 The way librarians work, the way our roles. I am a teacher so as a teacher as you know it's just an amazing and exciting time to be you know dealing with any kind of information and knowledge. So I'd like you to think for a moment at the library or resource center you work at what are your main roles? Can you just add to the text chat area please? What do you have to do? What are your main roles there? Can you just feel out to my the blank space there? I have two I do like and I get some answers from you oh so yes I can see 30 uh-huh what else uh-huh so web designer what kind of roles do you have like uh the audio is terrible if I get closer here is it better now? Okay so um if you think of libraries nowadays and in resource centers we have to consider that reference work for sure yeah so um librarians today have so many different oh you can't hear that with everybody guys can you just tell me about the the audio because it seems to be working fine but some people are saying oh okay yeah so you might some of you might have problems with your own computers maybe if you put like uh your phones it might help okay so um librarians in fact if you consider what they have to do there there are so many things like and so many things that go beyond uh you know cataloging books and referencing and all that so you have to participate in webinars you we are designing connecting we are uh encouraging and and also um a key word here is curating yeah we are all the time uh selecting materials few filtering materials for um our users and all besides that the main thing is learning yes we are in a time that our roles change all the time and we really need to consider not just that our users are learning with us at the libraries but we are learning all the time and um in this sense yes people are talking in this sense more than ever before uh libraries become a space for connections they've always been a place for connections but I think nowadays these connections go to the next level yeah it's not just connecting people it's connecting ideas it's connecting the brain yeah because the kind of activities that we can develop at a library or at a resource center are so um engaging there are so many possibilities that uh we need to consider that it's not just a place for physical connections but it's a place where we are connecting our brains we are uh the digital part as well has become a strong part of it and there is a researcher that mentioned that the library can multiply the entry points and pathways for kids to find enrichment opportunities of all types based on their interests so we are the guides for them uh to really invest in their own interests yeah and there are so many ways we can do that one of the ways we found here is um by adding ipads to our uh libraries and in this project our main point was not only to uh have more students coming into the library so that through the the ipads and alluring them uh through the use of ipads they would certainly be interested what was around them not just in the ipad so it is a chance it is like an entry point we realized that the ipad mainly if we are talking about kids and teenagers it could be an entry point for them to be interested in reading in getting a physical book and all that besides all the excitement we have through the digital media so here at uh Kazasomas Jefferson we um created this project called the smart station and we now have ipads and you can see here that our kids and we have those ipads in the classroom and then um it's not just you know it's going beyond the classroom to the smart stations that they can find in the library so it is like an extension of what the teacher is doing in the classroom and uh what we uh in the beginning what we felt was that some librarians were really worried about the implementation because they said oh it's too dangerous because you know they're gonna break the ipad or they are gonna need to use the ipad and what we see here um in fact is that uh students are collaborating they're playing together and they are discovering things through the apps in the ipad uh all the time they are discovering a whole new world through the digital media that we offer in in the resource centers there so uh the the main points that uh the librarians uh the main issue that they were concerned about didn't really come true and in fact one issue that we faced during the implementation stage that we didn't consider was um was the the security of the students because when they had break time or after class or or you know just before their classes they would run through the school to get to the resource center so this was something that we haven't considered when we were implementing so we need to ask them to calm down to walk instead of running you know in our ales and and all that now how did we start the process in fact we were already using uh ipad in the classroom so we didn't even consider the the issue about being you know ios or android uh tablet but this is something you might consider in our case our main issue was the kind of ipad we were going to get and one thing that we always considered consider um one thing that we considered for this project was that we needed the one that had the most space available so nowadays we have the ones with 128 um gig yet why because of the apps that we are going to add and they they tend to become uh you know they tend to use more and more space another point that we have to take into account is the security of the ipad or any tablet that to decide to use so how are you gonna if we if we go back you are gonna see that can you see that there are some cables there what we decided to do is to have a case that it has a security lock through the table so we had to make a hole in the tables so that it could run properly yeah and the fun part is to choose the apps this is something that it took me a while we have many references and you you were going to get all of those you can check our own ipad directory so feel free to use if you are considering uh implementing uh this kind of project in your school so um in terms of apps what we considered there was to have you know the same kind of thing that we have for the american space the same framework so the main idea was to have um play collaboration reference yeah so these were the kinds of apps that we were looking for in production as well so um reading so books um think that students could create things uh like iMovie and so creative apps apps for production and also apps for reference yeah so these were the main things that we we decided to use and then we divided in different folders okay and you can have our directory with all the apps that we installed in our um ipads here another part of the implementation an important one is to establish the routine and uh in establishing the routine some librarians tended to have a more uh you know controlling attitude like saying that oh students couldn't open this or that we went for a more open framework in this sense we had social media apps as well because this is also reference we had all kinds of uh we had games uh because we we don't consider our place to be a silent place anymore uh in the past like libraries should really be a very silent quiet place this is not the concept that we have here anymore the library the reason that's why we also moved from the idea of a library to a resource center so this space that we have just below me here is a place for uh you know interaction and community so we can't expect that to be silent all the time yeah now another big issue in the in the implementation of this project was a training library test this is one of the the one thing that we really need to consider and librarians should feel comfortable in playing around with the apps and you know giving suggestions to students and you know interacting with the the the device and the human part of it yeah and another big point was observing and adapting so I went around the school branches because we are divided we have many schools we have different schools around town around brazilia so I went around and observed and and also I can see downstairs the kids here what they are doing so from this observation then we could notice the things that we needed to adapt in terms of you know routines and rules and all that another point was that we realized that we needed uh not only the ipad but also the the headset as well and the headset stays in the count uh staying the counter with the librarians and the students ask for them and they they sign like a paper and then hand it back to to the librarian so from observing uh how things work we could really manage to normalize this routine for for the project and the program another point in relation to that is in in this still in the implementation area is making librarians become part of the project it's not just training them but making them feel comfortable with with this this part of you know all this change in mindset really because it's a change in paradigm it's not that you're going to have like uh you know a quiet room you need to walk around much more than you did in the past because you need to know what the kids are doing and one big thing also is to have the like to uh you need to have the metrics so one important part of the project is also to check the the app that the students are using like knowing which one is really popular which one is being underused so that you can offer to them so that they can they can check it out checking the levels a proficiency level of the student to uh you know to refer for example to a book or or maybe an adult user yes showing the adult user like some of the productivity apps that we have so all of that is part of the implementation and mainly part of the observation part to adapt to this new reality now of course that's any new project any new program comes with uh some challenges yeah but before I move on to the challenges we have been facing and we face I'd like to ask you in the chat area if you have any questions about the implementation part do you have any questions can you write them down in the in the text chat box there it would be more than glad to answer any questions about this part like uh you know anything you want to ask about uh I don't know from choosing the iPad models to you know the app very clear yeah you have any questions in relation to any of the the points there about the implementation another point that I want to make and this is uh hard well I I'll go through the challenges but if you have any questions please feel free to uh ask them in the text chat box and and I'll be glad to answer you but in terms of challenges um of course you uh the training part is we have different degrees of and levels of digital proficiency in terms of our uh librarians and like the staff so it's always a challenge training is never enough it needs to be ongoing um and it's not easy to have like those sessions uh another point is uh breaking old parada and also in in relation to training I I would like to make a point in the sense that it's not just training but multiplying these new skills that we we need to develop through the the the staff yes in a way that everybody knows what he or she is doing um this is of course a challenge in any human resource program uh but it's something we need to really um have this and it's not only training but but developing the the the leadership in terms of multiplying these ideas throughout the the the staff through uh within the staff not throughout within the staff now another point is uh breaking old paradigms um we need to rethink our roles and as I was pointing out it's not just about landing books anymore it it's really like you have so many other roles that uh with this digital era that is sometimes overwhelming and it's not easy to adapt of course uh we need some time to let it sink in um together with all that um team involvement is an issue because we really need to work with them and by breaking old paradigms and then you know having everybody together and understanding this bigger project because um this ipad project um we started because of uh the american space here um at the school branch that I work at uh this this building became a role model which is the the american space and then um it is a bigger it is this ipad project fits it's within this framework of the american space of collaboration surprise community yeah and uh one another aspect of this of this whole project and I think it's great it uh to have the team thinking outside the box what can I do with those ipads it's not just you know uh putting them there and letting them the users use can I do something different would you do something different that's the main point so um within this breaking the paradigm issue what we really want is going from just users of the the resource center space to smart users this is a space where students and and this is our main goal now is to help students develop their 21st century skills in the libraries and um it it then we need to connect uh the classroom the teachers even more to the libraries we need to work together with teachers and this is still breaking the paradigm uh we are a language school I know that in in in schools in general this relationship is closer but generally when we think about um libraries uh in a in a language school I have the feeling that it works differently uh in the sense that um you know librarians are there to give support to the teachers and to the work that they do in class but sometimes there is this distance so it's a matter of making the relationship even stronger and closer and to for a main purpose which is to turn our students into smart users of the resource centers yes and the resources that they have at the libraries this is the main thing um I think as I as I told you in the beginning of the session I think this is a very exciting time to be uh working at any library around the world and there it is full of opportunities for anybody there as and for even for me yeah I would never imagine that being a teacher I would be so involved in projects related to to the libraries and this is really exciting so um the main opportunity here is that we can repurpose and we can reinvent our own professions as librarians for example yes and I think this is really uh fantastic because then it's it's an exciting job you can do you can you know use your creativity you can see the results in the students and in what they can do in their interest and all that another thing in relation to opportunities it's that the library is more and more they become a space for production rather than just consumption kids can go there now we've always we've always done that like uh having uh librarians preparing like workshops and you know fun shops and all that but now it is even more exciting because it's production not just handcraft and uh but also like digital production uh students can create tons of things just by using the ipad yeah they can be dj's movie makers and all kinds of exciting things that they want to be and they want to try out um and of course there is the main point of having more visitors in in our libraries and resource centers uh it means that we are going to bring even more of this community to our spaces because they become like lively exciting places to be this is the place imagine when i was younger i i loved the library and it was just filled up with books and now i have books i have librarians that can help me and they did in the past but now like with other things that i couldn't even imagine some years ago so it's really exciting and then you can have more visits to the resource centers and uh there is this opportunity of engaging with the resources because i'm talking here about ipad but it could be games it could be you know all kinds of resources that we can dream of and we can have in our libraries um libraries become a space of play and discovery and fun and one opportunity we have is to get closer to teachers and work in partnership as i mentioned before to develop this 21st century skills another point and related to what i said before in terms of rethinking uh librarian roles is really a new opportunity for professional development and now we have so many webinars just like this one here and um we can be learning new things every single day through you know online courses and webinars and self-driven learning based on our interests yeah because uh we have the books and we have a limit a physical limit of how many books we can add to a library but now with the digital part we can add as many resources we can dream of and we can really enhance and spark students curiosity and work on their own interests and all that in many different ways now in terms of the next step the next steps like what the future holds we are now in this moving transitioning from this period of adaptation for everybody there is this moment where it's new everything is new for everybody and it's still normalizing we are still uh like librarians are getting used to all the apps that we have to all the movements and all that but the next step is really going beyond just you know leaving leaving the ipad there for the students to use we need to be more proactive in the sense that we can offer students workshops related to the digital tools so one thing that we started developing and it's really really cool is going from users to smart users but these smart users they are producers they are makers and in this sense we started with this app and we we the tendency now is to move on and try out other apps but the idea is that uh librarians are going to help the students to become producers and in this sense here we have this app called TinyTap yeah i just wrote in the in the fact set area and TinyTap is an app and it's also web based so you can go uh to the web their website and you'll find lots of games the fun part now in that the students can create the games and we have made some like for younger students now the point is the opposite not we doing the things but students doing uh and and producing and making their own games yeah so it's really making them uh produce things and enhance their digital skills and in this sense librarians are helping a lot yes they are partnering up with the students with the students now with the teachers and they are starting to uh make games this is just the beginning it's like a seed but it's already starts starting to happen and we plan to move on in terms of uh having the resource center as a space for creation so um another point is that we started uh with uh some ipads we are increasing the number of ipads we had only four in every school library now it's going to be more here at the school that i work at because it's an american space and uh with the increased number of ipads it's not about the device really it's about deepening this library experience like having the students love to be at the library that's the main point yes and making a space for learning all kinds of learning it has always been like that but i think now it's amplified with all these digital tools that we have so what i feel is that more and more students and younger ones are visiting our library and um i hope to see soon the the statistics for that and this is very important the metrics because we can only manage what we measure and um and then i can see that there is this excitement around in terms of what the libraries can really become and what this library experience can become yeah so this is our main thing according to the idea book for the american spaces library should be a place for exploration collaboration and surprises yes and this is what we need to uh aim for yeah how can we surprise how how can it be a place for discovery how can uh students feel like oh no i need to be there at the library yeah and uh i'm sharing here a site that we created for our staff and where we share resources for them and with them yeah and in the future we really want them to even contribute to the place so we talk about many different things here and uh you might want to check it out i'm writing it in the text chat area and we have just started this blog and this is the place where we are keeping our uh our journey yeah like the resources and uh you know uh cool things that we find around you'll see that uh some things are written in portuguese others in english yeah but um i think you can get an idea of what you can do so in terms of next steps we need to deepen this library experience we need to keep training and it's not just training it's some ongoing professional development thing and in this sense uh the blog can really help us yeah and um that's what we are really looking for and something that i really um agree with is the fact that the more we embed ourselves in the learning process like in the learning process of getting this you know moving getting this idea going you know the the ipad idea in the in the resource sentences and we are learning together really because uh we had no idea a year ago that we would have this kind of situation is that um the more we learn from the process the more relevant the library will be um books will not disappear i think uh what is exciting now is to have the physical world together with the digital world to make learning even more powerful and to make uh those spaces even more exciting for our users and our students to be so um i'm sharing with you there uh this reference bitly.com slash cpj library and there you will find the resources that we've been sharing around and the apps directory yeah i think it might be a good start if you are considering something like that in your schools now i'm open to any questions you might have if you have some questions you can write in the text chat area or i don't know nita if they can use their microphone so i'll be here waiting for your questions and you know any comments you want to make and if you i don't know maybe you could tell us a little bit about your own experience so you have this kind of situation in your libraries like the ipad or tablets what kind of digital resources you you have besides you know computers for example oh that's a great question about kindle uh kindle they're great and well i didn't mention that because the focus was uh uh the focus was on ipad for this presentation but we have just acquired some some uh kindles and they're great uh i mean uh having kindles and and giving them like lending them to uh to to the the public in general is just uh fantastic i think it's it's just great um kindles are much cheaper um and uh well i have a kindle and an ipad and i feel that reading in a kindle the experience of reading in a kindle is even better yes in terms of your eyesight it's not so we don't get so tired and all that but um um what we are now deciding in relation to kindles is how we are going to feed them in terms of books there uh because there is a limitation in terms it depends on the the publisher and for example with the ipad what we do we mirror all the ipads in one account so we mirror all the apps and folders in every single ipad with kindles what we notice is that we are going to feed them with um books but then probably we are going to have different kindles with different books that's what we are figuring out and i think it's going to work and then for every kindle we are going to have a different directory of books that they hold yeah so uh i think they're great and i think uh students will love that we love to have the kindle experience but now of course that in this case the kindle would be a different experience because then they would take home yeah any other questions comments and uh i'll leave oh you have my contact there uh if you have any questions how many ebooks that's a great question how many ebooks do i have i have no idea uh the point is um we have what what we have is um we have kids we try to cater for our public and we have kids, teenagers and adults so what we did we we had many ebooks for kids many of those cute ebooks for kids you know and there is a series it's called the crowd the crowds uh it's it's um nosy crowd yes thank you fabrice is just beside me and he is the one who helps me a lot and nosy crowd if you search for that in your ipads you'll see that their ebooks are just amazing amazing they're more expensive than they generally tend to be but they are worth every dime and um so this is one case so i don't know how many books we have we have many now another thing that we have in the ipad is we loaded some free ebooks in the the shelves in the i book area okay so we have some books there in the i book area also we we have a subscription for the tag talk books i don't know if you know uh do you know uh tag which is like uh those talks that we have those 18 15 18 minute talks yes the tag dot com the talks there some of the talks become books and they are very thin books and very easy to read books so what we did we had a subscription for these books we have a special app for that and we can with this subscription we can download all the books for all ipad so um this is really uh good yeah um and i think yeah and well we have kindle in the kindle app in our um ipad so we can also download books from from amazon so the ones that are in the kindle set we can add to um our kindle account as well so there are many what we try to do in relation to the money we try to uh have some budget for like for six months and we plan uh in terms of buying ebooks and apps that will make available for the users any other questions so if there are no more questions i think uh we can move on and keep working i don't know what time it is for you guys but i still have some hours here to work and uh well as i mentioned before feel free to contact me i'm around if you are thinking of implementing your ipad or tablet program or you know any questions we are around i'm glad to help you okay thank you for the opportunity here that you gave me the people at the irc in brazilia they were very helpful um great to have people from costa rica i've seen some from colombia that's amazing so thank you for for the opportunity and and i hope to hear from you what you are doing in your countries and in your library thank you ecuador mexico oh fun colitiba that's fun people from all over that's great thank you nika for the support okay so bye bye and have a great day bye nika