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.