It's the End of the World as I Know it by Matt Landis

 It’s the end of the world as I know it is the newest book by middle school social studies teacher and author Matt Landis. It chronicles the struggle of a boy, his sister, their dad, and a sickly next door neighbor as they try to get through the worst year of their lives. And it all centers on a doomsday prediction made in a blog that the main character reads. The supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park is about to go off and all the main character’s focus goes into his makeshift doomsday shelter. There are other friends who play soccer and make signs, a pet snake, HAZMAT suits, and a dry flush toilet involved. It is on the Middle School Reading Olympic List for the Montgomery CountyIntermediate Unit so, get prepared for … It’sthe end of the world as I know, it by Matt Landis.

Don't Cry for what you've lost... be joyful that she lived...

 This past week was rough at the middle school. We lost a beloved colleague and friend. She retired in June amid the problems with COVID. She was high risk and wanted to be able to travel and do all the things retired English teachers do. Unfortunately, she didn't get to do any of it. We are sad for her family, and for us but we are better at what we do because she brought her joy and love of literature into our lives. Every year she would dress in a cape with a stuffed Raven and read the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Oh, how I wish I had been able to record her performance. I can't read or listen to "The Raven" without thinking of her. I found this on YouTube and post it here in Ellen's memory. Enjoy. 

Banned Book Week 2020

As a school librarian, Banned Book Week is one of my favorite weeks of the school year. I usually have my library decorated with caution tape and signs that say "these books are Readio-Active." A play on words but that is the best way to explain the phenomena of banning a book. Librarians hate censorship! But when a book is censored, it makes children want to read the books even more. The perfect book to explain this and to highlight many banned children's books is doing a read aloud of Alan Gratz's book, Ban this Book. It not only talks about kids in an elementary school sharing banned books, it highlights many of the children's books that are banned and the reasons some people don't think children should have a choice in what they read. It is only fitting that Banned Book Week comes right after we celebrate Constitution Day. The First Amendment is what Banned Book Week is all about. 

One of the books on this year's list is a real shocker to me. Skippy Jon Jones author Judy Schachner is an inspiration to me. She had such a bad school experience that she often does not do school visits because of it. The first time I head her speak was at a reading conference. She described the panic attacks she would have walking by the principal's office in school she visited. She, like me suffered from a reading disorder and was often punished for not reading. Her story touched me because I always thought I was a failure because of my reading problems which went undiagnosed until my own children were going through what I went through in elementary school. The reading specialist helped me do exercises with my children that helped them overcome many of their problems. It helped me too. To make a long story short, Judy Schachner autographed her first Skippy Jon Jones book to my yet unborn grandson that day. Her book is still one of his favorites and he loved the way his mom read it him! The picture is Judy Schachner's response to being the #8 most challenged book series from the Intellectual Freedom Blog.

I think I finally got my blog back!

 For years I have been having problems getting to this blog! I have tried to get rid of the Widget Server Bug that had taken over and would not allow my blog to be seen! Finally, today I got rid of all the widgets on my blog. Forget them! I don't need no stinking Widgets! I just want my geeky librarian voice to be heard. 

So, I'm back! Thank you Cori Frede for telling me your New Year Resolution to post a blog post every week... you got me moving to try to resolve this issue. Now, if I can do a blog post once a month... that would be something! Yeah! I'm Back!!!

Makey Makey- Interactive Poster Trial #beyondtheBanana

Makey-Makey an Academic Counter- #beyondthebanana

Conger-PGS-2018-2019.pptx

Video created for MRLA (Mini-Regional Leadership Academy) via University of Pittsburgh and PSLA (Pennsylvania School Librarian Association).

More from PETE&C- Aaron Sams interviews PowerLibrarian

I am so very grateful to Aaron Sams for introducing me to flipped learning. He taught me about making videos of teaching content and then assigning it as homework. For me it went a little differently. As a librarian seeing students once ever 6 days, assigning homework just didn't work, even if it was a short video. Kids would forget since sometimes it could be 8-10 days between library classes. So, I flipped the library during library class. My problem was that I could not get the books checked in, and out fast enough to still have a meaningful class lesson. So, kids watched my content videos while I checked in books. I could also monitor behaviors better because I was not trying to teach and check in books at the same time. Kids also liked the videos and I also tried Nearpod at about the same time. I ended up saving so much time that I was able to offer students a small maker space in the library once every few cycles. Now we've come full circle and Aaron Sams is interviewing me at on of my Poster Sessions at the state technology conference, PETE&C. Here is a link to the video on twitter: https://twitter.com/peteandc/status/1095335379962494978. 

#pete2019 with @chemicalsams @congerjan https://t.co/16n7bvAIbW

— PETE & C (@peteandc) February 12, 2019

Sharing My Presentation from PETE&C- 2019.

Changes

I am starting to feel creative again. It has been almost a year since I wrote what you are about to read. I never posted it because I felt like I was being a bad librarian for feeling the way I did.  I changed position about a year ago and the feeling and joy and love of being a school librarian are starting to come back. But please know that it took a long time to start to feel human again. This is from January of this year:

If truth be told, I have not felt like a PowerLibrarian for a while now, maybe two years. A lack of motivation has truly caused this blog to blog to be neglected. I feel like I've run out of gas. I have felt like the Power was draining faster than spiritual food, friends, family, conferences, EdCamps, FutureReady, social media, and my PLN could recharge this Librarian!

Call it overwork, burnout, a struggle to communicate, a lack of respect by administration and students, less than perfect working conditions (we actually had a work stoppage- let me tell you walking a picket line does nothing for your self-esteem), or just everything, including me, getting older. For the past 4 almost 5 years I traded my cozy elementary library for a beautiful upper elementary library with more empty shelves than books. I struggled keeping up with student demand for popular titles. We had fewer than 15 books per student when when I started. I got creative, held book drives, begged, borrowed, and spent my own money getting books into the hands of students. As I leave we are now well over the state suggested 25 books per student. I don't want accolades for doing what I love, getting students to read, I just want it acknowledged that being a teacher/librarian is two jobs. I am working two full time jobs with a below average salary and time constraints of one- doing the second job on my own dime and time. For the past 5 years I have taught as few as 31 and as many as 35 classes every 6 days while running the library and trying to bring the makerspace concept into the newly branded Libratorium.

I believe strongtly that every student should get the opportunity to make, do, and create in a safe place but providing that for as many as 900 students with little to no support takes its toll. Teaching as many as 6 classes a day (and give grades to students for projects, and classwork) and running the library with students coming at all times to do book selection is daunting. The worst is students demanding book selection while I am trying to teach or trying to put books away or catalog books (cataloging takes concentration but all students see is me sitting at the computer)- after all, I'm not really doing anything and I could easily check out a book for them. The worst of it is that their teachers keep sending them even though I have told them that I can't check out books while I am teaching. Lunch, what's lunch? I keep being told I am entitled to a duty free lunch, it does not happen- there is always someone comeing into the library for something. If I didn't teach all day I would not mind missing lunch once in a while but it is my only chance all day to go to the bathroom. If I had a clone or a full time aide things would be so much better.

I struggled for years with getting technology into the hands of my students (may I never see another powersucking netbook again), because any papers I created meant 800 or more copies. Who has time to make that many copies? Finally, a year ago came a cart of chromebooks exclusively for use in the library classes and I could stop killing trees and use Google Classroom! I promptly broke Google Classroom which was not built to handle 34 classes. I deleted the 34 classes and settled on 12 classes, a class each day for the 5th grade homerooms I saw that day and one 6th grade class for the 3 or 4 different teams I saw that day. Putting multiple classes in each of the Google Classrooms meant a little more work for me finding students when it came to doing grading but it worked.  I switched it up this year and put each 6th grade team into one class cutting down my number of classes by 2! Fewer classes and it is easier when it comes to grading so many students.

I learned a great deal as I wrote grant proposal after grant proposal. Over the years I incorporated robotics, coding, and a makerspace complete with a 3D printer into the library curriculum. I decided to teach digiital citizenship via Google Classroom and student Tinkercad accounts.

Now at the end of this year, the joy is coming back. In a new school, with new students with new challenges, the joy is coming back!

The thrill of ISTE18 while I'm still here...

I don't often reflect on the ISTE conference while I am still at the conference but I just had an incredible session and in my next session they talked about reflecting on your learning via a blog post. So my reflection is for me so I can remember how much I LOVED learning more about Hyperdocs from Katie Bradford and Brett Miller in their session. They presented their session via the hyperdoc linked here. I can't wait to go back in to dive into it more because a one hour session was not enough time to visit all the links! I am using a tag-which I don't often do- because Mandy Froehlich her session said if we tag our posts with a Danielson number from 1-4 that we can use our blog posts as part of our e-portfolio. Interesting enough the next presenter Christine Voelker presented her session, on the thrill of the hunt- OER resources, with a hyperdoc as well. These are things I can take home from #ISTE18 and continue the learning!

Ozobots and Math

I always want the Makerspace in the library to be a place of STEM learning. I designed a lesson using graph paper and the formula for area of a rectangle (Area = width times length), encouraging students to figure out the area of the graph paper and then figuring out ⅓ of the area on which they would create a maze. It would be simple just to count the spaces on the graph paper but that would take a long time. So I introduced them to this Flocabulary video on area and perimeter:

The idea is then to make a line for an Ozobot to follow using the ⅓ portion of the area calculated. The graph paper's single square is the perfect width for the line the Ozobot can follow. Or if you have the more advanced Ozobot Bit or Ozobot Evo, students can create a computer program and upload it to the Ozobot to cover ⅓ of the area calculated. The Ozobot can be programmed using simple block coding at Ozoblockly.com.  Then, program the Ozobot  to create the maze by itself. Or, use a Sphero, which can be programmed with the Tickel App, in much the same way with larger graph paper and use makerspace items like Lego and Keva Planks to create the maze.

Happy Birthday Beverly Cleary

Today, April 12th is author Beverly Cleary's birthday. Today Beverly Cleary is 102 years old. Amazing! She was born in another era, an era when the things she wrote in her books were considered controversial. She showed us what the future would look like. Happy Birthday Beverly Cleary! Here is a link with a picture of her with Dr. Seuss from when she was much younger! Beverly Cleary and the Doctor!

Fake News Posters

Now that I am a Middle School Librarian, I realize it is more important than ever to make my students aware of Fake News. What is and what is not Fake News? I am happy that I came across a set of three posters from the Washington Post about fake news. I am not endorsing any one news organization. I just like the posters which you can download for free here:

http://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/print/the_washington_post_alternatives_for_3

Free Technology for Teachers: A Free Teleprompter

As a former journalist this article from Richard Byrne piqued my interest. Also, my new school has a television studio and I can't wait to see it, and figure out ways for the TV Studio personal to partner with the new librarian! You can be sure I am going to offer up this great free teleprompter find from Free Technology for Teachers: Free Technology for Teachers: A Free Teleprompter! Thanks Richard! You make my life so much easier with all the great techology you introduce! Just one suggestion, teleprompters usually use all caps which are supposed to be easier to read when text is moving! So, simply type the text in all caps and you are all set! Enjoy!