Week 14- Research Collaborations

After all the chaos of the Kentucky Derby Book Race and technology troubleshooting, I still had several outside hours to accomplish. I decided to collaborate with a teacher on a formal research project. The 8th grade social studies teacher, Mr. Downs, wanted to allow his 8th grade students to research the different pioneer groups that went west. Students were to evaluate websites for accurate information before creating their PowerPoints.

Mr. Downs was my KTIP mentor as well as my student teacher supervisor in my undergrad practicum. He and I have a long-standing working relationship and we collaborate very well together. He came to me with the idea and I provided support for developing the lesson, resources, and assessments. We have not yet implemented this research project but we plan to assess student work together.

One of the most important components of students' digital citizenship is information evaluation. It is essential to develop this skill as 21st-century learners and thinkers. I wanted to use an authentic task of investigating the reasons people move in a historical context. This research project meets these expectations as well as social studies standards.

Weeks 12-13: Book Promotion- Kentucky Derby Book Race

Now that my Portfolio is done and submitted two weeks ago, I wanted to find a project to earn the remainder of my outside hours. I searched on Pinterest and found a March Madness book bracket project. Since March Madness had obviously passed for this year, I took the idea to my cooperating supervisor. She suggested to create a Kentucky Derby Book Race!

The premise of this reading promotion activity is to allow students to vote for their favorite book from a list of "horses" on which these books would be jockeys. The cooperating supervisor and I chose a list from the top circulated titles in the collection. Popular titles such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maximum Ride were chosen. Students were allowed to vote an unlimited number of times up until May 2, the last day of school before the actual Derby. As votes were counted, the horses would "race" towards the finish line. At the end of the two weeks of voting, a drawing would be done of the winning books' votes. The winner would receive their own copy of the winning book!

Creating the bulletin board took many hours. I covered the bulletin board in green rather than brown of the track. My school did not have a horse die-cut shape, so I drove to Gheen's Academy in Louisville. Gheen's is the teacher resource facility for JCPS and is available to any teacher in the area. I cut the horses out using their machine. I drove back to Bullitt County, printed out 15 book covers, and glued them to the horses. I die-cut the letters for the bulletin board title, as well as the track fence. I created the voting tally sheet and the vote box.  Finally, I had my mom help me create my very own model of the twin spires! It was a time-consuming, but fun, process.

Students were alerted to this reading promotion activity by the bulletin board and every morning announcement for two weeks. I tried my best to tally the votes and move the horses towards the finish line every day, but often it was every 2-3 days. I kept the morning TV crew apprised of the winners thus far. For a long time, The Hunger Games was clearly outvoting every single other book. But in a surprise finish, Divergent beat HG by 100 votes!

This reading promotion activity was a clear success. Over 500 votes were counted. All language arts teachers and the library media center were given ballots every day. Many students were involved in voting for their favorite book! Finally, two students were selected from the Divergent books and received a prize! It was such a fun experience that I hope to continue in my positions a

Week 11- Technology Lesson- Student Email

One of the requirements of the Portfolio is a video-taped lesson in the library. After consulting with my LMS supervisor, I decided to train the 8th graders on how to use state-supplied email through Office Outlook. It is an expectation of Bullitt County Public Schools that all students 3rd through 12th grade are trained to use email for school purposes. My principal allowed me to take two PD days in which I trained 8 classes of students to use email.

The first two classes, I observed a district technology specialist teach the lesson so that I would teach the rest of the students using district strategies and expectations. We led the students through the process of changing their user name and passwords, how to log in to Outlook, and the basic outlines of sending emails. Many of my own students are also trained and they have been sending me emails with attachments of their homework, or links to videos. I allowed the 8th graders to practice sending a silly email to a teacher. We did discuss the appropriate use of professional email. So far this year, we have had only one or two minor incidents of inappropriate use.

While this lesson did not incorporate literacy, this was an important component to digital citizenship and College & Career Readiness. I loved being in the library media center for two full days, observing all that goes on as well as instructing several classes. It was a great experience and further prepared me for my future career as an LMS.

Week 10- Technology Troubleshooting

Many Library Media Specialists are also the School Technology Coordinators for their schools. This involves some basic technology knowledge and skills beyond Microsoft Office and using web 2.0 tools. I gained many of my outside hours during this Practicum troubleshooting various issues around the school. I learned a lot about basic software, intelligent classroom equipment, processing of new technology purchases, and how to escalate issues that I couldn't solve.

The first step in the technology troubleshooting is gaining access to the Bullitt County online work order system. Every teacher in each school can submit a work order to the system. It will automatically email the STC or LMS. I was able to gain access for my Practicum. As each work order is submitted, I can try to solve the problem or escalate what I don't know how to solve. It's a brilliant system put into place several years ago in my district.

So what kinds of issues do I solve? I worked MANY hours on processing new mini laptops for student use. Teachers can now check out 2 full class size of mobile labs. I had to install all software from the network 6 computers at a time using extra ethernet cables. Then, each laptop had to be entered into the catalog and issued barcodes and other labels. Finally, they were put into carts for teacher portability. 

I also deal with a lot of SmartBoard issues, projector bulbs, and other intelligent software equipment. This is one example of an issue in a Special Education classroom. The projector was emitting a yellow tone to the image. I had to readjust the color settings on the projector. I still wasn't able to fix it so I did have to escalate the work order to the district technology department at the Board. Usually, the guys will come fix any issues in a few days. 

I am so glad I gained the experience of technology troubleshooting as a temporary STC!

Week 9- Collaboration of Literacy lessons

Spring Break for Bullitt County this week! And unfortunately, I had no travel plans so I used the opportunity to work on Practicum. My new principal was in the building this week, allowing me to come in and work on various things.

One idea I had to meet my Portfolio requirements is to collaborate with two classroom teachers on literacy integrated lessons. I chose a 6th grade language arts teacher and a 7th grade social studies teacher to develop a lesson with. Due to Spring Break, we collaborated via email and texting as well as Google Drive. In both collaboration efforts, they were the content experts while I provided literacy resources.

The 6th grade language arts teacher is working on identifying stages of plot with her students. Together, we decided to use a familiar story, The Three Little Pigs using two versions of the story. Working in small groups, students use one of the two stories to illustrate in a comic strip the stages of the plot. The assessment was co-created using an exit slip and a Friday quiz. Here is the lesson plan:

My other collaborative partner is a 7th grade social studies teacher. She is teaching a unit on Ancient Greece but wants to include some sort of literacy strategy. I considered how important the development of plays and drama were to this culture. I found a Reader's Theater on the founding of Athens. courtesy of World Book Online teacher resources. Students each took a character role in this Reader's Theater. The assessment was done in a form of an exit slip on identifying cultural elements of Greece within this play. 

I really enjoyed the true sense of collaboration in developing these two lessons. We worked well together and developed lessons that allowed students to use a variety of literacy strategies and resources. Librarians should consistently collaborate with other school professionals, creating a sense of necessity of their positions in a learning climate. In my future position as a LMS, I hope to collaborate with a wider variety of teachers and lessons. 

Week 8- Printing Labels is so much fun!

Last week I manually entered over 50 new titles into the Destiny catalog for the professional library. This week, Dr. Mac showed me how to print labels for each of the titles. I loved doing this! There was something SO relaxing about doing menial task like this. It was a welcome change from the hectic pace of a classroom teacher!

The first thing we did was print bar code labels. Dr. Mac uses address labels in her printer. It almost always aligns perfectly to the PDF automatically created by Destiny. Destiny offers a bar code report. Dr. Mac showed me how to run a bar code report in a variety of ways. You can search by title, date added, by fiction, nonfiction, etc. This is a great tool to have! I did this for each of the 50 + professional titles we added to the collection.

Then she showed me how to use the Dymo label maker. It comes with software that allows you type the label, change the font/size and so much more. Dr. Mac has several presets for the Dymo, including one for call number labels. You can print one at a time, or multiple copies for the same title. This is such a neat little machine!

Then I started taping the bar codes and call numbers to each book. Dr. Mac also uses clear strong book binding tape from Demco to ensure the labels stay. At first it was really tricky getting the labels to be straight and even. On really skinny spines, we had to turn the books sideways, like below. Even then, it is hard to see the author part of the call number. 

Again, while this may not seem like a week-long activity, it is very time-consuming to label all of these titles! I gained very valuable experience completing these inside hours. Processing new titles is a core responsibility of every LMS. And I actually had fun playing with the label maker!

Week 7- Manual Cataloging using Destiny

I wrote two weeks ago about my long-term project of creating a professional library in the collection! I started two weeks ago shelving what had already been cataloged. Unfortunately, there are MANY titles that have to be entered manually as well as given barcodes, call numbers and labels!

My first duty was to manually write bar code numbers in each book. Dr. Mac has a saved Excel document for bar codes not in use for manual entry. There were 50 + titles that each needed a 6 digit barcode number written on the verso page. It went against my every grain as a bibliophile to write in a book! I'm even the kind of person who will not highlight a college textbook. Dr. Mac says it is important to do this in case the bar code label ever gets removed. So even though it looks like I'm happy to do this, inside I was cringing!

Dr. Mac then showed me how to add titles to the Destiny catalog. We first search by title in other databases. Once we find a match, we verify the Dewey decimal, change the collection part to professional, and add a price if there is one listed near the ISBN. Then we manually enter each barcode number I wrote in the book. In the case of multiple copies of the same title, it was extremely easy to duplicate the copy and simply change the bar code for each entry. Here's a few of the titles I completed this week. While it was easy, this task was very time-consuming! It took each of my 4 inside hours this week to complete this task. 

I really liked using the Destiny catalog. In previous classes, I used Library World. I found Destiny to be much more user-friendly as an OPAC. It was easier to add entries that I thought it would be for our purposes. While these entries may not be perfect according to LME 506, I gained a lot of experience creating these entries. Next week, I will be printing and taping labels to the professional library collection!