From the outside, it looks like an ordinary yellow school bus, but the inside has been transformed into an innovative learning space with carpeted floors, TVs, iPads, and books.
Traveling on this technology bus, district library media specialists made stops at several locations promoting literacy by distributing more than 400 books to students this summer.
The program ran from June 21 to July 21.
“Our summer Books2Go, Going Digital is a great program to connect our students with reading,” Coordinator of Library Services Mireya Galvan said. “The look on a child’s face when they enter the tech bus is priceless. Whether they watch a virtual field trip or listen to a story on the screen, they enjoy visiting the Books2Go.”
This is the first year that the technology bus was used for the program, offering students a place to escape the summer heat and read. Additionally, the program offered students access to digital books.
“So, these last few weeks we have been promoting reading, through book in hand and also digital books,” Gutierrez Middle School Library Media Specialist Leticia Almaguer said. “The kids come onto the bus, and they get super excited. For digital books, we passed out bookmarks with QR codes on them that linked to thousands of books. It is a multiuser reading program that is really neat, and it’s for all grade levels from preschool to high school.”
Most of the books that were distributed were donated by South Texas Literacy Coalition.
“The end result is to hand the kids books and for them to see that there are other things to do other than just play video games,” Crockett and Jefferson Elementary Library Media Specialist Windy Flores said. “It helps to prevent the summer slide in reading, and we want to keep them engaged.”
