Staff Development UbD

A few weeks ago, I taught a staff development lesson on our new iPad 2s.  This lesson was specifically for 2nd grade teachers and apps that they could use in the classroom.  We started with basics (installing new apps, creating folders, moving them), as needed then launched into 3 apps.
The first was AppsFire Free (a great source for finding free apps).  I really like this one because you can "personalize your streams" to focus on different categories of apps, like: productivity and education.  It also catches those apps that designers make free for only a few hours or a day - and as long as I check the app during that time, I can get those apps while free.
Second, I introduced them to ToonTastic - an amazing app with many options of how it can be used in the classroom.  My own students (and personal children) have all played around with this app and love it.  I like that it is simple to use and understand, one very short lesson and my first graders were running with it.  Basically, the user is able to create an animated movie, complete with animated characters, background music, and their own dialogue recorded.  Some of the uses include a new version of book report, sharing researched information, creative writing (narrative writing standards), and of course, good old fun (behavior management!).  The teachers were very excited about this app and during "play time" at the end of the lesson nearly all downloaded, installed, and tried out this app.  One teacher commented on a special needs student who does not like the physical aspect of writing and how he could use this to complete a report.
Finally, we looked at ShowMe which is basically a white board on the iPad, but it also records all you draw/write AND everything said.  Our school has "number talks" where the teacher leads students through discussions of modeling numbers with different strategies (that's a very short description - google "number talks" for more info - they are fabulous for getting kids to "talk" math and understand it on a much deeper level).  I have used the ShowMe app to tell a child to model a number talk with other students.  The app allows me to move to another group while they do this, but records all they say/do/write.  I can watch it later and correct anything they need to work on, but also know how they remained on task - and use it for documentation purposes.

I really enjoyed the staff development.  For one thing, this was a topic the teachers wanted and became excited about.  We enjoy technology and use it so much more when we know how to use it with our students.  They were very attentive.  Some of my favorite parts were when they started offering suggestions of ways to use these apps with their grade-level - they were taking ownership in relation to their standards AND that a few days later, one of the teachers found me with her iPad to have me watch a ToonTastic movie some of her students had created.  That is what this was all about: giving them apps that they could use, discussing how to use, offering guidance, and providing a way for them to do something different and captivating with their students.  I provided them with a link to a site I created with tutorials and suggestions for uses:  2nd Grade Must-Have Apps

I hope that next year, as Media Specialist, I will be able to do more of this!

Monthly activities

I completed a memo to the principal for the media center's monthly activities in March.  I knew this was a busy month, but seeing all the activities and circulation listed out made it clear just how busy it was!  This memo was actually kind of fun to complete, because it also allowed me to see how to pull these different types of reports available through Destiny.  https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bxj3J6g-10tmQzdLMXdYTnhUdG0weklzeFpCd1VZQQ

In other exciting news relating to media centers, I found out yesterday that I will become our school's media specialist next year!  Yeah; I'm really excited about this!

High School Day, Weeding, & Inventory

This week, Friday, I spent time at a high school media center - what a completely different "world" from the elementary (or even middle) school media centers!  The bookcases are TALLLLLLL!  Very few students came in to check out/return books - mostly for computers and research.  I even went through and "straightened" the entire fiction section (checking that books in the correct location) and only found about 6 books out of order.  I realize the students and their needs are completely different - it's just interesting to realize how different they are from one level to another.

Earlier in the week, I completed weeding my section of 600s.  In all, I weeded about 30 books - all of which had not been checked out at all in the last 3 years and we had similar or identical copies of the same book/topic. There were some that we chose to re-catalog and locate in other places (moved to picture books, science lab, etc) so that they will hopefully get more use.

I also worked on inventory of our fiction section.  The whole scanner issue gets much easier as I go.  I didn't have TOO much trouble to start, but would struggle from time to time in getting a book to actually scan.  Finally, I realized I can just hold the button in and keep moving the book and/or scanner until it gives me the "scanned" beep.  I've also become better at finding just the right angle to obtain scans quickly.  Only four more tall bookcases to go and the fiction section will be finished.  My media specialist (and site supervisor) commented that she plans to start scanning/inventorying items in classrooms this coming week since we start testing (CRCTs, benchmarks) the following week and she won't be able to go in classrooms for those five days.

Middle School day

Yesterday, I went and spent the day at Cowan Road Middle School with their Media Specialist.  Like the other media centers in the county, paraprofessionals will not be kept in position for next year.  Unfortunately (although understandably), they are looking for jobs and taking them when they become available.  So, the SLMS there has no parapro.  She's been without for about a month now.
While there, I helped process books to get on the shelves (adding location stickers, Lexile stickers, clear cover stickers, stamping insides with school names and bar code number) and spent some time helping with Destiny Quest.  This media center has only held SLMS for about 2 years at any time...cataloging in Destiny has not been consistent.  She showed me how to change the label and re-save them in Destiny.  I kind of wondered why it really mattered if you still knew where the item was.  She explained that TitleWave (and other similar companies) have a program where you can upload the school's titles and it will help you match what you need...with all the different coding, these programs were ineffective.
I found that there were similarities and differences between the middle and elementary school media centers...but I now know that I would also enjoy a middle school media center!

Media display weeded!

Okay, I didn't weed my media center display, but I photographed the display to include here...and discussed, practiced weeding in the media center. I will spend more time next week actually completing a section of weeding.

So...to my display:

With National Poetry month in April, we got an early start with my display. I centered on Shel Silverstein, because I think he works for both younger AND older elementary grades! I really liked how it turned out. The virtual component of the display is a glogster I created for teachers and students to use at school. The link will be posted on our school's media center page.
Here's a link for you:  http://allisonkbaker.edu.glogster.com/shel-silverstein/

The outside as you can see was
centered on The Giving Tree.

All types of Shel Silverstein books
on the bookshelf 

A giant lion (reading about himself?)
and lots of Silverstein's drawings! 

Wordle lesson

I used wordle in a lesson today for the first time ever. with 1st graders. I taught a 10-minute run through (on the ACTIVboard so they could see what I was doing) in the classroom and then we moved to the computer lab. Their task was to create a wordle about themselves (this was an introductory lesson, after all). I had them enter their name 5 times; then use words that describe themselves (relationships: daughter, sister, etc; physical: blonde, curly; things they like to do: baseball, dance, play, games; characteristics: funny, silly, smart, helpful). They decided how important each word was and entered it that number of times. Their favorite part was playing around with formats, fonts, and colors.

I was a little concerned if six and seven-year-old would get the idea of entering a word several times to show its importance. The next concern, of course, is the actual typing...it was slow, one-finger hunt and peck...but the end result - they were SO GOOD! And the kids were SO PROUD of them. I allowed them to print two (black/white) copies: one to take home and one fore me. I did take a few pics on the iPad so we have them in color, too.

A few pics so you can get the idea: They loved it - can't wait to do another. Keep in mind that they are first graders and we were in the computer lab so they didn't have the word wall and spelling dictionaries they're accustomed to using if they don't know how to spell a word. They misspelled a few words (sometimes, they misspelled one word

a few ways!) which kept the word from being as large as they wanted. I was very pleased with the results, though!
Currently, they're researching a rain forest animal so next week, they're going to create a wordle about their animal. I can't wait to see how those turn out!

Distance education module

This has been a BuSy week...back at school after ten days off (1 week for Winter Break, 1 day for Work Schedule Adjustment), lots of rain, benchmark testing, working on grad school and practicum stuff, my son's birthday, ending the basketball season for both kids, and generally just busy.

I've worked the most on the distance education module to go along with my staff development unit. This has been interesting and fun. My school is in the progress of deploying iPad2's to all homeroom teachers. My staff development will be on grade-specific apps that can be used. Finding tutorials and/or creating them has become quite an adventure! For some of the apps, I have found great video tutorials all ready to go; for others, I'm figuring out how to create them for iPad apps without simply video-ing them.

All in all, it's been an interesting and eye-opening adventure. My students are enjoying the progress because I'm trying out the apps I plan to use on them and so far, they. love. them! A couple of kids are begging for one specific app over and over...ToonTastic. It really is a great one!

Joined GAIT

GAIT?  What's that?  Georgia Association for Instructional Technology!  Yes, I joined today....well, technically, I mailed my application and check in today.  I find it humorous that for a technology association - the ONLY way to join...is snail mail!
So, who are they?  They are open to all people interested in improving education through the use of media and technology.  What do they do?  They co-sponsor an annual professional development conference, participate in the annual Georgia Library Legislative Day at the State Capitol, co-sponsor the Georgia Library Media Specialist of the Year Award, and co-sponsor the Georgia Student Media Festival.  Georgia annually has a large number of winners in AECT’s International Student Media Festival, which is hosted as part of the annual AECT Convention. GAIT is a affiliate of the AECT.
Now, I wait on an email or letter back, accepting my membership.  I'm interested to see how long that process takes.

Tech Committee

On Thursday, Feb 2, I attended the school's technology committee meeting with my supervisor.  Our school has once a month planned committee meetings, but this was a called meeting.   We recently purchased iPad 2s for all homeroom teachers in the building.  The reason for this meeting was to look at apps that we have found to this point (tech team members received the first "wave" of iPads), discuss iBooks and using it for the upcoming CCGPS planning, look into using google docs in an attempt to save server space for our school, and then...we split into two groups.  One group worked on the iPad staff user agreement and expectations for daily use.  The second group worked on an iPad training schedule and what the focus of different training sessions will need to be.
I will lead a portion of the training for my site visit in March!  All homeroom teachers should have their iPads by then and have had some time to "play" around on them.  I look forward to sharing some really great apps, troubleshooting ideas, and basic knowledge about the iPads with them.  Some teachers have already had their own personal iPads, but many are brand now to this technology.  What a great tool we now have to use with our students as we prepare them for the future.

Webinar: CCGPS-math

On Tuesday, Feb 7, I participated in a live webinar from Georgia DOE about the upcoming CCGPS - math (Common Core Georgia Performance Standards - math).  The whole thing was interesting: seeing how the new standards will affect teachers, what will change as far as standards covered and how they'll be handled, and then the whole tech aspect of a live webinar!
All the first grade teachers in our system gathered in one location to participate.  At points, it was difficult to get the info we needed because they were using a PowerPoint, but somehow in the filming aspect, only about 4/5 of it showed on the screen...we were missing part of each first word.  Fortunately, with our new iPads from our school, we were able to access the presentation online and follow along, seeing all the information! https://www.georgiastandards.org/Common-Core/Documents/Feb7_10amMath1st.pdf
This is a neat way to share information to many at one time or without having to include travel expenses, but be sure that everyone gets the exact same info.  As schools are beginning to offer virtual components to their curriculum (even high schools), this might be an interesting approach to consider.

Good-bye, grade-level and evaluation

This has been a BUSY week.  First, sadly we said good-bye to our media center paraprofessional as she moved to a new job (I wanted to add the reason quickly as I didn't want you think it was THAT sad of a good-bye).  Our system will not keep media center parapros next year so she will not be replaced now.  I'm sure my supervisor is glad that I need some time in the media center and will gladly help out with some checking out/in and shelving in there!

On Tuesday afternoon, I attended grade-level planning with my supervising media specialist.  As the grade-level teachers talked about some upcoming activities - and the teachers' new iPads, the SLMS searched through the app store for some new apps that correlated.  She found a great one that we were all excited about and I have already used in my own classroom this week - ShowMe.  It's a whiteboard on the iPad - yes, there are plenty of those - BUT this one records everything you write/draw on it AND the audio - so, I had a group of my kids today conduct their own "number talk" while it recorded their drawings and conversation.  It was great to have them on-task and I was able to go back and know exactly what they said and did.

Wednesday afternoon, we met and worked through the school media center evaluation rubric.  That thing is crazy long - ten pages!  Some of the items were easy to figure out.  Some were more difficult.  And sadly (or more frustratingly) some had to be marked basic, but had nothing to do with anything the media specialist can control.  She can't help being assigned to extra duties on a daily basis that move an area to basic! It was very eye-opening.  Guess, in the classroom, I'm accustomed to being solely responsible for my own annual evaluations - I control what is taught, displayed, and how students are handled (now, I can't control their actions all the time!), but several aspects of the media program eval cannot be controlled at all by the SLMS:  square footage of the media center, network connections, fixed/flexible scheduling, outside duties, etc.

We're out of school next week, which after as crazy as this one has been...I think is a really good thing!

Cataloging Books

Cataloged books today.  There were several exciting things about this.  Exciting thing # 1: It was kinda neat; I'm a detail-type person and finding the info, entering it, adding about 50 labels to the book (okay, not really 50, but there were...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...yes, 7 stickers on there:  AR label, bar code, shelf location label, AR color dot, then 3 clear cover stickers over those 3 locations!), and even shelving the books.  Exciting thing #2:  This completes a checklist item for practicum!  So many of the projects for practicum are time-consuming, taking days, weeks, etc to finish.  This was one done today.  It feels great to "check off" something for good.  Feels like I'm a little bit closer to finishing this thing!

Grant writing

Well, not to sound like a know-it-all, but I've written A LOT of grants.  I mean. Really. Quite a few of them.  If I had to guess, I'd go with about 20.  Some have been simple, 4-6 question type things to at least one that totaled about 34 pages (of course, it was for over $100,000 so long was logical)... to be honest, this may be one of the simplest tasks I have to work on for practicum.
Anyway, our local Partner in Education and Education Foundation offer up grants each school year.  They're later coming out this year than normal (honestly, we'd starting thinking that with all the budget cuts, this was one of them), but they're due on Sunday so that's what I've been working on piece by piece this week.  I am working on one (with a co-teacher) that we will really submit for some first grade leveled reading materials, but also one that could be submitted for the media center.
I like grant writing. I know many people think that's crazy, but I do.  Finding the right words to use, how to describe the project, its goals, how it will be measured, what outcomes we can look for. I just like it.  Receiving money to buy things for our Title I school/kids that I can't afford to do on my own...priceless.

GaETC

In November, 2011, I attended Georgia's annual educational technology conference in Atlanta.  There were so many great ideas and teachers/speakers who inspired me to try some new things at school.  A few of my favorites were the presentation by Kathy Schrock on Connecting Your Classroom to the Future: iPad Edition. Our school is in the process of purchasing ipads for teachers and many of the apps she mentioned for different types of student products will certainly be used!
Wanna check out some of her info?  Go here:  http://www.schrockguide.net/connecting-your-classroom.html

Reference Collection

This week, I met with the supervising SLMS and learned about evaluating the reference collection.  She demonstrated how to pull only the reference collection items in Destiny.  After browsing through the resulting report, I was amazed by how much smaller this collection was than I anticipated.

So, now onto going through the reference collection physically for further info and then to determine what I would purchase, replace, etc.

Scheduling

I have started working on scheduling dates to learn how to do the different aspects at my primary site.  I've also been brainstorming ideas for my school-wide media center display.  My display won't go up until later in the spring, but I'm already trying to sketch out some ideas!
My online portfolio is up and running - definitely not finished, but I am liking the overall look at this point.

Practicum Begins!

Well, I have finally made it to the semester for practicum.  It has seemed fast...and slow.  I will have one more semester after this, but since it will be summer...practicum has to be completed now!
The requirements seem a bit overwhelming at times, but after talking to my supervisor Friday afternoon, it seems a little more manageable!