Listen. Connect. Empower.

I have been coding with students for years now.  Most Decembers we spend problem solving and students love it.  I did too.  For a while.  Then I started questioning how this authentically fit in my mission to " grow readers ."  I struggled with this significantly.  When I did a collaborative coding project several years back it made sense.  Simply exploring different coding activities didn't feel so authentic and true to who I want to be as a librarian.  So, it was time to change things up.   Student work for our introductory coding lesson The pros: My brain eats up coding and this could have been a game-changing moment for me as a student if I had been introduced to coding at a young age.   This is problem solving!  This isn't taught anywhere else in our school!   This is opportunity and exposure for students!   The cons: I am abandoning reading books to students for the month to do this.   ...

It is a joy to be back in our library and have students buzzing about choosing books and checking themselves out.  Yes, they do it themselves.  In the mornings our library is open for students to pick out new books and check in with me for a book recommendation.  I am able to match readers and books while books fly off our shelves, all because of self-checkout.  Self-checkout was the best decision I made for our library. Students help each other check out Why student self-checkout?   Self checkout helps students... have greater ownership of their library and their checkouts exercise independence respect our books, policies (how many they should be taking out), and privacy Self checkout frees me up to help other students find what they want/need! The challenges Privacy - Students were seeing the account of the person before them and sometimes checking books out to them. Solution: During 1 class have students demonstrate to me how they check themselves out. A...

As I was planning for our new student group, Reader Leaders,  the library was gifted $500 by our PTO.  I took this opportunity to give the group their first real-world task of spending it.  We talked about how best to do that.  The group decided to ask their fellow students what they want in our library. They created a google form for them to fill out.  Their survey asked what genres students liked to read and asked if they had any recommendations. Reader Leaders learn to use Google Forms to create their survey. They also created a video to accompany the survey, explaining their request, writing the script themselves, and filming it using green screen. Reader Leaders film their video, explaining their project. The group wrote the script and put some humorous touches on the end. Once the data was collected, we met again to take a look at it and get a sense of what our students want to read. Reader Leaders examine the st...

The Idea I have had a "library jobs" program for several years and students enjoy helping out in our library, but I wanted to raise the bar and offer the students a more active part in our library program and see them leading projects in and around our school. We have a Student Council (I am an advisor) but my issue with Student Council has been that it is a position that is elected (translation - popular vote). I wanted to offer a leadership opportunity for those who might not necessarily be elected and for those who feel a particular affinity towards books, reading, and the library.  Inspired by examples of student groups led by Andy Plemmons , Melanie Roy , and Jason Lewis , I dug until I created the bones of a model that felt just right for my school.  Reader Leaders was born. Recruiting I created a video to get students' attention. The goal of the video was to introduce the program and build interest. The Application Next, students were invited to pic...