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 After a much needed fall break, I hit the ground running this week. I ran a current Follett Titlewise Analysis to assess the effectiveness of "The Great Weed of 2019" as I've taken to calling it around here. We started out with a collection of 22,000 books for a patron base of about 700. Students and teachers were overwhelmed and the size of our collection limited how patrons could use the library effectively. We are nearly 10 months in, and our collection has decreased to a much more manageable size of 15,000 books. In addition, we have brought our percentage of aged titled from 79% down to 63%. I'm proud of the work I've done on this collection, because it was out of control before. We still have work to do, but with the process started, the work is easier. Once I completed the Titlewave Analysis, I used the information it contained to aid in selecting books for my big order this year. In addition to filling in gaps in our collection, I selected books that exclusively had Reading Counts quizzes. Our students struggle with finding books that have RC quizzes since we switched over from Accelerated Reader, so this is an essential requirement for books I select. I also take reader requests into consideration. Historically, I have just written titles down as students tell them to me. This year, we have a Google Form for student requests linked from our LMC page; students may request books we do not have in the LMC or ones they would like new or additional copies of. Lastly, this week is one of my favorites because I got the chance to meet up with the Region 9 chapter of GLMA! We had our fall collaborative meeting where we discussed reading, collections, book fairs, competitions, promoting ourselves, and instructional technology and MakerSpaces. Getting together with my peers is important, especially when I work in such a small district and rarely get the chance to collaborate outside of my PLN. Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, October 21-25, 2019 Total Hours: 40 After so much excitement this semester, I was glad to have a few days off. In addition to a mini vacation to the North Georgia Mountains, I spent the time working on preparing for my Face-to-Face Professional Development to be conducted on the Monday we return. This was my view while I worked.
October brings one of my favorite holidays--Halloween! Not only do we pull books for our spooky book display, but we try to be festive with our decorations as well. Since this year, we are celebrating TeenTober rather than Teen Read Week and Teen Tech week, we have a reading contest that lasts all month and tech lessons each week. Students who earn a 100 on a Reading Counts quiz for a spooky book get a trick-or-treat goodie bag.
October always brings with it preparations for our local science fair. Our 8th grade science teacher, Mrs. Poole does a great job of supporting out students in their scientific quests, but each year, I provide lessons on GALILEO, citing sources, and creating tables, charts, and graphs. Since my media clerk was out sick this week, we had to change plans for our lessons, and bring her classes to the media center instead of me visiting her classroom like we usually do, but we made it work! Below, I'm attaching the resources we used for the lessons.
Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, October 7-11, 2019 Total Hours: 40
We had a tremendously busy schedule in the LMC this week. In addition to high school research lessons leadership team meetings, and the day to day, all sixth, seventh, and eight grade classes came for book check outs. Since we were so swamped, one of my high school interns really stepped up when it came to helping some younger students select books. The middle school requires that all student book checkouts meet the following criteria: within a student's Lexile range, has a Reading Counts quiz, and of interest to the particular student. Oftentimes, finding a book that meets this criteria is difficult for students as many of our books do not have Reading Counts quizzes since we recently switched from Accelerated Reader. This is quite frustrating for our younger students who haven't yet developed their library skills. I almost teared up when I saw this sweet, sweet young man going above and beyond the call of duty. It makes me so proud and hopeful that there will be a future generation of librarians who care about their patrons as much as I do.
This week, I also began a GALILEO unit with Mrs. Newsome, the AP Literature teacher. I created a Google Slides presentation with specifics of why and how to use GALILEO and other research tools, allowed them time to research for their upcoming essay, and ended with a Google Challenge. Mrs. Newsome and I collaborate for this unit each year, and the presentation, timing, and requirements of the assignment change for each class of students she has. Below, I've attached the GALILEO lesson.
Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, September 30-October 4, 2019 Total Hours: 40 This week is one of my favorite weeks of the year - Banned Books Week! I see my job as a LMS as a way to provide open access to information for all of my patrons, and there is no better time to celebrate the right to read than Banned Books Week. This year we have a fabulous Banned Books Week book display created by my lovely interns! They worked hard to create a display that would entice our patrons to read banned books. We pull books from the ALA lists of most commonly challenged/banned books. We also are announcing Banned Books facts on the announcements each day and hosting a contest where students guess the name of a banned book that has been deconstructed and placed in "jail". This year, we are hyper-focused on fostering independent reading habits among our middle school students. As a component of this initiative, we are rewarding those students who reach their goals with a bulletin board display and incentives like parties and the points store. We already have one student who has earned 100 points! This week, I spent time updating our bulletin board and preparing our points store for the first quarter opening. Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, September 23-27, 2019 Total Hours: 40 |
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