There's No 'Shushing' in This Library

The Library—now known as the Library Media Center— isn’t what it used to be.

Sure, there might still be book-lined shelves and plenty of periodicals, but these days, there’s more of an emphasis on technology, and how to help educate students on information technology using its website—which includes a blog and tons of other features for students to use, as well as other media.

“The card catalog is gone and so is the shushing,” Amy Barbarino, library media specialist, told Canon-McMillan School directors during a presentation on the evolution of the facility, and its role in the education process.

“What we do is active learning,” she said. “It’s not just a quiet place for books on a shelf.”

She said that while using technology as an educational tool is key, so is teaching students how to assess information found on the Internet—and how to judge what is credible and what isn’t.

echoed her statements, telling the board that incorporating technology is imperative to reach today’s students—ones he called ‘digital natives.”

What is a digital native? Think of someone that, when it comes to information, they want instant gratification, they prefer to learn digitally, they use technology for social interaction and they are masters of multi-tasking.

The generations of students before them?

Some of those, he said, would conversely be considered “digital immigrants”—people who see technology as a tool; those who are “sequential learners.”

And Taranto was adamant: Technology should be implemented in the classroom everyday in an effort to reach those “digital natives.”

“We have to evolve or else,” he said.