Volume 7 | Issue 7
Know & Go Updates @your Library Updates & Reminders
Just a friendly reminder that we will be transitioning to Rycor in order to collect fines. The transition is to take place January 21st. Some points to recall from our PD day at the beginning of January: ● This system allows schools to get away from collecting cash and checks in effort to reduce the possibility of a state level audit ● Library fines will go back to the librarians in the building - The process is still being clarified as to how the fines will be cleared out of Destiny. If school’s have a bookstore personnel, they will clear the fines in Destiny. Be on the lookout for documentation from Kelly. ● Parents will not longer pay fines directly to the librarian. ● Twice a week fines will manually be updated in the system between Destiny and Rycor ● There is a refund/credit process in place but has not been disclosed as of yet. ● Parents will have access to the barcode not the library book title due to the Library Bill of Rights that states patrons have the right to privacy and confidentiality privacy in their library use. More information coming soon.
Challenged Books As a library program, we champion intellectual freedom but at the point of understanding our communities. Know there is a difference between selection and promotion of questionable resources. There are several factors that affect how a book challenge process would happen. The first step would be to let Bill know if there are books in question from libraries or classroom, so the appropriate action may be taken. More information can be found on the Library Services site. You will need to log into the site, click on About Section and then click on the board approved Policies & Procedures.
Library Links On the Library Services Resource Hub website at bit.ly/pkwylibhub you will find: ● The many resource websites created to support teaching and learning ● Library Program - guiding documents ● All the helpful links from previous newsletters ● Librarian Talking Points ● Makerspace approaches, purchasing, and reflection survey
Additional Notes EOY Meeting - Save the date As part of the library program, we will still continue to create a year-end, reflective narrative based on any data collected and anecdotal information. This narrative to be shared with both Bill and myself should be constructed in a digital format such as Google Drive, Smore, Pictochart, Sutori, etc.This reflection provides a great deal of insight to your individual school program and helps make connections across schools and other programs. The meeting will be Wednesday, April 29th at Grand Glaize, Meeting Room 2 at 4:30. Library Narrative - It is my distinct hope that this narrative gives you an opportunity to reflect on your library program and highlight what is special about your school and your library program in relation to the Future Ready Librarian framework, ISTE Student Standards, or AASL Standards for Learners. The narrative is an opportunity to advocate and highlight the amazing things that you do in your building, so think of this as a campaign to let your community (think about the larger audience) know what a great job you do and how crucial you are to the students in the district. Please know that there is no specific format, length, or approach that you are required to follow in this narrative but the way the library is presented represents your practice, program and space. Check out the suggestions and tips for the EOY narrative at canva.com. When sharing the narrative, please submit your shareable link on this Google Form. As a part of your building evaluation, you may need to complete an ePortfolio in PEERS that you share with your principal. If you are comfortable doing so, please share your ePortfolio with Bill as well before the end of the year. Reflecting on these pieces helps him to know what to focus on for you in terms of development and how to approach our long term goals. Please let us know if you have concerns, thoughts or questions. We welcome any feedback that you may want to share.
Steve Goodfriend has accepted a position with a Literacy Acceleration company. Dennis Kelsch will be your new contact regarding your interest in adding additional Gale resources.
Dennis Kelsch, K12 Education Consultant Dennis.kelsch@cengage.com CELL: 951.642.4103
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Additional Notes Digital Literacy - 4th & 5th Grade Teacher PD On January 2nd Francesca Kottkamp, Elementary Instructional Specialist, and Amy Johnson presented PD on Digital Literacy with all 4th and 5th grade teachers. She is sharing the presentation with you so you would be aware of tools and strategies that were shared in case teachers come to you with questions. Feel free to reach out to Amy of Francesca if you have any questions. Strategies to Support Digital Literacy
Leading Beyond the Library Credit Course in PEERS Just as a friendly reminder, if you signed up for the fall semester of this course and have not finished you have until May 15th. If you would like to join this class for second semester, please register in PEERS before February 10th. This course and all assignments will need to be submitted by May 15th for fall and spring participants. Credit will be issued after the May 15th date for both semesters.
Destiny Discover Updates: Choose how student reviewers' names appear A new setting lets you choose how reviewers are identified to other users on the title details page. Identify reviewers using any of the following: anonymous, first name and last initial, last name, first name, initials only. For more information, see Set Up Review Preferences. Enhancement: Improved cover image display Previously, some titles had cover images that looked different, depending on the page you were on. Now, cover images are consistent throughout Destiny Discover.
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Curates Digital Resources & Tools Helping students become Knowledge Constructors through the curation of information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions (ISTE Student Standards 3C).
A few weeks ago a vendor presentation was given at the ETA (Educational Technology Association) of STL meeting and they are offering educators real-world learning though a growing library of 20 digital programs and no cost. EverFi is thinking about education differently. They are able to bring these K-12 blended learning programs to educators by bringing together the public and private sectors to change the way education is delivered. These may be a interesting resource to share with teachers, but also to supplement our Domains of Learning: Research, Digital Age Literacy, and Creativity, Discovery & Exploration. EVERFI's digital curricula are interactive, game-based lessons and include programs in: Financial Education (some Parkway high schools are already using this program), STEM & Career Readiness (maybe a great resource for the library), Social & Emotional (SEL) (there maybe a library application for this program), Health & Wellness (in use with some Parkway high schools), Cultural Literacy (library possibly), and Summer Learning. This resource has the potential to not only support curriculum but also service as a starting point with the Parkway Personalized Learning initiative.
Sample teacher/librarian dashboard.
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Empowers Students as Creators Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.
Creating Animated Character Videos Creating scenes of books encourages learners to develop a critical eye for writing and plots as they engage in visual and multimedia content. This type of creation is perfect for the makerspace that focuses on novel engineering and meets many ISTE Standards for Students in the areas of Empowered Learner, Digital Citizen, Knowledge Constructor, Innovative Designer, and Creative Communicator. Adobe Spark Video and WeVideo are safe to use digital tools with younger students and offer enough design elements to engage older students.
Celebrate Digital Learning Day - February 27th! Digital Learning Day was started as a way to actively spread innovative practices and ensure that all youth have access to high-quality digital learning opportunities no matter where they live. Started in 2012, Digital Learning Day has provided a powerful venue for education leaders to highlight great teaching practice and showcase innovative teachers, leaders, and instructional technology programs that are improving student outcomes. This grassroots effort blossomed into a massive nationwide celebration as teachers realized that Digital Learning Day is not about technology, it’s about learning. Digital Learning Day promotes the effective use of modern day tools afforded to every other industry to improve the learning experience in K-12 public schools. What will your students create, discover, or explore on this day? Join the movement at digitallearningday.org!
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Empowers Students as Creators
MakerEd
Tinkering with Light and Shadow In this maker-centered activity Tinkering with Light & Shadow, based on Light Play. students were given a simple LED, a translucent plastic sheet, and a variety of everyday objects. They quickly began to experiment and explore the relationship between light and shadow—such as how angle, distance, and movement of a light source affects the geometry of their shadows. Students will quickly discover that familiar materials—such as toys, feathers, and art supplies—created beautiful silhouettes and patterns that led to storytelling alongside making scientific discoveries. See the article in its entirety at MakerEd. What are the qualities that we value in this activity? ● New uses for everyday items Seeing common objects such as strawberry baskets, plastic mesh, toys, doilies behave in surprising ways leads to unexpected experiments with, and new tests of these things. ● This is a playful and inventive way of exploring light, shadows, reflections, refraction, symmetry, and motion. ● Collaborative Opportunities Sharing each participant’s kinetic sculpture in a collaborative “light wall” is a good way for participants to contribute to the group’s understanding of the activity. ● Reusable materials and components This activity utilizes a set of materials that can be used again and again, by a variety of participants, in a variety of ways. See how to create the set for the light and shadow activity at www.exploratorium.edu. View the Light Play activity guide PDF View this activity on Instructables (in depth look)
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Empowers Students as Creators
Paper Circuits in the Makerspace! These paper circuit Valentines are a perfect holiday project for schools and libraries. Project tutorials include FREE printable templates and most can be completed in 15 minutes.
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Builds Instructional Partnerships Model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning. (ISTE Student Standards 2C).
You Know Students are Going to Use Google Search All of us use Google Search but what if we could search better with students. Google Search Education in conjunction with A Google a Day Challenges put together a series of lessons to help students to use search meaningfully in their schoolwork. The Search Literacy lessons and A Google A Day classroom challenges are broken down based on level of expertise in search: Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced. A Google A Day challenges help students put their search skills to the test, and to get libraries and classroom engaged and excited about using technology in the student-driven learning process. Google also has a Tips and Tricks 17 X 22� poster that shares some dofieres to type into the Google Search box to refine the search and get better results.
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Builds Instructional Partnerships Model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning. (ISTE Student Standards 2C). This map shows from www.businessinsider.com the most commonly spoken language in every US state, excluding English and Spanish.
Paris Museums Put 100,000 Images Online for Unrestricted Public Use Paris MusĂŠes, a collection of 14 museums in Paris have recently made high-res digital copies of 100,000 artworks freely available to the public on their collections website. Artists with works in the archive include Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, CĂŠzanne, and thousands of others. Reported by kottke.org
A Black History Month Collection Full Of Resources, PebbleGo, Newsela, eBooks & More! This is a yearly event celebrating the achievements and recognizing the role African Americans in the history of the United States. Shannon McClintock-Miller brought together the Black History Month Collection by Destiny to share the best resources and practices for your celebration.
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Designs Collaborative Spaces Provides flexible spaces that promote inquiry, creativity, collaboration, and community.
Maryville University
What are your educational first impressions of the library? This article, written by Robert Dillon, is about first impressions for schools rather than the library but could easily be transferred to the library space. The article is intended to support leaders (which include you as the librarian) as they think about how to represent their space through intentional design. There are five areas to consider: ●
School Library Signage Does your school signage welcome or warn?
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Entering the Building Library What do people experience when they first enter your building?
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Newsletters Digital first impressions matter as well. Every digital newsletter that ends up in the email inbox has about 3-5 seconds to capture the attention of the reader. Lead with good news, images and video. People want to feel the energy coming from an email!
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Office Circulation Area The best school office environments welcome people as though they have arrived for a great feast at someone’s home. They say “We’re glad you’re here and we want your visit to be in an incredible one.”
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Athletic and Activities Facilities 6 Zones of the Active Learning Theory What impression does the library send to visitors?The details matter. In a world where there’s a rush to buy our way into a new school design, it is important to balance new purchases with a culture focused on the details, such as the makerspace, technology hub, community space, reading nooks, and collaboration areas.
To read the full article go to www.smartbrief.com
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Leads Beyond the Library
Digital Citizenship: Are Schools R.E.A.D.Y.? Teachers and librarians have long understood the importance of teaching and modeling good global citizenship in their classrooms, promoting positive interactions between students, and taking time to focus on social etiquette and how to treat peers with respect. Digital citizenship requires the same daily instruction. In today’s classrooms, it is just as important that students understand what kinds of behaviors are acceptable online, and help them become smart, responsible and respectful online users. And when you teach digital citizenship, you help create a positive school culture that supports safe and responsible technology use. ~ Matthew X. Joseph, Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment at Leicester Public Schools, MA K-12 leaders can begin to cultivate a culture of positive online use by following the R.E.A.D.Y. strategy: ●
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R: Remind students to be mindful of what information and opinions they make public. Educate students on the positive aspects of online use and how it can be a vehicle for driving the greater good. E: Encourage students to step away from their devices when hanging out with friends; offline peer relations and soft skills are just as important as online ones. A: Accountability is key. Encourage digital accountability by creating a student digital use guide for online use that teaches students how to properly and safely use the internet. Districts may have a responsible use policy, but a classroom/library reminder always helps. D: Demonstrate and model good digital citizenship to promote a culture of positive online use. Incorporate lessons about the difference between sharing and copyright infringement. Content and photos are easily found and it may feel like anything on the internet is up for grabs, but copyright and intellectual property laws protect almost all online content. Y: Be a culture of “Yes” when it comes to launching digital tools. Too often, a school blocks or locks down everything to be safe. Instead, start teaching positive digital citizenship by opening tools such as YouTube and Twitter, and teaching and modeling the positive uses of those tools. But do be cognisant of the Terms of Service when it comes to data collection and students under the age of 13. This strategy and the full article can be found at districtadministration.com
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
#ParkwayReads - Literacy Inspires and supports the reading lives of both learners and teachers. Creates inclusive collections that acknowledge and celebrate diverse experiences and provide instructional opportunities to empower learners as effective users and creators of information and ideas.
2020-2021 MO Readers Awards Final Lists Released The Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Readers Awards Committees are pleased to announce the Final Nominees for the 2020-2021 Readers Awards! Visit the Readers Awards page of the MASL website to learn more about each award.
3 Alternatives to Reading Logs
Information Literacy
A common practice—reading logs—may sap a student’s motivation to read, according to a 2012 study. When students were required to track the number of minutes they read, their interest and attitudes toward reading fell dramatically according an article at www.edutopia.org So what can we do instead? Allie Thrower, a fifth-grade teacher, ditched the reading logs and paired students together who would challenge each other academically while being emotionally supportive. See the video above to see the three alternatives to reading logs.
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Personalized Professional Learning Educators continually improve their practice by learning from and with others and exploring proven and promising practices that leverage technology to improve student learning.
EdCamp STL ● ● ●
Would you like to engage and collaborate with teachers from beyond your building or district? Are you curious to hear how the latest ideas in education are actually being used in other classrooms? Are you wanting to try something out, but not sure where to start? Do you want to participate in FREE professional development?
If you answered “Yes!” to any or all of the above questions, we encourage you to join hundreds of teachers from around the greater St. Louis metro and beyond at EdCampSTL! It will be held on Saturday, February 29th, hosted at Ladue Horton Watkins High School (1201 South, Warson Rd, St. Louis, MO 63124). Click here to register now! (bit.ly/edcampstl) The premise of EdCamps is to ● bring educators together to discuss what they want to learn - yes you help decide session topics! ● engage in a discussion, not listen to a presentation. ● be a FREE professional development opportunity. ● grow your professional learning community. ● be encouraged about the work we do! EdCamps are a powerful movement in education, redefining how teachers think about their learning. An EdCamp is an “Unconference” - meaning that there are no pre-set sessions; it is truly about what the participants want to discuss. For more information about EdCamps watch this short video. Follow them on: Twitter: @LearningSTL #EdCampSTL Facebook: Connected Learning @ConnectedLearningSTL
Parkway Credit Available 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.
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?
Personalized Professional Learning Top 50 Librarian Blogs and Websites for Librarians in 2020 While this site is set up to promote blogs and drive traffic to blogs, it is a great list for personal learning in the library field. It looks at who the influencers in the field are. Happy reading at feedspot.com
L
ibrarian Reflection
Reflection is an integral part of continued growth in librarianship. This reflective practice is intended to deepen practice, challenge our approaches, and drive our learning. What needs to change in terms of your practice, the library space, or programming in the next 3, 5, or 10 years?
Contact Information Bill Bass Innovation Coordinator: Instructional Technology & Library Media Twitter: @billbass Kim Lindskog Library Support Specialist Twitter: @klindskog Amy Johnson Digital Learning Specialist Twitter: @ajohnson106 Nancy Ikemeyer Administrative Assistant Twitter: @NancyIkemeyer
Vendor Contacts: Contact for Post Dispatch inquires: service@stltoday.com
Access the Library Services Webpage using the QR code or www.pkwy.info/pkwylibrary
Ebsco Host, Undelivered USA Today & New York Times: Misty Fields MFields@ebsco.com Dennis Kelsch, K12 Education Consultant
Back Issues of Know & Go: Current
Dennis.kelsch@cengage.com
951.642.4103
& Previous Years
What does it mean to be librarian in the digital age?