Breakfast Thoughts PSLA 2012

Reflections after the first morning of my state library conference... Dear school librarians, please wake up.  We need to change. We all need to become powerlibrarians!  If we don't there is no need for us. What makes us think we can continue with library programs as usual when our students are using iPads before they come to school in Kindergarten? Why do we think we can continue with business as usual when our library classes are one of our student's least connected time of the day? Yes, we need to read to students but we also need to engage them with the media they do not know how to live without. Yes, I said they can not live without it because they never have known a reality where the world was not available in the palm of their hand. I am proud that we are having some technology sessions at PSLA 2012 but we need to do more. And despite the wonder that is Joyce Valenza who is my hero at the high school level, the change I am talking about has to now start with me at the elementary level! We who are on fixed library schedules and see students once a week need to start adding multimedia modalities into our curriculums and we have to do it now! We are behind the curve of our students! What can I do to start? It does not have to be a total shocking change, we have to get our feet wet fist and go in from there.  We can do it if we add one or two new mediums and modalities a year and before we know it we will have a vital, vibrant, viral library media center that is so integral to our school communities that there will be no way to cut us. Necessity is the mother of change. Right now it is necessary that we change!  Ask yourself the question I am asking myself, "What am I going to do in the library next week to engage the iPad generation?"

GeoGreeting

Just heard about this website that sends greetings to your family and friends with pictures taken all over the world. It is called GeoGreeting. Here is a testing out greeting I created. Click the link below and try it out.
http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html?yDBIsxqUyEDUqoyqBooDsxqa

Not sure how I would use this with students in the library but it may be a fun geography lesson.

Looking at the Earth and Stars in a New Way...

Adam Mann a Wired Science contributor added this time lapse video to the Wired Science blog yesterday. It is just too beautiful not to share! My students are learning about famous American women in the library and this week we are reading an e-book biography about Sally Ride. I am also sharing this video which offers a glimpse of the earth in a way few every get to see. This video actually gives you the feeling of the Earth being a big ball out in space with stars all around. It is a way of looking at Earth in space that I have never seen before. I hope my students are as impressed with this video as I am! Thanks to my Plurk buddy Ken for sharing the video on Plurk and if you are not part of Plurk please consider joining us! My Plurk PLN Rocks!

WonderSay

I tried out a new (to me) web tool today. It is called WonderSay and what is created is called a WonderSaid. Below is what I WonderSaid:


made on Wondersay - Animate text with style
Not sure how to use this tool with students yet but it is fun.

Don't Be This Person...

Do you have autistic students in your school?  More and more special area teachers are providing differentiated instruction for special needs students with autism.  Notice, I did not use the new term flying around education today for library, art, gym, health, and music classes... encore. I do not like the term encore. Encore teachers in my mind are dispensable, because they are after all encore. And you can have a concert or run a school without an encore. But I digress.
I came across this video while exploring my new obsession, Pinterest. It led me to a little closer look at my bias toward my autistic students and I do not want to be like the person in the video below. I am continually examining my pedagogy and my content to make sure I am not over stimulating my autistic students. This video makes me wonder what else I can do to make a difference.

Don't be that person.

Personal vs. Differentiated Instruction

My friend Ken Young on Plurk sent me this link to view a wonderful blog post and chart from another Plurk buddy Barbara Bray. In her Blog Re-Thinking Learning she wrote a post about the differences between differentiation and individualization. It stirred so much controversy that she decided to do more research the result of her research became this chart.

Personalized Learning Chart

View more documents from Barbara Bray

So now the question is should we be personalizing, differentiating, or individualizing our instruction?

Cost of NCLB

Here is a picture I found by way of my Plurk buddy Dean Mantz that shows the cost of NCLB. He got the link via Kelly Tenkley of ilearntechnology.com and ipadcurriculum.com.   

Snowflake Bentley

Next week I am reading Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin to my kindergarten students. The only problem is that they can not see any of his wonderful photographs. The three pictures in the book are so tiny that the beauty in the snowflakes is lost.  I am planning to include the video below so they can see how beautiful snowflakes can be. Enjoy!

Dr. Seuss Relief!

I just could not resist this lovely picture that I found on Pinterest.  Pinterest is new to me, I don't even have an account! But I will be looking into it more to see if it could be used at the elementary level. For now enjoy this great photo!

Source: vandalog.tumblr.com via Kelly on Pinterest

BubCap 2

Found this video of a toddler trying to press the home key on an iPad after a BubCap has been installed. While an adult can still press the button, a child is not strong enough to press it once the BupCap is installed. Where was this when I was trying to use the iPad with my special education kindergarten class? Can't wait to get it and try it with my special ed population. I know my first and second grade students are stronger than this toddler but I got the extra strength ones so I am hoping they will work and the students will be able to use the iPad with the educational games I select for them!

BubCaps

Are you like me? Do you share your iPad or iPhone with a toddler? Or do you share your iPad with a special education class? Then you may be just as amazed as I was to find this wonderfully simple product called BupCap. Check out this CNet video:


 I just ordered a set and I will let you know how I like them.

Happy Holidays from Our School District Offices

In my e-mail today I was sent a link to a holiday card created by my school district's administrative offices.  Click the link below and see how tech savy our administrators are getting. I am very excited about this and I hope for big technology happenings in the future!  My favorite part is right before the picture of the tech department... it says "Back it up." Enjoy and have a wonderful holiday. http://animoto.com/play/4OMkKIfElWq1jHhtRuQZiw?utm_content=main_link

My Principal... My Glogster Hero!

Last year I had my 4^th graders do state reports on EDUGlogster and they did a super job.  This year I was planning on having the current 4^th grade do a country report since their teachers wanted to do the state report project later this school year.  I figure they can cut their teeth on the country report and be all set to do the state report for their teachers. So, I went to my old Glogster accounts and low and behold it was going to cost me 99 dollars to do the same project I did for free last year.  I didn’t want to give up my 4^th grade Glogster report! Enter my new principal, my knight in shining armor who is almost as much of a technology geek as I am! I go to him hat in hand and he says sure what do you need! My hero! My principal was kind enough to pay for 200 student licenses for me to share around the school. That is enough for not only the 4^th grade but for at least another grade level to all do Glogster reports this year. I am very happy and excited to get started.  But I must say I am getting frustrated by the bating and switching that is going on with educational web applications. Bate and switch is the only way I can describe it, educational websites get you hooked on their free product and promise it will always be free and then a year or so later you have to pay for the same services you were getting for free. Glogster  is not the only website that has done this, JayCut went away all together... poof... gone, and it is frustrating. Now that I know I have to pay for Glogster, I will plan my budget accordingly next year. But what if Glogster is gone next year?  This year was bad enough, it threw me for a loop! Luckily, when I went hat-in-hand to my principal and begged he gave me the money for the licenses. But what happens in those school districts that do not have an extra 99 dollars hanging around? How can we fund these sites that we all use in education to keep them free? There’s got to be a way if we all put our heads together.  

Blabber a Book

I just created this on Blabberize as a sample to show my students. We may be creating these after Thanksgiving if I can gather enough working microphones. It took me just 5 minutes to create but two of those were spent looking for a usable microphone. I think it will be a fun project for the students, talking about a book they have read recently in a new way may get some other students interested in reading the books as well.
 

Tundra Connections Webcast - Polar Bears International

All of our third grade classes and our afternoon kindergarten class took part in this webinar this afternoon... check it out. Tundra Connections Webcast - Polar Bears International