Roger Mastroianni Photography

A design revolution is reinventing the children’s room in public libraries and changing the way young children learn.

The movement involves colorful spaces with mirrors, soft edges, and things to climb on. There are items to play with such as “sentence makers” and audio-based toys. A farmer’s market, cash register, automobile, or airport may be involved. Most importantly, the areas are embedded with tools and features that get kids ready to read.

This new breed of literacy-packed play spaces in libraries is inspired by children’s museums and the developmental theories that drive them. “You can call it interaction, you can call it theme design,” says Sharon Exley, a designer and president of Architecture is Fun, a firm that has conceived spaces for both libraries and children’s museums. “We’re creating architecture in a way that children understand,” she adds. “The underlying story or framework is always literacy, and how you make it fun and playful.”

Bite-sized children’s museums

Tracy Strobel strived for a rich learning experience that would keep patrons coming back when she was conceiving new children’s areas for the Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library (CCPL), now in the midst of a system-wide rebuilding and renovation project. Strobel, deputy director at CCPL, imagined “bite-sized pieces of a children’s museum” that kids and their caregivers or parents would visit weekly or once a month. They would be “destinations for families much in the way that a children’s museum is a destination,” she says.

The garden-themed toddler area at the Evanston (IL)
Public Library has ample seating for caregivers.
Photo by Doug Snower Photography

While planning the nine new children’s areas, each at roughly 8,000 square feet, Strobel zeroed in on what they needed to offer children educationally. The designs, she notes, had to be “related to the six early literacy skills” identified by literacy experts and adapted by educators: developing vocabulary, print recognition, print awareness, narrative adeptness, letter knowledge, and phonological awareness. Strobel handed potential architects and designers a sheet outlining these and other key requirements. At the same time, she adds, “we try really hard to have a variety of elements at the different spaces.”

Enter the design firm RedBox Workshop, which is conceiving, fabricating, and installing some of the new areas at CCPL. “You’re basically teaching experiential learning through play,” explains Tony LaBrosse, partner and director of design and project management at RedBox. The company has also created play areas at museums, zoos, and hospitals.

In the libraries, at least, books still reign, but the heart of the project was “applying an aesthetic wrapper to early literacy objectives,” says LaBrosse. Many CCPL spaces are built around themes from children’s books. The Warrensville branch environment, for one, was inspired by Ashley Bryan’s book Let it Shine: Three Favorite Spirituals (Atheneum, 2007), with its vibrant, cut-paper illustrations. The library walls, decorated with dancing silhouettes like those in Bryan’s book, do indeed create a vibrant sense of play that riffs on the heart of the literature in the room.

An Evanston patron with cushions
that double as a classic stacking toy.
Photo by Doug Snower Photography

A centerpiece of the new features is an enclosed “crawler space,” as Strobel calls it—a safe, enclosed play pit for the littlest patrons, stocked with stimulating, brightly colored motifs. Nearby, a light board allows pre-literate kids to assemble stories with different Colorform shapes, honing narrative adeptness. A sound board spells out words broken into syllables. When a child pushes a button, he hears an individual syllable pronounced. In a nearby mirror, he can watch himself forming the syllables.

A “sentence maker” also builds print awareness with elements that kids can spin or move up and down to reveal random words forming “wacky sentences,” says CCPL marketing and communications director Hallie Rich.

Elements like these, LaBrosse explains, are about “meeting the individual or group where they’re at on any given day.” He says, “We don’t try to set up an experience that is ‘you will learn this today when you go do that experience.’ We’re not here to judge their learning experience. We don’t have an outcome. We’re not grading.” The designs also “try to create age-appropriate risk” such as exploring—and probably taking a tumble—without getting hurt.

The children’s area at CCPL’s new Mayfield branch takes inspiration from Denise Fleming’s Caldecott Honor book In the Small Small Pond (Holt, 1993). Adopting the idea of wetlands exploration,the space incorporates “science work related to tadpoles or microscopic science with early literacy,” says LaBrosse. There’s a microscope, an insect observation center with large bugs on view, and a soundboard.

Other spaces are purely thematic. At Garfield Heights, it’s all about cars. There’s a garage and a gas pump, levers and pulleys to play with, and toy spark plugs, all of which can be manipulated to boost STEM skills, a priority of the local school system, says Strobel. The Fairview branch takes on the concept of travel, with world landmarks, a play airplane hangar, and control tower. There’s a ticketing and baggage area, along with places to sell food, and a cash register. The environment “allows kids to do all this imaginative play with time, tools, and small motor skills,” says Strobel.

Lamaze and play-based pavilions

The best way to engage early learners, says Exley, is through “literacy-rich and play-based pavilions that allow children to explore” and navigate the world of reading.

She and her partner at Architecture is Fun, husband and architect Peter Exley, kept these child-centered questions in mind while conceptualizing a renovation for the 14,500-square-foot children’s area for the Evanston (IL) Public Library in 2007 and a new, nearly 16,000-square-foot space for the Fountaindale (IL) Public Library in 2011.

Developmental theory is always at the forefront of Exley’s mind. While dreaming up spaces for very young children, she thinks about psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs,” a theory of psychological health. The basic idea is that a fundamental feeling of safety and security enables relationships, esteem, and creative potential.

For Exley, this translates into crawler spaces offering stimulation and security. “Sensory gardens, little padded landscapes, things on the ceiling to focus on” are key elements for the youngest library patrons, Exley says. The soft, colorful elements also offer “Lamaze-style iconography.”

At Evanston, the “garden of early learning,” like Warrenville’s crawler spot, is such a place. It is an enclosed area with playful plant and flower motifs—gingko leaves and stylized roses based on a Charles Rennie Macintosh design. Inside, oversized cushions function as a “classic stacking toy, but we’ve done it as a giant soft sculpture,” says Exley. “If a child is learning to walk or stand, it gives them something to hold on to.”

Elsewhere at Evanston, where the Exleys’ elements were fabricated and installed by RedBox, is a little collection of “storytelling sticks,” resembling garden signs, that can be written on. “Very often preschoolers tell a little story to teachers who write it down and parents get this at the end of the day,” says Exley. To build on kids’ articulation skills, “parents can jot down a thought shared by their child.”

A game pavilion at the Fountaindale (IL) Public Library.
Photo by Doug Snower Photography

For older children, the Exleys conceived tables with built-in bins for art supplies and play items such as LEGO. Branching columns rise from the tables, a nod to architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The overhanging limbs are outfitted with holes that librarians can suspend things from—origami, artwork, globes, or whatever else may be related to the project of the moment. The art area has a built-in sink for washing up. This place is made for action.

The Fountaindale children’s area took its cue from a children’s book, Dragon Tree by Jane Langton (HarperCollins, 2008). With lots of room to move, the team created a “mini-park” with stylized trees arranged to “call out these areas of adventure or discovery,” Exley says.

Those areas include a spot for playing global games, with real globes and one painted with blackboard paint, so kids can draw their own world. A “garden of technology” has informational monitors suspended from trees. There’s a crawler area here, too, and a space for the chess club. In the art area, the trees are equipped with clips for displaying completed art projects.

Exley stresses that libraries considering play-centered areas should be mindful of designing one they can manage. You want an area that “the staff can afford” and maintain. Fountaindale manager of children’s services Wendy Birkemeier says that because of graffiti issues, she doesn’t usually leave chalk out in the library. Her staff puts out washable crayons instead.

More conceptually, Exley returns to the central exploratory aspect of such early learning areas. “You don’t want to have an interactive environment that’s push-button,” she says. “You need something open-ended.”

“Family Play and Learning Spots”

The Hennepin County (MN) Library (HCL) launched its first early literacy play area in 2010, when the Minnesota Children’s Museum received an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to explore the idea of designing early literacy play spaces within libraries. HCL has adopted two of these spaces so far, geared to children ages two to six, at the Hopkins and North Regional branches, with another opening this fall.

“The idea was that children’s museums have great ideas about exhibit design and ways for parents and children to interact around play,” says Maureen Hartman, coordinating librarian, youth programs and services at HCL, of the new 400- to 700-square foot areas. “That’s a really different direction for libraries.” She adds, “We have supported our staff with play training that the children’s museum has offered us.”

On any given day at one of these play spots, you’ll find children busily working in a fabricated garden, made of two pieces of leather with cotton underneath, planting imaginary seeds in a row. One might plunk an illustrated sign reading “carrot” into the ground, cook toy carrots in a play kitchen, and serve them up at a mini café table. Nearby, at a toy farmer’s market, children can sort, count, and identify more vegetables. All this fun is bolstering their vocabulary and reading and honing narration and numeracy abilities.

To inform and support caregivers, “directions and cues to parents” are posted at the early literacy spaces, Hartman says. HCL also produced a document for adults outlining five simple things that they can do to help get kids ready to read, based on the Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) principles issued by the Public Library Association (PLA): “talk, sing, read, write and play together.”

A play kitchen and mini theater at the North Regional branch of the Hennepin County (MN) Library. The Hennepin system’s early learning spots are oriented to children ages two to six and resulted from a collaboration with the Minnesota Children’s Museum.
Photo Courtesy of Hennepin County Library

“Playing is how kids learn,” the document tells readers. “Playing in a space like this helps kids use their imagination to solve problems—it also helps them learn to work with others and prepares them to learn and read.”

For now, HCL is calling these new areas “Family Play and Learning Spots,” according to Hartman. HCL is working with the Minnesota Children’s Museum and the Minnesota Center for Early Education and Development on an evaluation of the impact these types of areas have within libraries. “I’m really interested in a pre- and post- test,” says Hartman. “What does engagement look like between parents with children in a regular library vs. one that’s more thoughtfully planned?”

Answers to that question, and others, will be revealed when the study is completed this fall. Hartman says she will use the findings to leverage support for more play spaces.

In the meantime, the people who help conceive and build these educational hot spots never stop wondering how spatial design can better support literacy and development. “Some designers look at things in two dimensions, like how long you want your desk to be,” Exley says. “We like to think in a four-dimensional way. We come in to add the experience level—in 4D.”

 School libraries in Galt, California, are open this summer, loaning materials to kids and their parents and preparing to circulate 240 new Google Chromebooks to families throughout the community.

This is a huge turnaround. Last year, the Galt school libraries were slated to close down, casualties of a $790,000 budget gap. But thanks to tireless fundraising by kids and adults in the community and a $10 million Race to the Top federal grant, which kicked in this month, the libraries were operational during the year and are now serving the broader community year-round.

“The school library can be a hub for intergenerational learning,” says Karen Schauer, superintendent of the Galt Joint Union Elementary School district.

A vision of strong school libraries has buoyed community fundraising over the past year. It started at the meeting when school officials decided that the six elementary and middle-school libraries would have to close for the 2012-13 school year. A seventh-grader opened her wallet and said she would donate $40 to keep them running. The school board president produced $200 on the spot and challenged others to contribute as well.

This sparked a grassroots fundraising campaign led by parent Leesa Klotz that yielded over $67,000 through efforts including bake sales, rummage sales, holiday fairs, business donations, and other initiatives, says Schauer. When Klotz visited a student council meeting last fall, a sixth-grader surprised her by producing a check for $242. The students had raised the money during a pizza fundraiser, and the hosting pizza parlor kicked in a contribution as well.

Klotz and her co-organizers set the goal of making sure each of the 4,000-plus students in the district would be able to access the library during the week, she says. They were also dedicated to keeping all six school libraries open—or none at all. They met those goals, due to the students’ efforts and the many other contributions.

As Klotz and others focused on the 2012-13 school year, Schauer had a more visionary, long-term goal for the schools and their libraries. She had applied for the Race to the Top federal grant in order to reinvent the libraries and to support a district-wide plan that would create individualized learning programs for each student.

The grant application focused on “blended learning,” defined as “personalized learning plans related to students’ strengths, talents, and learning needs,” Schauer says. It involves “a combination of face-to-face, online, and project-based experiences.”  The libraries would be turned into year-round learning centers that would support those goals and teach 21st-century skills. Schauer is developing a “digital citizenry course” for students who check out one of the 40 Chromebooks in each library.

In December 2012, Schauer got word that she had won the grant. But the money would not be available until July. Meanwhile, “We didn’t want a break in service,” says Schauer. “The fundraising helped us sustain current services so that students could check out books at least once a week.”

Schauer is already seeing the results of her vision for year-round school libraries. Currently, three of the schools are hosting summer programs, including support for “migrant education students and children that have extended-year special education services,” says Schauer.

When the kids realized the libraries were open, “Immediately, these students were not only having extra learning time from teachers, but could access the libraries and check materials out,” says Schauer.

Visiting one of the school libraries recently, she encountered families coming in to take materials home. “This is huge,” Schauer says—particularly “in a community that has one public library on the west side of town, and has a freeway dividing it.”

The regulations update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), launched by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1998. The amendments are meant to limit companies’ abilities to reach children under 13 online and to collect personal information about them without their parents’ permission, as SLJ reported in December.

Businesses will now have to obtain parental consent for kids to use their sites and apps and to gather personal data about their child users, in many cases. Acceptable proof of permission from a parent can include a signed form that is faxed, mailed, or emailed to a company; a credit card, debit card, or government ID; a call to a toll-free number, or a video conference.

The definition of a child’s “personal information” includes data such as “geolocation information, as well as photos, videos, and audio files that contain a child’s image or voice,” along with “persistent identifiers that can be used to recognize a user over time and across different websites or online services,” according to an FTC document.

Library sites are largely not impacted by the new rules, since they apply to commercial enterprises, says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association (ALA). “You’re not selling data—that’s the last thing you’re doing as a library,” she says.

However, librarians should know whether their site uses a commercial widget or another tool that collects information about young patrons, she says. If so, librarians must “be aware of what it is doing with information.” In addition, Caldwell-Stone emphasizes, “you need to be aware of the law because you have parents asking you for information about it.”

Some youth librarians see more roadblocks than benefits in the new rules. “It’s hard to determine how this will play out until we see how sites respond to the COPPA revisions, but it’s likely that the updated regulations will impact mobile app use in K–12 learning,” says Michelle Luhtala, department chair at the New Canaan (CT) High School Library.

“Many apps don’t function properly without permission to access geolocation information, photographs, audio files, and videos,” adds Luhtala. “Schools that integrate mobile app use in the classroom often require students to download apps during the school day when parents are not available to grant permission. It’s possible that the new rules will create an age divide within schools—scaling back flexibility among the under-thirteens.”

In Caldwell-Stone’s view, the regulations may “become so onerous that it becomes a burden to young people who want to use the tools.” She adds, “parents will have to be there facilitating this, or else the kids will be shut out” of many online resources. Or children will “lie about their age.”

Luhtala says that when schools hire services to deploy mobile applications, “2013 COPPA will add an extra layer of permissions with which to wrestle.”

Gretchen Caserotti, library director of the Meridian (ID) Library District, notes that the amendments may hinder kids’ exploration and sharing of hobby apps.

“I do appreciate the effort to protect kids, but it seriously limits the possibilities that are so exciting in so many new tools,” says Caserotti, also chair of the ALSC (Association for Library Services to Children) Children and Technology Committee. “Imagine if your older child is really engaged in diy.org for kids, and could discover other maker kids in his or her city through the app. Just like libraries connect kids from different schools, neighborhoods, and life worlds, these tools can provide new ways for kids to connect with each other.”

Caserotti adds, “I’m personally incensed that it permits direct advertising.” Under the new rules, businesses will still be able to collect data without parental consent for some purposes—including limited advertising. “COPPA’s parental notice and consent requirements don’t kick in if the identifier is used solely to support the internal operations of the site or service,” according to COPPA documents. Such “internal operations” include “contextual advertising, frequency capping, legal compliance, site analysis, and network communications.”

Some data companies lobbied against the COPPA revisions, saying that the cost of enforcing them would be prohibitive and stifle innovation, as reported in The Hill and other outlets. Under the new rules, platforms like Google Play and the Apple App store will not be held liable if items sold on their sites are not COPPA-compliant.

How will COPPA play out? Caldwell-Stone notes that currently, “Parents are the greatest enablers of under-13 going on Facebook.” With the tighter rules, “We might see enforced verification of age in ways we don’t want to see.” She points to a scenario in which kids are “borrowing mom and dad’s wallet for a few minutes” to get the credit card verification they need to gain access to a site.

But overall, “the philosophy behind COPPA is not something we object to,” says Caldwell-Stone. “The controversy over the new regulations is that they’re much more stringent. I’ll be interested to see how these regulations actually shake out.”

The FTC issued two supporting documents to help consumers and companies understand them: a guide for parents, “Protecting your Child’s Privacy Online,” and a “Six-step Compliance Plan for your Business,” advising organizations how to abide by the rules. An FTC video, “Protecting Children’s Privacy under COPPA,” also outlines the amendments.

The recommendations call for more investment in digital literacy, robust collaborations, and more access to digital literacy programming in educational settings. They also encourage school librarians to “identify opportunities to embed digital literacy skills in curricular and research activities.”

Digital Learn’s search engine tutorial.

Says task force member Wendy Stephens, a librarian at Cullman (AL) High School, ALA councilor-at-large, and YALSA’s blog member manager, the task force’s recommendation list “is a tool that people can use in their own local efforts” to gain support from patrons, parents, and community stakeholders. “We wanted to give librarians the weight of ALA behind them.”

Another goal of the guidelines will be in assisting school librarians in understanding issues such as the filtering requirements that impact K–12 learners, which sometimes hinder their access to literacy programs. “Many school districts filter far more content than the law actually requires,” says task force member Frances Jacobson Harris, librarian at University Laboratory High School in Urbana, IL. “This recommendation gives libraries a precise talking point to use when negotiating filter implementation.”

Digital Learn, meanwhile, consists of two main areas: “Teach” and “Learn.” “Teach” is where librarians can virtually gather, forming groups to share best practices and brainstorm. It is “the idea starter” area on the site, Jamie Hollier, the hub’s project manager, tells School Library Journal.

For school librarians especially, Hollier says Digital Learn hopes that they will visit the site and create groups on programs that they’d like to brainstorm about, such as Digital Learning Day or robotics. The goal is for teachers searching for resource—say, on how to create videos—can join a group on Digital Learn that’s geared to that topic. Or, if it doesn’t exist yet, they can start one and seek feedback.

“We’re creating the framework and you provide the content,” says Hollier. “The whole concept is that it will be crowd sourced.” Hollier also notes that entries in the “Teach” area of the site can be rated by others, which adds to the best practices discussion. “When you rate, we ask you to comment at the same time. If something is poorly rated, we want to know why.”

The “Learn” area of the site offers digital literacy tutorials to library patrons and students. Current features include an introduction to email, tips on performing a basic web search, and instructions on using a PC. Many more lessons are expected to be added, and Digital Learn is even discussing the option of partnering with some organizations for K–12 content, Hollier says.

Richard Kong, digital services manager at the Arlington Heights (IL) Memorial Library, sees a lot of potential for Digital Learn’s tutorials. “Our children’s department is definitely interested in offering more classes not only to kids but parents,” says Kong, a panelist in a June 30 ALA session about the hub.

Kong also says he envisions using the site for “partnering and having discussions with our local school district about what parents need to know and what to offer parents to stay up on technology.” And to supplement instruction offered in his library’s digital media lab, Kong would also like to see tutorials in Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Garageband, and iPad use.

What will make people gather at Digital Learn? “PLA is behind it and there are a lot of libraries it can reach,” says Kong. “It has a lot of potential to bring people together in one online forum.”

Stephens agrees. She notes that the new hub has the potential to become a central place for librarians seeking to build digital literacy in their schools and communities. It’s “like a clearing house,” Stephens says, a way to “connect with other librarians and see what they’re doing.” The site also aims to become, she says, “wonderful tool for library patrons and the people we support.”

Digital Learn is a partnership between ALA’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) and Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, and is instituted by the Public Library Association (PLA) with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLA).

Only one in three parents of children ages eight and under reads stories to their kids each night, according to a new survey by the literacy organization Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and Macy’s. Overall, 87 percent of the parents who participated in the online poll read to their kids at bedtime—but not every night. Half the parents said that their children spend more time watching TV and playing video games than reading.

The national online survey of 1,003 parents, conducted in April, also found that in households with salaries under $35,000, 40 percent of kids under nine watched TV, while 35 percent read books.

Parents still favor reading print over ebooks with their kids, as 76 percent choose print while reading with their children, the poll showed. Kids also like paper better: nearly twice as many (20 percent) of those whose parents read from both formats would choose print over ebooks (nine percent). 

In its release, RIF noted that kids who are poor readers by the end of third grade  are four times more likely to drop out of high school than their more proficient peers, according to statistics. Two-thirds of all American fourth graders don’t read proficiently, and among lower-income families, that number rises to four fifths.

The results were released as RIF, which delivers free books and literacy materials to underserved children from birth to age eight, kicks off its 10th annual month-long “Be Book Smart” campaign. From June 21 to July 21, shoppers at any Macy’s store can donate $3  at the register to provide a book to a child in their community.  Contributors receive $10 off a future Macy’s purchase of $50 or more. In a concurrent sweepstakes campaign, Macy’s will give a $500 gift certificate each week to one person who promotes RIF and reading on a Facebook app. Details: facebook.com/Macys or rif.org/sweeps.

Survey figures for race, ethnicity, education, region, household income, and number of children were weighted to be proportional to the overall population, according to an executive summary from Harris Interactive, the market research firm that compiled the online poll. Data was also weighted to reflect the mix of U.S. families nationally who have children under nine. Participants were chosen from those who agreed to participate in Harris Interactive polls.

Aimed at kids ages three to eight, FreeTime Unlimited is an optional extension of Kindle FreeTime, a free feature available on any Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, and Kindle Fire HD 8.9″. FreeTime enables parents to limit their children’s screen time and manage the content that kids can access.

Parents have already shared nine million titles with their children via FreeTime Unlimited, according to the release. The average parent provides his or her child with 18 titles, though some allow them more than 160.

Titles now being added include educational apps like Curious George at the Zoo, The Berenstain Bears and the Big Spelling Bee, Little Critter, and Triceratops Gets Lost from the Smithsonian Institution. There’s also educational content from BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr.as well as games such as Tetris, MONOPOLY Millionaire, The Game of LIFE, and LEGO Harry Potter years 1-4.

Exclusive Nick Jr, characters including Dora the Explorer, Go, Diego, Go! are also on offer.  Upcoming titles will include Where’s my Mickey? Monsters University, and more LEGO games such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter Years 5-7.

Parents can create up to six FreeTime Unlimited profiles that determine what kind of content will be made available to their individual children, and they can also choose content from their own collection. Advertisements and social media don’t show up on a child’s home screen, and “all of the content is already pre-screened for child appropriateness,” the press release says.

Amazon Prime members pay $2.99 monthly per child or $6.99 per family for FreeTime Unlimited. Non-Prime customers pay $4.99 per child or $9.99 per family monthly.

Illustration by John Corbitt.

This month, librarians across the country are building their lists of can’t-miss panels, lunches, unconferences (participant-driven meetings), and exhibits as they gear up for the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference in Chicago from June 27 to July 2.

Other librarians are questioning how much ALA annual really serves their professional development needs. In a time of contracting budgets, layoffs, and demands for tech expertise in the library, is ALA still the must-attend event for all? Or is the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference in San Antonio from June 23 to 26 a better choice?

For the ALA faithful, the panoply of offerings—not to mention the essential social component—makes ALA annual a necessity. “There’s definitely a lot of friends who connect at ALA,” says Gretchen Caserotti, director of the Meridian (ID) Library District, chair of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Children and Technology Committee, and a PLA (Public Library Association) and LITA (Library and Information Technology Association) member.

What else are ALA attendees looking forward to? For Caserotti, it’s the Newbery-Caldecott-Wilder Banquet along with tech programs like “Apps, Apps, and More Apps,” “Top Technology Trends & LITA Awards Presentation,” and the LITA President’s Program speech by Cory Doctorow.

Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) executive director Beth Yoke expects to be holed up in meetings for much of the conference, but she’s eager to see the 25 featured winners of the Excellence in Library Service to Young Adults awards, with programs ranging from one involving iPads and incarcerated youth to another called “Teen Fashion Apprentice.” What’s on Wendy Stephens’s ALA list? Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple, who’s delivering a keynote. The unconferences. And, “it’s a huge thrill to go to the Printz reception and the awards banquet,” says Stephens, a librarian at Cullman (AL) High School, ALA councilor-at-large, and the YALSA blog member manager.

Starr LaTronica, ALSC vice president and president-elect and youth services/outreach manager at the Four County Library System in Vestal, NY, will try not to miss “Think with Your Eyes!” a panel focusing on visual literacy. “In this heavily visual world, so much relies on being able to interpret visual cues,” says LaTronica, who praises the “serendipity” of the ALA conference experience, where the vast and varied offerings can lead to unexpected inspirations.

ISTE appeal

Serendipity, schmoozing, and star power aside, how critical is ALA to librarians’ needs? Not very, some librarians say. “Although I’ve gotten some great ideas at ALA, they’re still struggling to step up their game technology-wise,” says Gwyneth Jones, otherwise known as the “Daring Librarian” and a teacher librarian and technology specialist at the Murray Hill Middle School in Laurel, MD.

Particularly among tech-savvy school librarians like Jones, ISTE is now more of a draw. It’s not just that ISTE’s ed-tech focus provides more bang for their conference buck. School librarians—while often active in AASL activities within ALA—don’t always feel they’re taken seriously at ALA annual and prefer the vibe among ISTE’s mix of educators.

“I sometimes have problems with the way school librarians are treated at ALA,” says Jones. “When I went to ALA early on, I felt like people were thinking, ‘oh, you’re a school librarian, how cute!’”

By contrast, “when I went to ISTE, I felt embraced by everyone,” she says. “They didn’t care what kind of librarian I was.” Jones, now the PK–12 schools representative for ISTE and an ISTE board member, says it’s “a great way to represent my people.”

At ISTE, Jones found “inspiration to start my school library blog.” And, she points out, “there’s not just one blogger’s cafe but four” at ISTE, as well as an entire category of sessions on BYOD.

“I always make the choice to go to ISTE,” says Tiffany Whitehead, a teacher librarian at Central Middle School in Baton Rouge, LA, who blogs as the “Mighty Little Librarian.” “As a school librarian, I’m an educator first. The chance to network with other educators, classroom teachers, administrators, tech coordinators, and others is the most important thing I can do for myself.”

At ISTE, Whitehead will be hosting a tech playground where teachers and school librarians will informally present and share tips on tools and resources. Whitehead’s principal first suggested she attend ISTE, she says. “I would love to go to ALA for the atmosphere and the emphasis on books, but I feel that for my teachers and my students, ISTE is the best choice for me. I really am the technology person on campus.”

Whitehead is also president-elect of SIGMS, an ISTE special interest group (SIG) for media specialists. The many special interest groups within ISTE “play a large and meaningful role in what’s being put forward” during the conferences, according to ISTE CEO Brian Lewis. This year’s conference, for instance, offers more than a dozen sessions about educational video conferencing. The opening keynote speaker is gamification expert Jane McGonigal. “We’re trying to connect folks with what they say they want,” says Lewis.

Stephens, who is attending both conferences and presenting at ALA, points out that “there is a more eclectic crowd of people at ISTE” than at ALA. For instance, as a friend of hers said: “There are men there.”

Gender statistics aside, Stephens—whose school district has never paid for her to attend a library conference but did sponsor an ISTE trip—says, “more people at ISTE work in the educational enterprise. Maybe you feel a little more kinship with those people than a state librarian from another part of the country or an academic library director.”

However, she adds, ISTE inspirations can sometimes be frustrating. “You may go and see this wonderful app and find that it’s blocked” back at your school.

On the other hand, in Stephens’s view, ALA is sometimes out of touch with the daily challenges of school librarians. While useful to people “in rarified situations, there’s not much trickle-down to people who are in a more typical situation.” That would be librarians “trying to tread water and keep programs running on a basic level,” and those working on “nuts and bolts advocacy to keep your job.” However, Stephens believes, “You can bring back more tangibles from ALA—advanced reader’s copies; posters; pictures of you with the Caldecott and Newbery winners. That can be very good for morale.”

AASL and ISTE

AASL president Susan Ballard acknowledges that some school librarians “don’t feel the love” at ALA and points out that ALA has taken steps to remedy this. “ALA is getting better and better at recognizing that we don’t exist in silos and we’re all interconnected,” she says.

How? Ballard refers to an ALA special presidential task force devoted to the current state of school libraries, as well as a focus on the Common Core curriculum. “I know when I go to AASL it’s not just your father’s Oldsmobile,” she says. “It’s as edgy as anything out there.”

AASL still holds appeal for Jones. “If I had to choose one, it would be AASL over ALA,” she says. And Whitehead will be presenting at AASL’s national conference in November.

In Ballard’s view, if librarians think that ISTE is more valuable to librarians than ALA, “we have a perception problem. People hear the word ‘librarian’ and they have a dated concept.” She adds, “I had a colleague in another state who said to his school librarian, ‘I have to think of another name for you, because when I say “school librarian,” I’m not getting any [financial] support.’ He understood what she did, but he couldn’t call her a librarian.”

However, YALSA’s Yoke points to ALA’s focus on “dynamic collaborations between school and public libraries,” the Common Core, and sessions on maintaining teen collections and new media, as huge selling points.

“A lot of the time we get this anecdotal information from school library members that the Association is more public focused,” Yoke says. However, she notes, a survey among 13,000 current, former, and potential ALA members showed evidence to the contrary. “There’s a perception that school librarians have different wishes and needs, but the survey did not bear that out,” says Yoke.

According to Lewis, “The library media specialist’s role is changing in terms of its interconnectivity across the school system.” He adds, “folks in school districts are looking for help, no matter where they are in the process of technology. They’re looking for clarity and support in how to effectively do what it is they’re expected to do.”

Among upcoming ISTE sessions, Lewis singles out “The Empowered Executive Team,” led by Steve Clemons of the San Diego Office of Education. The gist here is that better understanding and communication about what institutions are spending their tech-slated money on will ensure buy-in, communication, and shared decision making.

Caserotti, a technophile who’s gotten involved with ALA committees, says that ALA’s “support structure has been really empowering to me.” Broadly speaking, though, she worries that librarians are not keeping up with technology, despite high-visibility techies like Jones and Whitehead. Technology in the library is “like a car,” she says. “Some people will lift up the hood and take the initiative to learn how the car works.” But most people “take the car to the shop.” At ALA, she wonders, “how many people are stuffing their bags with posters,” and how many are saying, “yeah, I’m comfortable with tablets in the library?”

“Part of the beauty in ISTE is the connectivity to others,” says Lewis, who became CEO of ISTE last summer. “ALA’s conference is great and ISTE is great,” he adds. “Everybody who puts on an event like this works so hard to make sure that through whatever measures, we’re delivering terrific content.”

Librarian bloggers Liz Burns and Sophie Brookover

Librarians Sophie Brookover, Liz Burns, and Kelly Jensen were rooming together at the American Library Association (ALA) midwinter meeting in Seattle a few months ago when they began discussing a troublesome issue: the fact that librarians are not always adept at promoting their achievements, despite a widespread feeling that the field needs more recognition.

Among librarians, “self promotion can feel like a dirty word, because the purpose of librarianship is a call to service,” says Brookover, program coordinator and social media manager for LibraryLinkNJ, the New Jersey library cooperative. There’s a “feeling that you can’t do both.”

The three women, all bloggers themselves (Sophie at Sophiebiblio; Liz at SLJ’s A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, and Kelly at Stacked), kept talking. “We said, ‘let’s turn this idea on its head, and give our colleagues a venue to show what they’ve been doing. We know you’ve been doing great things.’”

The result has been Show Me the Awesome: 30 Days of Self-Promotion, a month-long online event and opportunity for librarians in different specialties to highlight their many accomplishments. Each day in May, a different librarian has been posting in a topic of their choice, sharing his or her innovations and offering tips not only for librarians in their specialties, but for others in the field.

After posting calls for ideas—on Twitter, Facebook, and their blogs—”the response exceeded our wildest expectations,” says Brookover.

People have a lot to share. For instance, in the inaugural May 1 entry,  “Reporting,” librarian Rachel Keeler offers valuable advice about how to write quality quarterly reports—not the most glamorous aspect of the job, she admits, but a crucial one nonetheless. Wendy Stephens’s May 6 entry, “Serving Teen Parents—It’s Awesome,” discusses her experience working with this population, “one of the biggest issues I’ve encountered as a teen librarian,” she writes.

Children’s librarian Katie Salo’s five-part entry, “How I Grew Storytime attendance by 61 Percent,” explains how she managed to pull off this impressive feat. “She has a clear specialty, but her insight and advice can be applicable elsewhere,” Brookover points out.

Other entries offer emboldening PR tips, such as Angie Manfredi’s “Stop Calling It Self-Promotion!” (May 18) and “5 Tips for Program Promotion,” by Abby Morrow (May 15).

Librarian blogger Kelly Jensen

“We have participants from every corner of the English speaking world,” notes Brookover, pointing to the entry “Immersive Play in the 21^st Century Library” (May 16) by library consultant Matthew Finch, in which he shares some of the strategies he uses in Auckland, New Zealand, libraries.

Jensen, a teen services librarian based in Wisconsin, and Burns, a librarian based in New Jersey, also linked their blogs to the project, as have contributors.

The response to Show Me the Awesome has been so awesome that there is talk of doing a follow-up. If so, Brookover says she hopes that the high-profile nature of the first iteration “would lead to a greater diversity of contributors and more international contributions.”

She adds, “we can all benefit from seeing what’s going on.  The diversity of opinions and experience has been remarkable.”

Since the last such study by Pew in 2006, teens are making several aspects of their lives more public online, sharing both personal and contact information more liberally, the report shows. Currently, 91 percent of teens post their photos online, up from 79 percent three years ago. About 71 percent reveal their school name, a 22 percent jump since up from 2006, while 71 percent post their hometown or city name, an increase of 10 percent. About 53 percent share their email address, up from 29 percent, and 20 percent of teens now post their cell phone number, while a mere 2 percent did so in 2006.

Yet while they’re sharing more personal details than before, most teens feel they can adequately protect their online information, according to the report. Among teen Facebook users, the majority say they feel confident about controlling their privacy settings. Sixty percent of teens on Facebook designate their profiles as “private,” accessible by friends only. Less than one percent found managing their Facebook privacy settings “very difficult,” while 56 percent said that maintaining privacy is “not difficult at all.”

In addition, as Danah Boyd, a social media analyst, notes in a post on zephoria.org, the Pew report revealed how race factors into teens’ use social media. About 95 percent of white teens use their real names on at least one service, compared to 77 percent of African-American teens. Related to this, 21 percent of white teens say they post fake information, compared to 39 percent of African-Americans. On Facebook, 48 percent of African-Americans friended celebrities, musicians, or athletes, compared to 25 percent of white users.

As Boyd points out in her post, “Teens are more likely to interact with people of the same race and their norms, practices, and values are shaped by the people around them. So what we’re actually seeing is a manifestation of network effects.” She adds, “the differences in the Pew report point to black youth’s increased interest in being a part of public life, their heightened distrust of those who hold power over them, and their notable appreciation for pop culture.”

Other highlights of the report:

The report also analyzed social media use by age, gender, and ethnicity. Boys and girls post the same kind of content—school name, relationship status, and phone number—but older teens share more of it, the report found. Thirty-nine percent of African American teens use Twitter, as opposed to 23 percent among white teens. And younger teens online are less likely to “friend” people they haven’t met than older teens. In addition, girls limit access to their Facebook profiles more than boys do.

Fifty-eight percent of teens “share inside jokes or cloak their messages in some way” while using social media, the report found. Many teens lied about their age to access websites and online accounts, and one in six said they were contacted by “someone they did not know in a way that made them feel scared or uncomfortable.” And though teens may not have “a good sense” of how third-parties might use their data, the report concluded, 81 percent of parents expressed “high levels of concern” about what advertisers might learn about their children online.

The findings combine the results of several surveys: a national phone survey of 802 teens, ages 12–17, and their parents, conducted on cell phones and landlines in Spanish and English between July 26and September 30, 2012; 24 focus groups, starting in February 2013, comprised of 156 students; and two online focus groups that took place between June 20 and June 27, 2012. Participants were from varied ethnic, racial, regional, and socio-economic backgrounds.

How did you feel when you found out you had won Edublog’s Lifetime Achievement Award?

I had totally and utterly forgotten I had been nominated. At one o’clock in the morning someone tweeted “Well done!” And I have to admit, I asked, “What have I done?”

What do you do on your blog?

The blog is a record of all of our events and training days at schools and conferences. We also put up links to resources we’ve discovered. Most of them are free and, hopefully, useful. But it’s not about the resources, it’s how they can be used. That is the basis of my being: enabling children of all ages and abilities to take off and fly.

Can you tell us about your background?

I taught for 25 years, eight of which were spent in a school located in the third highest social deprivation area in the south of England. That’s where I learned the majority of my craft. I had to find ways to engage, motivate, and inspire those children; to change their perceptions of themselves into people who can be, and want to be, writers and learners. These were children who had possibly never seen what enjoying learning looked like. That is a crucial part of what we encourage teachers to do now: when doing our demo teaching sessions, in schools and around the world, we encourage colleagues to sit in among the children, mucking in, modeling the enjoyments of writing, and so much more.

In 2005 I was nominated for a BECTA (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) ICT in Practice Award. Increasingly, I was being asked to work with schools and educational authorities to find ways to use technology to raise teaching standards. For the last seven years, I’ve been traveling up and down the UK all around the world with my partner, Sarah Neild, presenting and looking at bringing the curriculum even more alive.

How did you come to start using games in your teaching?

About 12 years ago, I was diagnosed with I have Adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN), which began attacking my central nervous system. It’s not stopping me yet! I now walk with a cane, which forms an interesting lesson starter, as children come up with inventive things to say about my stick, which I call “Mr. Walker.”

Around the time I was first diagnosed, I was given Riven, the second game in the Myst series. While my daughter, Ellie, sat on my lap, wandering through these worlds and talking about these beautiful landscapes in such an expressive way—even though she was only little—I realized that I could use them in school to encourage my children to pick up words, and juggle them, too.

Now you’re known as “the Myst man.” Why?

Yes. I find that slightly surreal, as we do a huge amount of other things too. The Myst games form a significant part—but only one part—of what we do. We work with schools on the games-based side of learning but also looking at lot of different online technologies, always with an essential permanent focus on the learning that springs from them.

How do you use gaming worlds to help children write?

We use games as a stimulus. When we are teaching writing, the idea is to get children talking about the game and to gain confidence, find words and play with them, and from that springs an amazing amount of inventive compositions.

Children are very plot centric-when they are writing. It tends to be “and then I, and then I, and then I.”  What I do is try to help them develop, often without them even realizing, a sense of setting, character, and atmosphere as priorities to bring plot alive.

While teaching, we project one of these moving worlds up on a large screen, a remarkable living world, perhaps with leaves struggling to escape the bushes, and birds dancing with the wind. I think I then startle people by making no reference to it for a long time. We talk about everything else but the world behind me, such as guessing why Mr. Walker is full of holes.

We slip into the landscape almost without them knowing it. By then they’re desperate to talk about what’s on the screen. But now it is no longer a screen; it forms part of where we are. The key element is that we don’t move for a long time. We aren’t playing the game. Quite a while in, I might ask, “Shall we go for a walk? Before we go, how about we have a go at remembering where we are now? Do you know, one of the best ways to remember something is to write it down? Can you squeeze in a simile here or a metaphor there? Go for it! Write like the wind (only neater, because the wind has dodgy handwriting)!”

Without realizing it, even the most reluctant writers are writing. As they do so, I reassure them of one or two things. One: There is no right or wrong idea. Two: Don’t worry about your spelling. And I really do mean, “Don’t worry. Get it down. Go for it!” I don’t want them to fret and mess up a stunning description.

Can you share an example or two of how this works in the classroom?

We use many other things as a stimulus. I often take children into Epic Citadel, a free app on the iPad, to create an unpopulated setting, and then we populate that place with characters. I begin to tell a story while we’re doing that, and the children get involved in the storytelling. I use stories as boxes in which to put lots of tools and techniques. We might use iPad apps, such as Pottery HD Lite, to create objects that bring the story alive. We might explore a site like Snappywords to discover alternative vocabulary. The tools and the stories are constantly changing.

How has your work impacted kids on an individual basis?

I often work in special schools. We were at a school for children with profound learning difficulties, and I took children on a virtual trip to the beach using a projected computer game. We were in a land from the game Myst III: Exile and were experiencing a stunning beach setting. We also had buckets of water in the classroom, sand, and hair dryers for the wind.

There was a seven-year-old boy in the group who had never spoken a word in his life. He was making sand castles against the virtual backgrounds, making sounds like “Puttitin puttittitin.” He was so desperate to talk that his teaching assistant was kneeling down with him, crying. He was building a sand castle and “putting it in.” Then, with his sandy hands, he discovered the interactive whiteboard showing the beach. He found my laptop and discovered that if he pressed the up, down, left and right arrows he could navigate around this virtual world. He found the mouse and began exploring even more. He was so calm about it. The rest of the class was standing around him, talking about this place. He then figured out how to open a virtual door and exclaimed, “I did it!” He could control a virtual world. Those are small steps for a majority of our children, but this was enormous for him.

Another time we were at a school for children who had been excluded from other schools for behavioral reasons. There was a boy who’d displayed severe violent behavior elsewhere. I had created a scene using Myst IV: Revelation and we were standing in front of a quite ominous scene, with an upturned ship.

Within seven minutes, he was asking questions, and, by the end of the session, he was producing writing of such beauty it would melt you.

He said to me afterwards, “I just didn’t think I could write anything like that. This is first time I’ve ever done it. Hopefully I can knuckle down to it and remember how do to this in all of my other challenges.”

What tips do you have for other teachers who might adopt your method?

You have to be very careful about age-appropriateness with any game or online tool you use. But then, take your time. Don’t rush forward. An amazing amount of learning comes from even tiny movements in a digital sense.

What are some of your favorite worlds to work with?

Jules Verne’s Return to Mysterious Island, Dear Esther, Wild Earth, and Wild Earth: African Safari, a Wii game.

Any apps you especially like right now?

Tag Galaxy, which builds wonderful collections of images, as the basis of non-linear discussion. Lino, which enables children to plan or record the results of research collaboratively. Tagxedo, which creates living, dancing word clouds. It’s like the marvelous Wordle, but with even more style. It isn’t all about the words, though: tools like Psykopaint and Tiltshiftmaker allow us to bring worlds alive in imaginative ways too.

JJ Echaniz, Yale freshman and CEO of Forward Tutoring

Like one or two other well-known tech wizards, Michael Dell began building his vision for an innovative computer company from a college dorm room, when he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. Supporting that spirit of entrepreneurship among young people, Dell, Inc. is now awarding grants to student innovators whose projects aid education in and out of the classroom.

“Every company starts with a great idea,” says Michele Glaze, Strategic Giving and Employee Engagement Manager at Dell. “We believe that students have this wonderful voice when it comes to changing the world.”

With that in mind, Dell last month announced the winners of its Dell Education Challenge, an international competition recognizing projects that support learning issues among K-12 students. From the 400 project submissions, Dell employees selected one winner, awarded $10,000, along with three finalists who will be entered into the 2013 Dell Social Innovation Challenge, whose entrants compete for more than $350,000 in cash prizes and other awards. Seven additional Dell Education Challenge “Promising Projects” received $1,000 each.

The winning endeavor, Forward Tutoring, started in 2010 as the brainchild of seven teenagers at the Newman Smith High School in Carrollton, Texas. Through its online platform, Forward Tutoring allows students to earn credits by volunteering in their communities, and then applying those credits toward one-on-one online tutoring sessions with other qualified students. Those volunteer tutors can themselves earn scholarships and internships from supporting organizations.

“Students don’t like to volunteer if they’re not passionate about the issues they’re volunteering for,” says JJ Echaniz, one of Forward Tutoring’s founders who is now a freshman at Yale. But Echaniz said that a survey among north Texas schools showed that “given the right opportunity that matches a student’s interest, 96 percent of students said they would go out and volunteer.”

Echaniz and his classmates harnessed that volunteering potential to create “an ecosystem where students pay it forward,” he says, creating a win-win situation in which kids’ community efforts also help them academically.

The Forward Tutoring team also strived to make tutoring fun. “Other tutoring programs are very impersonal,” says Echaniz. With Forward Tutoring, “the idea is that you’re speaking with someone your age. The advantage is that if students can relate to the tutor, it’s so much easier to learn.” Becoming an FT tutor is actually competitive, Echaniz notes, since interested high schoolers who are academically gifted still must pass a qualification process. Echaniz adds that the organization is creating college chapters, including ones at Yale, The UT Austin, and the University of California at Berkeley, schools that other Forward Tutoring founders are attending.

The Dell Education Challenge second-place winner is the Gyan Knowledge Lab, an organization that sets up hands-on learning labs for students in India, with the goal of keeping kids engaged in education—and in school.

“There’s not a lot of hands-on learning in India,” says Glaze. Without that, it can be hard for students to stay academically stimulated and many drop out. “In the U. S., you’re going to get out the beakers during science class, but that doesn’t necessarily happen in India,” she explains. “This project focuses on constructive learning.”

Another finalist is e-Education for Gaza, which provides support for children with learning difficulties in Gaza by providing videos with which teachers can connect with educational experts in their field.  The third finalist, Next Step Leaders, is a leadership development training program for educators that provides personalizes assessments, group leadership training, and one-on-one coaching.

According to the company, the Dell Education Challenge expands the Dell Social Innovation Challenge, the world’s largest platform to support student innovators. It is managed by UT Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Samwel Melami in the classroom

On a family trip to Tanzania, high school librarian Paula Busey became acquainted with Samwel Melami Langidare Mollel, a Maasai warrior who spoke five languages. The high school educator arranged for Melami to guest teach at her Colorado school in an educational exchange that drew the attention of National Geographic, which honored Busey and Melami as 2012 Travelers of the Year.

In 2009, Busey and her family were “lucky enough” to go on a safari in Tanzania. Their guide, Melami (above), taught Busey’s family about wildlife, the Maasai tribe, and the challenges they face, along with aspects of ethnobotany learned from his father, a healer.

Paula Busey

“Over the course of the week I realized he was an amazing educator,” says Busey, and she thought it would be wonderful for him to come speak with her students. Her principal at ThunderRidge High School in Highlands Ranch, CO, supported the plan.

Busey and the students in the community service group had previously raised funds, by selling jewelry, to support micro-businesses in Malawi. They then tackled the $2,000 fundraising goal to bring Melami over.

In April 2010, Melami “spent a solid week teaching hundreds of kids in our school,” says Busey. He geared his lectures toward the existing school curriculum and opening students’ eyes to the culture and problems of the tribal people in Tanzania.

“Our science teachers were looking at water issues” in class, said Busey, who was among 15 named to National Geographic’s roster of 2012 Travelers of the Year, “boundary breakers, who explore the world with passion and purpose, inspiring others to expand their horizons, ask big questions and seek new answers,” according to the site. “Of course, Samwel had a lot to say about this in terms of wildlife and the sustainability of the Maasai’s pastoral lifestyle.”

He also spoke to the students about Maasai customs, the prevalence of malaria and other fly-borne illnesses, since most Maasai do not like to use sleeping nets, according to Busey, and the challenges to women, in particular, around establishing sustainable incomes.

The school yearbook staff sponsored a second Colorado visit for Melami in 2011. This time, he visited more schools, from alternative facilities serving at-risk students to those in affluent suburban areas. He connected with everyone equally, says Busey.

During that visit, “we talked to Samwel about doing a school-wide project” to raise money for the Maasai, Busey says.  He told her about a new school near Arusha, Tanzania, that had good classrooms but an unsanitary kitchen.

Through a Maasai festival at the school, Busey and students raised $13,000 to build a better kitchen for the school, working in partnership with an NGO.

The students would like to have Melami back again, but it’s a long trip, and he’s very busy these days, Busey says.

Melami is building a safari business owned and operated by Maasai–one that he hopes will be economically sustainable, with all profits going to the tribe.