Greetings,

 I have been a high school English teacher at Florence-Carlton school for about 20 years. This summer I finished up my library certification, so, serendipitously with a name like READ, I am starting my first year as our school’s MS/HS teacher-librarian. After this semester I will have four more courses to complete my MEd.

I grew up mostly in Montana, got my undergrad degrees (English and German) in Minnesota, worked and played overseas for a couple years, and finally made it back to Missoula. While working at the railroad, I went back to school and got my teaching certification, and I’ve been teaching at FCS ever since. I live in East Missoula with my husband, 14-year old son, dog, chickens, and goldfish.

Most of what I know about educational technology I have learned on the fly. In my classroom I’ve had a Promethean Board for several years; at one point I had a class set of Ipads; our HS has gone one-to-one with Chromebooks; most recently I have been assigned as a Montana Digital Academy proctor for students in our school. Using each of these tools has been important in keeping my curriculum current and engaging (I’m still trying to figure out how to implement the use of smartphones). Each of them has also presented their own challenges. One rule I’ve learned over the decades is if the technology doesn’t work, find the youngest person in the classroom and s/he can probably fix it. 

An important part of my training as a library media specialist was learning about how to make school libraries “Future Ready.” In this century, libraries can not be quiet, tomb-like places with someone shhhing the patrons; instead, they have to be vibrant learning centers with all sorts of tools and resources. Hence, I am really hoping to learn more about how I really can use more technology in meaningful ways in the library.