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...Anyone doing this? Similar to Overdrive.

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What Are Databases and Why You Need Them

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Develop Future-Ready Skills Through Effective Database Integration - Event will have happened but might be an interesting one to watch.

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101 Free Online Journal and Research Databases for Academics

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Introduction

Has this ever happened to you? While researching an important paper, you come across an online journal database that claims to connect academics to high-quality peer-reviewed research. Intrigued, you search for keywords related to your topic, only to discover that you must pay a hefty subscription fee to access the service.

Subscription fees and paywalls are often the bane of students and academics, especially those at small institutions who don't have access to many article directories and repositories.

Whether you're working on an undergraduate paper, a PhD dissertation, or a medical research study, we want to help you find tools to locate and access the information you need to produce well-researched, compelling, and innovative writing.
Check out the top 21 free online journal and research databases in this article, and click the link below to download the full list of 101 databases, completely free!
The Top 21 Free Online Journal and Research Databases

1. CORE

CORE is a multidisciplinary aggregator of open access research. It allows users to search more than 66 million open access articles. While most of these link to the full-text article on the original publisher's site, five million records are hosted directly on CORE.

In addition to a straightforward keyword search, CORE offers advanced search options to filter results by publication type, year, language, journal, repository, and author.

2. ScienceOpen

Functioning as a research and publishing network, ScienceOpen offers open access to more than 28 million articles in all areas of science. Although you do need to register to view the full text of the articles, registration is free. The advanced search function is highly detailed, allowing you to find precisely the research you're looking for.

The Berlin- and Boston-based company was founded in 2013 with the goal to "facilitate open and public communications between academics and to allow ideas to be judged on their merit, regardless of where they come from."

3. Directory of Open Access Journals

A multidisciplinary, community-curated directory, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gives researchers access to high-quality, peer-reviewed journals. It has archived more than two million articles from 9,519 journals, allowing you to either browse by subject or search by keyword.

The site was launched in 2003 with the aim of increasing the visibility of open access scholarly journals. Content on the site covers subjects from science to law to fine arts and everything in between.

4. Education Resources Information Center

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), of the Institution of Education Sciences, allows you to search by topic for material related to the field of education. Links lead to other sites, where you may have to purchase the information, but you can search for full-text articles only.

The service primarily indexes journals, grey literature (such as technical reports, white papers, and government documents), and books. All sources of material on ERIC go through a formal review process prior to being indexed.

5. arXiv e-Print Archive

The arXiv e-Print Archive has been around since 1991 and is a well-known resource in the fields of mathematics and computer science. It is run by Cornell University Library and now offers open access to more than one million e-prints.

6. Social Science Research Network

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a collection of papers from the social sciences community. The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers.

There is not yet a specific option to search for only full-text articles, but because most of the papers on the site are free access, it is not often that you encounter a paywall. You must become a member to use the services, but registration is free and enables you to interact with other scholars around the world.

7. Public Library of Science

Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a big player in the world of open access science. Publishing seven open access journals, the nonprofit organization is committed to facilitating openness in academic research. According to the site, "all PLOS content is at the highest possible level of open access, meaning that scientific articles are immediately and freely available to anyone, anywhere."

8. OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR, or the Directory of Open Access Repositories, is a comprehensive resource for finding open access journals and articles. Using Google Custom Search, OpenDOAR combs through open access repositories around the world and returns relevant research in all disciplines.

The repositories it searches through are assessed and categorized by OpenDOAR staff to ensure they meet quality standards.

9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is operated by the Bielefeld University Library in Germany, and it offers more than 100 million documents from more than 4,000 sources. Sixty percent of its content is open access, and you can filter your search accordingly.

10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository

Run by Indiana University, the Digital Library of the Commons (DLC) Repository is a multidisciplinary journal repository that allows users to check thousands of free and open access articles from around the world. You can browse by document type, date, author, title, and more or search for keywords relevant to your topic.

11. CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a little different from the other resources on this list in that it is not an online journal directory or repository. It is, however, a highly useful research database for academics in a variety of disciplines. All the information is free to access, and it provides facts about every country in the world, including information about history, geography, transportation, and much more.

12. Paperity

Paperity boasts being the "first multidisciplinary aggregator of open access journals and papers." Their focus is helping you avoid paywalls while connecting you to authoritative research.

In addition to providing readers with easy access to thousands of journals, Paperity seeks to help authors reach their audiences and help journals raise exposure to boost readership.

13. dblp Computer Science Bibliography

The dblp Computer Science Bibliography is an online index of major computer science publications. Although it provides access to both free access articles and those behind a paywall, you can limit your search to only full-text articles. The site indexes more than three million publications, making it an invaluable resource in the world of computer science.

14. EconBiz

EconBiz is a great resource for economic and business studies. A service of the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, it offers access to full texts online, with the option of searching for open access material only.
Don't forget to download the full list of 101 free online journal and research databases.
15. BioMed Central

BioMed Central provides open access research from more than 290 peer-reviewed journals in the fields of biology, clinical medicine, and health. You can browse these journals by subject or title, or you can search all articles for your required keyword.

16. JURN

A multidisciplinary search engine, JURN provides you with links to various scholarly websites, articles, and journals that are all free access or open access. Specifically covering the fields of the arts, humanities, business, law, nature, science, and medicine, JURN has indexed almost 5,000 repositories to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

17. Dryad

Dryad is a digital repository of curated, open access scientific research. It is run by a not-for-profit membership organization that aims to "promote a world where research data is openly available, integrated with the scholarly literature, and routinely reused to create knowledge." It is free to access, but note that there is a publishing charge associated if you wish to publish your data in Dryad.

18. EThOS

Run by the British Library, EThOS allows you to search over 400,000 doctoral theses in a variety of disciplines. Although some full texts are behind paywalls, you can limit your search to items available for immediate download, either directly through EThOS or through an institution's website.

19. PubMed

PubMed, of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, is a very well-known research platform in the fields of science and medicine. It offers access to "more than 26 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books." While many resources are behind paywalls, you can filter your search to view free full texts only, making this an even more valuable resource.

20. Semantic Scholar

A unique and easy-to-use resource, Semantic Scholar harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to efficiently sort through millions of science-related papers based on your search terms. According to the site, although some articles are behind paywalls, "the data [they] have for those articles is limited," so you can expect to receive mostly full-text results. Another feature is the extensive advanced search options, which allow you to search by cell type and brain region, among other things.

21. Zenodo

Taking its name from Zenodotus, the first librarian of the ancient library of Alexandria, Zenodo is a tool that was "built and developed by researchers, to ensure that everyone can join in open science." You can sort by keyword, title, journal, and more and download open access documents directly from the site.

Find More Great Online Journal and Research Databases

If you're looking for more great online journal and research databases to help you find exactly the information you need to make your next paper outstanding, click here to download full list of 101 databases, completely free.

Did we miss any? Help your fellow academics by letting us know on Facebook or Twitter which online journal directories you use the most.
Image sources: Ammentorp/BigStockPhoto, vectorfusionart/BigStockPhoto, GaudiLab/BigStockPhoto, makistock/BigStockPhoto

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101 Free Online Journal and Research Databases for Academics | Scribendi.com

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Has this ever happened to you? While researching an important paper, you come across an online journal database that claims to connect academics to high-quality peer-reviewed research. Intrigued, you search for keywords related to your topic, only to discover that you must pay a hefty subscription fee to access the service.

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Teaching Resources | Google for Education

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Find apps and resources from Google you can use in your classroom today.

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Try WriteReader for Making eBooks with Students

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Try WriteReader for Making eBooks with Students

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For the last few years WriteReader has been one of my go-to recommendation for making ebooks with elementary school and middle school students. Last week WriteReader made an update that now makes it a good option for high school students.

WriteReader was originally created as a tool for elementary school teachers to use to encourage and coach their students through the writing process. It still does that and more. In WriteReader students can insert pictures into page and then write about those pictures to create a story. WriteReader offers a built-in gallery of images including Sesame Street artwork for students to use. There is space on every page for teachers to provide corrections and encouragement to students. Here's a video about using WriteReader with elementary school students.

A recent update to WriteReader introduced new page formats. Previously, there was only one page format and it required that students use pictures and leave space for feedback from their teachers. The new page format options include a choice to a text-only page that doesn't leave space for comments from teachers. Regardless of which page format is chosen, students can always add audio to their pages and all ebooks created with WriteReader include a read-aloud option. Here's a video that I made about the page format options in WriteReader.

On-Demand Professional Development

In August and September I hosted a series of live webinars on topics including VR, green screen videos, search strategies, Google Classroom, and animated videos. All of those webinars are now available on demand along with my popular Getting Going With G Suite course. You can find them all on the Practical Ed Tech On-Demand page.

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Try WriteReader for Making eBooks With Students

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For the last few years WriteReader has been one of my go-to recommendation for making ebooks with elementary school and middle school students. Last week WriteReader made an update that now makes it a good option for high school students.

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Redesigning school libraries for the 21st century - Paragon ...

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Redesigning school libraries for the 21st century - Paragon ...

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School Librarians Prepare Students to be 21st Century Learners

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School Librarians Prepare Students to be 21st Century Learners

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The school librarian plays an instrumental role in preparing students to be twenty-first century learners: problem solvers, critical thinkers, and effective users of information.

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School Librarians Prepare Students to be 21st Century Learners

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The school librarian plays an instrumental role in preparing students to be twenty-first century learners: problem solvers, critical thinkers, and effective users of information.

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Blog

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Let's Stay Connected, Informed & Inspired! Summer 2019

Welcome, Future Ready Librarians!

I hope you had a terrific spring and are on your way to a summer of learning, connecting and a little refresh too.

With all of the amazing things being shared for Future Ready Librarians, I thought it would be helpful to bring it all together in one spot for you this summer and all year long.

Over the summer we will have updates and additions to the exciting work of Future Ready Librarians, and things we are celebrating and focusing on this summer and into the fall.

Let's use this as a place to stay connected to news, upcoming events, resources and of course, each other. Please let me know if there is something you'd like me to add to this Smore newletter. My contact information is at the bottom.

And if you haven't subscribed to the Future Ready Librarians Newsletter yet, please read this post to find out how you can sign up today.

Together, let's lead within and beyond the library and make a difference this year for our students, communities and ourselves. We are Future Ready Librarians, friends.

Have a terrific summer, Shannon

Here are the latest Future Ready Librarian webinars from the spring!

Baltimore County Public Schools and Baltimore County Public Library Work Together to Support Citizens and Lifelong Learners

My Tips & Helpful Google Docs For Awesome Collaboration Between Future Ready Librarians and Teachers!

#FutureReadyLibs, Twitter & Instagram

Shannon McClintock Miller

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Let's Stay Connected, Informed & Inspired! Summer 2019 I hope you had a terrific spring and are on your way to a summer of learning, connecting and a little refresh too. With all of the amazing things being shared for Future Ready Librarians, I thought it would be helpful to bring it all together in one spot for you this summer and all year long.

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DESE

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Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

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Greetings, library friends! Another school year is on the horizon, and we have some exciting things going on at DESE pertaining to school library programs. Here are the highlights:

A committee of school librarians from throughout Missouri met several times during the 2018-19 school year to begin implementation of Senate Bill 743's requirement that DESE recognize exemplary library programs. The first year of this recognition (participation in this evaluation and recognition is optional) will be during the 2020-21 school year.

The scoring guide developed through a partnership between the school librarian SB 743 implementation committee and DESE has been released. You can find it by going to the "DESE Program Recognition" tab below.

Ten of Missouri's Regional Professional Development Centers are hosting PD sessions in October to familiarize school librarians with the recognition scoring guide. These workshops will give school librarians an opportunity to self-evaluate their programs and plan for improvement, whether they wish to apply for recognition during the following school year or use the information to provide better instruction and support in their schools. You can find the schedule and registration contact information by going to the "DESE Program Recognition" tab below.

Best wishes for the coming school year! Please feel free to contact us: ELA Director Debbie Jameson (30 years of elementary experience as a classroom teacher and Reading Recovery teacher) and ELA Assistant Director Lisa Scroggs (31 years of secondary experience as an English/journalism teacher and library media specialist). We want to hear your thoughts and ideas so that we can better serve you

Library Media Centers - Communications

We will be using your Core Data - Screen 3 Library Media contact email for all Library Media Center communication. Please ensure this information is accurate.

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Greetings, library friends! Another school year is on the horizon, and we have some exciting things going on at DESE pertaining to school library programs. Here are the highlights: A committee of school librarians from throughout Missouri met several times during the 2018-19 school year to begin implementation of Senate Bill 743's requirement that DESE recognize exemplary library programs. The first year of this recognition (participation in this evaluation and recognition is optional) will be during the 2020-21 school year.

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Crosswalk with Future Ready Librarians

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Best Websites for Teaching & Learning 2019

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Best Websites for Teaching & Learning 2019

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American Association of School Librarians

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The 2019-20 Practical Ed Tech Handbook (FREE by Richard Byrne)

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The 2019-20 Practical Ed Tech Handbook (FREE by Richard Byrne)

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Every year for the last five years I've published a free ebook that is simply titled The Practical Ed Tech Handbook. This week I finished creating the updated version for the 2019-20 school year.

The Practical Ed Tech Handbook contains nine sections covering a wide variety of educational technology tools. Throughout the handbook you'll find ideas on how to use the tools in your classroom as well as tutorials the nuts and bolts of using them. The nine sections of The Practical Ed Tech Handbook are:

1. Communication with students and parents.

2. Backchannels & informal assessment

3. Learning to Program

4. Augmented and Virtual Reality

5. Digital portfolios

6. Audio recording and publishing

7. Video creation and flipped lessons

8. Digital citizenship

9. Web search strategies

You can get your free copy of the 2019-20 Practical Ed Tech Handbook right here as a PDF.

Bring me to your school or conference.

I'm already booking my 2020 workshop and conference schedule. This will be my tenth year of speaking at schools and conferences. Click here to learn how to bring me to your school or conference.

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Every year for the last five years I've published a free ebook that is simply titled The Practical Ed Tech Handbook. This week I finished creating the updated version for the 2019-20 school year. The Practical Ed Tech Handbook contains nine sections covering a wide variety of educational technology tools.

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Every educator has something they are really good at, we want to talk about it. EDU@YourBest is a conversation with anyone in education that wants to share their passion for teaching and learning. Hosted by Matthew Moore; Teacher, Author and Trainer.

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Every educator has something they are really good at, we want to talk about it. EDU@YourBest is a conversation with anyone in education that wants to share their passion for teaching and learning. Hosted by Matthew Moore; Teacher, Author and Trainer.

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Top Google Education News, Tips, and Resources from #ISTE19 by Shelly Terrell

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Top Google Education News, Tips, and Resources from #ISTE19 by Shelly Terrell

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For the past couple of years I've been a live reporter at ISTE and for 2 years interviewed folks with my toddler, Savvy. This year I am attending the ISTE conference virtually! This year's conference highlighted so many ways to use Google apps and tools to engage learners and make grading, assessment, feedback, pbl, gamification, student engagement, collaboration, student choice, and student voice easy to do! Currently, I am the Computer and Technology teacher of over 400 elementary students. Google Education apps and tools has helped me manage it all and be a powerful teacher. If you missed the zilions of presentations and amazing ideas at ISTE don't worry, because I got you covered. Below I have added links to presentations, resources, tips, and more thanks to Wakelet, the great free curation tool that captures thoughts, reflections, and reactions from Twitter during a conference. I recommend following the presenters. I have shared a list of Google Gurus in this post.

💡If you like these ideas, take one of my courses (CE credit or graduate course credit for a CSU Master of Education) or check out my books. Ask me about training your teachers, ShellyTerrell@gmail.com!

Top Google Education Tips and Updates

These are the important updates and cool ways to use Google Education apps and tools.

Updates

Teaching & Learning ideas, Resources, & Tips

Top Google Tips and Resources

These are some of the highlighted tweets taken during the presentations and related to Google Education so you have the latest news, updates, resources, and tips!

Subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates! Sign up for my In-Service / Graduate Fully Accredited online courses, Connected Educators: Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Professional Development, and Methodologies for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Check out these top hashtags and Twitter accounts to follow to discover awesome tips and resources daily for using GSUITE Edu!

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Top Google Education News, Tips, and Resources from #ISTE19

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For the past couple of years I've been a live reporter at ISTE and for 2 years interviewed folks with my toddler, Savvy. This year I am attending the ISTE conference virtually! This year's conference highlighted so many ways to use Google apps and tools to engage learners and make grading, assessment, feedback, pbl, gamification, student engagement, collaboration, student choice, and student voice easy to do!

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Research and Citation Tools for Students

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Research and Citation Tools for Students

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Research and Citation Tools for Students

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Help students find and cite scholarly work for research projects. Explore this Research and Citation Tools for Students Top Picks list of 18 tools curated by Common Sense Education editors to find relevant and engaging edtech solutions for your classroom.

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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I have yet to meet an educator who denies the potential value of online video as a teaching tool. But with more than 48 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, there's a vast difference between choosing a video because you can, and spending the time to identify those clips that will have a real impact on student learning.

When the YouTube EDU staff joined forces with online learning provider Khan Academy earlier this year to honor the best educational videos on the web, the goal was to identify producers of educational content that teachers, students and parents could rely on and actually use.

Sifting through more than 1,000 entries, the judges tapped 10 " Next EDU" gurus, who we first encountered on the website Edudemic.

If you're looking for video-based lessons to engage your students, check out this two-minute preview featuring all 10 "Next EDU" gurus. As one educator puts it, these lessons represent "a return to the essence of what education should be." I agree. But I'm also willing to bet some of these videos are unlike anything you've seen before.

Introducing the "Next EDU" gurus:
AsapSCIENCE
Mitchell Moffit says the goal of the channel he created with fellow educator Gregory Brown is to "take the most awesome aspects of science and put it into a fun, short, entertaining stop-motion, whiteboard-style video." Learn about a variety of topics, from why we blush to why power naps are good for us. So far, AsapSCIENCE videos have been viewed nearly 6 million times.
Amor Sciendi
James Earle, a cultural history teacher in East Hampton, N.Y., says "the basic philosophy of the channel is twofold": (1) Works of art can serve as stand-alone teaching tools, and (2) art can inform lessons in other subject areas and disciplines, such as mathematics and science.
Bite Sci-zed
Says creator Alex Dainis, "When you can understand, appreciate, and peel back the layers of science that surround your daily life, the world gets a lot cooler." Dainis says the ideas for her videos come from everyday conversations with her friends and from "the ever-present question of why." For example, why do people get brain freezes? Or, how does caffeine wake you up?
Profspop
Homeschooling dad Ed and his son Alan travel around the country, from Niagara Falls to the Grand Canyon, sharing lessons about cultural and historical events, from Groundhog Day to the Civil War. Says Ed, "If we can inspire dads and moms to take their kids to the battlefields and the zoos and the concerts and actually learn together, well, that would be fantastic."
KemushiChan: Bringing You Some Japanese
Loretta Scott (aka Kemushi Chan) has produced a series of videos to help students learn Japanese. Scott uses true-to-life video skits that combine spoken and written Japanese, along with English translations, to help students make the connection between the two languages. She offers many tips and tricks that are sure to improve fluency and ease the frustrations of learning a language.
Powerm1985
Creator Myles Power launched his YouTube Channel back in 2006, when he "only came on YouTube to watch cats doing people things." As Myles tells it, things began to change two years ago, when he started uploading science videos on such subjects as vaccinations and homeopathy. Now, his videos show students how to conduct simple home-based experiments using common household items.
Hip Hughes History
When veteran educator Keith Hughes isn't teaching students at McKinley High School in Buffalo, N.Y., you can find him producing a series of U.S. history video lectures to share with his more than 4,000 online subscribers. You've seen online lectures before, but not like this. "What I try to do is not just teach the kid who's pressing the button because he wants to," says Hughes of his colorful lessons, which often include music, sound effects, animation and other multimedia, "but I'm also trying to teach that kid who is being made to watch."
Bozeman Biology
2011 Montana Teacher of the Year Paul Andersen has produced hundreds of science videos about anatomy and physiology, biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics. "I think what sets my science videos apart from other videos on YouTube is that I spend hours on each one, figuring out what I want to talk about and what graphics are going to be useful." He adds, "I've also given all of these lessons in class, so I know where students are going to struggle." With more than 26,000 subscribers, there's little doubt Andersen is doing something right.
Spanish Is Your Amigo
Kristen is "a native English speaker with 10 years of Spanish classes and experience." She says her YouTube channel, which features a series of Spanish grammar tutorials she leads herself, aims "to help students get better grades, teachers to make their classes more engaging, and, for those who are learning Spanish on their own, to supplement their personal learning." She plans to expand her channel by offering cultural videos as well as tips and tricks to enhance language acquisition.
Math Apptician
Kevin is a math teacher from Ottawa, Canada, who uses his YouTube channel to explain math's role in the creation of many of the apps we use in our daily lives. "So," he says, "check out my videos and let me know of your favorite app, because there's math for that."

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I have yet to meet an educator who denies the potential value of online video as a teaching tool. But with more than 48 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, there's a vast difference between choosing a video because you can, and spending the time to identify those clips that will have a real impact on student learning.

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EdTech Digest | Who's who and what's next in edtech.

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Two Good Ways to Create Stop Motion Movies

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Two Good Ways to Create Stop Motion Movies

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Making a stop motion movie can be a good way for students to bring fiction and non-fiction stories to life on screen. You can also use these tools to create a timelapse video to show a long process condensed down to a two or three minute video. The following tools make it easy for anyone to create a stop motion movie.

If your students have Chromebooks, Stop Motion Animator makes it easy to create stop motion videos. While the tool was designed with Chromebook users in mind it can also be used on Mac and Windows computers. My video tutorial on how to use Stop Motion Animator can be seen here.

Students who have iPads, iPhones, Android phones, or Android tablets should try using the freemium Stop Motion Studio app. The Android version of the app can be found here. The iPad and iPhone version of the app is available here. Both versions of the app are straight-forward and can be used without creating any kind of online account. Watch my tutorial here to learn how to use Stop Motion Studio.

A New Professional Development Course

This week I'm launching a new on-demand version of my popular Getting Going With G Suite course. Sign-up here to be notified when it is available.

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Two Good Ways to Create Stop Motion Movies

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Making a stop motion movie can be a good way for students to bring fiction and non-fiction stories to life on screen. You can also use these tools to create a timelapse video to show a long process condensed down to a two or three minute video.

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How to Create Whiteboard Videos in Flipgrid and Wakelet

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How to Create Whiteboard Videos in Flipgrid and Wakelet

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Flipgrid is one of the most popular ed tech tools of the last few years. It is packed with lots of features that you can use to facilitate conversation and learning through video. One of the new features for the 2019-20 school year lets you create whiteboard-style instructional videos.

You can use the whiteboard feature to create videos for your students to watch in Flipgrid. You can also have your students use the whiteboard tools to reply to a prompt that you have given to them. In this video I provide an overview of how to use the new whiteboard function and a couple of other new functions in Flipgrid.

Wakelet is a popular platform for creating collections of bookmarks, pictures, documents, and videos to share with your students. For the 2019-20 school year Wakelet has integrated Flipgrid's video recording function so that you can create whiteboard-style instructional videos directly in your Wakelet collections. Watch this video for a demonstration of how that works.

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How to Create Whiteboard Videos in Flipgrid and Wakelet

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Flipgrid is one of the most popular ed tech tools of the last few years. It is packed with lots of features that you can use to facilitate conversation and learning through video. One of the new features for the 2019-20 school year lets you create whiteboard-style instructional videos.

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Comment and reply to first-person accounts, poems, commentaries and news articles. Add your own.

Deepen your empathy by reading with newly-minted GPT Thinking Partners designed to simulate the voices of poets, scholars, citizens, and youth from many different Gazan and Israeli perspectives.

Turning Texts, Images & Videos into Conversations

NowComment has the most sophisticated collaboration tools available for group discussion, annotation, and curation of texts, images, and videos.

It displays threaded commenting alongside the sentences and paragraphs of texts, the areas of images, and timestamps of videos to create engaging online conversations literally in context. Brainstorm, debate, and collaborate as never before!

Now GPT Thinking Partners can bring the power of the latest OpenAI Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) to your NowComment conversations!

Free Accounts

Upload and discuss documents with people you invite or with the whole Internet ("Public Documents") at no cost!

Time Efficient

Interesting comments can be found quickly (they're tied to relevant document passages), and summary lines make skimming fast and easy.

Powerful

Any sentence, paragraph, image, or video can have multiple conversations, keeping discussions focused and on-topic.

Simple to Use

Our interface is intuitive, your documents are accessible wherever you are, and we do the hosting and maintenance.

Feature-Rich and Scalable

NowComment has the features to handle very large groups: notifications, assignments, subgroups, moderation, and more.

Read It Your Way

By default comments are off to the side (with multiple sort options!), but you can also display comments in-line.

Collaborate with AI in Comments & Replies

Introducing GPT Thinking Partners

Create your own versions of ChatGPT to be your
Reading Buddy, Writing Coach, Research Assistant, or Learning Puppet.
NowComment'sGPT Thinking Partners are GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformers)
designed to take you to new levels as a reader and a writer.

Write your own text of any genre or upload one from a Web Site, PDF or Word Doc.

Choose a sentence, paragraph, or the whole document. Click the button to Ask AI then select a GPT Thinking Partner. Pose a question and add a description of yourself if you would like, then wait for the results.

Critically read the output from OpenAI that comes to you in an edit box. You can also Resubmit and Resubmit to choose from alternative results. Edit the output of the results you choose so that it is helpful (for other users), honest (about the facts), and harmless (free of bias).

Hit Start conversation and see how a GPT comment is posted in context showing that this was written by a GPT Thinking Partner and edited by you. You and others can reply to any GPT-collaborated comments with human-only replies or with another GPT Thinking Partner.

Your work with OpenAI is free and anonymous on NowComment. No separate login is required and no identifying data is transmitted to OpenAI. The content you submit through NowComment is not being stored by OpenAI to train their models.

With the click of a button, you can deploy NowComment's Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) next to any document on NowComment. You can select from a bevy of brilliant GPTs.

We have designed these GPTs to be Thinking Partners who are always available to be your personal mentor, tutor, coach, teammate, student, simulator, or tool. GPT Thinking Partners don't just correct your writing or summarize a text; they help you to become a stronger writer and a more thoughtful reader.

NowComment's GPT Thinking Partners shape and transform the output you receive from the same Large Language Models that power ChatGPT. With NowComment's GPT Thinking Partners you make your own ChatGPTs to fit your specific needs as a reader and writer. You will be inspired by the control our GPT Thinking Partners give you over how to integrate AI into your own creative and thinking processes.

There are over 60 GPT Thinking Partners to choose from already (with more coming all the time)! And since there are so many, to guide your choice, we have organized them into the seven approaches for students that Dr. Ethan Mollick and Dr. Lilach Mollick describe in a recent paper, "Assigning AI," as briefly described in the next section, below.

We also invite you to make your own GPT Thinking Partners. NowComment is a platform where we learn with and about Artificial Intelligence.

Detail the persona of the best GPT Thinking Partner you can imagine having. Itemize for that character the reading strategies you want them to employ. Specify the output that you want to receive. Test and test until you have taught your GPT Thinking Partner how you want it to respond to the texts of any genre that you are reading or writing and uploading to NowComment. Become a prompt engineer.

AI as Tool: Extending Performance

We are learning together how to use GPTs as tools to extend our thinking. These can translate, adapt, and transform text. They can give you a prompt for creating an image and more. See Mollick & Mollick (2023) for more.

Use NowComment to add daily logs on one document each week. Also add images and videos. Invite others to comment. Use GPT Thinking Partners beside your freewriting, jottings, exploratory logs. Upload a new document each week for you logs, then collect these weekly log documents and things you are reading into a Personal Collection. This collection becomes your GPT Dialogue Notebook.

Featured Public Documents

Click on a comment's summary to see it in context

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NOWCOMMENT - Turning Documents into Conversations®

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Research Tools

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The library provides dozens of research databases and digital content platforms for free use by library cardholders.

Most of these tools can be used from your home. A few only work within the library - these are specially marked.

You may be required to enter your library card number and/or create an account.

Check out the "Tutorials" button on the right side of your screen - you can find help with many of our research tools.

Questions? Contact a librarian. We're here to help!

Show All Books Business Directory Education Employment Forms Genealogy History How-To Kids Languages Legal Forms News Newspapers Reference Teens

Video Tutorial - Read fiction and non-fiction for adults and children, with more than 33,000 titles, unlimited downloads, and no waiting.

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The library provides dozens of research databases and digital content platforms for free use by library cardholders. Most of these tools can be used from your home. A few only work within the library - these are specially marked. You may be required to enter your library card number and/or create an account.

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Common Sense

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HyperDoc Lesson

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Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing

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Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing

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Grades

6 - 8

Lesson Plan Type

Unit

Estimated Time

Seven or eight 60-minute sessions

Lesson Author

Publisher

Featured Resources From Theory to Practice
OVERVIEW

Students will use scaffolding to research and organize information for writing a research paper. A research paper scaffold provides students with clear support for writing expository papers that include a question (problem), literature review, analysis, methodology for original research, results, conclusion, and references. Students examine informational text, use an inquiry-based approach, and practice genre-specific strategies for expository writing. Depending on the goals of the assignment, students may work collaboratively or as individuals. A student-written paper about color psychology provides an authentic model of a scaffold and the corresponding finished paper. The research paper scaffold is designed to be completed during seven or eight sessions over the course of four to six weeks.
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FEATURED RESOURCES

Research paper scaffolding provides a temporary linguistic tool to assist students as they organize their expository writing. Scaffolding assists students in moving to levels of language performance they might be unable to obtain without this support.

An instructional scaffold essentially changes the role of the teacher from that of giver of knowledge to leader in inquiry. This relationship encourages creative intelligence on the part of both teacher and student, which in turn may broaden the notion of literacy so as to include more learning styles.

An instructional scaffold is useful for expository writing because of its basis in problem solving, ownership, appropriateness, support, collaboration, and internalization. It allows students to start where they are comfortable, and provides a genre-based structure for organizing creative ideas.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

O'Day, S. (2006) Setting the stage for creative writing: Plot scaffolds for beginning and intermediate writers. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
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Biancarosa, G., and Snow, C. E. (2004.) Reading next-A vision for action and research in middle and high school literacy: A report from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

In order for students to take ownership of knowledge, they must learn to rework raw information, use details and facts, and write.

Teaching writing should involve direct, explicit comprehension instruction, effective instructional principles embedded in content, motivation and self-directed learning, and text-based collaborative learning to improve middle school and high school literacy.

Expository writing, because its organizational structure is rooted in classical rhetoric, needs to be taught.

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Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing - ReadWriteThink

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Grades 6 - 8 Lesson Plan Type Unit Estimated Time Seven or eight 60-minute sessions Lesson Author Publisher Featured Resources From Theory to Practice Students will use scaffolding to research and organize information for writing a research paper.

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10 Strategic Steps for Teaching ONline Research Skills to Your Learners

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10 Strategic Steps for Teaching ONline Research Skills to Your Learners

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Teaching online research skills to our learners Is crucial for many reasons.You already know as a teacher that you can communicate the answers to many questions in your classes quite quickly. Your students can frantically write down everything you say, read the textbooks you use in your lessons, and learn by discussing ideas with each other and with you. However, today much of students' knowledge comes from using the Internet, so it's important they know how to use it correctly as an academic tool.

It's often easy to assume that students' access to technology and their technological skills are good enough for them to add depth to their understanding of academic subjects. In fact, many academics contend that the digital divide that separates successful and unsuccessful students is based on which schools have modern technological equipment and access to the Internet. Unfortunately, "haves" can possess every technological tool imaginable and still be academically behind "have-nots" with online research skills.

The Edudemic article "Do Your Students Know How To Search?" reports the following:
"The new digital divide will be based around students who know how to effectively find and curate information and those who do not. Learning to effectively search is one of the most important skills most teachers are NOT teaching. They assume students know how to conduct a search, and set them free on the Internet to find information. They assume that students have the skills to critically think their way through the searching and the web. Sadly, this is not the case."
Teaching online research skills is so crucial that you should consider condensing your subject matter lesson plans so students can improve their search skills. Look at it this way: do you think it is preferable for students to know everything in your lesson plan but be unable to write adequate reports in higher grades and college because they didn't know how to find and analyze online resources?

It's also important that you have hands-on lessons about online research, going over specific searches to show students the process of finding the right information. Many students (and adults) tend to want to use the first sources of information they find. They need to learn the importance of patience and determination to keep on trying rather than just advanced search techniques that help them find information as fast as possible.

Learning shortcuts is important, but knowing when those shortcuts have paid off is even more important. With that, check out these 10 tips for helping students search for-and effectively use-online information for classwork.

A 10-Step Guide for Teaching Online Research Skills

The primary focus of teaching online research skills should be on helping students to use critical independent thinking to understand which sources are credible and how to search for information from various sources. Here is an example of a 10-step lesson plan you can use.
Note: An instruction which says you should type a word or words in the Google search box such as "history" means that you should type the word or words written after the instruction, but not the quotation marks.
Step 1: Explain Domains

Type a few words in the Google.com search box, which most of your students have probably done many times. Type "World War II," for example, and you will get hundreds of millions of search results. Point out that websites end in various domains including .com, .org, and .edu.

Many search results, particularly .com domains, could be someone's blog or businesses selling World War II memorabilia. Then, explain the different domains. Here is an article that could help you, but you can find others out there that are similar.

Step 2: Search Best Domains

After explaining why some domains and some sources are more credible than others, it's time to show students an excellent shortcut to narrow their search to more credible sources. Typing the word "site" in the search box followed by a colon and a domain after the topic you're looking for accomplishes this.

So you would type "World War II site:edu" (typing capital letters isn't necessary) to narrow your search to educational sources, and "World War II site:gov" to narrow your search to governmental sources, etc. The "site" command is one of the best advanced search techniques for finding the best and most credible information.

Step 3: Search Best Websites

If your students are searching for information about current events, they might know what some of the best websites are such as nytimes.com. If they're researching historical information, you might ask them to find out what the best websites are. For example, you might ask them to type "best World War II websites" or "World War II websites for students" in the Google search box. Next, instruct them to use the site command to find information from those websites, which would look like "World War II site:www.pbs.org".

Step 4: Search Encyclopedias

Your students can find information from the most pertinent encyclopedias via the same process. Here is a list of encyclopedias that includes the best choices for specific topics. This is a good time to note that you should tell your students that scholarly encyclopedias are a better source than Wikipedia since it is written largely by non-scholars. Ultimately, one of the best uses of Wikipedia is for assistance with finding other credible sources.

Step 5: Be More Specific

Students should use several credible sources if they are, for instance, writing a report about World War II. One way to do that is to use different sources for the causes of World War II, the effects of World War II, etc. Thus, searching for "causes of World War II" is preferable to simply searching "World War II".

Here's another tip: students can use find easy-to-read information in .pdf and .htm files. They can use the "filetype" command just as they used the "site" command to find those sources. They can, for example, type "causes of world war II filetype:pdf".

Step 6: Find Specific Facts:

The asterisk (*) is another tool that helps students when using advanced search techniques to look for info on the Internet. If they're looking for a fact such as a date, they will quickly learn that Google will fill in the blank with information that replaces the asterisk. Thus, typing "Hitler invaded Poland on *" will yield them the precise result.

They can also use Google search to find the answers to Math problems. Typing "456+456" will, again, yield them the proper answer. They can also use Google to find the definition of words by typing "define" and then the word they want to know about.

Step 7: Seek Specific Results

Students might want to make sure that their World War II report includes information on U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. They can use the plus sign to accomplish this objective by typing "world war II +fdr" in the search box. Similarly, they can use the minus sign to exclude info from the search result such as "world war II-japan". In addition, they can put quotes around a multi-word phrase if they want a specific search result. Typing the words "the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor because" will yield only results with those specific words.

Step 8: Seek Time-Specific Info

This tip is particularly important in Science because information is constantly changing. Students who are writing about gene therapy might want to focus on what has been accomplished in the last year. They can do that by hitting "Tools" in the Google advanced search options after they type in "gene therapy" and then clicking on "Any time." The drop-down list lets them select a recent time period.

Similarly, students can also select "custom range" to find sources from specific time periods. They might, for example, want to know what World-War II scholars wrote about the war from 1970 to 1980.

Step 9: Use Other Search Engines

Google is the most popular search engine, but frequently people who are unsatisfied with Google search results use other search engines. They include search engines that are typically used to seek everyday information such as Bing and Yahoo and search engines that are typically used by scholars looking for academic research. For convenience, here is a list of popular search engines and a list of scholarly search engines.

Step 10: Provide Lists Of Tips

The above tips could be an excellent way for students to begin to improve their use of advanced search techniques on the Internet, but you probably want the students to continue teaching online research skills to themselves as well. Below are several resources that the students can consult to further improve their Internet skills.

As you can see, teaching online research skills can be a process everyone in your class, including you, can learn from and have fun with. By the end of the school year, the students will know more about advanced search techniques on the Internet than you do. What's more, you'll have provided them with valuable information literacy and fluency skills that will serve them well far beyond the classroom experiences they'll share while they are in your care.

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10 Strategic Steps For Teaching Online Research Skills to Your Learners

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Teaching online research skills to our learners Is crucial for many reasons.You already know as a teacher that you can communicate the answers to many questions in your classes quite quickly. Your students can frantically write down everything you say, read the textbooks you use in your lessons, and learn by discussing ideas with each other and with you.

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Ten Google Search Tips for Students by Richard Byrne

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Ten Google Search Tips for Students by Richard Byrne

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We encourage students to use our databases, but think this information is helpful for those who insist in the easy Google search approach.

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Twelve years ago I had student come up to me in the library and declare, "Mr. Byrne, Google has nothing on this!" Her topic was the Civil War. It was then that I realized my students needed a bit more guidance on how to conduct online research. In the years since that incident in the library I have spent a lot of time developing search lessons for students to help them become better at search. All of the lessons that I've created incorporate at least one of the following ten tips.

1. Not every question needs to be Googled.

One of the bad habits that I see many students fall into when it comes to research is simply entering into Google the first thing that comes to mind. While this strategy can work, it often leads to a lot of time wasted on searches for information that students already have. Before embarking on a research project ask students to make a list of the things they already know about the topic they plan to research. Have them look in their notes to see if they already have information on the topic.

2. Search within a search result.

One of the worst offenses students commit while conducting web searches is only glancing at the webpages they open from the search results page. Or worse yet, only reading the brief snippet that appears below the links in a search results page. The reason for this behavior that students often give is "it takes too long to read the whole page." To remedy this teach your students to use "Control F" (Windows) or "Command F" (Mac) when they open a webpage from the search results page. Control F or Command F allows you to search within any webpage for any letter, word, or phrase. This also works for searching within PDFs and other documents that students may download during a web search.

3. Think like someone else.

When formulating search phrases it can be helpful to think about the words that someone else might use to describe your topic, question, or problem. Try using those terms instead of your own. Learn more about this strategy in the short video available here.

4. Open the advanced search menu.

The advanced search menu is often overlooked by students. It is found by opening the advanced menu that appears under the "tools" menu on the search results page. In that menu you will find tools for refining search results by file type, domain, language, and more. Here's a demo of how to refine search results according to date.

5. Search by domain.

Limit search results to specific top-level domain or to a specific website. For example, if I wanted my search results to be limited to links from .edu sites, I would enter ".edu" in the domain limitation box. Here's a video on how to refine searches according to domain.

6. Search by file type.

Search by file type allows you to find results according to file format. Combine searching by file type .ppt or .pdf with searching by domain .edu or .k12.me.us to find PowerPoints or PDFs produced by students and teachers. (replace the .me in .k12.me.us with your state's two letter abbreviation to find slides and PDFs produced in your state). Watch this video to learn how to search according to file type.

7. Try Google Scholar.

Google Scholar to find academic, peer-reviewed articles on your topic. Often these are articles that you would not find in typical Google search. Google Scholar is also useful for finding court rulings and patent filings. Here's a video about using Google Scholar.

8. Set Google alerts and Google Scholar alerts.

Go to https://www.google.com/alerts to create alerts for specific search terms. When new information related to your topic is available, it will be emailed to you. Google Scholar also has an alerts function. Watch this to learn how to create Google Alerts.

9. Search Google Books & Newspapers

10. Remember that Google isn't the only search engine.

Most schools and local libraries has access to databases that are not indexed by Google and or are not accessible without the subscription fee that your school or library pays. Ask the librarian for assistance in accessing those databases.

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Twelve years ago I had student come up to me in the library and declare, "Mr. Byrne, Google has nothing on this!" Her topic was the Civil War. It was then that I realized my students needed a bit more guidance on how to conduct online research.

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edWeb: A professional online community for educators

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edWeb: A professional online community for educators

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edWeb is a free online community for professional educators, offering networking, resource sharing, collaboration, and professional development webinars.

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Holly & Donna are Retiring from the OHS Library 

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Holly & Donna are Retiring from the OHS Library 

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- If interested, watch for job postings

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"Best Librarian Podcasts we could find" (Updated October 2019)

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Podcast with Ethan Evans

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A library podcast sponsored by the Missouri Association of School Librarians and hosted by Missouri Librarian Ethan Evans, "Checked In" publishes discussions between librarians throughout the state over various library-related topics. If you're looking for library content, you've come to the right place.

A library podcast sponsored by the Missouri Association of School Librarians and hosted by Missouri Librarian Ethan Evans, "Checked In" publishes discussions between librarians throughout the state over various library-related topics. If you're looking for library content, you've come to the right place.

Must-listen for school librarians!

Professional yet fun and engaging. Tips and info for school librarians.

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‎A library podcast sponsored by the Missouri Association of School Librarians and hosted by Missouri Librarian Ethan Evans, "Checked In" publishes discussions between librarians throughout the state over various library-related topics. If you're looking for library content, you've come to the right p...

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5 Reasons to Start a Podcast in Your High School Library

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5 Reasons to Start a Podcast in Your High School Library

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If you had told me this time last year that I'd be really into podcasting in the high school Library I manage, I would have laughed in your face. Laughed, I say!

It's true, though. I love creating a weekly podcast with our students and there are several benefits for everyone involved. I've identified five great reasons to start a podcast with students, and here they are:
It's All Student-Made
Our student book club, known as The Booklings, creates the content for our podcast. They named the podcast (Booklings Chat) and created the logo. Currently, they interview authors who come to the Library, but they also discuss their own reading habits and conduct book reviews. They tell me which authors they'd like to interview and I do my best to reach out to them.

They recently interviewed celebrated fantasy author Taran Matharu over the phone. We were in London, UK, and he was in Los Angeles. Considering one of the Booklings is a massive Taran Matharu fan, it was really exciting that we could get him on the line. I love it that this project has become a student-driven initiative that has really taken off.
It Teaches Teamwork
Students who take part in the podcast must work out who is asking which questions, who is going to interview which authors and help each other out during the podcast. We can often have four or five students running one interview: two to ask the students and others checking the levels of the recorder, ensuring the mics are in the correct position, Others still guard the door of the Library to ensure nobody comes in and makes noise to disrupt the recording.
It Won't Break the Bank
You can start a podcast on the cheap with programs like Audacity. From there, all you need is a mic and some speakers which can be purchased very cheaply from Amazon. Sure, it helps to have great recording equipment, but you don't need it to get started. It will be a fun, engaging project for students to embark on and nobody will care if you don't sound like NPR.
It Builds Connections
We are at a point now where authors are hoping to be interviewed by the Booklings when they visit. As in, they've heard of the podcast via the Library's Twitter account or the Library's web site and want to get involved. Our goal is to do a live broadcast from a bookshop with some authors. I'd also like to incorporate some other high schools in our area, which would be really fun.
It Builds Confidence
We have some students in the Booklings who are on the shy side, which is completely fine. Through the podcast, I've seen them come out of their shell; they are meeting authors they love and asking them questions about their work. It's a very immediate activity that forces some of our students out of their comfort zone and challenges them to be more assertive, confident, and proud of their own voice. It's been a really amazing experience building this podcast with our students. Some of the most fun I've ever had over the past few years.

You can listen in on Booklings Chat over at our Soundcloud page here.

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5 Reasons To Start a Podcast in Your High School Library

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If you had told me this time last year that I'd be really into podcasting in the high school Library I manage, I would have laughed in your face. Laughed, I say! It's true, though. I love creating a weekly podcast with our students and there are several benefits for everyone involved.

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Podcast with Amy Hermon

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School Librarians United with Amy Hermon

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Tune in as Amy Hermon tackles the issues and challenges school librarians face everyday.

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Episode 38: The School Library that Increased Student Use by 1,000 Percent (Transcript)

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Jennifer Gonzalez, Host
Listen to the audio version of this podcast.
Gonzalez: This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 38 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, I'm going to tell you the story of a school library that increased student use by 1000 percent.
[music playing]
It's a given that technology continues to grow. But this growth has not been without its casualties: traditional school libraries are seeing a sharp drop in student use. In this episode, I'm going to talk to two educators from Ohio who completely changed how their school library was used, and saw truly incredible results.

Before I get started, let me just take a minute to thank those of you who have left a review for me on iTunes. I am absolutely floored by the nice things you're saying over there, and knowing that you're listening and really getting something out of these episodes just motivates me to keep going. If you haven't yet left a review, please take a moment this week to go over to iTunes and leave one. Thanks so much.

Okay, let's get into this fantastic library story.

Last year at Big Walnut Middle School in Sunbury, Ohio, there were some days when fewer than ten students passed through the library doors. Just like in so many other schools, students and teachers had a growing number of resources available to them through tablets, Chromebooks, e-readers and Smartboards, so they no longer had the same need to visit the library that they once did.

Some schools have addressed this problem by converting their libraries to makerspaces. These hands-on environments allow students to to build, create, design, and experiment. When we see makerspaces, we tend to see big Lego tables, coding and computing tools like Raspberry Pi kits, and 3-D printers where students can see their creations come to life.

But Big Walnut principal Penny Sturtevant had a vision that was a bit different from the makerspaces she was seeing. She wanted her library to be a place that was a little less open-ended, a place where students did hands-on work, but as an extension of what was happening their classrooms. Instead of taking her inspiration from the maker movement, Sturtevant was interested in trends she was seeing toward more personalized learning. The new and improved library would be called the Learning Center.

As she began the process of reimagining the space, Sturtevant asked me to serve as a consultant. She introduced me to Ed Kitchen, whom she had recently hired to develop and then run the Learning Center, and the three of us met over Skype and a shared Google Doc to explore all the possibilities, think through the logistics, and formulate a plan. Even in the early stages, we knew that this might be a story I would share here, so that other schools who might not be ready for a full makerspace could see this as a viable alternative.

So how did it all turn out? Well, Big Walnut's brand-new Learning Center definitely doesn't suffer from a student use problem. On an average day, over a hundred students will visit to work on projects, make use of interactive technologies, film and edit videos, and yes, check out books.

Here's my interview with the people who made it happen.

Gonzalez: I am here with Penny Sturtevant and Ed Kitchen, and they're here from Big Walnut Middle School. And this is a school in Ohio, and they have done some really interesting and creative things this year with what used to be their library media center. They had been learning a lot about makerspaces and knew that they could be getting more use out of their current library. And so, we've worked together quite a bit last year and over the summer and they have made some big changes, so we're going to talk about this with them. So, hi Penny.

Gonzalez: And so, thanks so much for talking to me about this and sharing the story of the evolution of your library, and we're going to be sharing some pictures and videos on the website so that other people can see how it all works. I'm going to let you guys take the mic for a while and tell me a little bit about the story of how all of this got started.

Sturtevant: I'll talk about the administrative piece, and then I'm going to pass it over to Ed and once we got to the opportunity where he took it from there. Last spring, about a year ago this time, I was approached with the knowledge that our library was not being used. We have a beautiful space. Our building's just now five years old. Rarely were kids in it, rarely had it ever changed from that traditional books, come in, sit quietly, work at the table, and leave. And a number of kids we were seeing in our library had declined significantly to where days when the library was closed, no one noticed. So, what is the challenge? It's one of these integral spaces historically that's big, has a lot of potential resources, it's not being used; what can you do?

Given some time just to think, a little bit of reading-I'll be honest, I probably could have afforded some more investigation, but I came up with the idea of developing the library into a space that teachers could use. How can they use it as an extension of their learning? And was fortunate enough that our administration said, "We have a person we're willing to dedicate to that process." They were willing to make use of this and brought Ed on board, and together we began to talk. And Ed's background in technology and working in a variety of ways, he really helped me to get excited about just what I said - that idea of creating a place that was an extension of the classroom, which we felt was a little twist off of what traditional makerspaces tend to be, and that was the purpose we felt we had here at the middle school. So, Ed came on board with that, and from there he took the place and began developing it - what he thought could support the classroom.

Kitchen: Yeah, so at the beginning of the school we have a large space. If you want to look at it, it just says "The Library." So, books, a few computers. So, we had to really adapt to what our staff would want, and with that being the extension of the learning, extension of the classroom, into what we were going to call the Learning Center. So, my first job was really to kind of mainstream on what did we want this to look like. So, as we looked forward and really looked at our staff, we wanted to make it a collaboration space. So, the design of it, as we'll get into it later, is all about collaboration pods.

Being a classroom teacher for 22 years, the last three years have been with the technology coach in our technology department, and looking at all this 21 st century learning, I was really able to get a sense of what is kind of out there. So, we brought in some equipment, which we'll talk about, to kind of really engage the kid, engage the student into not just a library, not just a common space, not just a meeting space, but really an extension of the classroom. So, the process took a little longer than we thought, because as you start to look at things that are out there, there isn't a lot. When I say that, there's more makerspaces than what we're calling common learning spaces in schools. So, we took that idea and just ran with it.

Gonzalez: So, that's a good thing for us to get clear right off the top of this, is that you all are calling this the Learning Center. You would not refer to it as a makerspace.

Kitchen: Not at all. I think, as I've been around the country presenting on different aspects of 21 st century, the big word was the makerspace, getting your hands on things, doing 3D printers and so forth. And what I think was neat about Penny's vision here is it's an extension of the classroom. So, as we'll talk about later, it just gives the teachers more opportunities to look at ways they do their classroom, the way they do their projects. So, we set that up in a way that we wanted it to be a true learning space, a learning environment.

Sturtevant: We look at makerspace-our high school has a setting called the innovation center, ours is a learning center. They're all creative learning spaces, but the purpose of those spaces is different. The purpose of a makerspace is for a kid to come in and, in my mind, explore, and there are things there for them to do. That's somewhat similar to what our technology teacher is doing: having different areas for those kids to explore and grow in different places of his technology class within the technology standards. This was for every classroom. Every class would have a place to go beyond their classroom walls physically and in a manner and means that you cannot often do within the classroom. Or individually, as students need, or in groups as they need to go and develop their projects, their presentations, or work together to grasp whatever standard, whatever learning target is needed out of that classroom.

Gonzalez: I would think that teachers would be able to grasp the concept of what you're doing, maybe even more readily than what's happening with makerspaces right now. I'm imagining a lot of teachers would see things like 3D printers and Raspberry Pi kits and saying, "I'm not really sure how I could even make use of that. So, you all have fun, but I'm still going to stay in my classroom." And you are really trying to extend the classroom with other resources.

Gonzalez: So, let's talk about what's actually in there. What do you offer to teachers in the learning center?

Kitchen: So, I think that was the hard part - what do we put in there? We don't want to make it a technology center, and we don't want to make it-in lack of a better word, we don't want to make it a Starbucks, Panera Bread, that type of learning. I think we want it somewhere in the middle, because today's kids, they want that. So, really, we have a couple different things. One is we have two interactive flat panels. So, they're 65 inch and a 70 inch. We have two TVs that the kids can hook up with their Chromebooks or mobile devices, we also have an interactive projector, we have a green screen room, we have three cameras that they can use throughout the day, within that specific period, we have an iPad that can go along with the green screen room, that we use an app for green screening and video. We have ten Chromebook computers, we have five or six desktops that are still being in use in ways they'll use through digital video editing or other apps or other programs that will need desktops. And we also have a lot of movable furniture. Really, we have ten pieces of furniture that will be moved in different configurations throughout the week.

The one thing that I noticed when I do some research and look around is you can't have things that are in one spot. So, if you put things in fours, they're going to stay in fours. So, everything we have there is movable, whether it's the chairs, the interactive boards, the flat panels. The only thing, really, that you can't move are the TVs - they're mounted on the wall. And we also have an interactive projector that kids can get up and interact, too. And the last thing, which is probably one of the more interesting pieces, is really the start of it-and we'll probably talk about how it's used throughout the day-it's an ID system. When the kids come in, they scan their student ID, which goes to a spreadsheet that then the teacher and the classroom can see what time they checked into the learning center.

Gonzalez: What did you end up deciding to do with that? Because I know that we kind of went back and forth for a while with some ideas of how that could work, but we never found any really great seamless system. What did you end up doing?

Kitchen: So, I convinced our photography place to put their bar code on the bottom of their student IDs, and that bar code was just their last name and first name - it was that simple. So, when the kids got their picture taken, they downloaded the program which they already had on their computers, and then they put on the bottom of each kid's student ID just a long code, a bar code that has their last name and first name. So, now when they walk in, all they do is scan the bar code, it spits out their last name, first name.

Gonzalez: Okay. And then, so, where does that information go? Because you were doing this partly because you all wanted some data on who was using this and how long they stayed. Do they record exits also?

Kitchen: No. We talked about exits, but I think right now our big push is we just want to have data on how many people are using it, what times they're using it. It was really a design too from the standpoint of the teacher: How do I know that John Smith came down to the learning center at 10:52? Well, all you have to do is check in a spreadsheet. So, I have a live Google spreadsheet that it goes into and I created a timestamp that automatically timestamps when they scan their bar code.

Gonzalez: Got it. Okay, so they come in and scan, and the information goes into a Google spreadsheet. And how did you actually connect those two? What was the software program that you used to actually make - because you've just got the regular, like a library bar code reader?

Kitchen: Yeah, that was it; a bar code reader that scans right into a cell and the cell - I have a program that's just a timestamp inside the Google spreadsheets, it's just a simple program. And anything that uses a bar code and it goes into that cell, it automatically puts a timestamp right on it.

Sturtevant: And that Google spreadsheet is shared with our staff, so our staff know that the kid's there once the kid's there. They have them and they stay, so that accountability piece, as you manage a larger school or the teachers, know that's where a kid really did go.

Gonzalez: They can see right on their classroom computer that the kid just checked in because it'll come up live right on that spreadsheet.

Sturtevant: And then the accountability back is the teacher sends them down with what we call a prescription, because we didn't want a simple hall pass. The prescription comes in and this tells Mr. Kitchen this is what they're working on. And then that allows them to give direction to the students of what might be there and the students make some choice. The interesting that I've seen in the beginning piece is the kids are often telling the teachers why they want to go to the learning center, and they're figuring out why the learning center is a value.

Gonzalez: Okay. See, I want to do a full walkthrough on how all this happens. Let me ask one other question so that I don't forget it, because now I'm thinking about all this different furniture and equipment and technology that you all have, and I'm imagining someone listening to this, saying, "That sounds great. How do we pay for this?" And I know you all got some grant money, I believe, for doing this. So, let's talk about how you funded this project.

Sturtevant: When we started the proposal, we had no knowledge of any money coming our way. So, our initial start was, "What can we do with what we have?" And we had traditional furniture in there, books-if you look at the video, I believe it even shows the before-after. The books took up half the room-at least the bookstands took up half the room. Everything was very fastened, as you might say, and it was in its place. First thing Mr. Kitchen did was wipe that out; almost wiped out the contents. Didn't give them away or anything, but opened up the space. The books now became consolidated along the wall. And for those who have a love of books, we have as many books as we did before. We consolidated them and we're in the process of working with our local library for movement of books they have to us on a weekly basis, so kids can go in, check out books from our community library, they can be delivered here, they bring it back here, and we deliver them back to the library. So, in essence, we have expanded our library collection, not shrunk it.

Gonzalez: Nice. Okay, and that was going to be another question - kids can come in and use it the way they used a traditional library.

Sturtevant: Absolutely. They can come, get a book, read. And that's another topic in itself. We can even grow that to possibly electronics, the Kindles, all of that, in the future. So, with that, he took what furniture we have that he could move and be creative with it. We had some donations. I donated some stuff that I had. We went out. And then, we were fortunate to get a county grant-do you remember the amount?

Sturtevant: It was 20 thousand. So, a significant number, but not so exorbitant that a lot of schools maybe can't help with that. Working with some companies, and that's where Ed's background came in, to decide what was bells and whistles and the latest and greatest, to what was something that could grow, and what would bring kids in, and I will give Mr. Kitchen all of that with his research and some of his visits. As silly as it sounds, I would almost give up every technology thing - and there wouldn't be one technology thing that I wouldn't give up out of the furniture. The furniture is the integral piece, and that movement that the kids can move and go and how they sit or where they go working together in pairs or partners or large groups, or if the teacher does come down and use it and we rearrange the furniture - that's where I see the creativity of how they're collaborating.

Gonzalez: That's really interesting, yeah.

Sturtevant: So, that's my non-technological perception. Mr. Kitchen, from there...

Kitchen: I agree. I think the first question would be, "How much did you spend?" And the first half of the year, we didn't have that, so it functioned very similar to how we're functioning now. We're just fortunate to have the money to get some, for lack of a better term, fun tools in there that the kids can use. So, without those tools, it still functions in a very similar way it is now, with the collaboration and the different ways. We just had desk chairs with wheels on them, the old computer chairs that rolled around, and some in-house furniture. Just the newer stuff has really put a top on the collaboration part of it.

Gonzalez: Yeah. So, I want to go in the direction that you all want to go, and one thing we could do is sort of just look at this in terms of how does it get used - when a teacher, and then their student comes in to use it. Or we could talk about how you actually rolled it out to staff?

Kitchen: Okay. I'll talk a little bit about how the day works, or really how the period works, and then I think Penny can talk about the staff. Just imagine yourself as a classroom teacher and you probably want to send kids out to the hallway, but are afraid to send the kids out to the hallway because of X, Y, and Z - some teachers are hesitant of that. So now, this space has opened that. So, if you want to now personalize your learning, which is what we're doing nowadays anyway, you can send now three or four kids down to this learning center with this prescription that allows us really to work with them.

So, it start out with the kid walking in with the prescription from the teacher, scan their ID, and from there what our job is, we need to really get an analysis of the student's needs, and then what kind of work are they doing? Do they need the green screen room, do they need just a quiet space, do they need to sit with each other or grab a Chromebook? What's funny is, at this age, they know what they're going to do. So, when they come down here, they have an idea. If they don't, they're old enough and young enough at the same time to really ask, and to be inquisitive on, "How can I make this project different?" So, once they walk in, scan it, go to their appropriate area, then they start working. And, really, we're just kind of a facilitator. And they know over time where they should be going and working on what project, whether it's an interactive white board, whether they go to the green screen, or whether they do it old paper and pencil, cutting, things like that.

So, my job was I wanted them to know when they walked into the door where to go -what station, what collaboration pod, what can I move, where do I go to work. And they're really on their own. So, we have kids from art, science, math, language arts. We can have those kids from each discipline at any given time.

Gonzalez: Can you give me a few examples of some of the neat things you've seen kids working on when they come in? Maybe some things that you just weren't expecting that have just arisen now from having this space available?

Kitchen: Well, one is the video. As a technology teacher, and even when I taught math it was very hard to create technology math, so this has really given me the opportunity to kind of give kids examples. So, when they go present, they can use the green screen room, for example; we have an app that has a newscast on it. So, we have kids coming in and instead of giving a PowerPoint or Google slide presentation about a certain project they're on, they will partner up with the kids and they will do actually a newscast. And we have a teleprompter that I hooked up through a Chromebook that they can actually look at it as a newscast or a weather forecast or a sports center forecast or a top ten. I mean, we're really using things that they're seeing every day, that they enjoy, that will make the presentation more personal, and the accountability of it is the piece that I think what you're going to see from the teacher perspective, is you're going to get some work that's more personal.

So, we have some green screen use with the apps. We also have just plain old video, where they will just look at themselves as an interviewer out in the field somewhere, interviewing somebody, or I had a kid one day-and really, you got to get the pulse of what the kids are looking at, and they watch a lot of MTV and I had a kid do an MTV Cribs of our LC. So, he had somebody do the camera and they walk through the LC like it was his house, and he explained everything what was going on in it. And it was just really off the cuff. It wasn't planned. It was very neat to see. So, we have a lot of those different types. The other ones I think that's probably used more is just a collaboration piece on the Chromebook and just to be able to display it on a 40-inch TV, and for everybody to have input on it is, I think, missing out there, because that's what we do in our working world - we have to work with people. And that was the goal of the collaboration pods.

Sturtevant: So, as a principal, when I go down, I'll see a group of kids studying for a test in a traditional sense. I'll see a kid in the green screen room that'd be taping their bulletin for language arts class, or two or three kids doing a skit in there. I'll see another group and they have two or three Chromebooks tied in to one of our flat screen TVs as a monitor, and they're working and editing all three together on some paper or some topic or some presentation. I'll see a couple other kids over on one of our panels working through some math, and it's kind of great for some of our tactile kids. So, they're coming in and they're just doing their traditional math equations, but they're writing them with their finger on this flat screen, and working through it. So, it's got a tactile point. Mr. Kitchen, being a math person, will pull up something that will help them understand. You'll see six different classrooms, different kids, and some of them are just in there just talking, or they're sitting on the rocking chair that's on the floor, because that's the way it works for them. Depending on the space that you have, you have some quiet spaces.

And we're not done. We've already talked about what comes next, and that's why I say it's so important not to limit the space and have things fastened down, because it changes. I see teachers have come in and brought their whole class, because you can sign this center out and then it's a creative place for either presentations or for some type of work going on that you really need kids doing all kinds of things and you can be there. I also see it administratively as in the future we have a side room, because we are eventually going to be a one to one school, in the near two years, I would say. Our labs are being used so much less, because our kids have their own devices or we have enough Chromebooks to work. That lab that's next-door might even be a place where we have equipment and the teacher has an opportunity to try the equipment, bring their classroom in, experience the work with the kids, see if that's what's needed. You may not need a clever touch every day, but it's here to use in this environment.

So, it's really just a creative learning space for students first, but also the staff. And you asked me the question about how they buy in. I think when you're planning something like this, you first have to ask what is your goal of this space. And our goal that we set was extension of the classroom. Because we were afforded this opportunity kind of in the midst of something, we didn't get the planning process. We got "School's starting, do it." So, I would encourage everybody to have that opportunity prior, talk with staff, build up, get the ideas and the buy in. That didn't happen for us, so it's been a process through the year, creating ways to get kids in, inviting teachers in, actually working with staff and pulling them in.

But ultimately, the turning point that I saw, kind of that flip that started to occur is when students started asking the teachers to go down, to be down there. And that started drawing teachers in. "Well, why do they want to be there? What are they doing?" And when the products started coming back and the teachers saw all the kids learning as a result of that, that's a change. Just recently in the second semester, the other change I'm seeing now is when I see our staff planning, they talk about, "Oh, they could do this in the learning center." So, now the staff are starting to think of the learning center as a piece of their planning, and I think that's the involvement that will occur to the point that the learning center's not even going to be enough - everybody will be vying for it. But that's the great piece, that the teacher doesn't have to be there. Classrooms can plan that as an extension and send kids down.

Gonzalez: Right. How did you let everybody know at the beginning? I remember at the very beginning of the school year, you were barely even in furniture at that point, and it was just like, "Well, school's opening, so here we go." So, how did you let everybody in the building know, "Here's what we have, here's what's available, here are all the tools." How did you orient everybody to the new space?

Kitchen: So, I went to the science department and really just picked it apart, it really didn't matter, and said, "Are you willing to give up one day, a period, to bring your kids down?" And we gave them their IDs, explained the check-in process, and really just described what the learning center is. And so, really, it just took one day. And then we sprinkled in, obviously, throughout the next week or two the kids that were missing. So, just brought them in one period, kind of introduced ourselves, took a peek at what's in the learning center, what can be done, what can't be done, laid out some groundwork in terms of how you get in here, how the teacher's going to let you in here, what we're going to have in here maybe in the future-this was very early, this was September, and we didn't get our furniture until after Christmas break. So, this was very early.

So, really, I just grabbed the class and took one day. It was the best way, really. We thought to do it rather than kind of message it out through announcements or paper - just bring them in physically, show them what's going on, and from there, it took off.

Gonzalez: Were there any kind of special guidelines that you had to set for students or teachers, really, just to make sure that the space was used appropriately, that you managed for crowd control, or taking care of the equipment, or anything along those lines?

Kitchen: Yeah. As a classroom teacher-and I kind of lend myself back to that and kind of just try to think how I managed my classroom-I didn't have rules, I had procedures. So, really, my goal was to teach the kids and explain to the teachers, "This is what happens when you walk in," I think the process becomes a little easier. So, obviously, we talked about food and drink and how many kids can you bring down at one time. That was a huge question from the teachers. "How do I know?" And our thought was, "You send how many you want, I'll send you back what I don't want," and we really didn't have an issue with that. We know what our limit is. We try to accommodate as many as we can. So, I think if you put rules on, you put parameters on it, I don't think the space then lends itself to what it is. I mean, we are breaking down the walls within the classroom.

So, really just to go about it in those ways, kind of explain, "This is what we're going go, this is what we're going to build with. It's not a classroom. Don't send your whole class down here. That's not what we want. We want to try to get kids from each different discipline - math, art, science, language arts and so forth. So, once we set those parameters, it'll work itself out."

Gonzalez: Okay. Having taught middle school, I'm imagining a room full of kids that have been all sent down by their teachers and just you as the only adult in the room, or maybe you with one other person. And I'm thinking that depending on the kids that are sent down things could get rowdy and they could get off task. And I'm sure that everybody listening to this is thinking they could get off task very easily with less supervision than when they're in their own teacher's classroom. So, how have you managed those incidents, or do they just not happen?

Kitchen: Oh, they happen. The funny part is, as a high school teacher for 22 years, I've never been in a middle school classroom, so it is different. I mean, I've always that when I go out and do professional development. It is different. We've had schools come in here and look at our learning center and our equipment, and the first thing that I will talk to them about is, "Don't just take this and put it in your school district." I think it takes a-I won't say a special person, but a person that will be able to handle exactly what you just said - a bunch of teenage kids going in there, because they are middle school kids. And I think if you just get up and be active with them and engage with them, they're going to follow along with whatever they're supposed to be doing.

Now, I'm not as specific as I would be in a classroom, because I take the learning center tends to be that flexible space, sometimes a loud space. But again, it lends itself to that collaborative piece where my gift and I think my specialty is that's how I ran my classroom - it was controlled chaos, you know? And it's not quiet. That's not the design of it, because we wanted it that way. And we've had kids that don't like to come in there because it is that way, and I think that's fine. That's perfectly okay. We want the kids to go to the space where they'll be able to perform in and learn in. So, I had 50 to 60 kids in there at one time, and let me tell you, it's a challenge, but I think it's a fun challenge because as long as they're working towards their goal then I think it's a neat space to see.

Gonzalez: So, I think the key is for you to be actually walking around and not just behind that front desk.

Sturtevant: I think there's two keys, Jennifer, and one is the person in there does have to be invested and buy into the process - the controlled chaos was the words that I was looking for. And if you were standing outside our library, you might see chaos. But if you walk in and you start listening, you're hearing the different conversations, you're hearing the different things going on, and they really all are on point. So, that person who is not the librarian that was behind the desk waiting on a book to get checked out and was shushing everybody, that day is not a learning center. They're out there, they can tell you, and they're guiding. They're facilitating. They don't have to be doing direct instruction and one-on-one.

The second piece is that prescription piece - why is the kid there? It isn't just because this is a fun, exciting technology spot. I'm here with a purpose, and this is what I came down to do. Now, to Mr. Kitchen's credit, the buy-in that you ask about I think has been driven from the kids. And another way that he invested in that, we have a period in the middle of our day where the kids have half an hour, we call it student center. It's a home room study hall period they can get different services, and then the other half hour of it is lunch. So, eighth grade has student center for half an hour. They open the doors of our learning center, and instead of going off and taking their lunch right then, they open the doors to the learning center. This would be kind of close to a makerspace in a way, but interactive games, often trivia games, but they're learning games. It's often current events or on topics or different subjects. And the kids come down and they participate in those games, and they have a blast and they're having fun.

And so, the kids are asking to go to the learning center. Teachers can look at that two ways - oh, they're getting out of things and just want to go to the learning center and play, or they can say, "Hey, they want to go to the learning center. Hey, you can go to the learning center Tuesday when you get caught up in all of your language arts." They can use it in a multitude of ways as a positive reinforcement for doing the things they need to do. And so, I think the buy in came, too, from the investment from Mr. Kitchen and his partner Jeff Stanford on how can we get kids in here to see these tools, to have fun and learn, and then that just has facilitated kids telling teachers what they can do. And I don't mean that's bad, I mean like, "Hey, let this project, try take it down and do this."

Gonzalez: Well, let's talk a little bit about that, because I know you had talked about wanting to kind of regularly touch base with the teachers about units that they have coming up, so that you're not just passively sitting there waiting for people to show up whenever they feel like it. It's a more active cycle, I guess, that you had envisioned. Tell me how that has played out in terms of your engagement with the teachers.

Kitchen: Well, I think it started at the beginning. I'm a grassroots kind of person when it comes to new things. So, when we brought in Chromebooks to the district, it's grassroots. You find two or three people, get them to buy in and they just start talking to their peers, and then it goes that way. Kind of the same way I did this. I went to the teacher and said, "What have you got coming up, what kind of projects do you have? Let's try it. Have you ever thought about doing it with a video? Have you ever thought about bringing your kids down and just having them work in spaces in here?" And they were like, "No." And so, we started out that way, and then from there they meet once a day-you know how teachers are meeting now anyway-and they discuss, like, "Hey, you should take your class down to the learning center because they did this group project and they thought of a different way to do it."

So, at first, it really started small, but then now it's almost like a fight to get in. Then they come to me and say, "How can I make this project different?" Because they are getting tired of doing the same thing in terms of whether it's just presenting on a Google slide or just standing up and doing a report or writing a paper. So, now it's more of as the grassroots came and teachers went around and talking to each other. If I recognize and didn't see in maybe a discipline here and there not using it, I'd come up to them and say, "Hey, what are you doing next? Have you ever thought bringing your kids down? Can you do a video? Hey, I found something on the green screen I think you would like." It's really just not forcing it, because you can't really force the things on the teachers. You want the teachers to have the buy in, and as a classroom teacher, I didn't like that anyway, if someone came and said, "Hey, you have to use this." It's really just an option. If you like it, go with it. If not, let's try to find another way to do it.

Gonzalez: Yeah. It sounds like you actually being aware of what they're teaching is a big key to that, as opposed to you just sort of saying, "We've got some great things if you ever want to." Sometimes those generalized invitations don't really go anywhere. You're helping people actually connect the dots between their content and the tools that you have available to them.

Kitchen: Yeah. And the last couple years - really, the last ten years being a technology tutor, professional development has helped. You want to take the stuff that we've always been good at or what we like, and just try to infuse some of the tools. The key is just an extra tool in the toolbox. And nowadays, we just have a lot of kids that need that extra tool, and I think the learning environment that we have down there is we have probably four or five or six different tools that now the teacher can just lean on. And the advantages in terms of having a teacher in there, rather than just maybe an outsider or-I don't want to say librarian or media center specialist-but an actual teacher that has been in a classroom and has done some of this, is I think very beneficial. I think it would be hard for someone who hasn't either experienced this or even seen it to be able to kind of look through the lens that a teacher would.

Gonzalez: Right, right. And your background was math first and then you kind of moved into technology?

Kitchen: Yeah. I mean, as a classroom teacher, as the whiteboards came in in the early 2000s, and I worked with Texas Instruments a little bit with the calculator, so my passion really became on the professional development side of teaching other teachers how to use what we have, and I just thought you needed to share stuff. So, I've been doing that for 15 years, so now that more and more technology is coming down the pipe with 1-to-1 and Chromebooks and the live spreadsheets and live documents, this was a pretty easy transition for me.

Gonzalez: Right. So, when we share this with teachers, one of the things I would love to do is actually give them a downloadable copy of the prescription form, so that they can see how that works. Would that be possible to do that?

Gonzalez: Okay. Because I have a feeling that seeing how that actually works would help people to do that.

Kitchen: Yeah, and the funny part is there really isn't a right way yet. Like Penny said, we haven't really talked about what the best way is yet. We've tried some different ones. We tried electronic, we tried paper and pencil, so we're trying a few different things to really see what works, and then kind of just evolving. Almost like Learning Center, where it's not just one way to do it, so there are a few different way that we've tried.

Sturtevant: And it's as simple as a hall pass, really. Other than just the name and place, it just says this is what they're doing, or they need to use this. So, it's really simplistic, but we can do something like that. I think anybody looking to do a creative learning space, if you are going to go along the lines of the Learning Center, where it's a classroom extension. Ed touched on the fact that he's been a teacher. I'm sure there's other people who maybe could do this that aren't teachers, but whoever you have has to have buy in themselves. They have to see the vision and the lens of what it can be, because honestly, once I've turned it over, I got to have fun. Ed's got to sit down there and figure out how things should go or what we could try. Initially, prior to our grant coming in, I was bringing in Legos. We were talking about just basic whiteboards kids could write on, buying film for tabletops to write on. So, there's massive ways this creative collaboration can happen that aren't those high-end dollars.

And I know for many school districts 20 thousand isn't a massive amount, but we felt that that was fabulous to have. So, the money doesn't have to be limiting. It's the creativity that makes this happen.

Gonzalez: And the flexibility of that space sounds like that's a really big key. So, if a school is listening now and they're thinking, "I would really like to try this," where can they start? What would be some maybe tips for what not to do and things that they should do?

Sturtevant: I think the initial is some strong conversations with your central office, with your teachers, with some of the leads about what's going to be your purpose. Is your purpose going to be the makerspace where kids can come and create and be and maybe a related art? Is your purpose going to be supporting teachers to be able to bring classes in and have these extra tools to use, which is similar to our high school initiative, or is your purpose like ours where you want it to be an extension of every classroom and give these outlets? So, once you define your purpose, that's huge because that stays your focus of where you're headed. And then from there, who are your key players, and what are those roles? You want to get those things defined. What is your budget, and what's going to be your opening? You always need a catalyst, a catcher, or something like that. And that was a discussion we had.

We didn't get to have a grand opening. School opened and we had an empty room, you know? So, I would encourage somebody if they have that time to have a grand opening. We actually put together what we call a learning center committee. So, we brought in our local librarian, our high school media specialist, Ed, myself, our director of instruction, and we sat down and talked about what's our next steps, what can we do. They were who helped say yes, that we validate, this is the way to spend the grant money. So, it was a collaborative process as well. I think we did it in a fairly short timeline. I would only encourage others to have a little bit more on the forefront of planning than we did. But if you're graced an opportunity, you don't turn it down.

Gonzalez: Well, and I think it's to your credit that you guys didn't say, "Well, we're just going to close the library for six months while we wait for this thing to be perfect." You just went ahead with what you had and started using the space differently instead of waiting for all the pieces to be there.

Sturtevant: And that was the grace, not knowing we had the money. I dug in my basement and found all leftover Legos, you know? Those have not been used in the way we thought, but they're on the shelf and they will get used some day, I'm quite certain, as kids build projects.

Gonzalez: Yeah. Well, is there anything else before we wrap up that you would want to share with people interested in doing this?

Kitchen: Well, I think you have to go on your comment of what's positive and negative. You really have to figure out how your staff and your school operates, because this is going to be different in all different parts, whether it's high school, middle school, and where you're at in the country. It really depends on how you want the space. You can look and read about how different schools are changing their common spaces, changing their libraries, changing their media center, and I wanted to make it unique. We wanted to do something totally different. And I think we've achieved that and I think we've achieved really connecting with the classroom and with the teachers.

And like Penny said, it's just going to keep evolving in terms of what's going to happen with our one-to-one, what's going to happen with our project-based learning, what's going to happen in, really, every day as these kids move forward. So, I really think you've got to look at what your teachers and what your kids are doing right now and kind of adapt to that.

Gonzalez: Well, thank you so much for sharing this, and we're going to get pictures and video and stuff, so that anybody who's listening to this can go to the actual blog post and look at how you guys have arranged that space so that they can really picture it.

Kitchen: Sure. And I think I would encourage people, too, if they're near us or want to contact us, our doors are always open to come in and watch. As an educator and as a coach, we want to reinvent, we just want to go and take the best ideas. And if we can get more activity in these kids' hands and the more things that they can be accustomed to I think is our job.

Sturtevant: I think the involvement-we aren't done, we'll never be done. We'll grow, we'll be creative. But having good people invested and taking off on it and just taking charge of it was huge, and I've got to be that support person that either sells it or brings in ideas. We've been very fortunate - a school not far from us opened their doors to us to see what they were doing. There's no right or wrong. It's what does your school need, what is your staff ready for, and what can you students do, whether you call that a makerspace or learning center and innovation center. Once you find your purpose, what can you do? How do you make it work for your school, your kids?

Gonzalez: I bet your teachers are really grateful that you are thinking expansively and really trying to make the most of this space. I'm sure that there are a lot of underutilized libraries out there that could use some kind of an upgrade.

Sturtevant: I think for us what's going to happen is we're going to take a space that maybe ran some weeks five to ten kids through its doors to it will be the integral piece that moves our school into the personalization, the technology era that our kids are entering. And it will be integral, or based around what's happening from this learning center.

Kitchen: You know, we're averaging around 120 kids a day that go through the doors.

Gonzalez: I was going to ask that. That's a hugely-

Sturtevant: In a school of right around 500. We just have two grades, so that gives you some idea. It is a tool. Our teachers are still our most important facilitators of learning, and these are just tools that let that teacher have more personalized time with the kid, so they direct it. And this is going to become integral even further as our education process goes forward.
Listen to the audio version of this podcast. See all podcast episodes.

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Episode 38: The School Library that Increased Student Use by 1,000 Percent

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The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 38 Transcript Jennifer Gonzalez, Host Listen to the audio version of this podcast. Gonzalez: This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 38 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, I'm going to tell you the story of a school library that increased student use by ...

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The internet has given students an incredibly vast world of up-to-the-minute resources, including nearly limitless outlets for research and investigation. But many students turn immediately to the ...

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Four Philly libraries unveil their stunning makeovers, in before-after photos

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Four Philly libraries unveil their stunning makeovers, in before-after photos

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After closing up shop for more than a year, four branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia are opening their doors once again looking better, brighter, and even more beautiful than before.

Logan Library and the Lillian Marrero Library in Fairhill both opened within weeks of each other in November. Tacony Library will celebrate its grand opening on Saturday, with Lovett Memorial Library to follow on December 16.

These branches make up four of the five libraries that were selected for the William Penn Foundation's 21st Century Libraries initiative, which, as the name implies, aims to transform traditional buildings into libraries of the 21st century. The South Philadelphia Library was the first of the five to undergo this major overhaul.

"Most of our neighborhood libraries have not experienced substantial renovation in decades, and many can no longer adequately support the rich and complex needs of today's users," said Siobhan A. Reardon, president and director of the Free Library. "These beautiful, dynamic 21st Century Libraries will serve as models of what a library can and should be in today's society."

So what exactly does a 21st century library look like? They're all now ADA compliant, for one, and have new spaces dedicated to specific groups, including children, teens, and pre-K. There's new site-specific artwork, as well as technology upgrades like computer bars. All of the libraries were redesigned by architect James R. Keller.

Here's a breakdown, in photos, of what to expect at each new-and-improved library.

Logan Library (1333 Wagner Avenue)

Logan Library dates back to 1917-18 when it was built with a donation from Andrew Carnegie. Today, the historic building features a new reading garden, study rooms, and self-checkout kiosks. Its programming also has a new focus on family literacy.

Lillian Marrero Library (601 West Lehigh Avenue)

This Fairhill library was also built with the help of Carnegie in 1906. At the time, the limestone building was the largest library in Pennsylvania. Today, it has been modernized with a new, glassy addition that features ADA-accessible elevators. There's also a focus on providing expanded bilingual resources and workplace readiness help.

Tacony Library (6742 Torresdale Avenue)

The Tacony Library opened the same year as the Lillian Marrero Library, though it had originally set up shop in a small school house as early as 1876. Today, it's home to Small Business Resource Center, led by the Tacony Community Development Corporation. It opens its doors post-renovation on Saturday, December 2.

Lovett Memorial Library (6945 Germantown Avenue)

This Mt. Airy branch dates back to the 1870s, but it didn't become part of the Free Library of Philadelphia until the 1920s. After undergoing numerous renovations and additions over the years, the 21st Century Library renovation will bring a new Lovett Park to the site, which will be in clear view from the new covered reading porch. There are also new elevators, three computer lounges, and a quiet zone. It officially reopens on Saturday, December 16.

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Four Philly libraries unveil their stunning makeovers, in before-after photos

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After closing up shop for more than a year, four branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia are opening their doors once again looking better, brighter, and even more beautiful than before. Logan Library and the Lillian Marrero Library in Fairhill both opened within weeks of each other in November.

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21st-Century Libraries: The Learning Commons

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21st-Century Libraries: The Learning Commons

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Libraries in the 21st Century: the Struggle Between Perception and Reality

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Libraries in the 21st Century: the Struggle Between Perception and Reality

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It speaks volumes when the man in charge of the world's fourth-biggest public library insists digital technologies are an opportunity rather than a threat to libraries. In an interview with Forbes Magazine, Anthony W Marx, president of New York Public Library, countered fears that they were dying:

There are people who think that the Digital Age is a mortal threat to the library. I think it's the greatest opportunity in the history of libraries, and that means that this institution of huge scale and beloved by millions of people is also at a moment of revitalizing itself fundamentally. In my line of work, that's an unbeatable combination.

In truth, libraries and librarians have fundamentally changed but not everyone has noticed. Those with the privilege of Internet access have the ability to find every sort of information offered on the web. Much of modern global culture has been captured into bits and bytes of data, then packaged for consumption to suit every preference. The Internet in these ways seems very similar to a library, or at least a repository of information, distributed on a global scale but accessed locally. However, the presence of the Internet has obscured the library, making many unaware of how it has evolved, what makes it different, and why it is so important to co-exist with the Internet.

Dr Marx points out this distinction:

The library is misunderstood as a repository of books. The library is a repository of information, and a sharing, and providing of access to information, and guide to using it.

The Internet is no doubt a giant resource, but it does not guide creativity and understanding-it is designed to reflect preferences rather than needs. Algorithms, bots and social media tracking filter and package information based on searches but they do not highlight information that helps us to learn and grow in understanding. Humans still need to research, analyze, and ultimately decide on complex, difficult issues. Internet sources are not usually designed to assist in doing these things. In fact, they can negatively affect our judgment and restrict what we do depending on how the information is packaged.

An image which is stuck in the past

Many IB World Schools have modernized their libraries specifically to challenge perceptions of its function in the community. Despite this, libraries and librarians face problems with how they are perceived, despite the obvious transformation most have made. The phenomenon known as library nostalgia can influence resourcing decisions so that schools even with the best of intentions can underestimate or misunderstand the role libraries and librarians play. (Hochman 2016)

The notion that libraries are physical or conceptual gates that can be opened and closed is nostalgic and belongs in the past. Libraries can be used to help make sense of information, but they no longer fully contain it. They do not control or limit what we can learn. Libraries are welcoming spaces inviting us towards information, and they provide services that help us understand it. No library in the 21st-century gatekeeps as its primary function and no library exists as a single, physical space.

A more expansive argument for the value of libraries is possible based on services to the community and the variety of ways they can be preserved to promote reading, literacy and community involvement. Libraries do not simply disappear when closed. Libraries exist in cyberspace, community centres, and classrooms. They exist in doctors' offices or in bookstores. Every time a space or a collection is designated for reading and using information it becomes, to some degree, a library. Every collection of information that is catalogued or sorted is potentially a library. When a physical library closes, an identifiable place of learning is lost, which is tragic and should not happen regardless of cost or space-saving concerns. The library concept can and does exist anywhere and should actively support the community regardless of existing physical spaces.

Library nostalgias are also unfairly applied to librarians

Stereotyping of librarian duties has led to staff reductions and changes that in the long term are detrimental to learning and teaching. The stereotype of librarians as "overprotective of their books" and "always shushing people" (Jennings 2016) is present in the media, despite widespread evidence of the opposite. Some schools remain unaware of the expertise librarians bring to learning and teaching in the information age, assuming that libraries merely support written curriculums instead of inquiry and personal development across the community.

The library also drives other aspects of school life that make learning experiences better for everyone. It is a multipurpose space that can provide resources for reading, both for academic development and personal enjoyment. It can be a social space, an experimental space, as well as a safe space in many ways. A functioning 21st-century library system, therefore, energizes the curriculum and the school more generally, in some areas driving school life and culture.

A functioning library provides the information and possible directions that learning and teaching need to go, and when properly resourced guides lifelong learning as well. Delivering a curriculum without a functioning library is akin to flying a plane without an instrument panel.

All IB World Schools are obligated to provide libraries. How they look and function is significantly enhanced by the presence of experienced librarians. Libraries should reflect what an active 21st-century information hub can and should be, and for IB World Schools they should also fully energize as well as support an IB education.

Realities librarians face in IB World Schools

Experienced librarians' impact and influence on school culture are immediately evident in the collections and services they provide. The language the school uses to describe multiliteracies, inquiry and language development often indicates when a librarian has been integral to school life and culture. In the highest quality IB programmes, librarians are active members of pedagogical leadership teams in the schools or districts they are expected to energize and support.

External circumstances such as budgetary fluctuations, new school construction and the introduction of new technologies impact what is expected of librarians. Many are plunged into uncertainty about their work as schools struggle with resources-a situation which can compromise learning and teaching. External factors such as these can be mitigated to support what a librarian is and can become, and should not obscure what a librarian should do to aid, extend and energize learning and teaching in IB programmes. Even with limited resources, librarians can develop exceptional approaches to energizing IB programmes with the right support and leadership in the school.

Open conversations on libraries

Communities have vastly different needs and ideas about the nature and function of their libraries. It is very important to have open conversations about them. Open conversations are ongoing dialogues designed to generate ideas, plans, concerns and actions that transform the school community. They are characterized by the open-minded approach of participants in addressing topics and questions. Open conversations are one of the most effective avenues to explore how libraries and librarians can fulfill the community's needs and objectives.

Once an open conversation has been established, the outcomes and actions which result become meaningful for the whole community.
Pilar Quezzaire is the Curriculum Manager for Cross-Programme Development at the IB in The Hague, Netherlands. References
Wolfe, J. (2015) "The 21st Century Library: A Conversation with NYPL's Anthony Marx." Forbes Magazine. forbes.com

Gaiman, N. 2013. "Neil Gaiman: Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media.

Hochman, J. 2016. School library nostalgias. Curriculum Inquiry. 46:2, 132-147

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Libraries in the 21st century: the struggle between perception and reality

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It speaks volumes when the man in charge of the world's fourth-biggest public library insists digital technologies are an opportunity rather than a threat to libraries. In an interview with Forbes Magazine, Anthony W Marx, president of New York Public Library, countered fears that they were dying: There are people who think that the Digital Age is a mortal threat to the library.

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21st Century Library

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21st Century Library Archives - Ideas & Inspiration from Demco

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Join Learning Environment Designer Marci Milius as she discusses the changes taking place in today's learning environments and how you can adapt your library space to fit students' needs and new instructional models. You'll also get tips and advice on how to choose furniture for your space that meets safety requirements and creates an inviting environment.

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As schools seek to become future ready, it is necessary to identify and cultivate leadership beyond district and building leaders. School librarians lead, teach, and support the Future Ready goals of their school and district in a variety of ways through their professional practices, programs, and spaces.