Ohio Opens SchoolRooms

Some 2,400 public and private schools across Ohio have access to a unique new learning site. Launched by statewide library network INFOhio and library automation firm SirsiDynix, SchoolRooms provides K–12 students with a variety of resources—all via a single portal.

Live since October 2008, SchoolRooms is intended as a network for educators statewide to help students discover educational material—and hopefully have some fun while they’re at it.

Inside students can find—as the name suggests—rooms of material where they can pull up stories of Greek mythology, peruse the quotations of President Theodore Roosevelt, or study the crucial role that insects play in pollination, all from one spot. Parents can also access resources on various topics, from how to talk with their children about exercise to Internet safety and dating.

“It became obvious that kids didn’t want information in different places,” says Theresa Fredericka, executive director of INFOhio, a virtual K–12 library. “They wanted a single portal.” Just as a library opens the doors to new worlds, so, too, do the 70 virtual spaces in SchoolRooms—and in a way that Fredericka believes K–12 students will actually use. INFOhio spent three years testing the site, with student evaluators and researchers helping to customize the rooms based on the ages of the kids using them.

Students in grades 4–12 at Shaker Heights Schools were given an assignment to complete using SchoolRooms’ prototype. Kent State University researchers then tracked the kids’ eye movement as they worked on the site, which helped in fine-tuning SchoolRooms, in order to maximize accessibility. “We found that younger kids are less likely to scroll down,” says Greg Byerly, associate professor at the Kent State School of Library and Information Sciences. “So you’d better have everything at the top of the screen for younger kids.”

While INFOhio doesn’t yet have solid numbers on SchoolRooms users, the portal is available in every INFOhio automated school. SirsiDynix does charge a subscription fee, one they are unable to disclose, but for now, SchoolRooms is free as the state is footing the bill for the first year, says Fredericka. After that, she is unsure if schools will be asked to pay. “We’re trying to get state funding to continue it,” she says. “Because what we’re finding is that with the whole state doing so, we have equity of access.”

INFOhio would like to expand that access beyond the region and allow students across the country to explore rooms designed by other states. For now though, young users in Ohio seem pretty happy searching SchoolRooms. “Students are impressed with the ability to get the information they need,” says Jennifer Schwelik, a librarian at Beachwood High School, who helped create some of the rooms on the portal. “The reaction from the students has been pretty positive.”