So.... here's a little update on what I have been up to:
I opened a high school library at a brand new high school this year. I have been busy, but I went to the NOVA Teen Book Fest this weekend and felt inspired to get back into blogging and revamp my social media a bit. I've been tweeting actively, especially since I published another SLJ article in December and have been following a bunch of new YA authors in addition to the middle grade authors I used to follow as a middle school librarian.
Here is something kind of cool that I have been working on. Back in January, the 2015 Newbery award winning author, Kwame Alexander, visited my high school for a school wide visit. It was fantastic! When it was over he mentioned he was trying to raise some money to open a library in a village in Ghana so I offered our help. His publishers donated 1000 of his books to this project (LEAP for Ghana) which he has signed, and now our students are selling the books to our community in an effort to raise money for his project.
Here is some more info from my school website. If you are interested in helping us, please reach out. Thanks!
I've been working in collaboration with a 6th Grade English Teacher on a cool project that is part of a contest by the Virginia Association of Teachers of English (VATE) called the Literacy Explosion. Once the word got around that I was doing all kinds of fun technology stuff, the teacher approached me and asked if I would be interested in working with her on this project. Of course I said YES!
According to the VATE website, this is a competition that celebrates and promotes the integration of literacy and 21st century learning skills. Students read a novel and then create a media literacy project based on that book - either Glogster, Book Trailer, Podcast, Digital Movie, Photo Essay or Book Cover/Jacket. We introduced the project by having students select a book in the library and then I gave an introduction to the six categories. Next, we had the students narrow it down to three categories: Glogster, Book Trailers, and Book Jackets. Now we are in the phase where they are creating their project and so far it's been a blast (or should I say LITERACY EXPLOSION!?).
For the Glogster project, they are using ww to create a Glog, which is basically a web-based multimedia poster with images, text, sound, video, animation, links, etc. For the Book Trailers they are using PhotoStory 3 to create trailers and for the Book Jacket they are just using a template I created in Microsoft Word to create their Book Cover. Our school already owns PhotoStory and Word through their Microsoft Office package, but I had to purchase a subscription to Glogster EDU in order to get enough student accounts, and for all the bells and whistles. It was only $99 for the whole year though, for 200 student accounts, which was reasonable.
Although I was familiar with all the technology, prior to this project I had never used Glogster or PhotoStory to actually create something. As I started playing around with the programs, I found it to be relatively simple to use. With Glogster, at one point I had a question about adding student accounts and I instant messaged a customer service rep about 2 minutes before the class walked in and he helped me out right away. Crisis resolved! For PhotoStory, I was introduced to the program in a district training seminar about integrating technology. I created an easy trailer in about 15 minutes. Done. Ironically, the book jacket in Microsoft Word probably took me the longest to figure out how to do, but once I decided to create a landscape template, it was no problem. Once I learned the technology, I taught lessons to the students on how to use the programs. Now it's pretty much just computer lab time- answering questions about citing music and image sources, trouble shooting technical questions, helping students follow the rubrics, etc. As far as the technology side goes, as usual, I have found that the kids are very good at figuring out how to use the programs and they enjoy creating the projects and taking ownership of their work. It's cool to watch and be a part of.
It's been a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend this type of project. Although the idea of taking on several different software programs at once may seem daunting, you will find that the students are more comfortable with technology than most adults and can figure out the problems on their own or just work around any issues.
I teach at a middle school in Northern Virginia. Our schools were closed for two days because of Hurricane Sandy, but our county's damage was minimal (some roads were flooded, some power outages) compared to NYC/NJ/ Long Island and other coastal areas. We were lucky and returned to school with a delayed opening the day after the storm passed - Wednesday, October 31st.
Shortly after Hurricane Sandy hit, the NY Times came out with this blog post about Teaching Hurricane Sandy: Ideas and Resources. Feeling inspired, I quickly edited my lesson plans for that week. On the Thursday and Friday after the storm, I was scheduled to teach an "Intro to Podcasting" lesson to five 8th grade Language Arts classes as part of my media literacy teaching. Typically in the lesson, I explain to students what podcasts are, how they can be shared, and we listen to a few examples of podcasts. After the lesson, they break up into groups and write a script for their own podcast based on themes related to a book they had read in class. Then they come back as a class, and record their podcasts on the library computers using microphones and Audacity. With this particular class the book they read was Flowers for Algernon. I decided for this lesson we would listen to NPR podcasts about Hurricane Sandy. I found several with a quick search on NPR. The students were really interested, and it was an opportunity to hear different perspectives and reports about the damage, and open up some dialogue about this type of media and the hurricane.
I was also scheduled to do a bunch of Book Talks/Trailers with 7th Graders. The SOL testing (we use Standards of Learning, not Core) has a large percentage of nonfiction to test for reading comprehension, so teachers want to see students reading more nonfiction, in addition to fiction/novels, etc. Bingo. I showed part of this video I found on YouTube from the Wall Street Journal, which triggered discussions and questions about Hurricane Sandy. I was able to teach students about the materials and resources we have in the library to answer their questions (i.e. nonfiction books about hurricanes, natural disasters, weather, etc.).
As part of a school-wide program, I have a group of 12 students who I advise once a week for 20 minutes. As a side project, the students want to create a Graphic Novel using Comic Master, which is a free site I learned about at a VAASL Conference session on AASL's Best Websites for Teaching and Learning, presented by Heather Moorefield-Lang. The students plan to create the Graphic Novel and then print it, distribute it, and collect donations for Hurricane Sandy relief in return. We are just beginning this project and it will probably take a while since I don't see the students often or for a long time, but they are excited. I am letting them take the lead on this, so we will see where it goes. This is not a graded project.
How are other school librarians teaching students about Hurricane Sandy?
At the VAASL 2012 Conference this past week I learned about this cool Australian Digital Novel Project, Inanimate Alice. Virginia Tech Librarian and presenter Heather Moorefield-Lang, introduced this website to a group of us in a session about AASL's 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning. As soon as I saw a little clip I knew my students would be interested and I couldn't wait to share the project with them. It's a free site. Inanimate Alice is a digital novel about a girl named Alice who travels around the world with her parents. She uses a hand-held device to communicate with a stick figure she created named Brad. The digital novel uses sound, animation and text to tell the story. It also requires the reader to interact with the story using the mouse. According to the website (InanimateAlice.com):
"Inanimate Alice is Transmedia - designed as a story that unfolds over time and on multiple platforms, the episodes are available on devices capable of running Flash Player. Alice connects technologies, languages, cultures, generations and curricula within a sweeping narrative accessible by all. As Alice's journey progresses, new storylines appear elsewhere providing more details and insights, enriching the tale through surprising developments."
Today I taught this as a lesson in the library to five 6th grade Language Arts classes. The class levels ranged from honors to special ed. There are currently 4 episodes of Inanimate Alice and in the first episode about China, (which takes only about 10 minutes total to read with students) Alice and her mom leave their base camp in Northern China to search for Alice's father who has been missing for two days after working in the oil fields. The students really enjoyed this episode. In the first class, I just played the video on the overhead and clicked through it myself, making the students read the text. They were an honors class and seemed to enjoy the book. I had multiple students ask if we can watch the next episode. In the other classes, I read the text in a read-aloud style, which was helpful for the ELL and Special Ed students. Throughout the story and after the story I asked students questions, some of which I found in the Teacher Resource Guides on the website. At the end there was applause in some classes, and every group was asking really good questions (Do they have cell phones in China? What time period is this set in? Is this free? Is Brad a GPS system or like SIRI? Can we watch the next episode?). Students described it as awesome, exciting, and more interesting than a regular library book. The teachers thought it was pretty cool, too. I would recommend sharing this with your students and teachers.
