I was approached by one of my eighth-grade language arts teachers at the beginning of the year about book reports. She requires her students to read 2 books per quarter and wanted to try some innovative ways to "track" their reading. So, I created a list of ideas for her (which I hope to blog about later), which she will pull from throughout the year.
For her first book project, she decided to go with Glogster book reviews. Glogster is a very teacher/student-friendly site with a separate education portal. So, we set her up with an account and created her student accounts as well . . . very simple!
In order to help her students write a quality book review to incorporate into their glog, I volunteered to do a 20-25 minute mini-lesson on writing book reviews. I did not feel like an expert on writing book reviews, but I found Steve Peha's ideas very helpful.
Here are the 3 resources I created to help the students learn: (all embedded below) 1. Google presentation - unfortunately the speaker notes do not embed along with the google presentation, so some slides at the end may not make complete sense
I am really excited about the direction we are headed. Each quarter the students will have critically evaluated their books utilizing a variety of media. Gone are the days of the standard written book report/review!
Wordle is not a new application, but sometimes it's helpful to remember those little tools in our technology toolbox that don't get used on a regular basis, but are perfect for certain jobs. So, I went right over to Wordle to create a word map of President Obama's speech to students.
I sent this over to my history/social studies teachers to use as an additional resource when discussing the speech with their students. I think it would be a cool project for students to create their own Wordles, even if just on paper, of the main ideas and messages that they took away from the speech or that inspired them.
Classroom Ideas
analyze historic documents (Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Independence, etc.)
analyze students' own writing - show words commonly used/overused and check to see if main idea or theme truly comes through
Sometimes trying to cultivate readers in middle school has felt like trying to grow a garden on a sidewalk. The only places where reading was encouraged and promoted was by their language arts teachers and me, the librarian. We provided the cracks in the otherwise barren surface, hoping readers would spring up even under the "harsh" conditions.
So, in an attempt to harvest a greater crop of readers, I formed a reading committee at the end of the school year. I invited teachers of all subject areas to participate. To my pleasant surprise, I received a lot of interested from math teachers to social studies teachers to language arts teachers. We met 2 times over the summer and came up with some fun ideas to create a rich environment for cultivating a love of reading.
Our goal is to create an environment where teachers from all subject areas are promoting the importance and the love of reading. All our initiatives are voluntary (except the SSR) because we want students to choose reading instead of only doing it because it is required.
One Book-One School - We will be encouraging all teachers and students to read Three Cups of Tea
Reader of the Week - Each week a teacher or student will advertise a book over the morning announcements and (hopefully) a blog I would like to set up for this
"I'm reading" Signs - each teacher will have a sign outside their door where they can post the book/magazine/newspaper that they are currently reading
Book Discussion Groups - 3 times a year teachers will choose a book on which to host a discussion group and then students will sign up to participate in the various book discussions
Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) - 15 minutes every Monday morning (it may not be a lot, but it is a start!)
5th Grade Orientation - presentation to parents on the importance of reading and how to encourage their child to read
I would love to hear what do you do to promote reading with students!
With the emergence of Twitter this past year as a mainstream source for news (Iran and Venezuela), updates from government officials, info from businesses, etc. I want to make sure my students understand microblogging. I do not feel comfortable having my 5th grade students set up individual twitter accounts, so I am planning on using the education friendly Edmodo.
Setting Up Accounts I have already created my account and created my classes. Each class receives its own access code. As students create accounts on Edmodo (no e-mail address required!) they enter the access code to join their class.
Features Edmodo provides a calendar and a file management system along with the microblogging. While Edmodo lacks the @ and # that Twitter uses, it provides for them in a slightly different way. Instead of using @ to direct message someone, you can choose a specific person to send it to by choosing from a list. Instead of using a hashtag to create "groupings" on a specific topic, students can tag their posts (tweets). While these are slightly more cumbersome and a little less authentic, I believe students will still learn the fundamentals of microblogging that will easily transfer to twitter or plurk.
Resource Sharing - ie: You are doing a project on the Oregon Trail, find a website that you would recommend to others to use for this project. Briefly, in about 15 words, summarize the website/why you would recommend it.
Submitting final products - students could message you directly and attach their file
Bell-ringer activity/Exit Ticket activity - students respond to a prompt at the beginning of class or the end of class
Reminders - remind students about project deadlines, tests, homework
Online Discussions - discuss books, current events, music, etc.
I'm sure that I will discover more about Edmodo as I begin to use it with students this year. Look for a future post about additional features I am not yet aware of and more ideas for use in the classroom.
Steering wheel photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035555243@N01/50927878/.
I always enjoy reading through other librarian's annual reports. It gives me a lot of great ideas for my own library. So, I thought I would add my annual report to the mix. While I would have liked to be able to post the annual report I submitted to my principal and superintendant, it was full of student pictures that I could not share online. So, here is my abbreviated (less pretty) annual report.
To try out something new, I uploaded the report to Yudu to create a an embeddable report. I read about Yudu from Richard Byrne's blog. I have a feeling that Yudu is going to become a new favorite of mine and my students. I forsee this as a great way to include documents on wikis instead of the standard method on wikispaces. Documents can be published as books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc. Yudu also provides you with the ability to upload photos, audio, as well as visually bookmark websites. I'll definitely be exploring Yudu more this summer!
It is hard to believe that another school year is over. However, unlike the start of many summers, I spent the first two weeks at school. Between participating in our school's technology camp and helping interview candidates for the high school librarian position, my summer vacation was "postponed" for a little over a week. I cannot say anything about the interviews. However, it was an interesting process to be a part of and deciding upon the best candidate for the job is not always an easy task. The technology camp was an exciting endeavor initiated by our two wonderful technology coaches. I like to think of it as a "boot camp" for many of our teachers. It gave them an initiation into the world technology and its uses in the classroom. I think many of them caught the technology bug!
This year our high school participated in the Classrooms for the Future grant. With this grant, the high school hired a classrooms for the future (CFF) coach. The success of the high school caused my superintendent to want to bring on a coach for the middle and elementary schools. Much of what a CFF coach does mirrors and/or supports what librarians do. I was lucky enough to work with two excellent technology coaches, who were always willing to work with me and share ideas. So, I was thrilled when they recruited me to help them with two of the days in the technology camp.
I led a day training teachers how to use Interwrite Pads. I absolutely love my Interwrite pad. Interwrite Pads provide all the functionality of a SmartBoard or a Promethean Board, however, they are mobile. I (and my students) can annotate websites, interact with Word documents, control the computer, and much more from anywhere in the room. Here is the wiki I created for the teachers using Interwrite Pads.
The second day, I led the instruction on podcasting. The teachers used Audacity to create a short podcast. We also talked about how podcasting could be used with students and how to display the students' finished products. This led into further discussion about glogster and nings which led to discussion on all things Web 2.0. I showed them my Web2HowTo wiki and encouraged them to sign up for all the technology camp sessions if they had not already.
The general technology comfort level of the teachers who participated was low. However, they were all open to and excited about learning. As the teachers finished the podcasting session, I left them with a short video that I found on YouTube. I think many of them could identify with the video and it gave them a few laughs.
The technology camp created a forum for teachers to be introduced to, play with, and think about technology and its uses in the classroom. It gave me a forum to interact with many of my teachers at once and discuss new projects to implement with their students using the technologies to which they were introduced. I give a lot of credit to our two technology coaches for initiating, planning, and conducting such a successful camp. I would love to create a "Help Desk" night once a month to build upon this initiative. The idea of after-school sessions for teachers was planted by Kim Corfino's insightful post on PD sessions. To implement a "Help Desk" night once a month would be a great way to provide teachers with the continued support and instruction they will need.
I was approached by one of my eighth-grade language arts teachers at the beginning of the year about book reports. She requires her students to read 2 books per quarter and wanted to try some innovative ways to "track" their reading. So, I created a list of ideas for her (which I hope to blog about later), which she will pull from throughout the year.
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