This week, we have a lot of projects going on between the two schools, so it has been hectic. All band students in grades 6-12 are working on their favorite musician projects, so we have been printing pictures from sunup to sundown it seems. Making sure that students remember the tenants of ethical use while getting the images they want has been Priority No. 1 for us. I'm so thankful for my clerk and high school interns who help out with this task.
We also have some science projects going on at the middle school. Since the teachers are trying to utilize choice boards in their classes more this year, we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of students who want to use our video equipment. Watching them plan and create their own teaching resources is so fun! As we took down our Thanksgiving decorations in preparation for putting up our Christmas ones, I got sad to see my funky little turkey go. I try to keep seasonal decorations that coordinate with our temporary book displays up year round. The next one will feature our new books from last week with a "Santa Came Early" theme.
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In preparation for our local Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) Day, November is the time for our annual bookmark competition. This week, entries were due. After all entries were in, my clerk and I scanned them into a Google Form and had teachers from other schools judge them. Then we calculated the winners, made cardstock, laminated copies of every entrant's work for them to keep, and made copies of the winning bookmark for each student in the school. It might not sound like a lot of work, but using a paper cutter to cut out 700 copies is taxing!
This week, we also received two huge books orders - one for the middle school and one for the high school. There's nothing I love better than the smell of a freshly printed book, so I had to take time to stop and smell the pages! These book orders were a difficult one to create, so its a bit of a relief to finally receive them. Moving forward, my principals only want books in our library that have Reading Counts quizzes, so finding books on Lexile for grades 6-12 with Reading Counts quizzes and of high interest for my students took a while. We processed all the books and shelved them within the space we recently freed up during The Great Weed of 2019. Additionally, The Lunch Crew finished their second StickTogether of the year! At both of my schools, we screen our students growth in reading and math skills four times each year. The second quarterly administration of the Reading Inventory and the Math Inventory are this week. I am responsible for coordinating student and teacher access to the software and running the reports after the administration is complete. For each administration, I cross-reference withdrawals and intakes with the software roster to make sure all students who need access have it. That might not sounds like a lot, but it is hand checking rosters for 700 students by hand, then making adjustments in the software. Then I email out the instructions for administration along with the folder containing all pertinent information for the tests. Lastly, I ensure that all students test, and distribute the data accordingly. To say this is an undertaking is an understatement. I ended this week with the Georgia Educational Technology Conference, and all I can say is WOW! It has been several years since I've been, and it's just as magnificent as I remember! Sing me the song of my people! There's such a wealth of knowledge and experience all in once place, and it's just for me (and all of my closest media specialist friends)! Now that I'm done "fangirling" over GaETC... I went to sessions on collaboration, encouraging independent reading, the latest gadgets, rethinking media center spaces, instructional technology, and so many more. I came back with a full brain and an inspired heart. It is so encouraging to see so many other library media specialists who are just as committed to their jobs as I am. I also got to meet up with some long lost friends who are now media specialists in other counties. The most important takeaway I have from GaETC is that we are on the front lines of education. We foster multiple literacies for students and staff so that they are able to be competent builders of a globally competitive future. Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, November 4-5, 2019 Location: Georgia Educational Technology Conference Time: 8:15-5:15 daily, November 6-8, 2019 Total Hours: 40 I miss chaos of a classroom. There. I said it. I know lots of teachers leave the classroom for the LMC or other areas because of the daily demands of a classroom, but for me, there is nothing quite like the chatter and din of students learning and teaching new content in new ways. That being said, one of my favorite times to be a media specialist is when I get to go to co-teach with other teachers! This week, our student teachers are completing their final teaching lessons with their students, and I had the pleasure of providing tech support for one of them. Students were given choices on writing, creating a poster using Canva, or creating a video to demonstrate their knowledge of content. Inevitably, technical issues abound when a nervous new teacher is just taking flight, so I was happy to be on hand for support with Web 2.0 tools including Canva and Flipgrid. I also provided support in the ethical use and proper citation of sources for those who chose to write. This week, I got not only one, but two chances to co-teach. Our high school Gifted class is studying Renaissance art, and I'm a starving artist at heart, so this was my dream come true. Students used texts in the media center to research the period in addition to a curated list that we provided for them. After their research phase, they had to participate in a StickTogether mosaic sticker-by-number puzzle. They had to work as a team to fill in the mosaic stickers and then use what they learned from their research to make an educated guess (with rationale) of what they believed the piece of art depicted in the puzzle to be. Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, October 28-November 1, 2019 Total Hours: 40 |
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November 2019
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