Annual renewal for the District/Building ICoach program for the 2018-2019 school year is now underway and runs through September 21, 2018.

Educator Tools 2.0 is in its beta release and we need you to put it to the test.

Learn how to make the most of the World Book resources you have from INFOhio by attending free World Book webinars throughout the school year.

The school year is drawing to a close but these Teach With INFOhio blog posts can help you finish the school year strong and start the summer right. 

Back by popular demand: INFOhio Beach Bags and the virtual Camp INFOhio, offered for free to all Ohio families by INFOhio and the Ohio Department of Education.

INFOhio is licensing and renewing high-quality, digital, instructional content for the 2018-2019 school year that all Ohio PreK-12 students, their parents, and their teachers can use at school, at home, and on the go. INFOhio has licensed Science Online and renewed videos in INFOhio's Digital Video Collection (DVC) for all Ohio PreK-12 schools to use at no cost to schools.

On Thursday, March 15th, the State Library of Ohio Board approved a grant to contribute LSTA funding to the Libraries Connect Ohio collection of digital content for FY2019. INFOhio, OhioLINK, and OPLIN, representing school libraries, academic libraries, and public libraries, contribute funding for this collection of high quality digital content. Through this unique partnership of library organizations, Libraries Connect Ohio is able to provide a strong and consistent set of resources that demonstrates the benefits of shared services and effectively serves Ohioans of all ages.

Ohio Ed Techs will hold a free virtual conference via Google Hangouts and YouTube on February 22nd, and INFOhio is participating!

Staff in INFOhio-automated school libraries now have an easy way to learn how to get the most out of their library software: INFOhio's Learn It Clips. Learn It Clips are short video tutorials that provide clear, visual, step-by-step instructions on completing common tasks in Workflows.

Learn how one ITC is sharing eBooks across their schools and districts in an on-demand webinar presented by OverDrive & School Library Journal.

Friday's post on how to keep calm, cool, and collected during the last days of school provided an example of how to implement Camp INFOhio into your classroom during the last weeks before summer break. The goal is to keep kids engaged, learning, and interested. Another resource available at no cost from INFOhio is IWonder. This student site is a collection of websites chosen by educators. The sites are categorized by asking students questions such as "Do You Want to Learn More About Technology?" and "Do You Want Help with a Project?" Students can browse to find a topic that interests them, and drill down to find specific websites where they can learn, play, and explore. Of course, one way to achieve part of the goal set is to allow the students to do just that—browse to learn, play, and explore. Without a plan of action, however, students may not be as engaged. And without engagement, well, we all know what happens in a classroom where students are not actively invested and interested!

The classroom is packed up, with bare walls and stacked-up textbooks. Students are eager to help clean and sort, preparing for the end of the school year. The teacher frantically finds activities to keep the class busy, and when all else fails, turns to a movie, the lights turned off, the room cooler without a fluorescent glare. Tomorrow is Field Day, and the temperature is sure to be high. The next day is the class picnic, and after that, the doors close for good on this school year. 

The Summer Slide sounds like a fun piece of playground equipment but it’s something to be prevented: “Students in lower-income families who don't read over the summer lose two to three months of learning, according to the National Summer Learning Association, a Baltimore group with ties to Johns Hopkins University” (Wisconsin State Journal). To learn more about the Summer Slide, try a search for “summer slide” or “summer learning loss” in ISearch (use your school or district's INFOhio username and password if prompted).

It's amazing to think that it is April, and for many Ohio teachers, there are only 6-8 weeks left of this school year. Most can still remember the smell of the new crayons or the smiling faces of new students. Many will wonder where the school year has gone. Most will cheer and dream of peace, sleeping in, and sunshine. And because it is April, many educators will also begin to wonder what they can do to further their efficacy, effort, and influence in the classroom for the next school year. They will think back about this year, and ask, "How can I engage my students more?" What approach might work better for teaching this concept?" "Should I consider restructuring my reading program?" That's right—the end of the school year often means it's time for some serious professional development. "Summer is the perfect time to recharge," according this to this article from Educational Leadership about ways that being a better student will lead to being a better teacher. Often districts will have prescribed summer PD, but that doesn't mean there aren't easy options for developing your own PD plan—one that will answer your personal questions and build a better educator based on your needs and expectations. INFOhio can help with that. We like to think of it as Summer Reading—Teacher Style. It's free and all you need is time, some mindfulness, and a device with an Internet connection. 

With lots of input from both school and public librarians, INFOhio has posted a guide that helps Ohio's public librarians learn how they can help the PreK-12 students and educators they serve get the most out of all the resources available to them: Guide to INFOhio for Ohio's Public Librarians.