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Two years ago when Erick Hanson migrated from history teacher to media specialist he had one big goal in mind: to make the library cool again.
“If kids weren't coming into the library to check out books because they need the information or they just want to read for leisure, where are they going instead?” says Hanson, who works at Pennsylvania’s East Pennsboro School District, near Harrisburg.
In a mobile age, books and desktops weren’t much of a draw to the library, and foot traffic had seen better days. So he began wondering where kids were going instead and how he could meet them halfway.
“It didn't take long for me to boil that down to YouTube as the major place where they're consuming content,” says Hanson. “So the idea came about to turn our student consumers into creators.” That year he began EP Media, an after-school YouTube club for both middle and high school students that has blossomed into one of the district’s most hands-on, student-driven initiatives.
