Writing Around the Text

After reading Buffy Hamilton's post detailing children having written conversations around a selected text, I knew I had to try it. However, Buffy's students are in high school and I only have a thirty minute time frame so I knew I needed to tweak the idea. 

Currently, our 4th grade is working on a Body Systems unit and our 5th grade is researching the American Colonies. I was looking for something to spark interest in these units before the formal research began. This seemed like the time to try this strategy. For the Body Systems unit, I found an article about exercise benefits from Time for Kids, a diagram with an explanation about the new My Plate, and two short chapters from our library books about the digestive system and how the brain sends nerve signals throughout the body. With the American Colony unit, I found a political cartoon that shows the Native American view point, an article about the lost colony of Roanoke, an article of how a colonial kitchen was set up and run, an article describing African Americans being sold as slaves and a time line from Jamestown to the Revolutionary War. I pasted each text on large bulletin board paper that span our library tables.

The children in 4th and 5th grade needed more guidance with their discussion than Buffy's high school students. I am in love with the Fountas and Pinell prompting guides and use them to help create open ended discussion questions for my book clubs and my lessons. I selected four discussion questions and displayed them on the Promethean board. The questions focused on author's message, text features, prior knowledge and any new questions the text may have raised.

The directions were simply...
1. Read the text at your table as a group.
2. Write about one of the discussion question prompts.
3. Read and respond to any table's article or any comment that a classmate wrote.

Each class was different. Some needed more guidance with which question to respond to while other classes jumped right in. Some groups chose to have one person read while other groups wanted to break up the articles so everyone would get a chance to read. The discussion questions did seem to focus the student's responses.

I will definitely use this strategy again. My goal of sparking interest in a topic was obtained. The children also seem to dig deeper in the text and enjoyed commenting on classmates answers.

Colaboration in the Real World

I am thrilled to be co-presenting at the NJASL fall conference on Friday with two amazing ladies. Jackie Albright Pugh and Katie Eagen-Casale are two librarians that work in my district. This year they have the daunting task of maintaining not one, but two school libraries. I am in awe of how they daily meet many challenges and yet still aggressively seek collaboration opportunities in both schools! Our presentation provides many strategies for librarians that are struggling to keep the collaboration part of their library program and those who are looking to start collaborative efforts within their district. We share many examples of what has worked for us. The Power Point and other resources are available here.
I will be honest and say it was wonderful to collaborate with other librarians and to participate in conversations surrounding the happenings of school libraries again. I am looking forward to a great conference. At the top of my NJASL list is getting the opportunity to hear and meet Buffy Hamilton finally! My former professor and friend Shayne Russell will be presenting “New Technologies for Program, Promotion & Productivity @ Your Library.” Look for my tweets!

The End of the Year

This year's annual report will be almost entirely digital. Once again I have been inspired by Buffy Hamilton. Mine is not as fancy, but I think the opening movie is a perfect way to sum up our year.

I love the idea of the annual report. It allows me to look back and see all the learning that has taken place not only by the students and teachers, but myself! The library in my school has made such a transformation in the last two years and I feel honored to have been a part of it. The administration, teachers, parents and students have been so willing to allow change to happen!

This year will be my last year in the library. Due to the dramatic funding cuts in New Jersey my district will not have a full time librarian in each building. I am fortunate that I will be returning to the classroom. (2nd grade!) Although I am embracing this new opportunity, I will miss this position terribly! I have only been a librarian for two years, but it has been the most rewarding two years of my 16 year career.

This is the link to the report. As always, I welcome any feedback.
http://web.me.com/amylking/EOY2010/Welcome.html

My Trip to Second Life

On Tuesday night, I participated for the first time in a Second Life meeting. I had received an email from the Teacher Librarian Ning I belong to that read “Make plans to join your colleagues on Tuesday, March 16^that 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT for a very special event, “A Chat with Sara Kelly Johns”. Sara is a candidate in the election for ALA President and she will speak to librarians about her platform and her vision for ALA.” I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out this environment and hear Sara's platform. I had to create an avatar for myself first and got my husband to help. Shopping in second life was just as frustrating as in my real life even with a thin avatar! I didn’t want to spend any real money, but there only seemed to be inappropriate outfits for free. I couldn’t possibly meet the future ALA president looking like a “lady of the night”! We eventually got an appropriate outfit and Tuesday night I transported to the location of the meeting. I was able to sit right next to Sara Kelly Johns. My cyber friend Buffy Hamilton was there for a bit too. Sara’s power point was available for us and a chat box appeared so we could ask her questions. I went back in forth between Twitter and the meeting so I could share some of Sara’s message. I loved her push for more collaboration between the public libraries and school libraries. She stated, “strong school libraries make stronger public libraries.” It would be a huge boost for school librarians if Sara is voted in as ALA president.

I have to be honest and say I am not really sure about the whole Second Life thing for use in education. I know that some schools have purchased islands and students create things in Second Life as projects. I am not a fan of video games, so the whole set up was uncomfortable in that way. I will say it was great “seeing” people while we chat. I feel isolated in the postings of my online Rutgers class because it is just words. I am visual and enjoyed watching the others participate in Second Life. Sara had a mic and spoke about her power point, which made the meeting more personal. I could also hear the passion in her voice something that would not have been achieved through just typing. So maybe teachers could have kids go to a class in Second Life even though they would be in the same real room in real life? Is anyone using Second Life in their library? Does anyone have any experiences in how this could be used for projects? Any examples they would like to share with me?

I am not sure if I will attend another Second Life event, but I am glad I had the experience. I feel if a parent or administrator questions me about the Second Life environment I will have a small background to answer. I enjoy trying out these new tools and seeing how the can benefit our students.

I geek mha library

When I moved into this position, I was unaware of the amount of marketing came with the job. I was so amazed with the amount of literature and conversations in the library community about how important it is to promote your resources. I really thought people just knew about the library and of course they would come. So naive!
In August, Buffy Hamilton brought the geek campaign to my attention. I have been thinking "geeky" thoughts ever since! It is a brilliant campaign that I have tried to embrace at my school. I slowly started to use the term, hang signs, place "geek" stickers around and definitely created a buzz. We officially unveiled the geek campaign this week and it was the talk of the school.
Here is an outline of the geek lessons
1. Shared why I geek mha library.
2. Led them to define geek using geekthelibrary.org site.
3. Viewed a slide show of what their teachers geek from my geek website.
4. Students then created black signs to display in the library to share what they geek.
5. Challenged them to find their geek at our library!
The kids were excited about the geek idea and were proud when they found what they geeked on our shelves. It was such a valuable way to gain insight into their interests! Teachers told me that the students were coming up to them and saying, "I didn't know you kayaked." or "You geek bats?" "Why?" It created a lot of dialogue and excitement. Some students reported talking about it at dinner with their parents!
I am thankful the the library community at large is creating these tool kits to help librarians like myself. I feel that even my little school is doing its part to promote the importance of libraries on a larger scale. My hope is to carry the theme throughout the year and keep the excitement going! So look for more "geeky" posts.

Kathleen and I finding our Geek @MHA Library this Halloween!

Library Goody Bags

I am always impressed by the creative ways librarians get the word out about what their libraries have to offer. A request on Twitter is met with so many replies from generous librarian willing to share their ideas in hopes it will help others reach their patrons. Two such people from my PLN have been instrumental in helping me prepare for my upcoming year. Fran Bullington is a librarian in South Carolina. She sent me a pamphlet example of what she distributes to her teachers. The layout was simple and clear, just what I wanted. Fran outlined resources the library could offer, along with how to schedule a class, and where to find materials. With her permission, I tweaked it to meet my needs and could not be more pleased with the results. Buffy Hamilton is an amazing librarian in Georgia. Recently she wrote about goody bags for her teachers. As soon as I read her post I knew I wanted to do this for my staff too. However, Buffy had started collecting in May from her vendors, I had two weeks. Before I even finished gathering items for my bags, Buffy introduced me to the Geek The Library campaign happening in the Georgia libraries. So I did my best to combine the two.

The Goody Bags contain:
My pamphlet about the library
Lanyards from Britannica Online - New for us this year!
EBSCO stickers and magnets
Apple candle in a reusable wicker basket
Hersey kisses

I followed Buffy's packaging with brown bags with self adhesive book pockets on the front. I created stickers from avery labels that said I geek mha library. In the pocket, I created another label with our contact information to affix on our old library cards. My six year old son was such a trouper! He helped with the stickers and loved filling the bags.

Thanks to Buffy, Fran and all of the many librarians who share ideas through their blogs, twitter and nings. Look for more GEEK stuff soon.