Partnerships Making a Difference: Kids Discover
As we worked to transform the library and the library experience for students at Jane Adeney Memorial School, we knew we could not do it alone. So many individuals have helped us, but we have also partnered with some companies to be part of that transformation.
One of them is Kids Discover. We knew that the students at the school often sought out information. It was one of the reasons that there were so many textbooks in the library and why so many of the students, when asked what type of books they liked to read shared that nonfiction was what they were drawn to.
We hoped to expand that love of information by going beyond the textbook and leaning into visually engaging and informative pieces that the students could interact with on multiple levels.
Kids Discover offers that in way that few other online resources do. With varied topics, multiple entry points to the information, and appealing interface, it was a resource we hoped to bring to the students. When we shared our project with them last year, Kids Discover was excited to be a part of the journey.
That journey made its way to the students in the last week of the library transformation. Students first learned about the new resource during the last week when it was announced during the new library orientation. Students applauded when the new online experience was described, and they were invited to visit the computer lab to check it out.
The next day, students walked into the lab and were met with screens showing the Kids Discover home page. Jeoffrey, the teacher in charge of the lab, was exploring the site when the students arrived. They had a brief tutorial on what they might find, how they can explore, and why they might utilize the source. Signs across the lab showed the web address students would type in for future visits.
And then they dove in
. We were interested in seeing what students would be drawn to. Before we saw that though, we noticed how intuitively they took to the interface, and how the exploration wasn’t an isolated activity but instead one where students shared what they found with a friend or explored together.
Favorite areas where students lingered were pages on the human body, space, animals, and biographies of people they had heard of but wanted to know more about. They jumped into activities at the end of articles, searched and browsed, sought out videos, and explored every aspect of the site.
At the end of the first day, one student came up to us as we were closing down the library and the lab for the day. “Will this be here again tomorrow?” she asked. We told here it would be there every day for the rest of her time at the school. She smiled as she walked out. And we saw her back at the computer lab exploring Kids Discover the very next day.
