Katie Britton-Mehlisch
While the rest of West is focusing on individual technology, the library is mixing it up a little. Since each student receives a chromebook of their own, the computer lab in the library has been cleared out. Instead they have opened up spaces for collaboration.
Librarian, Megan Chambers, describes these spaces. There will be ”big screen tv’s on the ends of the tables so you can do team work, so you can chromecast one screen up there so everyone can work together”. This area is designed for students and teachers to work together for brainstorming.
By the end of the year a few other projects will also be taking place in the LMC. Librarian, Amy Taylor, explains,”we are planning on incorporating a green room or green screen, because there are a lot of teachers that are doing video projects, so that teachers can have a room where kids can video tape”.
Throughout Lee’s Summit West writing on school property is prohibited, but in the library it is just the opposite. In an attempt to encourage collaborative thinking, Chambers explains, “all of our tables now have glass on them so you can write on them in dry erase, the columns have dry erase, our teaching area is all dry erase”. The main goal is to motivate students to engage in group learning.
Libraries are of course spaces for reading, not just collaboration. During this school year, students will see changes in the way books are organized. In the fiction section they will be categorized by genre instead of by author. This will make it easier to find a certain type of fiction that interests you.
