librarians. For administrators. For anyone that works with kids. There are kids in your buildings right now that need the library more than ever. We have to find them. Open and Watch For years I have opened the library before school. At every school where I've worked, it is usually a full house with games being played, computers being used, book...

                                         June was an extraordinary month for this blog reaching nearly 25,000 views, our best month in twelve years. I'm grateful and honestly a little stunned. Here are the posts that resonated most with readers since January 2026: #1 What They Remember (1532 views) - One question written on a piece of bulletin board paper resulted in quantifiable evidence that the school library is important to students. It made me realize how important our jobs are in public schools. This piece was picked up and linked on ALA's American Libraries "Latest Library Links" back in May of this year. If you need a reminder of how important your work  is, give this a read. #2 Two Ways We Built Community in the School Library (607 views) - When I started working at MMS, I decided to make the library available to students before school. This resulted in a core group of ...