Divergent Day at Todd

Check out this cool Smore that my talented colleague, Wendy Rollins, made to promote Divergent Day at our school. Can't wait for all the fun and I am excited that so many students are becoming interested in the series.

SCASL Reflection - ReTweet!

I am still processing all of the great experiences and ideas from SCASL 2014, but thought I would share Cathy Nelson's blog post.  So proud that I got to be a part of her session - collaboration at work!

SCASL 14 Day 3 Final Reflection - Friday, March 14, 2014 SCASL kicked off the last day of conference with our ... http://t.co/rq8DYTJtq3
— Cathy Jo Nelson  (@cathyjo) March 19, 2014

Google Forms for Libraries

Taking a page from my Dorman high library mentors, Melanie Dillard and Cathy Nelson, I created a book contest entry form using Google forms. The contest is to pick the first student to check out Jeff Kinney's 8th installment in the Diary of a Wimpy kid series, Hard Luck. Our students LOVE this series and are eagerly awaiting the newest one.

This year our school is 1:1 with iPads (3rd-5th) and MacBooks (6th-8th) so students will be able to access the entry form very easily. What I like the best, aside from the ease of use in creating the form and tweaking the look and content, is that the results will feed into a Google spreadsheet with each entry sorted automatically.

Thanks Google and your magic Docs! Now that I have tried forms, I will definitely utilize this tool in the future.

New Year, New Blog?

Well, it has happened.  After almost three years, lots of reading, many research papers, and much help from my family and friends, I have graduated with my Master of Library & Information Science and have a pending South Carolina State Teaching certificate.  The next step is finding a position as a school media specialist.

Transitioning from a graduate school focus, this blog will discuss books, apps, and tech tools. Eventually it may evolve again to reflect my life as a newly minted school media specialist. But not yet...:)

After six books and over 300,00 words, I finally completed all of Michael Grant's Gone series. Set in a California beach town in the aftermath of a nuclear powder plant accident, this series is full of richly developed, memorable characters (Whip Hand anyone?). Whether hero, villain, or a mixture of both, no one leaves the FAYZ unscathed. I would love to see this series brought to the big screen. Gone has become one of my go to titles for those students that have already read other popular dystopian series such as The Hunger Games or Divergent.

Catching Kisses is a new picture book by Amy Gibson. The story follows kisses as they are blown and fly off with the wind around our country. I especially enjoyed Maria Van Lieshout's striking retro style illustrations of various U.S. cities and the game in recognizing the places in the book.

Current favorite apps: Haiku Deck and Smore. Haiku Deck is super simple to use and creates very visual, striking presentations. Streamlined alternative to PowerPoint. Smore is for digital flyers, newsletters, invitations, and much more. It is intuitive to learn and features modern fonts and backgrounds. I have made Smores for school drop ins, yard sales, and professional development presentations. 

Day 20 - Goodbyes

Pictures from M. Dillard, C. Nelson, and my own photos.

Thursday was the final day of my Dorman internship and I left with mixed emotions.  Though I am thrilled to have completed one of the final components of my MLIS program and will graduate from USC's SLIS program December 6, I know that I will miss the fantastic DHS media center team - Melanie, Cathy, and Erika.  They welcomed me in, challenged me to try new things, and were always willing to answer my questions and listen to my ideas.  

Photos by E. Graham

Thank you to Dorman High School's students and teachers for all the great times!  I have truly been able to experience all aspects of a high school library program and would love to work at one in the future.  Love the spirit, the energy, the YA novels, the learning, the ideas, and the fun that comes with teenagers.

Day 19 - Literary Research

Today I worked with Ms. Davis' 12th grade English classes (hard at work in the photos to the left and right). The students are writing an essay about symbolism in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". First I introduced appropriate database resources for their literary research and how to access them. Then I provided research and formatting advice. As Ms. Davis observed, these students are preparing for college and should be able to work independently.  Overall, most of the students did use Discus, Gale or Ebsco Host literature databases for their research. The essays are due tomorrow; as a fellow student, I wish them luck tonight!

 

 
I enjoyed reflecting with Melanie and Cathy about how they evaluate and design action plans for their program. Cathy also shared details about her American Association of School Librarians conference adventures last week. Check out her blog to learn more.

The best part of my day was talking and working with DHS students. I have come to know some of them and will miss their insights and great reading suggestions.  One of the student library helpers is reading #4 in Michael Grant's Gone series, Plague, and agreed with me that this series is addictive.  As I was leaving I got to meet Dorman principal, Ken Kiser, and he praised Melanie and Cathy for the great job they do.

Day 17 - Professional Development and iPads

It is hard to believe that I am in my last two weeks at Dorman.  This semester has gone so rapidly and I have truly enjoyed going "back" to high school and working with such a knowledgeable pair of media specialists. I'll save the rest of my reflections for next week's posts, but I already know that I will miss working with the DHS MC gang!

Today was a rewarding day for me as I had the opportunity to provide professional development for a group of student teachers.  As a fellow student, I could relate to their challenges and wishes for the future.  My presentation (see below for the Haiku Deck visual portion) focused on why new teachers should partner with their school librarian.  Aside from the fact, that librarians are a terrific bunch, we covered collaboration opportunities, research guidance, and identified beneficial resources for teachers (e.g., Discus, Streamline SC).  Next week I have an opportunity to present to a group of second year teachers and will customize to fit their needs.



Melanie and I got to experience iPads in action with an economics class.  The students used a web based credit card simulator to learn about interest and minimum payments.  Here's my advice: stay out of debt kids!
Good luck to Cathy as she ventures to cold Hartford, CT for the AAAL (American Association of School Librarians) conference.  A great opportunity to share best practices with school librarians from all over the country.

Day 14 - Happy Halloween

Today Erica put out new books for students and they browsed and selected as though they were at a retail book store.  Love those new books! 


I worked on plans for a professional development session with student teachers.  School libraries and librarians can be great allies and guides for new teachers and I want to share all of the benefits of teacher/librarian collaboration.  Here's a view of my Smore invitation:

Exciting technology news for Dorman: 15 iPads were donated to the school and the library will oversee the management of them.  Classes can check them out for instructional use and projects.  Melanie showed me how to control and manage apps and restrict unauthorized downloads. 1:1 programs are popping up all over our state and my home district will roll out iPads for 3rd-5th grade this month.  I welcome every opportunity I have to learn more about device management and how to best utilize iPads as part of student instruction and to allow students to create digital products.

Day 12 - Busy Day at The DHS Media Center

As expected, Thursday was jam packed with activity.  Melanie went over budgeting, requisitions, and purchase orders with me, but, as she advised me, each school will have its own unique requirements and steps for budgeting and spending.  Once I have my own library, I will need to make good friends with the school bookkeeper so they won't mind all the questions I will ask them!

Mrs. Shepard's class completed their Destiny Quest book reviews. I briefly went over copyright and citations and then the class  moved on to the next phase of the project: visual book reports.  Visual book reports are a mashup of text and images that represent the major themes, symbols, and or characters of the novel.  I think the students will enjoy the creative freedom of this project and I am excited to see their final products.  Cathy will work with us on the final day and provide needed guidance on the graphic design aspects of the visual book report.

Teen Read Week (TRW) festivities continued with library trivia and  special guests, Travis and Heather, from Spartanburg County Public Library's teen library staff.  Many students stopped by during lunch and won t-shirts and other cool swag for showing their SCPL cards.  See more TRW pictures and details on the Cavaliers Read! blog.

Events like Teen Read Week are a great way to create a "buzz" around your library program and to get students excited and inclined to think the school library is a hub of fun and activity.

Day 10 - Halfway There

http://cultureofyes.ca/2012/02/02/what-is-west-van-talking-about-checking-in-at-the-midpoint/

Tuesday began with an multistep student project.  Cathy is helping an art class create narration files to go along with a physical and web based display of student created artwork, a virtual art walk.  Using Audacity, students recorded narrations, exported the files, and created QR codes linked to the files.  There are more steps involved, but the process should be worthwhile once the art and audio are linked.

Melanie discussed my midpoint evaluation with me and we identified checkpoint items that I still need to complete.  For the professional development component I am planning to offer a Media Center 101 session to any student teachers at Dorman this semester.  Another idea is to offer training on using Destiny Quest.

Cathy and I met with Mrs. Shepard to finalize the plans for next week's curriculum unit.  I am excited about the project and hope the students enjoy creating digital book reviews and visual book reports.  I am also happy to have Cathy assisting with some of the more technical elements of the project!  She has done visual book reports project before and has some great tips in this blog post.  We will add in some information technology instruction related to citing images.

Melanie and Cathy attended EdTech this week and I look forward to hearing all about it.  As I am posting after the big crosstown rival game, I must acknowledge that the Dorman Cavaliers beat my home school district team, the Spartanburg High School Vikings,  42-35.  Hope I don't hear too much gloating on Tuesday!

Day 9 - PosterMyWall and Basketball fiction

Thursday was filled with lots of planning and working with students.  Cathy gave me more ideas for visual, creative student projects. PosterMyWall is a site that allows students to create collage posters that can be downloaded for free.  This can be used to combine text and images to represent a work of fiction.  This requires students to analyze and synthesize and work those higher order thinking skills.
Not your average book report!

In her capacity as a Tech Trainer for the district, Melanie is teaching a course on Google Docs.  The teaching role of the teacher librarian is not limited to instructing students.  TLs can and should be up to date on technology initiatives as we'll as curriculum content in order to provide professional development to school colleagues.

The Pinterest Nursery & Layette project continued and I enjoyed seeing the varied baby related gear the students pinned.  I helped a student find some basketball fiction - new category for me!  I made a note to read some YA sports fiction as well as to become more familiar with authors/titles popular with boys/young men.

Next week I take the PRAXIS II - Library Media Specialist area.  This is one of my last steps in becoming a certified School Library Media Specialist!

Day 8 - Pinterest and Planning

Today the focus was on a class project using Pinterest, planning for the Dystopian fiction unit, and completing a display.  As always, I came away with great, practical tips from Melanie and Cathy on school library program administration and management.

On Monday, Melanie and Erika has worked with a Child Development class as they began a Pinterest project.  The students had to set up Pinterest accounts using their student Gmails, follow their teacher, and then be invited to "pin" to shared Nursery and Layette boards.  This process came with some obstacles, but once accounts and passwords were created, things ran more smoothly.  This was a reminder to me to always plan ahead when using a Web 2.0 tool for student projects.

During 4th block I met with Ms. Shepard to plan activities and technology products related to the Dystopian fiction unit.While I had initially thought of student created book trailers, we decided that Destiny Quest book reviews would be a better fit for this class.  Students will also create a visual/text digital product to represent their understanding of the novels or a specific characters.  I am excited about working with this class and glad that I have read 3 of the 5 books that the various groups read.

I completed my display for the graphic novel section.  I made a poster for one of the columns and faced out titles across the top of the shelves.  It was gratifying to see some students stop and pick up a graphic novel or two. However, my sign making skills have a ways to go - I am trying to emulate Cathy's design whiz/font snob style and make some fresh, eye-catching signage.  I plan to add pictures of graphic novel covers around the poster to add more interest.

Day 5 - Student Interactions Aplenty

Day five was filled with lots of student interaction.  I helped two teacher cadets brainstorm on an interactive element to go with a literary unit.  The girls have written a story and are making it into a Big Book. Later this semester they will get to work with K-2nd grade students and actually use their story unit.  The students at Dorman have so many opportunities to explore their career interests - a big change from when I was in high school!

Every semester the library has a rotation of student helpers.  I got to help train some new helpers which helped me get a refresher course on all the sections.  DHS has such a big library (24,000 materials!) that I am still finding new sections after 3 weeks.

A government/econ class was making a group video project about college tuition and they recruited me to be interviewed.  I was impressed with their professionalism and got to express my humble opinion that, yes, college tuition is rising too rapidly.

During 4th block, Mrs. P-G's government class worked on a project about the Bill of Rights.  We suggested that the students use Discus and research databases instead of general internet search engines.

Next week is Banned Book week and the BYOB lunch club.  I look forward to more adventures with Melanie, Cathy, and all the DHS gang!

Thursday - Discus, Google, & Legend

This was a busy day for me at Dorman.  During 1st block, Cathy and I went to Mrs. Adkins' STEM Humanities class for a library orientation (Cathy) and DISCUS/Research presentation (me).  I incorporated many of the ideas Cathy had discussed with me the week before and was grateful for the PowerPoint slides she shared with me.  The focus of the presentation was to introduce the students to the database resources available through the Dorman Media Center as well as Discus.  While I recommended not defaulting to Google automatically, I would like to develop a presentation related to using Google effectively.  Google is a great search engine when you know how to use it efficiently and I want to make sure students can do this. Next presentation idea! :0

To start off I had four students hold up signs (Google, Discus, Library, or Ask a Friend) and stand in a different corner of the room .  Then I asked the rest of the class to go stand next to the sign that best represented their own initial search strategy when conducting research.  Cathy blogged about the class visit and here are the collaged group shots she took of the class in action:

Before Presentation



Notice that Google and Discus changed in size in the After shot (except the one student who switched from Discus to Google - I must not have convinced him!).

After Presentation

During 2nd Block, Melanie and I went to Mrs. Shepard's class to present a Dystopian Fiction book talk.  This class had a slightly different selection of titles than Tuesday's class so I created a new Prezi with trailers and book descriptions.  Melanie came to my rescue when a question was raised about the Marie Lu's book, Legend.   While I did read (and loved!) Legend this summer, I had not prepared a book talk about it and drew a blank.  Melanie serves on the SCASL South Carolina Book Awards committee and reads everything.  She was able to provide the students with a brief plot description and, most importantly, spark their interest in the book.  I hope to become as well versed as Melanie is in young adult fiction, but will have to do a LOT of reading to catch up!

The remainder of the day was filled with readers advisory, students signing up for the BYOB Lunchtime Book Club, completing a resource list for Mrs. Campbell's SAT class, and ideas for future collaboration projects.  Once again, I left Dorman with my head buzzing with ideas and projects and excitement in knowing that this internship is preparing for my future position as a School Library Media Specialist.
 


Dystopian Fiction Prezi

Tuesday was an exciting day at Dorman.  I presented a booktalk to Mrs. Shepard's class on Dystopian fiction (see Prezi above).  The students will group into mini book clubs based on the titles they select.  I may work with the class again to make their own book trailers.  Great collaboration opportunity to work with students in creating a digital product. 

Melanie showed me how to create a Resource List within Destiny.  We are making resource list for Mrs. Campbell's SAT class featuring high Lexile level titles, both fiction and nonfiction.
I worked on updating the library Home Page on Destiny by checking links and making sure all resources were current and linked correctly.

Thursday will be another busy day with another booktalk scheduled and a research presentation to a STEM Humanities class.  This is just the beginning of my internship, but I have already had so many opportunities to work with the teachers and faculty.

Day Two - File Conversion, Pez, and Beowulf

Day two at Dorman went by at a brisk pace as my day was filled with two more classroom observations, interacting with students, and planning with Mrs. Dillard and Mrs. Nelson.  In preparation for a booktalk next week, Melanie walked me though using converting YouTube videos to .wmv files so that they can be played in the classroom.  Cathy and I talked about the research process, finding good sources, and how to walk students through the steps.  She also gave me some pointers on doing an effective presentation.

Melanie helped me identify potential teacher collaboration partners and I look forward to exploring a variety of curriculum topics.   Speaking of varied curriculum, the classes I sat in on were Physics and a 12th grade English class.  Even though I must confess an ignorance when it comes to Physics, I was impressed with the teacher's enthusiasm for the material and her rapport with the students.  The classroom featured student projects - tombstones of famous scientists and blinged out periodic element blocks.  My favorite touch was the teacher's large collection of Pez dispensers lining the tops of shelves.  Very fun! 

As an English major, I did feel more at home in the senior English class.  They started the session with an SAT review question and discussed test taking strategies.  Next was silent reading time (which I was more than happy to participate in), followed by a discussion of Beowulf.  The teacher advised the kids to become "active readers" as a way to more fully engage with the text.

Day One - Hit the Ground Running

Tuesday was Day One of my library internship at the Dorman Media Center.  Fitting the scale of Dorman itself, the media center is a large, open space with room for multiple classes, a large collection and a wide assortment of work rooms and offices and serves as a hub for school activities. I received a warm welcome from Mrs. Dillard, Mrs. Nelson, and Ms. Hammett and was provided with my own intern workspace and official notebook.

The media specialists encourage students to frequent the library before school, during lunch, and after school to check out, use the computers, and even just charge their devices.  

This year Dorman has a BYOD (bring your own device) policy and students can use their phones, iPods, laptops, and Kindles on their own time or, in class, with their teacher's approval.

I learned more about some of Dorman's academic iniatives and how block scheduling works.  Mrs. Nelson did a library orientation for a sophomore English class and I sat in on a U.S. government/economics class.

If Tuesday is any indication, I will have a busy semester as I was able to meet many teachers, staff, and students and already have projects, book clubs, and book trailers on my calendar and agenda.  In the afternoon I helped some students find books and was happy that I could provide some "high school" age recommendations.  I can't wait to see what Thursday brings!

BYOD Image retrieved from http://ltlatnd.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/what-is-byod-and-why-should-i-care /
Dystopian Fiction Image retrieved from http://edu.glogster.com/blog-thumbs/14/21/75/66/21756632_2/dystopian-fiction.jpg?u=cfffe272ded09e462d8be18e86f73ab1