This is a Library

   What’s a library? This is about the Carthage Free Library. I’d love to hear about your public, academic, or special library. My library is located in a charming building on Budd Street, but its services are at the Farmer’s Market, the school gym, and anywhere the community gathers. […]

Seizing the Teachable Moment in "What’s a Library?"

Over the weekend, video producer Michael Rosenblum’s Huffington Post blog “What’s a Library?” generated quite a bit of discussion in my library-loving world. Mr. Rosenblum, who admits to never having gone inside the now-demolished library that inspired his post, questions the need for libraries in a world where […]

Library Land

This post is inspired by  a class called Motivating 21st Century Learners at Syracuse University.  I’ve included a number of links  to articles and video clips about games and gamification throughout the post so that you can explore this topic further. At left: My team’s game creation, a spin-off of […]

Enjoying the Ride

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving at the destination. -Lao Tzu Most of the time this blog is about library land, today it is about military life. The fluid geography that comes with our military lifestyle has provided me with opportunities […]

Supporting Technology Integration for Teachers

School Librarians can provide important in-house opportunities for professional development, especially in the arena of the integration of technical tools that support 21st Century Learning in the classroom. Teaching teachers is clearly different from teaching younger students. In spite of the differences, the ARCS Model of Motivational Design, which focuses on […]

Initiating Collaboration for Guided Inquiry

In this post, I explore some of the challenges new school librarians face in collaborating with educators who are already strapped for time and stressed out about the pressures of their ongoing transition to implement the Common Core Standards. Collaboration takes time, and if teacher librarians want to […]

Motivational Mixer

American Phychological Theorist David McClelland had a theory about motivation that you are probably familiar with, even if you didn’t know exactly what it was called. The Achievement Motivation Theory is one of those so-simple-yet-so-complex ideas that is easily grasped and multilayered. Simply put, it is the idea […]

Failure is Always an Option

At our house, we love the Mythbusters. As soon as we saw the “Larry’s Lawn Chair Balloon” episode we were hooked. We love the Mythbuster’s enthusiasm for investigation, their willingness to look at things from different perspectives, and we especially love their willingness to fail, and fail, and […]

One Size Does Not Fit All

This post is an edited, enhanced, and otherwise reworked version of an internal class blog post from a class called Motivating 21st Century Learners at Syracuse University. I am posting a series of these because the topics are close to my heart, they illustrate part of my library […]

Roadmap for New Beginnings

This post is an edited, enhanced, and otherwise reworked version of an internal class blog post from a class called Motivating 21st Century Learners at Syracuse University. I am posting a series of these because the topics are close to my heart, they illustrate part of my library […]