This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 38 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast.

In this episode, I'm going to tell you the story of a school library that increased student use by 1,000%.

So it's a given that technology continues to grow.

Yes, but this growth has not been without its casualties.

Traditional school libraries are seeing a sharp drop in student use.

In this episode, I'm going to talk to two educators from Ohio who completely changed how their school library was used and saw truly incredible results.

Before I get started, let me just take a minute to thank those of you who have left a review for me on iTunes.

I am absolutely floored by the nice things you're saying over there and knowing that you're listening and really getting something out of these episodes just motivates me to keep going.

If you haven't left a review, please take a moment this week to go over to iTunes and leave one. Thank you so much.

Okay, let's get into this fantastic library story.

Last year at Big Walnut Middle School in Sunbury, Ohio, there were some days when fewer than 10 students passed through the library doors.

Just like in so many other schools, students and teachers had a growing number of resources available to them through things like tablets, Chromebooks, e-readers, smart boards.

So they no longer had the same need to visit the library that they once did.

Now, some schools have addressed this problem by converting their libraries to makerspaces.

These are hands-on environments that allow students to build and create design and experiment.

When we see makerspaces, we tend to see big Lego tables, coding and computing tools like Raspberry Pi kits, and 3D printers where students can see their creations come to life.

But Big Walnut principal Penny Sturdivan had a vision that was different from the makerspaces she was seeing.

She wanted her library to be a place that was a little less open-ended, a place where students did hands-on work, but as an extension of what was happening in their classrooms.

Instead of taking her inspiration from the maker movement, Sturdivan was interested in trends she was seeing toward more personalized learning.

The new and improved library would be called the Learning Center.

As she began the process of reimagining the space, Sturdivan asked me to serve as a consultant.

She introduced me to Ed Kitchen, whom she had recently hired to develop and then run the Learning Center, and the three of us met over Skype and a shared Google Doc to explore all the possibilities and think through logistics and formulate a plan.

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