School Library Month @ the Mira Costa Library

Statistical and Visual Snapshots

We were on Spring Break for the first week of National School Library Month, but we made up for it in activities during the last three. The American Library Association (ALA) and its school library division, The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) asked school librarians to complete and share a “snapshot week” of statistics for our libraries. Here is Mira Costa’s snapshot, from April 25 to 29:

School Library Snapshot

Some of these figures are pretty amazing, I think. For example, we estimated 2,511 student library visits not counting those there for scheduled class visits. These were all students who chose to visit to study, visit with friends, use the computers, do research, participate in our Geeks or Library Club, use our green screen or 3D printer, enjoy our craft table, play chess, and more before school, during Snack, lunch, office hours, lunch, or after school. And, we had 46 different class visits, with students working on and getting help from me and their classroom teachers with research or selecting books. The figure I really wish were higher is our book circulation. Students make lots of use of our electronic resources; I’d love to see more checking out books for pleasure reading. So many of them tell me they are too busy with homework and other activities to read anything beyond what is required for class. I wish they could find more time for reading!

Numbers are one thing. Here’s another snapshot view of the library, with some of the photos of busy students I took during the month of April:

School Library Month Photo Snapshot

Library Activities

As you can see, students are busy participating in lessons, learning and using research skills, studying, using our green screen, playing chess, designing and printing with our 3D printer, “speed dating” with books, enjoying crafts, and, often, just “hanging out.”

Some of the class research projects I assisted students with included:

  • Ms. Meyer’s French students investigated different neighborhoods in Paris in order to write a business proposal for a cafe in their area of choice. To help them with this project, I showed them how to create customized maps using My Maps in Google Maps, how to use Diigo.com for storing bookmarks of sites, and how to find Creative Commons and Public Domain images for their project.
  • Mr. Zeoli’s Freshmen English classes learned about topics related to the Shakespearean era that will enrich their upcoming study of Romeo and Juliet.
  • Ms. Hutchinson and Ms. Gabbert’s freshman English classes explored topics affecting teenagers to enhance their reading of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher  in the Rye
  • Ms. Camaano’s Sophomore English classes investigated topics to help them better understand George Orwell’s 1984.
  • Ms. Sieker’s 1980’s Literature Senior Seminar students each investigated a topic relevant to the era of the 1980’s.

In addition, Ms. Clarke’s Freshman and Sophomore English students all visited to “speed date” young adult literature and select independent reading books. It was exciting seeing so many students leave with a book they found on one of the different genre tables.

Ms. Chen, Mr. Brown, and Ms. Nielsen’s classes also visited and took advantage of our library computers for class assignments.

Library Art: Accordion Books

We have been delighted to display “Themed Accordion Books” made by Ms. Park’s Art 1 students. These photos definitely don’t do them justice; please come by and see them.

Themed Accordion Books

Themed Accordion Books

Themed accordion books

Your Librarians Activities Outside the Library

Outside of the library, I was delighted to participate as one of the co-anchors of TL (Teacher Librarian) News Night on April 18. The topic this month “Providing Books for Diverse Populations.” Our amazing guests included  Paula Chase, Author of The Del Rio Bay series and co-founder of The Brown Bookshelf; L. Divine, Writer and Author of @DramaHighRafranz Davis, Executive Director of Professional & Digital Learning for Lufkin ISD; and Librarian Kathy Burnette, a member of the 2014 ALSC Website Advisory Committee and the 2014 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Committee. The discussion of the importance of supporting books that depict diverse characters, both to allow students to see themselves in books and to help them understand and empathize with people who are different from them, is one everyone will benefit from and enjoy watching. Here is the recording:

Please watch!

In addition, I served as co-moderator of a live Twitter chat for the #TLChat group on April 11 on the topic of Rethinking library spaces & learning space design. Here is a link to the chat archive.

I also had the pleasure on April 27 of co-leading, with Shannon Miller, a webinar for AASL on Storyboard That, a wonderful digital storytelling tool that can be used for storyboarding scripts, telling a story, and as a graphic organizer in so many ways. The recording of our webinar is for members AASL members only, but do visit the Storyboard That site and ask me for more information. Here is a storyboard I made, and also demonstrated how to create, during the webinar:

SLM Storyboard That Story

March 7 – April 1 at the Library

The month of March flew by at the Mira Costa Library. Here are some of the highlights of our busy month before Spring Break.

Class Research Projects

As always, we had lots of different classes coming to work on research projects. Two of our new English teachers, Keely Gabbert and Maddie Hutchinson, brought their 11th grade English classes for several days of research on culture in the 1920’s in conjunction with their study of The Great Gatsby, with supporting lessons by me.  We talked about quality database sources; how to do citations and annotations; and how to evaluate sources from the open web. Here is the form we had students complete to help them evaluate sources they found on the open web:

I adapted this form for our students from my librarian colleague Glen Warren’s form. Many thanks to Glen for sharing his form with me.

Glen Marx’s 12th Grade Government and Psychology classes visited for a lesson to help launch their research paper assignment. Here are the presentation slides I used during that lesson:

Other Class Visits

In addition to research, Aaron Braskin and Ken Brenan’s Robotics class came to work on modeling 3D chess pieces in Tinkercad. Mr. Braskin and Mr. Benan’s Computer Programming students completed this same assignment recently. You can see information about it in a this previous post. Here is a link to the assignment. While there is other software available for 3D modeling, we love Tinkercad since it is 1) almost completely intuitive with very little learning curve, 2) it’s in the cloud, and 3) it’s free! Here is one of the first chess pieces completed:

Student with chess piece

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A lot of the challenge of this assignment is figuring what our printers can and cannot handle. Often, a piece will need to be tweaked to print properly, so perseverance is frequently part of the learning experience.  We will be printing the rest of the chess pieces after we get back from Spring Break next week.

Another class visiting the library was Anita Rossell’s support class for English Language Learners. Ms. Rossell and I have been collaborating on an assignment to have the students document their year at Mira Costa. Working in pairs, the students will script and produce a documentary-style film with several different scenes about their experiences. For one of the scenes, they will take advantage of our new green screen. (see below.) I can’t wait to see the films they make. I’ll be sharing more about this project as the students proceed. Last week, the students worked on storyboarding their film scripts, using StoryboardThat.com, an easy-to-use, very flexible tool for digital storytelling I was able to share with them.

Maker Fair

We held our third maker fair in the library on March 24. The Geeks Club, Library Club, Girls Coding Club, and Robotic Club all did a great job of hosting activities. Here are some photos of students doing 3D modeling with Tinkercad, participating in the Robotic activity, making pinwheels, using Google Cardboard, and more:
Maker Fair 3-24-16

Green Screen!

The library just got and set up a green screen kit, which students can use for photography and film making projects. The green screen allows us to take photos in front of the screen and then use software to make the green background transparent so that we can lay the image on a different background. Here is what our setup looks like:

green screen

Green screen

So far, we have been using Do Ink‘s Green Screen app on our library iPad to take the photos and lay them on other backgrounds. To assure that we are respecting intellectual property, we found all the backgrounds by searching Pixabay for copyright-free images or Photosforclass for Creative Commons images. To make students aware of this resource for film making, I started advertising last Wednesday that they can come in and have their photos taken, and some of our Geeks Club and Library Club members have pitched in to take the photos. Here are some of the fun photos we have taken so far:

Green Screen Fun

We also took a number of photos when Stacy Cabrera’s students used our green screen room for a “speak easy” party celebrating their completion of The Great Gatsby on April 1:

Stacy Cabrera's English students mock "Speakeasy " after completing The Great

Individual students and classes are invited to schedule time in our green screen room for projects. As I mentioned about, Ms. Rossell’s students will be using the green screen as part of their documentary film project.

Hokki Stools and Legos!

And, we have four great new Hokki stools. Students and teachers alike are loving them!

Mr. Brown on new stool
Teacher William Brown trying out one of the new Hokki stools

hokki stools!

We also just got a big box of legos and Sarah Geller, one of our library volunteers, donated some lovely origami paper. Students are enjoying unwinding at our craft table drawing and making items with the origami paper and legos:

craft table

craft table

craft table

 

November 9 – 20 at the Library

Research

The library was busy with research visits the last two weeks. Mr. Holland’s Freshman English classes visited for a mythology project and learned about good resources, bibliography, and note taking, while Ms. Vaughan’s Freshman English classes learned similar skills while doing research on topics related to Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I also taught her class a lesson on being “Quotation Savvy.

Digital Citizenship

The last two days before Thanksgiving Break, I taught a two-day digital citizenship lesson to Mr. Davidson’s Health classes. On Day 1, we talked about online safety, etiquette, digital footprint, and respecting intellectual property, roughly following these slides:

Here are some of the thoughts the students shared about what digital citizenship is in Period 0:

Here’s what Period 1 students shared:

For homework, students completed this short activity, which had them searching for themselves on Google, learning about modifying Facebook settings, and sharing something they leaned so far. Here were a few of the comments students shared of what they learned:

“I learned that it is very important to never put anything bad up online because in the future it could possibly be used against you or haunt you. I learned that getting involved in positive online use can benefit your skills and interests on certain topics (ex: blogs). Lastly, I learned that the Internet is very helpful, but should not be taken for granted because anything and everything you use it for can be traced.”

“1) Blogging is a positive source to interact with others and to share your thoughts. 2) If you are not comfortable with the whole world seeing something, don’t post it or make it visible on the Internet. ”

“I learned how to find pictures labeled for reuse. I also learned about copyright and how not to infringe on the rules. I finally learned how to be respectful online.”

On Day 2, the students explored ways they could learn about and share online about topic they care about. They found blogs, Twitter feeds, and copyright-friendly images on their topics, and completed this form:

Books We’re Thankful For

During the week before the break, some of the visitors to the library shared books they are thankful they read:

Books We're Thankful For

International Gaming Day

We also participating in International Gaming Day last week, and a number of students enjoyed playing board games in the library:

Gaming Day

 

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Sharing with the Science Department

During our Office Hours/Collaboration Time on Wednesday, November 18, I visited with the Science Department faculty and shared some of the options available at the library, including our 3D printers, littleBits, and research databases. I also showed them the free Daqri Elements 4D augmented reality app for exploring chemical elements, which I learned about at the American Association of School Librarians conference. Look for it in the app store!

Here’s the ethanol molecule I printed on our 3D printer to share with the science teachers:

Ethanol Molecule

 

Maker Fair Featured in La Vista

I was pleased to see our Maker Fair featured in a La Vista article. Thank you, Ellie Shalvarjian! Here’s the link.

Oct. 6 -17 at the Mira Costa Library

Research & Other Library Lessons

While the library is busy with all sorts of activities – reading, studying, using the computers for writing essays, accessing information, and more – research is always a dominant theme. Now that the Freshman Orientations are behind us, the library is booked for lots of research projects. During the last two weeks, I prepared resources and taught short lessons on research skills and sources with Ms. Vaughan’s 9th grade English class, Ms. Sieker’s and Ms. Cook’s 12th grade English classes, Mr. Timberlake’s Model UN students, and Mr. Davidson’s Biology students. I also taught several of these classes about plagiarism avoidance and respect for copyright. Here is some of the material I have shared when doing lessons on plagiarism and respect for copyright:

Over the last year or so, Google has been making it much easier to give credit to sources used in Google Presentations/Slides and Google Docs. For several classes working on online presentations, I shared how students can find images using the Research Tool in Google Slides and why it is important to give credit. Here is a screencast I prepared a while back that includes information I shared live with students:

For a number of the classes visiting these last two weeks, I also helped students use EasyBib.com, a great online tool for storing research sources, creating citations, taking notes, and evaluating sources. Mira Costa has a premium account for EasyBib, which gives us ad-free access, and adds the note taking and website evaluation tools. See this page on the library website for help with EasyBib.

Library Club All Our Yesterdays Discussion

Some Library Club members during our October 3 Hangout
Some Library Club members during our October 3 Hangout

The Mira Costa Library Club served as host for our monthly “Somewhat Virtual Book Club” Google+ hangout discussion of All Our Yesterdays on October 8. Author Cristin Terrill spent the entire hour with us, and was extremely generous in replying to all the students and librarians’ questions about the book, her writing craft, and her plans for future books. We also had four other schools attending. I was very proud of our students who served as the moderators of the discussion. Here’s the Google+ Hangout recording of the session:

We are looking forward to our next session with We Were Liars by E. Lockhart on November 5. Our Library Club also meets during lunch each Tuesday, and welcomes any new members.

I was also invited to participate in “Google Rocks! Hawaii,” a weekly Google+ Hangout for Hawaii educators led by Linda Lindsay, Teacher Librarian at Seabury Academy on the island of Maui, on October 14. The theme of the show that week was book clubs, and I shared about our “Somewhat Virtual Book Club.” Here’s a link to the recording.

The Geeks

Geeks
Some of our Geek team

Our Geeks (formerly called the Geek Squad, now the Geeks) are ready to provide help to both students and staff with tech issues of any kind. Please take advantage of their services! You can get help during lunch Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday, after school Monday through Thursday, or by appointment. Contact me or fill out this form to request an appointment. The Geeks also hold club meetings on Thursdays, and welcome any new members.

Are you challenged by a tech issue-

Blogging

Señora Rossell’s class visited the library again to work on their blogging project. See my last posting to learn about this activity.

Planning Work

As your librarian, I also do a lot of planning with teachers to get ready for class visits and other projects. During the last two weeks, I prepared resources for Ms. Yoon’s Biology classes, and met with Ms. Clarke, Ms. Rossell, Ms. Chen, and Mr. Marx to learn about their classes needs for upcoming visits. I am also a member of a group of teachers led by William Brown planning an interdisciplinary project we will launch in the Spring on the theme of water and the current water drought in California. In addition, Mira Costa is forming a new Curriculum Committee. We had our first meeting last week, and I volunteered to serve as Chair of this group.

Make Bibliography Easy with EasyBib

EasyBib

The Mira Costa Library has just added a great new tool, EasyBib Premium School Edition, to make citing sources, taking notes online, and evaluating the creditability of online sources easier for students. Don’t wait for a class visit to take advantage of this great new resource. Come by the library or email Mrs. Lofton for information about how to create an EasyBib account, get access to our Premium School Account with our Mira Costa coupon code, and take advantage of all the help it can offer you when you do research.