Overdrive

I am on the Digital Library Committee. We have met at DTS and LHS to start the process of creating a Digital Library for our school district. My library visit is a virtual one as well as physical. Bud Hunt has organized and created this committee. Kahle Charles and Kerin McClure are supporting us on a district level.

Our first meeting was last spring where we chose the committee members: LeAnne Kelly, Sherri Platt, Phil Goerner, Helen Robbins, Linda Stewart, Holli Buchter, Bud Hunt and myself. We have met twice this fall to set up a time line for the digital library and begin the selection process for books.

The purpose of this committee is to build a Digital Library using Overdrive for our students. The secondary schools are in the process of of going to 1:1 devices with iPads. The district has committed to funding $100,000 for Middle School and $100,000 for High School. We all hope this funding will continue each year so we can build the collection.

Our goal is to have Overdrive up and running this fall. This is going to require a lot of collection development over the next few weeks. The list must then be approved by Kahle Charles. We are hoping for a soft launch in November/December.

I have learned a lot in the process. Helen has a beautiful library! She is a wonderful hostess. I am very excited for this process to reach the point of students reading books on their iPads.

Pulley goes a'Visitin' at Westview!

With the MDM down today, I took the opportunity to hustle down Airport Road and visit with Cindy a spell.  We had a lovely time catching up, both agreeing that, while we would have trouble actually leaving for the September meeting, we missed having that time to find out how all the other buildings were doing.  The iPads dominated the conversation; however, I was keen to hear how Cindy goes out into the team areas and spends time helping troubleshoot any issues every week.  Now that things are starting to calm down a bit, I am VERY anxious to get out and see what's going on in my building.  I like the idea of making a hard schedule to make that happen and sticking to it.  I'm going to email the teachers tomorrow and see if I can set something up!

Visiting Longs Peak Middle School

It was great to visit LPMS and hear some tips from Becky about paving the way for a smooth Ipad rollout.  One idea I think is good to share is to do a dry run of how to use icloud to find a missing ipad so when the real situation arises you know exactly what to do.
It also sounds like lessons about being a good digital citizen and making good choices both in the real world and the virtual world are an essential part of an effective rollout.  I might even try to get some of these classes rolling out in the spring.
It was interesting to see the physical changes in the LPMS library.  Coincidentally we are making similar changes to the space in the LHS library.  We are shifting shelves around to create more areas conducive to creative brainstorming and collaborating.  It was wonderful to visit Becky.  Thanks for all the ideas!

What to post?

This space is just to share feedback about things you learned when you went out visiting another school. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Time: Plan on taking about the amount of time visiting as you would for a monthly meeting.
• Before: the visit- arrange a time and location, think of what you would like to learn or what goals you have for the visit. 
• During: Ask questions, observe, take notes...soak in as much of the goodies as you can!
• find at least one thing you would like to try at your home school
• find things you need to "borrow"- resources, schedules, planning forms, idea
• After- 
• think about what you have observed and how it could positively affect your school
• chat with your staff about your visit
• write a brief (may 1 paragraph, maybe one page) blog post about your visit

Then be refreshed and ready to tackle all the things you love about your school!