School librarian Kay Hones among 2008 "20 to Watch" It's never too late to be an emerging leader—even with 20 years under your belt. That's just how Kay Hones felt after the National School Boards Association (NSBA) named her as one of 20 rising stars in education technology. NSBA's Technology Leadership Network announced the 2008 "20 to Watch" last month, including Hones, the only librarian ever to win the honor. "When I saw I was the only librarian, I said 'Wow,'" chuckled Hones, a school librarian for the past four years at Stevenson Elementary in San Francisco. Hones, who has worked another 16 years in the district, three as a teacher, has been a longtime advocate for media centers. After San Francisco passed Proposition H, a 2005 measure funding sports, art, libraries, and music in local schools, Hones asked to sit on the committee charged with dispersing the funds. Since that time she's helped garner half-time library positions for every elementary school in the city. Hones herself is full-time, but only because her school can afford to pay the balance of her salary from its computer budget. She puts this all to good use, working with students who come daily to the library, where they play dictionary hangman on the computer, reinforcing vocabulary skills, among other activities. Even the littlest ones in kindergarten learn from Hones how to simply open and close a computer. "Next is gaming, which we don't do here yet, but I do believe it is the future," she says. "Things change so quickly." By trying to stay current with technology, Hones is exactly the kind of educator the NSBA aims to find every year since the "20 to Watch" list was initiated in 2006. "These are the unsung heroes," says Ann Flynn, NSBA's director of educational technology. Recognition of their inspirational work is the main perk of winning, admits Flynn, as there is no financial reward. Winners aren't even comped for the organization's annual conference, which will be held this year October 28–30 in Seattle. Hones says that she, too, is unlikely to attend, noting that the event also comes in the middle of the school year. "But I know that the winners network with each other," she says. As a librarian and educator, networking is an invaluable tool, she says. By attending conferences whenever she can and taking classes, she stays up on technology applications, so she can be a conduit for her students. Still, even Hones admits to stumbling once in a while with new technology, but it's an important part of being an educator. Even teachers and librarians have to make mistakes in order to learn, she says. After winning a scholarship to attend a 2006 course at UC Berkeley on Internet-based instruction, Hones used what she had learned to build a Web site for her students. But she didn't realize that she had to have an email account for each of them so they could access the page. "So I stick with wikis now," she says, laughing. "And we have teenagers who come from Lincoln High School twice a week. And when I have a glitch or question I ask them. They just seem to pick things up, but that's their generation. They're digital."