On any given day, you can find SMPCS’s Supervisor of Accountability and Library Media, Heather Wysokinski, looking for ways to
support her team of school-based library media specialists. Part teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, and
program administrator, the library media specialist role is complex. Their goal? Building life-long reading and learning habits in a
digital age, by providing engaging instruction, resources, and services to their students, staff, and community. This team of
library specialists also understand that education engages students when it matches their interests and aspirations. Heather and
her team are always looking for innovative writing, books, and tools that students and teachers both love.

Building 21st-century skills

One of the tools they rely on to build strong critical thinking and 21st-century media literacy skills is Breakout EDU. Heather
discovered Breakout EDU when she was a library media specialist at a SMCPS middle school. When it came to looking for a
unique way students could strengthen their skills in research and information literacy, Breakout EDU fit the bill. Designed by
former teachers, Breakout EDU’s exciting, escape-room-style puzzles challenge students to use communication, collaboration,
creativity, & critical thinking skills in order to break out.

“At first, it’s so hard to not help them or suggest hints! But they are always excited to break out,” Heather said. When it comes to
student-led problem-solving skill development, she says Breakout EDU is unlike anything else they have. “Whereas other
platforms and curriculum that are three have directions for students, there is no direction for this.” With Breakout EDU, students
have to figure out what the direction is.

a TOOL FOR lIBRARY mEDIA sPECIALISTS

When SMCPS classrooms shifted to remote learning in Spring of 2020, Heather’s team of school-based library media specialists
gained a new responsibility: managing the one-to-one device program for over 17,000 students.

As teachers looked for ways to engage students remotely, Heather’s team of library media specialists were looking for ways to
continue helping students access, evaluate, and use information from multiple sources in order to learn, to think, and to create
and apply new knowledge.

“This tool gets students to collaborate on something outside of their typical reading database and it also gives media specialists
a chance to see how the platform can tie into what the students are doing in media as far as research. Breakout EDU’s hand-on
challenges present students a way to demonstrate. And really, it is a kind of research skill. With a Breakout EDU challenge,
they're trying to figure out the ins and outs of something and how it works, which is what research is about.”

Building Life-Long Learning Habits

Heather Wysokinski | Supervisor of Accountability and Library Media