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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Going digital? 5 tips for a smooth start

As schools look to modernize teaching and personalize learning, technology is becoming an indispensable tool in the classroom. Though technology alone does not improve learning, it does offer a greater opportunity for students to improve skill proficiencies, test scores, spontaneous collaboration and productivity.

While it’s no longer a matter of if technology is right for the classroom, just which technology and how much, districts aren’t always sure about the best ways to get started on the digital journey.

Like any other important education initiative, going digital requires a hefty amount of planning and implementation. Districts that have been most successful in their digital transformations [Read: “12 districts honored for their innovative digital curriculum transition strategies.“] seem to share a commitment to a careful, multi-stage process involving the full range of stakeholders – administrators, teachers, students and parents.…Read More

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This is how librarians can lead the digital transformation

Despite being pressed for time and resources, librarians can serve as change agents in their schools’ digital transformation

librarians-digitalRecently, as I was serving on a panel at the Texas Library Association’s 2015 Annual Conference, one attendee explained to us how she is trying to keep up with the new technologies coming into her school. How, she asked, could she implement them successfully while continuing to provide the same services for which her library is known?

It’s not an easy question to answer, but it’s one that the panel—part of Follett’s Project Connect, which is aimed at shedding light on how librarians can be a solution to the many challenges that arise from a digital transformation—was well-poised to answer. Based on my experiences as director of library media services for Nebraska’s Lincoln Public Schools, I was able to come up with two suggestions.

First, pace yourself and determine what is coming off your plate. We need to continually re-think why we are doing what we are doing. Yes, we feel we need superhuman powers because our jobs are getting busier, but in order to sustain ourselves, school librarians really do need to determine which pieces of our work can no longer be priorities, and then let them go.…Read More

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