Day 18 - Day of Reflection

Thursday was an unusually quiet day at DHS.  This provided a good opportunity to reflect on my goals and plans for my remaining week.  I met with a student teacher to share my New Teacher's Guide to the School Library presentation.  Another book order came in and, as usual, I loved looking through all the great new titles. I recognized quite a few books from my browsing at the Teen department at the Spartanburg Public Library. Even better, I was able to check out a copy of this hot title. Thank you Melanie! 

With Erika's help I put together a display of sports titles, both fiction and nonfiction.  At first I intended to only feature football books, but since basketball season is beginning we decided to feature all sports.  I will check on Tuesday to see if any titles are missing - meaning they are checked out!

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 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.