Parkway School District Library Services
Volume 4 | Issue 1
Know & Go Updates @your Library
Nancy’s Notes & Other Reminders ●
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2016-2017 Professional Learning Opportunities due SEPT 9th The time has once again come to think about out-of-district professional development opportunities. As we are all aware, program funding has been cut over the years and is limited on the amount of money available. Just like last year, in an effort to be fair and transparent to you while at the same time fulfilling fiscal obligations to the district, each request to be valuated and a determination on how to best spend the allotted funds. In order to do this, all requests must be submitted by the end of the day on September 9th using the Conference Pre-Approval form found online at https://goo.gl/w72f6F. All documents you will need for travel will be found in this folder. In addition to completing the pre-approval form, please also let us know if you are planning on submitting a session proposal at a conference and what your topic might be on this Google Form at goo.gl/forms/N8L561zGWObiDYwD2 Note: Some events do not have their rates posted yet so please do your best to approximate using the published rates from the previous year. Some things that will inform the decision are your past experiences with this opportunity (if you've gone the past 3 years, it may be someone else's turn), as well as your willingness to be a part of the event program by submitting a proposal to speak at the event (some events like METC and the Missouri Google Summit will give discounts for their speakers) and the cost and location of the event. By requesting funds from the library program, you are also agreeing to share your learning with the rest of the librarians. This will look different depending on the conference that you attended. As in year's past, Bill is able to pay for registration and some travel expenses depending on the event. Subs are to be paid for by the building. Remember that before you submit your form that it must be signed by your principal. Program Evaluation Update The initial meeting for the core group of librarians will be Monday, September 12th at 4:30 at Wren Hollow's library. The meeting will be about an hour long. In the preparation for the meeting please review the Future Ready Library framework and jot down any questions or comments that you might have at this time. What does it mean to be a librarian in the digital age?
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Librarians List 2016-17 Who To Call Ordering procedures Follett ordering w/screenshots Follett Acct #'s Follett req Instructions Building budget Sub librarian list Sub Training Videos Ordering/renewing databases HS only Destiny FAQ Free Lib Book Mobile Makerspace Kit Request Mobile Makerspace Site Mobile Makerspace Stories & Quotes
School’s In! 26 Forward-Thinking Plans for Back-to-School In the August 2016 SLJ magazine there is a great article on fall programming ideas for the library. The areas covered include: Get Them Reading, New Takes on Tech, Passive & Participatory Programming, ELL Environments and Research Support. Get Them Reading Idea #3 Picture Book Smackdown helps students set goals, connect with other schools, and practice public speaking.” First, students set goals for how many picture books they will read throughout the month of November (National Picture Book Month). During the smackdown use Google Hangouts to connect multiple schools from around the area/country and with authors if possible. Take an hour to rotate from school to school, and let students take turns stepping up to the camera to share a favorite picture book in under one minute. The authors share too. This activity celebrates a love of reading pictures and words.
#ParkwayMakes Sphero Lightning Lab An updated version of the SPRK Lightning Lab app (which is compatible with our older Sphero robots) boasts 150 new hands-on learning activities, along with the improved programming canvas. Example Activity: Sphero Shuffleboard Play shuffleboard with Sphero. Create a program to roll your Sphero onto the scoring grid. Keep a running total of your score and see who wins. Grades: 1- 12 Duration: ½ Hour - 1 Hour Supplies: 1 Sphero or Ollie, tape, and open space
Participatory Programming Idea #16 The Middle School Experts program taps into the passion and skills of students. Students apply on line via Google Form and list e a topic or skill they’d like to share, along with a program description, and grade level they would like to teach. Two students examples included drones and eating a gluten free diet. Reading through the activities is a great springboard for additional programming ideas. Read them all at slj.com
MakerEd Benefits to Makerspaces “Librarians can continue to point patrons to optimal intellectual and emotional experiences by incorporating makerspaces in libraries. When our hands engage in a repetitive task, such as knitting, the mind lets go. Unconscious material surfaces—daydreams, aha moments, creative impulses, and even hints about life direction.” Benefits summarized (August 2016) SLJ - http://goo.gl/nT7mJj: ● Keep students in the present moment conjures a sense of peace, completeness, and satisfaction ● It's a physical process that stimulates blood through body movement ● Creates an environment that fosters intrinsic motivation through independence ● Making—develop such skills as observing, visual thinking, and pattern recognition. They develop habits that include practicing, persevering, and trial-and-error problem solving ● Deep connections to others are the single greatest source of the good life - shared purpose ● Repurposing what’s readily available-we conjure a sense of resourcefulness, creativity, and empowerment ● Making is essential to mind-expansion What does it mean to be a librarian in the digital age?
#FutureReady - Community Partnerships September is Library Card Signup Month Students who are new and enroll for the first time in Parkway will automatically be sent a SLCL library card. Those cards will not be issued until the census verification forms have been completed and the information sent to SLCL for processing (late October). Those students who have already been issued a card and are not new to Parkway will need to go to SLCL to receive a replacement card if it has been lost.
Well said:
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” ~ Winston Churchill
@your Library
ISTE Student Standards
Upcoming Events
What Student Standard Are Addressed in Presentations? Presentations can be dreadful for students and teachers because students are allowed to do two main things wrong. First, students are allowed to speak as long as they want (sometimes with a general time limit), which leads to them to either rambling on or else saying practically nothing at all. Second, students are allowed to read off their slides. These two things put together can make for presentations that are painful to endure.
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Library Card Sign-up Month Banned Books Week Each September, librarians, teachers, and students celebrate their right to read and fight censorship by observing Banned Books Week. Outside the Lines -Libraries Reintroduced Sept. 11-17 Libraries are dynamic centers for engagement that help everyone in your community be their best. Outside the Lines is a weeklong celebration demonstrating the creativity and innovation happening in libraries getoutsidethelines.org Media Literacy Week highlights the importance of teaching children and teens digital and media literacy skills to ensure their interactions with media are positive and enriching. Oct 31 - Nov. 4
There is help out there, try Pecha Kucha system created by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham. It is a guide for students that include a few basic rules for the presentation set up: The slide-show presentation will be set up to auto-advance every 20 seconds, with a maximum time of 6 minutes. This means that the slides move on, whether or not the student is ready—there is no remote to move the slides forward. This reduces student rambling and reading off slides. This method can be adjusted to suit your needs. For example, only allow them 15 seconds per slide with 12 slides total, making student presentations only 3 minutes each. Presentations also help students to meet several ISTE Student Standards: ● Communication and Collaboration - Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Research and Information Fluency - Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information ● Digital Citizenship - Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. ● Technology Operations and Concepts - Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations. Adapted: Techout your class eBook - Amy Prosser What does it mean to be a librarian in the digital age?
Chrome Web Store App Availability
#FutureReady - Curates Resources & Tools ●
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Bouncyballs.org Essentially, Bouncy Balls is a website that activates your microphone and detects noise level. The more noise in the room, the more the balls bounce. The quieter the room is, the more still the balls remain. Ask students to try to keep the balls as still as possible during class, and maybe reward them by allowing them to sing and be noisy on their way out of class Gamification Guide Gamification is the use of game-mechanics and elements in non-game contexts. Using gamification to turn your classroom into a video game motivates, engages, and empowers students. Chris Avile created an in-depth guide, The Gamification Guide, walks you through a three stage system. ○ Stage 1 motivate students ○ Stage 2 level up instructional design ○ Stage 3 explore the classroom as an experience. ○ There’s one catch, though only Stage 1 is written so far. Stages 2 and 3 will be out in the next few months, but don’t let that stop you from downloading The Gamification Guide now. 5 Visual Tools for Student Learning Research is difficult, so helps students express understanding through various tools regardless of their learning style. Here are some ideas to support students during their research journeys. Ideas include: video confessionals, storyboardthat.com, research scavenger hunts, infographics, and visual note taking. Read how at www.k12blueprint.com Educational Grants List Tech&Learning has posted the Educational Grants 2016 Deadlines. http://goo.gl/O12k7P. This PDF includes grant writing questions to ask yourself in order to write a winning grant proposal, things to consider will writing the proposal, ongoing grants, and informal grants. If you are considering a grant be sure to include Dennis Farinella, Coordinator of MOSAICS Gifted Education and Grants & Funding, at dfarinella@parkwayschools.net What does it mean to be a librarian in the digital age?
Please share this important information with your building: The Chrome Web Store is no longer fully accessible to students through their Parkway account. Students will only be able to install apps and extensions that have been placed on the Parkway approved list. If you find that students can’t install an app or extension that you want them to use in your classroom you can contact the Technology Help Desk and ask that it get added. A list of already approved apps and extensions is being created. We will post that list as soon as it is ready.
Thesaurus Pro Add-on Most thesauruses get stumped when you enter in phrasal verbs (like “look down on”), plural nouns (like “runners”) or conjugated verbs. The synonyms you typically get are never quite accurate. But there’s a new AI-powered thesaurus for Google Docs called Thesaurus Pro that gives synonyms for all of those–and more.
Updates to Destiny 14.0 1.
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#ParkwayReads Increase Reading Volume by Reading Digital Text Increasing the reading of informational text is especially important for learning in the content areas, and informational content reigns supreme on the Internet. To use current events as one example, the currency of information and use of media to communicate the news is unparalleled. To begin, it is recommend bookmarking quality sites that students read on a regular basis. Many educational publishers and organizations provide free online content, including articles and media about current events, some of which are generated by students themselves. A few favorites include the following: ● ● ● ●
Time for Kids Weekly Reader National Geographic Kids National Geographic Kids' blogs
See more vobaulary building strategies at: www.readingrockets.org
Visual Change: Font color change and icon changes were included, but the placement of everything in the standard catalog is the same. Follett also says they have gotten some complaints about the font changes, and are looking to further tweak it in the future. Branding Change: So is the Brytewave App is no longer. Follett Shelf is now called Destiny Discover. Universal Search is now also called Destiny Discover (Universal Search and Follett Shelf are now the same thing). Essentially, they're moving towards a more unified platform over time, and this is one step. Chrome Extension: It's called the Destiny Discover extension, and is now available in the Chrome store. This inserts Destiny Discover results into Google web search results when using Chrome. They are displayed in a black banner at the top to clearly demarcate them from the regular results, and include cover art. Each item can be clicked to take you to its entry in the catalog search or, if it's emedia, straight to the Destiny Discover media page for the book, allowing instant usage. Example screenshot:
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If you wish to add this to any of your devices with Chrome, it's available in the Chrome store now. A one time setup, which involves simply selecting your school, is required after installation. There's also a short video tutorial explaining how to set it up and showing results: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa_cFvGP6PM
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Fourth, Follett has announced they will no longer update Destiny Quest. All of its features are gradually going to be implemented in Destiny Discover, and then at some later date Quest will be phased out. They say this is at least one year away. Thanks for the great updates, Jim.
What does it mean to be a librarian in the digital age?
Student Opportunities Little Readers Festival Library Headquarters is hosting a Little Readers Festival on Saturday, September 24 from 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. This free event will feature a variety of activities for families including the PNC Mobile Learning Adventure, games, a fire truck, story time with Llama Llama, performances by Juggling Jeff, and a visit from the Bubble Bus. Each child in attendance will receive a punch card for a free book from Ready Readers, a free treat from Murray's Shaved Ice Truck, and another free book from SLCL. Learn more.
Personalized Professional Learning Parkway Credit One option for earning Parkway credits is to participate in webinars and events, such as Edcamps, SLAA events, makerspace open houses etc. In order to earn participation credits watch the webinar or go to an event, then record your participation at tinyurl.com/webinars-events. Remember that district credit is based on the number of clock hours that you participate. Credit is issued as follows: six clock hours will get you .5 credit and 12 clock hours will get you 1 credit. connectedlearningstl.org
What does it mean to be a librarian in the digital age?
Sign up & More Info
Snapshots ● ● ●
Kindergarten check out books for the first time at Claymont Bring Chromebooks to the library for lessons at Mason Ridge New 30 minute classes at Ross
Contact Information Bill Bass Innovation Coordinator: Instructional Technology & Library Media Twitter: billbass Kim Lindskog Library Support Specialist Twitter: klindskog
Vendor Contacts: Undelivered Post Dispatch: Russell Ham rham@post-dispatch.com Undelivered USA Today & New York Times: Wesley Trammell wtrammell@ebsco.com
Amy Johnson Digital Learning Specialist Twitter: ajohnson106 Nancy Ikemeyer Administrative Assistant Skype: nancy,ikemeyer.pearl Twitter: NancyIkemeyer
What does it mean to be a librarian in the digital age?
Access the Library Services Webpage using the QR code or www.tinyurl.com/libserv