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Check this out:, General, School Media Specialist

AASL Recommended App: Content Creation: Canva

canvaIn June 2016, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their 25 Best Apps for Teaching and Learning. The apps encourage qualities such as innovation and active participation, and are user-friendly.

The design tool Canva provides fonts, design templates, layouts, and more to use on social media or slide presentations. The app has more than a million images to choose from, and also allows you to use pictures uploaded from your camera roll. Great for use on school websites, flyers, and social media branding. The Canva site also features helpful tutorials.

Cost: Free
Level: Middle and High School
Platforms: iOS

The blog Disrupt Education has a great article about how to incorporate Canva into the classroom, with relation to teaching 21st century learning skills like succinct writing and using creative commons. Another site to visit that discusses the usefulness of Canva in schools is Ed Tech Teacher. Their article about using Canva includes examples, videos, and links to additional resources and articles.

Watch their promotional video:

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, General, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

Strategies to Simplify: Tip 5: Get it done!

“Work simply. Live fully.”  This week CMLE focuses on the following work productivity tip from Work Simply, Carson Tate’s popular book.  At CMLE, we’ve boiled down Tate’s wealth of knowledge from Work Simply to a few key points; please see the book for more detail and resources. At the bottom, see links to earlier tips in the series! Let’s all be our best selves….

This week’s activity: Implement best practices in completing your work.

Now that you’ve got your Master List of to-dos in one, easily accessible place, you can start knocking items off the list, right? Take a moment and consider these ideas from Work Simply about how to most efficiently complete your tasks, based on your Productivity Style.

Recently, you discovered your Productivity Style with a simple assessment.

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Work Simply

Find your Productivity Style for some personalized tips and tools for carrying out your tasks:

Prioritizer: Put similar tasks together in order to get more accomplished. You may like BaseCamp, a project management tool that integrates with e-mail and allows you to track tasks by project, upload files, and view calendars.

Planner: Determine in advance how much time and effort to devote to a task – and stick to it! Try Tom’s Planner, which uses Gantt chart software and allows collaboration.

Arranger: Protect yourself from the interruptions of e-mails and phone calls to keep your train of thought on track. You may find Collabtive useful, which allows groups to work together on projects and features instant messaging, time tracking, and file management.

Visualizer: Avoid the downward spiral of procrastination, and complete the quick or easy tasks first. Try LiquidPlanner, a Web-based program that helps teams collaborate by prioritizing tasks, making estimates, and managing resources and expectations.

Previous tips in this series

Check this out:, General, Resources, School Media Specialist

ITEM Members: A call for your input!

This is a message from ITEM, asking for your input on the ESSA issues that will happen in your library! You always want YOUR voice heard in matters important to your work!!

If anyone would like to gather here at CMLE Headquarters prior to the St Cloud meeting on Oct 26, just let us know. We can meet here, have snacks to get fortified, and head over as a group. It could be a good opportunity to chat among ourselves about issues important here in CMLE, and how to best approach ESSA.

Please use the link from ITEM (below) to register for an event that is convenient for you!!

Continue reading ITEM Members: A call for your input! →

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Writing a Great Library Job Ad (Hiring Series #1)

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Your secret weapon to bring in the best library employees!

hiring
Ads bring people to your library!

Everyone has seen job ads. You probably have your current job because you followed one back to your employer.

What do you think of when you think job ad?

  • tedious list of requirements (you don’t even meet some of them)
  • no salary given
  • clipped sentences, acronyms that sound like a bad dating app
  • sounds just like every other ad you read

Too often, this is just what library ads are: a dull, colorless list of requirements assembled without a lot of thought about (or knowledge of) a job. People apply, sure. But are they interested in your library? Are they inspired by your job? Or do they just want a job, any job, and yours is no worse than others??

Job ads can be a way to really show off the best in your organization. Instead of that dull list of stuff that people may or may not ever actually do, this is an opportunity to sell your library as a good place to work. (If it’s not a good place to work, that is a different issue; and one you may want to address before hiring anyone else!)

Continue reading Writing a Great Library Job Ad (Hiring Series #1) →