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!

Snow Days + KYSTE Conference= Dispositions (Week 6)

Two more snow days this week!! This makes a total of 17 for my district. All of these snow days have made it difficult to get all my inside hours. But at least these snow days have allowed me time to reflect on the CEBS dispositions and what I have accomplished and witnessed so far in my Practicum.

Values diversity - Willingly works with others from different ability, race, gender, or ethnic groups. Welcomes feedback and interaction with others. Listens carefully to others and respects the views of those perceived as different from self.

The student population at Zoneton Middle School is diverse in different ways than one might expect. Our school has less than 1% of ethnic diversity. However, I have seen all varieties of student abilities walk in to check out books! I have never seen a student population who love to read as much as they do. While not all kids love to read, even most of the students with reading disabilities have a book from the library by choice! I believe the ZMS library collection has really meets these students needs with a wider variety of graphic novels, magazines, and other high-interest low-Lexile titles. Dr. Mac never criticizes any child's choice of reading material. Even if they check out a magazine on WWE wrestling, at least they are reading! Meeting student interests is the highest form of valuing diversity that I could imagine.

Values collaboration. Actively seeks out and incorporates ideas of others. Takes leadership in working with others to improve the overall environment. Regularly share information and ideas.

Dr. Mac and I have a great working relationship. Already, we completed a collaborative instructional unit (See Week 3 post). We also incorporated the district technology specialist's idea for student websites. Dr. Mac also shares at least one email a day to all the staff with a resource, link, video, or lesson plan. She is a member of the KY librarian listserv and she regularly communicates with the other middle school LMS in our district. Collaboration is key to developing a network of support for the library! I hope to continue her legacy and share with teachers valuable resources in my future LMS position.

Values professionalism: Respect for school rules, policies, and norms Knows school rules and policies. Follows them consistently. Understands the purpose of regulations and respects their intent. Accepts responsibility for personally following them in patterns of dress, behavior, etc. EPSB Code of Ethics

As a current school professional, this disposition seems almost unnecessary for graduate work. There must be some interesting stories behind this requirement! I have been a member of this school for four years now and I also student taught here. Obviously, I have followed the rules and policies or else I wouldn't be here. I completely understand the necessity for professional dress and behavior. Students must recognize adults as the authority in the building. Without having proper dress and behavior, students will not respect a classroom teacher, professional, or librarian! I try my best to look nice in the library as well, even if I'm on my hands and knees shelving items!

Values professionalism: Commitment to self reflection and growth. Recognizes personal limitations and strengths and uses them to best professional advantage. Actively seeks suggestions and constructive criticism. Regularly practices critical thinking. Regularly engages in learning through self-reflection.

Reading this disposition immediately makes me think of PLCs as a current classroom teacher. PLCs are Professional Learning Communities. In this weekly team meeting, we always self-reflect on our practices and effectiveness as teachers. We work together to share tips and suggestions for improvement. Every educational professional's ultimate goal should be the success of every student. How do we know if we are meeting students' needs if we do not self-reflect on our practices? Currently, the LMS does not participate in PLCs but I believe that I should as a future LMS! How better to support the needs of our students without participating in regular professional growth opportunities?

Values professionalism: Professional responsibility. Accepts responsibility for own actions and for helping all students learning and actively seeks self-improvement. Consistently holds high expectations for the success of all students. Consistently looks to explain and remedy student lack of success by factors within the control of self

This disposition seems very similar to the previous one. The librarian at every school should not see themselves separate from the rest of the faculty. It is EVERY faculty member's job to ensure the learning of all students at high levels. In PLCs, we focus on four questions: What is it you want our students to know?  How will you know if they are learning? How will you respond when individual students do not learn?  How will you enrich and extend the learning for students who are proficient? Every teacher is responsible for consistently reflecting on these four questions. Librarians should be no exception. I fully intend on using this practice in my future position to become a truly reflective educator. 

Values professionalism: Professional development and involvement. References and makes use of professional organizations or publications. Willingly participates in professional activities or events that promote professional development.

Many teachers grumble and complain about professional development. I actually love it, no matter the topic! I would much rather be learning and broadening my horizons as an educator than just using the same tired teaching practices. This week, I got the opportunity to attend the pre-conference sessions at KYSTE 2014 at the Galt House. Since I teach, I was only able to attend one day. But that one day was JAM-PACKED with PD opportunities. I loved all the new tricks and tips to incorporating technology into every classroom lesson as well as the library. I attended 4 sessions from 10 am to 4 pm. It was an amazing day!

 

My FAVORITE session was presented by two librarians from Lexington. They work a lot with digital portfolios at the elementary and middle school levels. They shared a variety of apps, Web 2.0 tools, and software students can use for literacy or research projects. It was amazing to see such a variety of student work! We even integrated our own technology during this session using TodayMeet, a real-time presentation chatroom, so to speak. Here's the website with all of the tools they shared with us!

https://www.smore.com/5g67

I left the conference feeling so excited about BYOD and other technology integration initiatives I could start as a future LMS!

Week 5- Professional Collection Development

As I've mentioned previously, Dr. Mac is a long-term sub position for the past two years at our school. She has spent the last several years really working to reorganize the library and update the titles. One of her goals was to create a professional library for the teachers. With so many other responsibilities taking priority, she really wanted me to make this my long-term practicum project. This week, I got started!

Our principal took another position around Thanksgiving. She donated much of her professional literature to the library. Dr. Mac combined that with other resources in the collection. My first task was go through and weed some of the much older resources. I found this gem of outdated resources. I asked the student aides if they had ever seen a floppy disk. They said why does it look like the save icon in Word? Haha!! I'm old enough that I can remember using these to save my work in middle school!

My next task this week was to go through the professional resources and separate what was already part of the collection from the rest. Several of the resources had library barcodes and call numbers labeled on them! Dr. Mac had no idea why our previous principal had kept these in her office. Most of these resources had been marked as lost. I used an extra laptop and scanner in the supply room to check these back in. 

My final task for the week was to create shelving space for the professional library. I cleared out a section of dictionaries and put them in the supply room. Dr. Mac plans to allow teachers to check out class sets of dictionaries for instructional purposes. The dictionaries do no good sitting on a shelf and students rarely use them independently. I then shelved what was already in the catalog according to Dewey decimals. 

 

I also created a private sitting area for teachers to peruse the professional resources. This hopefully will encourage teachers to use the library for their own purposes!

 

Next week, I will start processing the professional resources NOT in the collection, adding them to the catalog!

Week 4- Bluegrass Awards Booktalks

My cooperating supervisor is a long-term sub filling in the LMS position for the past two years at our school. As such, she has not had time to really develop the program or reading promotion activities. This year, she really wanted to allow our school to participate in the Bluegrass Awards. Dr. Mac ordered multiple copies of each of the 6th-8th grades nominated titles.

As language arts classes came in, Dr. Mac gave booktalks to each of them. She used the KBA created Prezi to introduce the books. The Prezi included links to several book trailers that the students really enjoyed. She had also already read a few of them and gave her own opinions on several of them. It was really educational watching booktalks in action! With so many titles being introduced to students, she limited her time on each of the books.

http://prezi.com/zommdh82ggcs/2014-kentucky-bluegrass-awards-middle-school/

One of the nominated books, Cinder, is one of my absolute favorite titles I've read in the last several years. I've read the first three novels of the series! We played this book trailer below before Dr. Mac allowed me to present my own 30-second book talk on this  fabulous title. 

After our presentations, students were allowed to peruse the shelves. Anyone who wanted to check out a KBA title signed up on a waiting list sheet. Even though Dr. Mac ordered multiple copies of each title, we still ran out of books fast! Over the next few weeks, Dr. Mac plans to announce students' names on the waiting list on the morning announcements as books come back in. She also created a ZMS ballot for students to vote on their favorite titles in the next few weeks. 

This experience allowed me to help check ins/outs and really observe true reading promotion in action! Several of my own students were carrying these books into my classroom and I allowed them reading time when their assignments for me were completed. I am very excited to have given my first official book talk and be a part of the Kentucky Bluegrass Award process. I hope to participate as an LMS for years to come!

Week 3- Instructional Unit

A media specialist is often the expert in a school on research and research methods. I wanted to practice gathering resources for a student research project. I decided to collaborate with myself as the classroom teacher. I currently teach in the same school as my practicum site, instructing 6th and 7th grade social studies. My 7th grade students are currently studying ancient Greece. While this unit has a variety of research-able topics, I decided to narrow it to Greek mythology. I also decided to include a technology product to present their research.

I allowed each of my students to sign up for a Greek mythological figure. This gave them a choice for research, creating a better buy-in to the project. My cooperating supervisor as the LMS guided me in selecting resources for my students, both online and in the library. We pulled several mythology encyclopedias, nonfiction books, and even a few graphic novels.

Their first task is to use informal research methods to complete this graphic organizer, called an I-Chart. I chose the parameters of some of their required information. They had the freedom to research other facts about their mythological figures.

My students had two days in the library to complete their research. Half of my students used the 12 computers while the other half used the print resources. The second day they swapped. This allowed them to use both print and non-print resources to meet the 21st century standards required by the AASL.

After two days this week of time in the library, I was able to secure a mobile lab with a class set of laptops for my classroom. For the rest of the week, students created a Weebly site to present their information on their mythological figure. This was very challenging for some students while others seemed to pick it up right away. I allowed several students to help others. All students reported liking creating a website as opposed to a tired PowerPoint or poster. By the end of the week, most of my students created websites that I deemed proficient, according to a rubric I created. Students were very proud of their work. The best ones were linked from the school website and featured as great work!

This unit allowed me to gain many outside and inside hours and was a very valuable experience. As an LMS, I hope to have more time with this unit to create more of a formal research project, using a method such as the Big 6. My students' learning was definitely impacted by this instructional unit with a lot of success! Isn't that what it's all about?

Week 2- Snow days= Outside Hours

AN ENTIRE WEEK OF SCHOOL CANCELED FOR SNOW?? Anyone feel like punching mother nature right now? 

This was my measurements of snow earlier this week! 

Due to the entire week of school being canceled, I did not get in any inside hours. However, I got in 7 hours of "outside" hours working! Our district requires principals to get to school during snow days. As I live very close to school, I was able to make it into work when my principal was there.

Many media specialists are also the STCs, or school technology coordinators, for their schools. It is important that I gain experience troubleshooting, updating, and processing technology. Our district offers an online work order system for teachers with technology problems. I was allowed to access the ZMS system and work on a variety of work orders. I fixed Smart Boards, projectors, replaced desktop mice and keyboards, updated software and many other technology needs.

One of my biggest tasks was to process newly purchased technology. Zoneton is a Title I school and we receive funds to support our needs. Recently, we had a budget surplus that needed to be spent for the fiscal school year. Our school had enough funds to purchase 82 mini-laptops! My task is to help process all of these laptops to create two mobile labs with 60 of them and create a library mini-lab of 22.

Processing 82 laptops is an enormous job!! First I had to unbox, unwrap, and plug in all of them. That took several hours! Then I had to "image" each of them. The district technology gurus showed me how to use the district internet to download all required software and network capabilities. This process takes at least 45 minutes for each mini-laptop. ZMS has 10 open network ports for imaging use. As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time in the network room this week!

Hopefully next week we will actually have school and I can get into the library!

Week 1- Getting to know the ZMS Library

Anyone sick of snow yet? January has given my district, Bullitt County Public Schools, several days of inclement weather! I have a feeling winter isn't done with us for awhile!

I was able to get in a few hours in the library this week to start off my practicum. My cooperating supervisor is Dr. Christine McIntosh, or Dr. Mac, in the Zoneton Middle School library. Dr. Mac is a retired librarian serving as a long-term sub at ZMS for the past year and a half. She is very well-known in Bullitt County as an LMS. She was the first LMS to put together an OPAC with 4 library computers in the early 90s before other OPACs even existed! She has worked in several Bullitt County schools, as well as in Frankfort for state library media organizations. Dr. Mac has many years of experience and I am excited to learn from her expertise in my practicum journey!

While I teach at ZMS, I have only used the library to bring my social studies classes in for research lessons or to complete assignments for this library program. I have never studied the routines and procedures of the ZMS library from the media specialist point of view. To begin my practicum, Dr. Mac gave me a tour of the library.

Entrance of the library, teaching area, rocking reading chairs

Circulation desk for student aides

View of library- 12 computers, nonfiction shelves in the back

Library office (and school psychologist office)

Broadcasting room on left, fiction shelves. 

This week we focused on my practice of basic library routines- circulation and shelving. Students come in with language arts classes every other week to check out books. They were each issued a library card in the beginning of the year. If they have their cards, they receive check ins/out priorities to the front of the line. Other students must find their name on a key ring with their bar code to check out books. I found this to be a really good system. Next week, we plan on working on the collection!