Welcome back to the Product Spotlight series in the Beanstack Blog! Here, you’ll find news about our latest features and insights into how Beanstack’s tools can help you achieve your reading goals. Whether you’re already using Beanstack or you’re looking to build a culture of reading in your community—this series is for you.
Introducing Beanstack's New Classroom Library Management System
Beanstack’s new Classroom Library Connector is a win for students, teachers, and media specialists alike, meeting the needs of everyone in your school or district. Now, keeping track of titles is easier and faster than ever before. The Classroom Library Connector increases student engagement with classroom books, saves teachers time, and fosters collaboration between teachers and media specialists.
“We wanted to find a way to help teachers leverage their existing classroom libraries to motivate their students to read more. In creating the Classroom Library Connector, we developed a flexible system that benefits everyone from teachers to librarians to students,” says product manager Kelly Hiser. “The system saves teachers time and helps teachers and media specialists collaborate.”
The Classroom Library Connector builds connections and helps schools establish a strong reading culture. With the ability to maintain classroom library lists, teachers can encourage students to read the books that line the shelves of their classroom. Media specialists can also collaborate with teachers to create reading lists and classroom reading challenges. Together, they can work to get students reading more.
Additionally, administrators and media specialists can view the titles most commonly read by students to know which ones they may need to purchase additional copies of and which ones they may want to remove from their library.
How It Works
We first developed this feature set for our clients at Orange County Public Schools in Florida after they reached out to us to help their teachers and media specialists comply with state requirements. So, there are some features that are exclusively available to Florida schools. We also know that schools across the world need ways to increase student engagement with classroom books and improve teacher-media specialist collaboration. The Classroom Library Connector helps solve this problem. But how does it work?
Teachers can add titles to classroom library lists using CSV uploads, search, manual entry, and our state-of-the-art ISBN scanner. The scanner, which is compatible with desktops and mobile devices, is particularly useful, as it is much faster than hand-keying titles into a spreadsheet. Scandit Smart Data Capture and Barcode Scanning technology is licensed separately by Beanstack. By employing this technology, teachers can efficiently create and maintain classroom library lists for their rostered classes.
“With this new feature set, teachers and media specialists will benefit from our unique digital ISBN scanner and the competition, recognition, and proven gamification principles of Beanstack that inspire a love of reading in students.” - Beanstack co-founder and CEO, Felix Lloyd
Teachers and media specialists can more easily catalog titles, making classroom books more visible to students and encouraging them to create independent reading habits needed to grow a community of readers.
Get Started!
Take your classroom library to the next level with Beanstack’s Classroom Library Connector. Contact your client success manager today to get started with this powerful new feature set. Not a client, but looking to streamline your cataloging efforts? Get in touch today for a demo and pricing information.