16 Laptops in the Library

When I started my new Teacher-Librarian job, I sadly discovered that the school has only 7 computers in the library.  This is certainly not up to 21st Century Learning Standards, for it does not allow a class of students to do research work in the library.  Thankfully, working with our district instructional technology people, we were able to get 16 old laptops set up on WiFi in the library.  The two ways I see these working for classes are:

1) While half the class uses the laptops for research, the other half uses library books for research, then they switch; therefore, each student gets his/her own individual time with the laptop.

2) Encourage teachers to let students work in pairs on their research projects.  This allows 2 kids per laptop and encourages teamwork/collaborative learning as well.

I look forward to hearing other ideas from educators on how to utilize the 16 laptops in the media center for student learning.

Video Book Trailer for "Speeding Bullet"

I started a "Book Club" at my middle school's library. We meet once a week. After reading Neil Shusterman's "Speeding Bullet" together, we decided to make a short video book trailer.  However, not  enough people wanted to be in front of the camera.  So, we decided to use action figures and our voices instead.  The kids really seemed to enjoy it.  Only took about an hour to plan, an hour to film, and an hour to edit.  We posted it on YouTube and will link it to the school library site as well.  Some of the kids already told their friends and they have watched it on YouTube and liked it.  Great way to celebrate reading and inform others about books to promote reading.  In the future, I look forward to using it to teach specific aspects of the reading too, such as conflict and theme.

Here is the video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-BVpS03WZw

Photostory

Recently learned how to use PHOTOSTORY on-line to place photos in a certain order, type text on them, read aloud over the top of each photo, and add music.  It is a VERY easy user-friendly and FREE program to download! Teachers could use it to teach content, librarians could use it for orientations or booktalks, and students could use it to do just about anything: show what they've learned, explain literary elements of a story they read, tell their own story, point out the most important information from a chapter and connect the content with visuals, etc.  The educational possibilities are endless!  And FREE!  :)

Electronic Readers

I just spent an hour playing with Amazon's Kindle and the Nook from Barnes n Noble. I will always love actual physical books and I do not believe they are going to leave us, BUT these book-reading gadgets are totally awesome and are revolutionizing reading, and after monkeying with them and seeing all they can do, I plan to get one, use it, and explore with students and teachers different ways we could use these educationally.

As an avid reader, an English teacher, and a Literacy Coach, I have always encouraged students to annotate on the texts they read with markings, notes, questions, etc., either by writing on the page itself or using post-it notes.  Research clearly shows how much this aids in comprehension and allows the reader to more easily look back at specific areas. So, when I first heard of the Nook and Kindle, my immediate thought was that comprehension and turning back to significant sections was now going to decrease and thereby dumb down the reading and learning experience.  HOWEVER, I am happy to report that these devices DO indeed allow you to high-light, make notes, place post-its on certain pages, etc.  Not to mention that a difficult vocabulary word can be immediately defined!  Holy educational tool Batman!

They are too spendy right now for a whole class to use, but I am thinking maybe I could purchase 10 of them, then a class could work in groups of 3 to read, annotate, and discuss text together.  That's just one idea. I look forward to hearing from colleagues about other teaching and learning uses for these devices.

Very cool!

Free classics on-line!

Would you like your students to read books such as Alice in Wonderland, The Odyssey, Little Women, Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, The Scarlett Letter, Charles Dickens classics, The Jungle Book, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Stoker’s Dracula, Thoreau’s Walden or Civil Disobedience, Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers, The Red Badge of Courage, Sherlock Holmes, Paine’s Common Sense, Jules Verne classics, or plays and poems from Shakespeare? 


Well, they can read all of these classics and more FOR FREE thanks to organizations that are trying to make as many books as possible available for on-line reading. 


Through the use of library computers, lab computers, classroom computers (with projector for whole class to see), or computers at home (on-line homework) teachers can and should be having students read such on-line books or selected pages without having to worry about finding the money to buy class sets anymore.


Here are some of the places to go to find free books on-line:


http://openlibrary.org/
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.PageByPageBooks.com/
http://educhoices.org/articles/Online_Libraries_-_25_Places_to_Read_Free_Books_Online.html

Easy-to-Create Web Pages for Students or Staff!

I recently became familiar with a site that helps you make simple web pages that staff could use to display information for students, or that students could use to publish their work.

It's called Page Easy and it can be found at the following web site:

http://pageeasy.com/index.php

Page Easy is a free service for quickly and easily building simple web pages. Page Easy isn't intended be used for creating full-featured websites. Rather it is intended for use by people who need to build a web page to promote an event, create small displays of information, or demonstrate something you have learned by providing both text and visuals. You can even place a short video segment on the page (either your own or one from youtube) to enhance the information.

Page Easy pages can contain any combination of text, images, and videos.

 Creating a web page with Page Easy is a fairly straight-forward process. To use Page Easy you do have to create an account. Once you've created an account you can create a page. Choose a page name (which becomes part of the url for your page) then fill in the text boxes, video boxes, or image boxes. If you need more boxes, just look for the "more boxes" link below your last box. To add images or videos you just paste in the HTML. If you get stuck or confused, their HELP page makes it all very clear and step-by-step for you.

This is an awesome way for students to publish their learning and I recommend it to everyone!

Pics & Videos to Celebrate Learning

So many people post their photos and their silly videos these days, including myself, but it got me thinking that we should be doing this more to celebrate the learning and educational events taking place in our classrooms and libraries.

Parents would love to be able to see what their kids are learning and participating in at school, and the students love to see themselves. It is a way to celebrate the learning, but also a way to communicate with home about what we're doing at school. It's like a more engaging modern tech version of the old simple "newsletter" idea.

Whether it's a classroom activity, a library event, or student presentations, we should be taking photos and short videos and publishing them on-line for the kids and families to enjoy and learn from.

Since I just got hired TODAY to be a Teacher-Librarian, I can't wait to get the photos and videos started once the school year starts again! :)

Digital Storytelling

Came across a cool idea recently: Digital Storytelling.

After a student writes a story, he/she tells it visually and audibly as well through the use of technology. They can record their own voice telling the story, and have visuals (still and/or video) to enhance the story. I'm thinking this would work just as well with non-fiction essays or papers too! It could work in any subject area really!

What a great way to make the traditional writing of essays, papers, and short stories much more engaging, entertaining, and 21st century for kids!

Here's just one website on this great idea:
http://newtoolsworkshop.wikispaces.com/Digital+storytelling

Book Trailers

I just recently discovered on Youtube that people have been creating "book trailers" to promote books they have read and recommend to others. Like movie previews, these short home-made trailers are meant to promote the book, and can include voice-over narration, music, screen titles, still pics, and video clips. There are a wide variety of them out there, including those created by students.

Since digital video editing is an interest of mine, and I have seen the positive effects it can have on learning, I am definitely going to encourage students and teachers to check these out and create their own as class assignments to share about their reading and learning. A teacher could even assign students to touch on certain literary aspects in the book trailer, such as setting, theme, characterization, symbolism, etc.

A very creative and technological way to enhance and celebrate reading and book discussion.

How Can We Use Today's Tech Obsessions for Education?

Blogs? Tweets? Widgets? ebooks? Podcasts? Texting? Rather than resisting the current and constantly evolving world of technological communication, how can teachers and librarians use the ever-growing technical doo-dads out there to enhance learning?

OSPI information on this topic can be found here:

http://www.k12.wa.us/EdTech/StateTech/

I have also been visiting the following sites to get ideas:

http://www.eschoolnews.com

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

http://edtechpower.blogspot.com/

http://ilearntechnology.com/

http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/

http://www.edutopia.org/

http://readingtech.wikispaces.com/

As I continue to explore this important educational topic, I will continue to blog about what I find, and I welcome any ideas, advice, and resources that will help us use technology to enhance literacy and learning in today's schools.