Wakelet for School Libraries

As a school librarian there are many stakeholders with whom you must communicate. You have the students, parents, faculty, administration, and community. Do you ever have trouble keeping up with it all? I do. It is a time-consuming task to convey the information to so many different audiences and doing it in such a way that their interest is piqued enough to read. There is hope. I have discovered Wakelet. Wakelet is a digital curation tool that allows you to curate, organize, and share information and resources in a very engaging way. Bonus—it’s also collaborative.

Full disclosure, I am a Wakelet novice. But I am hooked on how efficient the use and engaging the output from Wakelet. Here are four ways I have used Wakelet in my School Library.

Trying to keep faculty and administration aware of what is happening in the library can be challenging. They have so much information flying at them each day. My first Wakelet was a Weekly Library Newsletter. I can communicate schedule changes, programs, reading challenges, and events that are happening in the library that week. Below is a Wakelet template of my newsletter to faculty and staff.

Wakelet is an engaging way to curate information and share with your faculty. Resources you might have previously sent on a plain Word doc about special events or holidays come to life with Wakelet. Teachers find the multimedia resources convenient to access. Some examples might be Author Visits (in person or virtual), National Hispanic Heritage Month, Black History Month, or Holidays Around the World. The possibilities are endless.

I also deliver professional development pieces to the faculty at my school. I have discovered that information delivered in small bits is more effective than a two-hour training. Wakelet is a perfect vehicle to deliver that information. Teachers and staff can participate in a self-paced mini-PD and have it available to view again and again.

Sharing information with parents and the community about different school and library events becomes easier with Wakelet. One of the benefits of Wakelet is that you can update the information without recreating the entire post. Here is a Wakelet I created to inform parents and the community about my school’s Reading Night. I posted the link on our school website for parents to access.

I am a Wakelet novice, but I am already reaping the benefits of this creative and efficient tool. My next challenge is to use Wakelet to deliver a self-paced lesson to students. I often cover classes while check out it still going on. I can just envision classes working on worthwhile, self-paced lessons while I manage the rest of the School Library. I’ll tell you that I drug my feet using this awesome program after it was introduced to me. I should have started using Wakelet immediately! Don’t delay. Click here www.Wakelet.com. Give it a try today.