Students' input and participation improves a library's reach, and programs are more enticing for students when librarians include learners' perspectives. The interest level for students improves drastically when their peers announce programs and/or create promotional items to share what is happening in the school library. This article describes…

When was the last time you saw a student copying from a print reference source? As print sources gather dust, digital materials' use grows. Digital materials are more to the liking of students raised with technology in hand. For young learners, the process of on-screen copy and paste has made replication with pen and paper obsolete. As digital…

In this article, high school librarian Beth Ebenstein Mulch describes how she used iPads to introduce students at T. C. Williams High School (Alexandria, Virginia) to the school library. Her goal was for the library to come to life in front of new students and for them to learn from peers about all the great resources and services their library…

Book trailers are fast becoming today's marketing technique for newly published books. They have changed the way students select books, and trailers meet the expectations of today's teens who have been brought up on graphic visuals. Book trailers are also quite new, starting as a trend only about four years ago. Since then, they have proliferated,…

School libraries have been in existence since at least the eighth century. However, it wasn't until the twentieth century that the school library was seen primarily as "a source of enrichment for the curriculum, and a means of developing reading and study habits in the pupils" (Clyde 1981, 263). While the formats available and tools for…

One of the great failings in educational game design is a focus on the question-and-answer model of gameplay. This type of educational game has players engage in some sort of time-wasting activity like rolling a die and moving, and then the focus of the game, the activity of answering a question, is triggered. Thousands of educational games use…

Stepping into a school library today reveals the dramatic changes in educational games since the author's elementary school days. Many current school libraries now boast computer- and video-based games, as well as geocaching, big games, or large-scale scavenger hunts that pit teams against each other in timed races to find clues about a…

Over the past few years a growing body of research has highlighted the potential for educational video games to foster highly engaged, effective learning in the classroom. These research reports from organizations such as the Federation of American Scientists, the National Science Foundation, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop…

The Elko County School District in Nevada has elementary school librarians that are "solo" librarians. Over the last several years they have worked to collaborate on meeting monthly--even though the district covers 17,100 square miles--and on providing professional development face to face and online. Sharing and collaboration help them…

Collaboration and coteaching with classroom teachers and campus specialists are the cornerstones of a successful school library program. Whereas collaboration is the process of planning a lesson or unit of instruction, coteaching suggests a much deeper level of collaboration--one in which both the teacher and campus specialist (be it school…

As a novice teacher, the author was confident in his ability to teach digital photography but didn't initially realize the extent to which blogs, wikis, and social networks could reshape and enhance how students learn, and how, by incorporating these tools into his curriculum, he would ultimately find ways to use Web 2.0 tools to truly engage and…

School library media specialists are information and communication specialists who lead and model these roles in schools and at their major professional events making use of the relevant new Web 2.0 tools available to them to network, collaborate, and share. Using these tools effectively helps them become leaders in their buildings and districts.…

Armed with digital cameras, voice recorders, and movie cameras, students from Thomas Dale High School in Chester, Virginia, have been exploring neighborhoods, interviewing residents, and collecting memories of their hometown. In this article, the author describes "Digital History of Chester", a project for creating a commemorative DVD.…

Connecting students with authors is a dynamic way to promote the love of reading. A successful program shows that teens will read--if they are given time to read books they are interested in and develop a community of readers. This article discusses the Author's Day program, a district-wide yearly event held in Wallkill, New York, that brings…

If school library media specialists are unable to find the owner of a work, how do they contact them for permission to use or copy their work? They can go to the publisher of the work for contact information. They can also go to an organization, such as an agency or royalty house, company, or clearinghouse that specializes in helping users obtain…