What makes a tech leader? The 16 influencers we profile this month have found innovative ways to leverage technology to enhance STEM and STEAM learning, amplify student voices, and more. From activism to aquaponics and breakerspaces to self-publishing centers, their pursuits inspire. It all starts in the library. Here, read about six trailblazers who transform reading and research.

Beth Campbell (right) with students.

Beth Campbell

Instructional Technology Coach & Teacher Librarian, Pleasant Valley School District, Bettendorf, IA

Students also create book-related hashtags. They pull out passages that resonate, post them on an adult’s social media using #quoteables, and tag the author. When authors weigh in, says Campbell, kids as young as third grade know their ideas matter. Website: Talking Tech To Connect; Twitter: @HopewellLibrary

Rhonda Jenkins (left); a student makes use of library resources.

Rhonda Jenkins

Library Media Center Director, Kendall Elementary School, Naperville, IL

Jenkins loves it when kids tell her a tool doesn’t work. She reminds them that the tech is only doing what students tell it to. Jenkins, whose daughter calls her “the nerd,” says it’s important to let kids struggle a bit while developing tech fluency.

“When they understand how something works here, maybe it will also work somewhere else,” she says. Jenkins encourages her students to make good choices in their digital lives, and to learn from mistakes there, too. Jenkins blogs at Scholastic about book fairs; Twitter: @luv2teachtech

Colette Cassinelli

Library and Instructional Technology Teacher, Sunset High School, Beaverton, OR

That’s when Cassinelli got the idea for the Apollo Press Student Publishing Center, including green screens, video equipment, mics connected to Chromebooks, and more. A grant from her school and the Nike School Innovation Fund launched the program, maintained with donations from local agencies. Students can produce projects for class or their own use, including self-published books, an old-time radio show, videotaped public health service announcements, or re-creations of historical events such as a Martin Luther King Jr. speech. Students share projects with classes, families, and community.

Take a tour of the Apollo Press Student Publishing Center 

Embracing tech, Cassinelli says, “We have to ask ourselves, ‘What can I do to make sure every kid is successful?’” She lunches with different staff every day, asking how she can help. At a learning showcase she organized, students ran demonstration stations for teachers, from project-based learning activities to creating a website and VR. Cassinelli wrote Inspiring Curiosity: A Librarian’s Guide to Inquiry-Based Learning  Website: Edtech Vision; Twitter: @ccassinelli

Brooksie Kramer (left); a  student's Instagram Story presents research about a career in computer programming.

Brooksie Kramer

Librarian, Brookville High School, Lynchburg, VA

It’s part of a four-year inquiry continuum that Kramer oversees. Ninth graders learn about good sources in a research boot camp. Eleventh graders study the United Nations’ global goals and apply them to a local project, using Google Drawings to create infographics or a green screen while shooting videos for a campaign. In 12th grade, they create a Serial-style podcast about a topic of their choice.

Kramer’s work has spawned several professional learning communities, including a Google Classroom she set up where teachers and students complete training challenges, ranging from coding games to cleaning up their Google Drives. She gets ideas from podcasts, including Google Teacher Tribe, and Twitter, which “totally changed” her PD. “I’m the only librarian in my building. Suddenly, I had lots of people thinking with me.” Twitter: @BrooksieBKramer

Kate MacMillan (left)

Coordinator of Library Services

Jennifer Baker

Librarian and Communications Media Specialist, Napa Valley Unified School District, CA

At Napa Valley USD, that meant moving beyond the idea of the brick-and-mortar libraries circulating print books to a digital district-wide model. Now, 49 percent of NVUSD retrievals are digital. MacMillan and Baker had expected that most checkouts would be anthologies and heavy books used by older students. The surprise was the huge number of read-alongs and audiobooks circulated by elementary kids.

MacMillan and Baker’s One Card Project allows a student’s ID, issued in kindergarten, to serve as a full-service library card. “It’s a journey, a digital journey,” says MacMillan of the libraries’ digitization and other endeavors. “It’s just begun, but I think it’s going to blossom.” MacMillan blogs at Knowledge Quest.

Based in Eugene, OR, journalist Jennifer Snelling (@jdsnellJennifer) writes about teachers and students changing the world. 

Tech Edge illustration by Jeff Rogers