I’d been hearing over and over again from pretty much everyone that I absolutely needed to read The Third Teacher. I received it as a birthday gift back in Februrary, but didn’t get around to reading it until this summer. At first, it took me a bit to get used to the design of … Read more
A few days ago, I tweeted out this image of our future Makerspace that I created in Skitch on my iPad. I was inspired by The Nerdy Teacher’s post on rethinking his classroom setup, and I wanted to create a visual that could show what our space will be like when it all comes together. … Read more
I left Tampa, FL bright and early yesterday with my friend and colleague Okle Miller (@okle_miller) to start on our ISTE adventures. Before heading to Atlanta, we took a detour to Athens, GA to visit Andy Plemmons and check out Barrows Media Center. I’ve been following Andy’s blog since early this school year, and … Read more
A few days ago, I posted a review of the book Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration. But just a simple review does not give you the full story. While reading through this book, I was constantly jotting down notes and ideas for things I wanted to try in my library. … Read more
Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration is a fabulous book for any educator looking to change up their learning space to support students collaboration. Even though this book is not directly about schools (it focuses more on offices and universities) there’s so many practical lessons to be taken from this book. So … Read more
I just found out a few weeks ago that my school is receiving a Lowes Toolbox for Education grant of $5,000 to transform our library! I applied for this grant back in February, with the goal of transforming the instruction/tables side of our library into a dynamic, collaborative, Learning Commons-style space capabale of quickly and … Read more
I attended the University of South Florida for by my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. While I was there I spent many, many hours in the library. For the most part, it was pretty traditional then – six floors and a basement with stacks and stacks of books, plus some common areas and computer labs. The … Read more
Learning mess: n., a mess that is created as a result of the learning process; also a mess that encourages further learning My library doesn’t have a dedicated area yet for making. At the moment, our Makerspace is a collection of tables with bins of K’nex, LEGOs and Snap Circuits out on top of them. … Read more
I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about learning spaces, and how to create a physical space most conducive to learning. My library is pretty small, with no natural light, lots of heavy furniture, and a 30 computer lab stuck in the middle of it. While I may be limited somewhat by the physical space, … Read more
Like many school libraries, my district has been gradually shifting from print reference to digital reference. Yet when I first arrived at my library four years ago, we still had several hundred reference books, filling up three large floor shelving units. The majority of these books were out of date. Over the past four years, … Read more