I'm a little behind on this trend for sure! I will admit, I have been resistant to the whole makerspace idea. Thoughts such as "I don't have the space," "Who has time for that?" and "How would I even make this work?" have circulated through my brain every time the subject comes up. I only have my students for 30 minute blocks- we already have so much to do in such a little time!
Then I attended a workshop on Novel Engineering at the SSL 2019 conference. This workshop was on how to do makerspace type projects along with stories. The presenter read us the beginning of HELP! A Story of Friendship by Holly Keller about a mouse who falls in a deep hole, and how his friends try to figure out how to help him. She did not read the whole story, but rather half of it. We had to identify the problems that the characters face that we could build a solution to. Then, once we selected which problem to tackle, she set us free to her supply cart to start building. It was SO MUCH FUN! It was also super interesting to see how each group tackled the problems- no two solutions were the same. I left that workshop thinking that these type of activities need to happen in my library next year. Which led me to this topic in Cool Tools.
I love the idea of tying the making process in with literature. It is a great way to make cross-curricular connections. It also is an incredible way for the students to really connect to and engage with the story. They become invested in the characters and what happens to them. It also allows them to put themselves in the characters' shoes and to try to solve their problems. It also gives me a great spot to start to introduce the Makerspace concept in my library. I have decided that I will start by dedicating at least one class per month towards a Novel Engineering project in the library- and then slowly build off of that.
As I have no supplies, the first thing will be to gather those. The supplies used in the workshop were everyday recyclable items. Easy enough to get my hands on- I can ask for donations from teachers and parents! The Setting Up Your Own MakerSpace Smore by Angela Rosheim is an excellent resource for other ideas on how to build your makerspace supplies up and where to look for potential funding sources. I also love her list of different ways to use the makerspace- not just during library time, but other ideas like having a maker club or a Family Maker Day (Global Day of Play), or even tying it into our book club (we are always looking for ideas to keep this fresh!). What this Smore really brought into focus is that the makerspace does not have to be some elaborate set up. It can be as simple or as complex as you want and have the space for. For me, starting simple seems to be the best route. I have limited space (even if I have all of it on a cart- I don't have much room for a cart!) and not tons of time. But this is something that I will make work someway and somehow!
There are obviously many benefits to having the students participate in making activities. Collaboration, brainstorming, hypothesizing, and problem solving skills are all developed through activities such as these. One skill that I had not thought of before was that makerspaces provide students with a safe space to fail. Annie Murphy Paul refers to this in her SLJ article "How to Ensure that Making Leads to Learning," calling the process "productive failure". According to research, productive failure can lead students to become deeper and more flexible learners. Making allows students to realize failure is okay and encourages them to just keep trying. It teaches perseverance, which is such an essential skill for students to have!
I am excited to try the concepts introduced to me at the Novel Engineering workshop in my school library, as well as to bring some more maker activities to our students, whether it be during library time, during clubs, or even a family event. If you are interested in reading more about Novel Engineering, their website is a great place to start!
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Friday, May 10, 2019
Thing X: Annual Reports
Last year was the first year that I created an annual report for my library program. I did it at the end of the school year using Google Docs. I tried to keep it short and visually appealing so that the Board might actually read it. My administrator seemed to like it and said he would pass it along to the Board members, but I never heard any feedback one way or the other. According to the blog post by Doug Johnson, "any report that goes unread, no matter how lovingly crafted, how amazingly complete, or how stunningly designed, is a waste of the librarian's time." While I enjoyed making the report, I am unsure that it had any impact whatsoever, and may have sadly been a waste of time. My goal for going through this lesson is to find tips for my report to make more of an impact and to demonstrate all the wonderful things that our library is doing!
One point that Doug makes in his post is that it is important to align the goals of the library with the goals of the school. We recently were a Focus District school (just got off the list this year!), so our main goals were improving ELA and Math scores. Looking at these goals for the school, I plan on including information and data about how my library program supports the ELA curriculum in many ways (reading and analyzing informational texts, information literacy, summarizing, main idea, reading for pleasure...and so much more!). The Annual Report Guide by Debra Kachel gives some great examples for how to include data in your annual report. I never thought about including direct quotes from the students about what they learned or did in Library! I also like how she broke it down into three main areas: Teaching for Learning, Building the Learning Environment, and Empowering Learning Through Leadership. These three areas really cover all areas of the library program. I also really like her idea of including quotes from the student in the report.
The information I included on my 2018 Annual report was:
One point that Doug makes in his post is that it is important to align the goals of the library with the goals of the school. We recently were a Focus District school (just got off the list this year!), so our main goals were improving ELA and Math scores. Looking at these goals for the school, I plan on including information and data about how my library program supports the ELA curriculum in many ways (reading and analyzing informational texts, information literacy, summarizing, main idea, reading for pleasure...and so much more!). The Annual Report Guide by Debra Kachel gives some great examples for how to include data in your annual report. I never thought about including direct quotes from the students about what they learned or did in Library! I also like how she broke it down into three main areas: Teaching for Learning, Building the Learning Environment, and Empowering Learning Through Leadership. These three areas really cover all areas of the library program. I also really like her idea of including quotes from the student in the report.
The information I included on my 2018 Annual report was:
- Circulation Statistics
- Library Research Projects
- Collaborative Projects
- Special Events
- Technology Programs
- Databases Used
I also included pictures to go along with these topics, to make it more visually appealing. I You can see it here: Abe Wing Annual Library Report 2018. Looking at several of the examples that Jen LaGarde curated, I feel like including an infographic may be a better way to visually display some of the more boring data. Definitely more "eye-catching".
While I have much of the data I already need for the report, I feel my next step is to look at my lessons, and find the ones that best align with the ELA standards, and get examples of student work to show how Library is supporting our district goals. I also plan on interviewing/surveying students to get quotes for the report. I just purchased Buncee for the district, and am thinking of using that this year to create my report, in hopes of making it a bit more visually appealing for the Board and my administrator.
We are getting a new administrator next year, so I feel like have a great annual report will be a good way to introduce him to all the wonderful things we do in the Library all year long!
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Thing 10: Search Tools Ninja
I have to admit that I am guilty of telling my students to "just go to Google" for many of their basic internet searching needs (we use databases for our research projects, I promise!). I teach elementary students, K-6, so I focused on learning about the search tools for younger students. However, I was interested on a personal level by the search tools that did not track your history. I could do without the almost psychic Facebook ads!
The first search engine that I looked at was KidRex. I enjoyed the cute interface (who doesn't love dinosaurs?) and that it was very straightforward. Enter your search terms, and hit the search button. I usually do an ecosystem project with 4th grade. While we use our databases for the majority of the research, I do allow them to search for "interesting" facts elsewhere. One issue that I see with KidRex is that the first 4-5 links are actually ads. So the top results for "tundra" are actually for a restaurant supply store and the Toyota Tundra- neither of which are very helpful to a kid looking for a fun fact! Obviously, this would be require some discussion ahead of time about really making sure the link matches what you need! I ran into this same issue with SweetSearch as well.
I liked the filtering capabilities of Choosito. Being able to choose a reading level would be great for our early researchers or our struggling readers! While I wish that it was free to have those options, I can definitely see the draw for paying for the subscription. This would be a great tool for differentiating. I also like the other options such as citation tools, student accounts, and the ability to track their research data to help fine tune their skills. The ads do still appear first on this one (at least the free version) as well. Clearly this is just a lesson that will have to be covered before internet searching!
I love PebbleGo and use it all the time! I find it great for all the grade levels, even if it is just a starting point for our students. I love that it has text, audio, and video options. The graphic organizers it provides are also great. I have had students do PebbleGo scavenger hunts to get them used to using the database, and we use it for almost all of our research projects. Most of the students head there first when looking for information on something.
Reading the article "6 Steps to Teaching Students to Search" by Alice Keeler brought to mind some of the issues I have when teaching students how to internet search. We do talk about keyword searching and checking the reliability of the website. However, one of her points is to not "search for the question". Thinking about it, that is exactly what my younger students do! They type the whole question "What animals live in the tundra" (for example) into Google. I also did not know about the ctrl-f shortcut, which allows students to jump to where the keyword is on the site. I practiced this with my Tundra search, using "adaptation" as my keyword. Sure enough, it highlighted the word adaptation, making it easy to find!
Another issue I face is students using whatever pops up in the "box" after a Google search for their final answers. I like that some of these other search engines do not have that option, forcing them to actually click on the links and read (oh the horror!!). I plan on testing some of these out with our upcoming biography research project in April!
The first search engine that I looked at was KidRex. I enjoyed the cute interface (who doesn't love dinosaurs?) and that it was very straightforward. Enter your search terms, and hit the search button. I usually do an ecosystem project with 4th grade. While we use our databases for the majority of the research, I do allow them to search for "interesting" facts elsewhere. One issue that I see with KidRex is that the first 4-5 links are actually ads. So the top results for "tundra" are actually for a restaurant supply store and the Toyota Tundra- neither of which are very helpful to a kid looking for a fun fact! Obviously, this would be require some discussion ahead of time about really making sure the link matches what you need! I ran into this same issue with SweetSearch as well.
I liked the filtering capabilities of Choosito. Being able to choose a reading level would be great for our early researchers or our struggling readers! While I wish that it was free to have those options, I can definitely see the draw for paying for the subscription. This would be a great tool for differentiating. I also like the other options such as citation tools, student accounts, and the ability to track their research data to help fine tune their skills. The ads do still appear first on this one (at least the free version) as well. Clearly this is just a lesson that will have to be covered before internet searching!
I love PebbleGo and use it all the time! I find it great for all the grade levels, even if it is just a starting point for our students. I love that it has text, audio, and video options. The graphic organizers it provides are also great. I have had students do PebbleGo scavenger hunts to get them used to using the database, and we use it for almost all of our research projects. Most of the students head there first when looking for information on something.
Reading the article "6 Steps to Teaching Students to Search" by Alice Keeler brought to mind some of the issues I have when teaching students how to internet search. We do talk about keyword searching and checking the reliability of the website. However, one of her points is to not "search for the question". Thinking about it, that is exactly what my younger students do! They type the whole question "What animals live in the tundra" (for example) into Google. I also did not know about the ctrl-f shortcut, which allows students to jump to where the keyword is on the site. I practiced this with my Tundra search, using "adaptation" as my keyword. Sure enough, it highlighted the word adaptation, making it easy to find!
Another issue I face is students using whatever pops up in the "box" after a Google search for their final answers. I like that some of these other search engines do not have that option, forcing them to actually click on the links and read (oh the horror!!). I plan on testing some of these out with our upcoming biography research project in April!
Thing 20: Social Reading and "Book Stuff"
One of my favorite aspects of being a school librarians is talking to my students about the books that they are reading. What are they loving? What are they disliking? What would they recommend to a friend? It is my goal to develop a culture of reading here at Abraham Wing, with open discussions about books and reading happening across grade levels, and even with the faculty and staff.
Many of the tools shown here would be helpful to help me achieve this goal. The first one I looked at was OverDrive. I know that I have access to Overdrive with my public library, but have rarely used it. One thing that I like about it is the ability to download either an e-book or and audio book. This is something that I could really use in my personal life, as I love to listen to books on my long commute. I have downloaded the Libby app on my phone and hope to soon check out my first audio book (There's so many to choose from!).
Using OverDrive with my students via the Sora App is something that I would really like to start before the end of the school year. I believe it would really help some of our students to be able to have an audio version of their book to listen to while they follow along in the text. I also would like to get it up and running before the end of the school year so that my students have access to books all summer long. Our school library is not open, and while the public library is within walking distance, most do not take advantage of it. Using the Sora app would mean that my students would have access to a variety of books all summer long! The fact that the books would be free would also be a huge benefit for our students, as many cannot afford to buy new books.
In the same line as Overdrive, I also explored Epic Books! I feel this is a great tool for classroom teachers to use, as well as a good center for library time. I loved the range of books that they had, especially that they have so many popular titles. The different levels of books is impressive, and I like that you could assign specific ones to your students if you wanted to (would make a great literature circle center!).
Both of these free e-book sites will be great for our students and I hope help me to get more students excited about reading by providing them with more options and formats for reading.
Another great idea that I saw on this "Thing" was using FlipGrid with Book Club. We just started a Book Club this year, and have been discussing ways to make it more "interesting and fun" and less like work for the students. FlipGrid would be a great way to get them talking about books and listening to their club members talk about different books. I have used FlipGrid in Library before, but it did not occur to me to use it for Book Club. What a great way to handle discussion questions as well as get book reviews!
Many of the tools shown here would be helpful to help me achieve this goal. The first one I looked at was OverDrive. I know that I have access to Overdrive with my public library, but have rarely used it. One thing that I like about it is the ability to download either an e-book or and audio book. This is something that I could really use in my personal life, as I love to listen to books on my long commute. I have downloaded the Libby app on my phone and hope to soon check out my first audio book (There's so many to choose from!).
Using OverDrive with my students via the Sora App is something that I would really like to start before the end of the school year. I believe it would really help some of our students to be able to have an audio version of their book to listen to while they follow along in the text. I also would like to get it up and running before the end of the school year so that my students have access to books all summer long. Our school library is not open, and while the public library is within walking distance, most do not take advantage of it. Using the Sora app would mean that my students would have access to a variety of books all summer long! The fact that the books would be free would also be a huge benefit for our students, as many cannot afford to buy new books.
In the same line as Overdrive, I also explored Epic Books! I feel this is a great tool for classroom teachers to use, as well as a good center for library time. I loved the range of books that they had, especially that they have so many popular titles. The different levels of books is impressive, and I like that you could assign specific ones to your students if you wanted to (would make a great literature circle center!).
Both of these free e-book sites will be great for our students and I hope help me to get more students excited about reading by providing them with more options and formats for reading.
Another great idea that I saw on this "Thing" was using FlipGrid with Book Club. We just started a Book Club this year, and have been discussing ways to make it more "interesting and fun" and less like work for the students. FlipGrid would be a great way to get them talking about books and listening to their club members talk about different books. I have used FlipGrid in Library before, but it did not occur to me to use it for Book Club. What a great way to handle discussion questions as well as get book reviews!
Friday, January 4, 2019
Thing 1: Getting Started
Hello fellow cool toolers!
My name is Brianna Williams. I am the Library Media Specialist at Abraham Wing Elementary. I teach students in grades K-6. I have taken Cool Tools once before a few years ago, but am looking forward to learning new tools that I can use with students during their technology classes. I am also looking for tools that I can share with the classroom teachers to help them integrate technology into their curriculums, as well as collaborate on projects with them! Can't wait to see what I discover!
My name is Brianna Williams. I am the Library Media Specialist at Abraham Wing Elementary. I teach students in grades K-6. I have taken Cool Tools once before a few years ago, but am looking forward to learning new tools that I can use with students during their technology classes. I am also looking for tools that I can share with the classroom teachers to help them integrate technology into their curriculums, as well as collaborate on projects with them! Can't wait to see what I discover!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)