Final Reflection

How will the technology in your library be used to enhance student learning?
In my library, technology serves a number of different purposes. In the most basic application, technology makes books and reading accessible to students who otherwise would not have the same level of access. I have a set of Kindle Fire tablets that have excellent accessibility features, and also have the capacity to simultaneously play an audiobook and highlight the e-book text as the narration is read. This feature of the tablets is often used by students who would otherwise not be able to independently read and comprehend the DCF-nominated books, giving them access to those books. Teachers also use the accessibility and narration features when doing a class novel study, to ensure that all students are able to access the same text.

Technology also enhances learning because it empowers students to create media, rather than only consuming it. For example, I use iPads and Chromebooks in my teaching to enable students to record audio book talks, which we then upload to the internet and create a QR code linking to the file. The QR codes are placed in the sections of the library where the recommended books are located, and students can use the library iPads to scan the codes and hear recommendations from their peers. Another example is the 3D printer that is located in the library. Students use the online design program Tinkercad to create three dimensional models, which we then print on the 3D printer. Other opportunities to enhance student learning in this way include video creation, animation, other forms of design such as print design, and much, much more. It's exciting that there is such a wide variety of ways to use technology to transform the library to a creative space.

Finally, technology enhances student learning by connecting my students with people and students in other parts of the state, country and world. It is through the internet that my students and I can participate in events like Global Read Aloud, World Read Aloud Day, and more. We use collaborative social tools like Edmodo and Padlet to share our thoughts and images with classes who are reading the same books as us. We use tools like Skype or Google Hangout to talk with students in other places, to interview people about their interesting jobs, or to connect with authors about their books.

One key to enhancing student learning with technology is to always be open to learning about new opportunities and technologies that could better serve you and your students.

What are the greatest impediments facing your current technology situation and how can you overcome them. If you cannot, why?

There are a couple of challenges facing the current technology situation at Neshobe School. First is the unpredictability of the internet connection. Unfortunately, I have no control whatsoever over this, but it is a major goal of the district technology department to continuously improve the speed and reliability of our internet connection. I believe that, as time goes on, they will continually achieve this goal and our internet will be increasingly reliable and fast. Another challenge we face in our current technology situation is the total lack of a library technology budget. I attempt to overcome this challenge by continually advocating to the administration about the work that I am doing and communicating about the technology needs that I see in the school. I've been very lucky thus far that the principal has been convinced by my vision and done her best to provide additional financial resources when they are available. Another way I attempt to overcome this challenge is through fundraising. I use part of the proceeds from the yearly Scholastic Book Fair to purchase reading-focused technology, such as Kindle Fire tablets. I'm considering attempting a GoFundMe campaign next year for additional technology for the nascent MakerSpace at Neshobe. I also write grants whenever I have the time and opportunity, although this has been unsuccessful thus far.

How will you be sure that your library resources are available to all students -- think of accessibility here in both access in school and out of school situations.

I make the library's digital resources available to students through the library website, which I show students how to access through the main Neshobe website and have all students bookmark on their school Chromebooks. I hand out notecards with logins and passwords for the password-protected resources, and let students know that they can always email me if they need the information again. Very few elementary-age students need to access resources outside of school time, but they do like looking at the library website to see their work from class.

To make library technology resources available to all students, I do significant research about the accessibility features of each piece of technology before choosing to purchase. I purchased more expensive Kindle Fire tablets (rather then simple black and white Kindles) because they have the capacity to provide an immersion reading experience with both audio and e-book. As a librarian, it's not my job to know everything about each piece of technology, but rather to know where to find that information---I am practiced at researching accessibility features of different pieces of technology, and brainstorming multiple solutions to a problem.

Generally speaking, I solve access problems as I see them come up---I'm not particularly proactive about accessibility, and I aspire to become better at preemptively providing universal access as I get a better handle on the many other aspects of my work in the Neshobe Library.

Three Year Technology Plan

It's important to plan for the future. Follow this link to read the three year Technology Plan for the Neshobe School Library.

While it is great to plan, it is also important to be flexible over time. This plan includes a lot of considerations and flexibility, especially considering that the Neshobe Library does not have a dedicated technology hardware budget. Often we spend leftover funds at the end of the year on technology, or fund-raise specifically for a technology project.

Tech Brief

Here's a Tech Brief on how to use the Kindle Fire tablets that students (grades 4-6) and teachers can borrow from the Neshobe School Library.

Neshobe Library Website

I created and maintain a website for my school library. Coming from a background in public libraries and nonprofits, where I was intimately involved in the design of several complex websites, I definitely am not satisfied with this site as it exists---it is pretty bare bones, with a front page that has the most recent projects I've been working on in the library (when I get around to posting them). I aspire to improve the navigation significantly over the next six months, and to emphasize using the website as a resource and a place to view work done in the library with students in my teaching.

Stay tuned for my tech briefs, coming later today!

Makerspaces in the School Library

Question: Makerspaces are appropriate for a school library. Do you agree or disagree with this, why? Also, the school library used to be a place to go for existing content. Now they are places that are for creating content---videos, blogs, 3-D printers and more. How is this supported in your library and how do you see it changing?

I appreciated the nuance of both Josh Weisgrau and Kristin Fontichiaro's blog posts on makerspaces and 3D printers in libraries. I don't wholeheartedly agree that makerspaces are right for every library, especially in a school library, because so much of what can happen in a school library depends on who the librarian is and where their own personal skills and interests lie. In the comments section on Weisgrau's post, there was a discussion about the danger of the movement towards informal learning eclipsing the formal educational role that a school librarian plays as instructional partner, co-teaching with classroom teachers. I can see how it can be a challenge---we want to stay on trend, and make sure we are ready for the 'next big thing', but it is so essential not to do this at the expense of the core mission of the school library. School libraries are now for creating content, yes. But they are also for learning how to access and use existing information. Without context and process, making can devolve into the creation of tchotchkes (especially with 3D printers!).

All that being said, I personally am excited about incorporating making into my school library, though I have struggled over the past year with where, exactly, in my already full schedule, that making can fit in. Some content creation fits naturally into my teaching---especially audio and video. For example, rather than writing book reports, students create recorded book talks and/or video book trailers, which are then posted online and accessible with QR codes posted around the library.

Other aspects of making don't fit as naturally into the library curriculum, in my experience. A 3D printer came to live in my library this past year, and luckily our school schedule also changed to enable teachers to participate in weekly PD, in such a way that I was able to spend an hour a week leading a club dedicated to 3D printing. I honestly don't know how I would have made the 3D printer accessible to students if it wasn't for the schedule change. Additionally, students had little actual choice about which club they were placed in (they ranked their club choices, if their teacher remembered to let them, and clubs ran on a 6 week cycle). This meant that often, I had students in my club who were utterly uninterested in the making process---a serious challenge given that 3D design requires investing a lot of time and energy into building the skills to use Tinkercad, the design program, in order to realize their making goals. Over the year, I had about 80 different students in my 3D printing club. Depending on their aptitude with computers and 3-dimensional visualization, students had varying levels of success. There was also an extreme variation in the usefulness of the things they created. There were fewer than 10 designs created through the entire year that met a need or solved a problem---most were simply tchotchkes. The time it takes to print each creation was also a huge challenge---such that club time was exclusively for the design process and consultation with me about designs, and then I printed the students' work when I had time to run the printer between classes. Some designs took many hours (literally 20 hours once) to print. I often asked myself, as Kristin Fontichiaro points out in her post, if the students aren't seeing the process all the way through, are they truly the makers? Without the time to learn what g-code is, to learn how to set up the printer for a successful print, to learn the importance of using support material, and to watch the printer create their model, are they missing key components of the process? Time seems to be the key commodity that schools lack today, especially for new initiatives like makerspaces and other forms of constructivist learning.

Assistive Technology in the School Library

Question: How do you currently meet the diverse abilities of your students with your School Library technologies, and what could you do to better serve you students? If you are currently doing a terrific job with this, tell us about it!

Currently in my library, I have 10 Kindle Fire tablets, which I acquired last year (during my first year at Neshobe) in order to make complex texts more available to readers who sometimes struggle. The Kindle Fire is a good choice for this purpose because Kindle offers quite a few books with the WhisperSync feature, which allows you to simultaneously listen to an audiobook and read along, with word-by-word highlighting. Because this tool uses recorded audiobooks, the books are read in a human voice, rather than computerized voice. Kindle Fire also offers other accessibility features, like changing font, text size, margin size and more.

I also have 10 iPads that I lend out to classrooms and use in the library for various projects. Apple has a number of accessibility features built in to the iPad, and there are quite a few apps available that can increase accessibility of a variety of class content. One reading app that I have been very impressed with is Epic!, which provides free access for teachers to a wide variety of mostly elementary-level e-books, many of which are available with audio. Because I manage the iPads, rather than the technology department, I can quickly respond to teacher requests for additional apps to improve accessibility.

Last year we had a student with an emerging problem of limited vision, and I worked with the special educators, classroom teachers, and the technology department to ensure we were meeting the student's needs. We did not have iPads in the library at the time, but the student used one of the library Kindles to complete required readings for class. 

I try to stay informed about the needs of the student population at my school. I don't believe in prematurely investing in technologies just in case we have a student who needs it in the future, but the devices I have invested in flexibly meet a variety of different student needs. I do think it is essential to be in regular communication with the special educators and classroom teachers to ensure that you are providing the accommodations students need in the school library.

10 Essential Technologies for the School Library

Last week, during a day-long immersive e-textiles workshop I was leading for a group of 5th grade students, we had a conversation about technology. More specifically, as we were practicing threading needles, waxing thread, and learning embroidery stitches, we talked about how these simple things---needles, thread, wax, needle threaders, etc., are all pieces of technology. This was mind-blowing for some, as we are so accustomed to thinking to high tech devices like computers when we consider the word technology. We worked together to develop a definition of technology during our conversation, and our final result was that technology is tools that help us solve the problems we encounter in the world.

With this definition in mind, these are the 10 technologies I believe are essential in the elementary school library today.

• Books. I firmly believe that Ranganathan's five laws of library science are still relevant today, and I often repeat to myself that "Every book has its reader" and "Every reader has their book." As librarians, reading and books are the foundation of our work, the core technology that founded our profession. Especially in an elementary school, connecting books and readers is a central piece of my work.
• E-readers/e-books. Traditional print books are not accessible to all of our students. E-readers and e-books can help with access issues because they allow for changing the colors, font size, margin width and more, making reading easier and more enjoyable for some readers. There are also students who are so high tech-focused that they are more excited about reading on an electronic device.
• Audiobooks. Similar to e-books, providing audiobooks is an access issue. Audio formats can make stories and information available to readers who otherwise would be unable to access the content. Personally, I also love audiobooks because they allow me to immerse my mind in a story while I engage in everyday tasks that don't require much thought.
• ILS---Integrated Library System. Because if we were not organized, would we even be libraries? Honestly, I can't imagine life in the library without an ILS---the basic management tasks would take so much longer!

Ranganathan's fifth law is that "The library is a growing organism." As the available technologies, and the problems we encounter in our everyday lives, change, the school library must change as well. School libraries today connect readers with books, but we also do much more. We help students build research and inquiry skills. We teach digital citizenship and ethical use of the internet. We collaborate with classroom teachers to help our students to develop the transferable skills that will serve them throughout their education and their life. We don't just consume media---we create it. The rest of my list reflects these new priorities.

• Devices to access the internet. The internet has fundamentally transformed our world, and in many cases education hasn't quite caught up with this transition yet. As school librarians it is our job to be innovators, and one area ripe for innovation is helping our students be prepared to live at least part of their lives on the internet. 
• Reliable online information sources for research. This could be a subscription-based encyclopedia, like Britannica, World Book, or PebbleGo. Or it could be a set of free resources curated by the librarian. The key is to provide students who are new to research with reliable, trustworthy sources, and build their skills from there. 
• Google tools for education. Google has created a powerful set of productivity tools including Docs, Slides, Sheets, Classroom and more---the cloud-based nature of these tools allows for immediate collaboration and access from any device. As a result, these tools are much more practical today than workstation-based word processing programs. 
• Photo and video cameras, and/or devices that can record photos, videos and audio (ie. iPads). For two reasons---to record the work we are doing in the school library (which helps us to be better advocates for our libraries and our students), and to empower our students and school community to create media. 
• Photo, video, and audio editing software (ie. iMovie, WeVideo, Animoto, Pixlr, etc.). This can be cloud-based or installed on a computer workstation. With the amount of media people today both consume and create, it is essential to help students learn how to craft a powerful message with their media---this means taking it a step further than simply recording some video and putting it up on YouTube, to actually editing and making active choices to communicate a particular point of view. 
• I'm a bit stuck on this last choice---is it more important to have MakerSpace technologies in the school library, or technologies like Skype that allow students to connect with others across the world? Is there something new that I'm not even aware of yet that is absolutely essential? Perhaps the best way to put this last point would be to say that, finally, school librarians need to stay abreast of the trends in libraries, education and the world---we need to make sure we are doing everything we can to use technology to accomplish the goals of the school library to the best of our ability. We need to help students be flexible, active learners by introducing them to a wide variety of different technologies.