If you’re like a lot of districts, you have a huge Library or Media Center at the heart of your school that is filled with books and absent of students. To make things worse, no one has looked at those books, let alone checked one out, in the last five years. This is an age where every student carries a device in their pocket – with more computing power then the NASA computers that sent the first man to the moon. Today, Google can tell students the answers to almost any question in seconds, and it takes far less room then the World Book Encyclopedia. We are increasingly working with districts to remake this valuable, centrally-located space more engaging and effective. Education today is more collaborative, experiential, and focused on the individualized learner. Many districts are creating flexible, collaborative spaces that include: soft seating, flexible furnishings, high technology, study groupings, and glassed or open conferencing areas where students can work together but still be supervised. Some districts have included spaces for STEM or TAG in their repurposed media centers. Others have provided flexible temporary office/conferencing spaces for visiting professionals from their Area Education Agency (AEA) or Educational Service Unit (ESU). This is some of your best real estate. If your media center is ineffective and underutilized, it’s time to put it to work as an attractive, dynamic, and effective space for the way students learn today.
