Nancy Everhart

From Paper to Pixel: The Promise and Challenges of Digital Textbooks for K-12 Schools

The textbook is the single most defining source of content in US public schools. In the current economic climate, however, school administrators are looking for ways to control rising textbook expenditures by shifting to digital textbooks. In this chapter, we explore a range of digital textbook formats and applications and weigh their potential benefits and pitfalls. Florida, the first state to pass a mandatory digital textbook law, provides a context in which to examine many of these factors. We conclude with recommendations for school administrators and educators, with particular attention to the leadership role the school librarian can play in digital textbook implementation, management, and innovation.

In the District and on the Desktop: School Libraries as Essential Elements of Effective Broadband Use in Schools

Demands for the Internet in administrative, instructional, and learning tasks in schools are rising. Because adequate bandwidth in schools supports the home-school learning continuum, links to civic and governmental organizations, and situations in which home connectivity is scarce, reconsiderations in investments in connectivity supply and support are due. Yet, many school administrators report concerns about their bandwidth and employ strategies to level access among their teachers and students. Limited access in schools and classrooms results in stifled instructional creativity and few opportunities for students to gain twenty-first-century skills needed later academic and workplace success. Even when connectivity is adequate, educators and learners require support to make the most of the Internet. School librarians, on-site technology leaders with expertise in supporting digitally immersive learning, have great potential to help administrators, teachers, and students make the best use of the connectivity.

Work sampling: The application of an industrial research technique to school library media centers

Work sampling is a research technique where workers are observed at random times and their activities recorded. The data collected can be converted to percentages indicating the overall distribution of how their time is spent in various categories. This methodology, commonly used in industry, has had limited applications in library settings. A background of work sampling, its history in libraries, and the planning and implementation of a school library media study is discussed here.

Culture and Context in the Mandated Implementation of Digital Textbooks in Florida and South Korea

Digital textbooks are becoming increasingly popular in schools throughout the world. Simultaneous mandates to adopt digital textbooks in the country of South Korea and the U.S. state of Florida provide an opportunity to study how culture and context might impact this implementation from the perspective of the school librarian who serves multiple roles when new technology is introduced. In this study the Concerns-Based-Adoption-Model (CBAM) was used to identify the concerns of school librarians in Florida about their potential role in the implementation of digital textbooks and how personal levels of adoption relate to these concerns. Results indicate that innovators and early adopters have higher levels of concern, which are more substantive and practical, while late majorities and laggards have more vague uneasiness and lurking anxiety. Regardless of the speed they adopt innovations, school librarians have similar levels of personal concern.

Internet access in school library media centers

SUMMARY Internet access in schools should be provided via the school library media center. School library media specialists have sets of skills that allow the connection to the Internet to be made and utilized to its full potential. These skills include technical expertise in establishing and maintaining networks, experience in promoting and integrating new technologies in the educational process, and the ability to identify and evaluate information resources. Additionally, school library media specialists have knowledge and training in dealing with the issues of censorship and equity of access that accompany use of the Internet by school children.