Tame The Web

Chelmsford Library Revamped:

In the place formerly known as the library, students perch on long-legged chairs and huddle in purple and black booths. Once a week, they drink coffee and discuss books in the Java Room. They watch a history lesson, school news, and CNN on a 58-inch flat-panel “digital kiosk.”

Just don’t call it the library. The new Learning Commons was born from the old Chelmsford High School library, until recently an area so notoriously shabby that school officials conspired to keep superintendent candidates from glimpsing its electric yellow walls and duct-tape-scarred floors. But the school district’s head of libraries, Valerie Diggs, shepherded a renovation this year that resulted in walls painted soothing shades of violet and beige, fresh carpet, dozens of desktops and laptops – and a concept of 21st century libraries that is new to Massachusetts public schools.

Nice article that paints a picture of innovations in the school library media center. Checkout the comments for a bit of a debate about what this type of atmosphere means for schools.

A School Librarian writes:

Dear Michael –  I sat down with a bunch of my middle school students as they came into the library today and we talked about how we could transform our little public school library into a fabulous space for them. They had great ideas, and I shared some of YOUR ideas with them. I think we will begin changing things next week (I’ll ask permission from the boss after it’s done!).

Do you or your readers know of any “safe” photo sharing sites like FlickR that we might be able to access in schools. My District still blocks FLickR, Google images, iTunes, any social networking sites, etc. I have only been successful so far in getting edublogs.org unblocked… working on podcasting next… Again – one step at a time. …and I’d love to help create such a site if there is a way to do it!

Readers?