Diana went to a presentation at Service Center XI Lib2Tell Conference 2018 and brought this idea back. A special thank you to our Follett Rep. Naomi Bates for arranging for the bags for our students to place their summer books in. In two weeks, we will have 150+ students fill their bags with books. Some books they can add to their home libraries and others will be checked out from our library collection.  
Question:
Why do we let our library books just sit on our shelves all summer break?
Thought:
We know research shows that students need to read over summer break or their reading ability will decline. So why not let the books get checked out by students over the summer. We are calling the program "Beat the Heat" READ. Below are images of the flyers and bag tag we are using. I will post a follow up blog in September to let you know how it went.

, .Design thinking is one of the newest topics to hit the education market.  This topic was widely discussed at SXSWedu in 2017. So, how did two library/media technology specialist bring Design Thinking to the library for elementary students?  Here is our story.  
Joining the library field later in life, I am always looking for ways to connect student learning to real world experience especially in the library.  I want students to learn how to learn, not just learn where the books are, how to follow the rules or even find a good book to read.  I think it goes much deeper than this. Students need to learn how to take charge of their own learning.  Librarians do a great job of showing students a wide range of resources both print and digital.  However some of those ways are in reality quite boring.  I learned about the iSearch process first from Donna Duncan, Laura Lockhart and Lisa Ham in their The New iSearch, You Search, We All Learn to Research (2012) and then from my library certification class.  I converted this in to my research model for my third and fourth graders.  Shortly after, I started this process, Genius Hour became a hot topic.  This proved a great way to take the iSearch method and blend it into the Genius hour concept. It worked great for the one year that I had a teacher willing to collaborate with me. 

However something was still lacking.  These ideas were solely focused on what the student wanted to do with little regards to the world around them. I had begun to follow A. J. Juliani and John Spencer and discovered Design Thinking and their LAUNCH process.  This started the wheels spinning.  I decorated my library with rockets and mission control, but again I was stuck.  

This is where SXSWedu come in.  Suzanne and I attended and learned how a lot about design thinking, but the most important part was that we learned how to teach students how to use design thinking. Thanks to Sam Patterson and Echo Horizon School, we had a plan.  Now that we have your curiosity piqued, join us next time for part2 and see how we use the design thinking in our libraries.

March roared in with many fun experiences. We started with a week of celebrating Dr. Seuss. This year the activities involved FlipGrid, Seesaw, BreakoutEDU & a QR Scavenger Hunt. 
The second week of March, PGE had an Incognito Book Club secret meeting & PGE had the District Sphero Kit for the students to investigate. In addition, we announced  the Design Thinking Food Truck  winning design teams.
Then a week of Spring Break...which will be followed by 2 more weeks of engaging  activities. The month will end like a lamb as our Tech Ninjas will try to create a paper circuit card...stay tune---in April's blog post, I will share how it went.

Diana & I are excited to kick off our new improved website.  We love learning from others, being inspired by twitter, conferences, books and face-to-face interactions.  We know the "force is stronger" when we collaborate and it is okay to fail if you learn and grow from it.  We hope by sharing what we are doing we might inspire others, as well as, make some more connections. As one book title says, we do this because as educators our "KIDS DESERVE IT" plus if we stop trying new things we stop growing & if we are not growing we are not doing what we are asking our students to do (-Challenge yourself!-). So come join us in the our learning journey and try something new and share your experience. We refer to this journey as chasing "squirrels"....because it is fun, you can chase more than one at a time and others some times think you are a little nuts...but we are enjoying the adventure.