So many ideas!

Earlier this month, I visited 2 high school libraries in Buncombe County, then attended the NCSLMA conference. Having missed 3 1/2 days of school, last week was super-busy playing catch-up. Today was the first day that seemed like things were back in somewhat of a routine, but I'm already getting more input online through webinars and TL News Night.

So - here are just a few of the MANY ideas I brought back with me from all these various sources.

• Implement a student blog where they can share poems, stories, essays, artwork, videos, etc. - so they can participate in the library site and not have it be just a 'warehouse of information'.
  
• Price out plexiglass cut to table size so students can collaborate on them Hunt-Library-Style
• Post library learning targets that are about life skills, not library skills
• Create a digital toolbox to be a matchmaker between teachers/students & digital tools
• Share with the community ~ make library Twitter & Instagram accounts & use them (and the YouTube account) regularly
• Look for connections/extensions - lots of authors enjoy skyping with classes - set up some CANES lunch author Skypes. 
• Talk with the students about what they want to learn how to do - then make it happen in our creation center
• Set out one & done activities during CANES lunch - like Perler beads, design challenges, ColAR & magnetic poetry
• Get teachers to post what they're reading in the hallways to build reading culture in the schools - model reading challenging material & struggling with it!
• Schedule a Tech Tuesday for digital resources (NCWiseOwl & EasyBib)
• Plan for transformative, interactive displays: "help me pick out books that exemplify this quote:..."
• Focus less on helping students find resources & more on helping them know what to do with the resources
• Let kids figure out how to mount & move the green screen - design contest w/ budgets, etc. 
• Be aware of my lens & seek to understand the students' lenses.  Be intentional about actively promoting positive racial identity.
• Stream events in the library: ALA Youth Media Awards, Citizen Science, etc.
• Build community resource database w/ public librarian
• Make usage data sheet & keep track!

SO - that's just a fraction of the ideas I gained in the past 2 weeks.  There are still so many resources to sift through!  This will keep me busy for a while, though, and will help me develop my PDP goals (yes, I'm a little late on that!)

Next post:  How this public/high school library works & thoughts about how to leverage that partnership for student learning.