presentations

Sept. 9 – 18 at the Mira Costa Library

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The last two weeks at the Mira Costa Library have been non-stop busy! Here’s a summary of just some of the activities:

Freshman Orientations Continue

Freshman orientations Library orientation

I am continuing to teach Freshman Library Orientations. (See my previous post on this.) Between Sept. 9 – 18, I hosted Ms. Vaughan’s, Mr. Heideman’s, Ms. Clarke’s, Mr. Chow’s, and Ms. Chen’s classes for the two-day program, and Ms. Wachelle’s and Ms. Wiseman’s students for their first day. I’ve been heartened by the feedback the students have been giving me orally and in their Google Forms where they share something they learned or enjoyed. Here are a few sample comments:

  • “I enjoyed collaborating on the introductory project and using lots of Apple/Google technology.”
  • “That you can check out as many books as you want! :)”
  • “Looking around the library searching for things was fun.”
  • “I enjoyed the enthusiasm of using the library and the scavenger hunt.”
  • “I enjoyed learning about all the cool stuff the library has to offer.”
  • “Well, I learned that the library is a cool place that isn’t just for school and there are all types of books I like.”
  • “I enjoyed the scavenger hunt we completed today. I think it helped me get more familiar with where things so I will be able to use the library more often and become a regular user.”
  • “I have learned that the library has many fun activities and it can help you learn your passion.”
  • “I learned what a QR Code is.”
  • “I learned about my new MBUSD account and how to make a good password.”
  • “I liked making my own slide through Google Drive.”

The most popular part of the orientation for students has definitely been creating their own slides in the class Google Slides file. I am working on a display of some of the great slides they created. Come by to see it soon! Through this activity, they learned a tool they can use on their own and to collaborate with other students on presentations in other classes. They also learned about group work. In one class, a student accidentally deleted other students’s slides. We had a learning experience discussing how to avoid interfering with another student’s work in a group project. They also got to see a great feature of Google Slides: the history option, which allowed us to restore the lost slides.

Library Orientation Video

For 10th-12th graders and website visitors, I updated the library orientation video:

Other Library Lessons

While most of the library schedule was filled with the orientations, I also hosted Mr. Geczi’s World History class and Ms. Cabrera’s 9th Grade English class for lessons on research skills as they begin research projects. With Mr. Gezci’s class, we discussed how to avoid plagiarism, how to find and evaluate sources, and how to credit them in their Works Cited. Here’s a link to the slideshow that shows some of our discussion. For Ms. Cabrera’s class, we discussed research sources and also spent time on plagiarism and respect for copyright, and how they compare. Here’s a film I showed them for some background information and to launch our discussion:

I also shared this Venn diagram with them as part of our discussion:

Plagiarism & Copyright compared

We were then able to talk about examples that fall into each of the there areas in the Venn diagram. The students are creating presentations, so they will need to know about both plagiarism and copyright as important aspects of respecting intellectual property. I am looking forward on Monday to introducing them to the built-in Research Tool in Google Slides that will make it easy for them to find and credit copyright-friendly images.

I expect to be teaching the plagiarism and respect for copyright lesson to other English classes.

Library Club Kicks Off

SWVBC Hangout
Our #SWVBC Hangout to discuss The Fault in Our Stars

The library club is now meeting each Tuesday during lunch. We also participated in our first monthly virtual discussion of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars after school last Wednesday. We have a goal this year to use Google Hangouts, and to help our students take ownership of running the software, so that gain experience in a tool that they can leverage for distance communication in other contexts.

All Our Yesterdays

The next meeting of the “Somewhat Virtual Book Club” will be Wednesday, October 8, when we will be the moderators/hosts for All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill. All MCHS students are welcome to join the club or simply to participate in the discussion of this fast-paced, time travel story taking place in a dystopian near future. Check our Google+ page for more information: bit.ly/SWVBC

The library also sponsors a second club, The Geek Squad. It will be starting up very soon, and will be selecting a new name. Stand by for more information on that group!

Your Librarian “On Air”

'Inspire Student Collaboration, Creativity, Copyright-Savvy with Slides, Search, & More' With or without GAFE, get tips on teaching students Slides/Presentations+Drive+embedded search and more to develop collaboration skills, creatively share knowledge mastered, and learn to find and cite copyright-friend images/video.

I had the opportunity during the last two weeks to be on air twice via Google+ hangouts. On September 6, I presented a session for the CUE Learning Revolution Online Summit Featuring Google for Education. As a Google Certified Teacher, I was invited to submit a presentation proposal. This event was a two-day, all-online conference conducted entirely using Google+ Hangouts. My topic was “Inspire Student Collaboration, Creativity, Copyright-Savvy with Slides, Search, & More.”
I talked about how I have become a big fan of using Google Slides with students to help them develop collaboration skills, creatively share knowledge mastered, and learn to find and cite copyright-friend images/video. A huge part of why I like Google Slides for student work is the built-in Research Tool that allows them to search for copyright-friendly  images and more and create an automatic credit for each source as they add them to their presentations. The recording of my session is available only to those who registered to attend the summit, but you can see my presentation slides here. I also post all my presentations on the library website on my Your Librarian Presents page.

GlobalTL Hangout

My second “on air” appearance was as a panel member for the Fall Kickoff Hangout for the recently-established #GlobalTL (teacher librarian) Google+ Community. This community was established by Joyce Valenza and Andy Plemmons, two teacher librarians, to facilitate Teacher Librarians connecting learners, classrooms, libraries and teachers to foster global connections and create meaningful collaboration and inquiry within and between schools. I was invited to participate on the panel to “pitch” greater participation across the U.S. and globally in the Somewhat Virtual Book Club. We had a wonderful discussion of a large variety of ways we can facilitate connections. I have also been engaging interest at Mira Costa in one of the projects Joyce Valenza is working on to connect students in environmental inquiry projects inspired by Sid Fleischman’s new book, Eyes Wide Open. I’m currently working with a group of my Mira Costa colleagues on developing an interdisciplinary curriculum project, and they may use this book as a part of launching it. I hope to have more to report about that soon.

CUE Conference 2013

janelofton Conferences, Uncategorized , , ,

I just had the privilege of attending the annual CUE (Computering Using Educators) conference in Palms Springs, CA March 14-16. Every time I attend, I come away invigorated with new ideas I can implement in my practice and share with my students and co-workers. I also presented two sessions this year. I am embedding the Prezi.com presentation files for the two sessions at the bottom of this posting.

Here were just a few of the highlights of the conference sessions for me:

CLRN’s Brian Bridges fast-paced session on “50 Free Online  Ready Reference and Web 2.0 Tools for Life Long Learners” filled me in on a number of websites and apps that were new to me. Here’s the link to all his tools. He saved them in one of the tools he told us about, edcanvas.com.  One website, Jamendo.com, a source for Creative Commons-licensed music, was one I was able to share with the attendees at my own session the next hour! Another offering I have already checked out is Dropbox’s connection to Project Gutenberg. I knew about both tools, but not that they are now connected. Project Gutenberg is a collection of over 42,000 free ebooks that are in the public domain. When you find a free ebook in Project Gutenberg, you can save it to your Dropbox account in a “gutenberg” app folder. From there, I was able to open the file in my Kindle app on my iPad and iPhone.

At Google Search Educator Tasha Bergson-Michelson’s presentation on “Really, Really Simple Search: Developing Effective Search Education,” she had us work in groups to develop new ideas for teaching students the critical thinking skills they need to become more effective searchers and to evaluate the sources they find. Tasha had us record our conversations in a Google Doc, so we can all refer to them. Here’s a link to her materials.

I attended two sessions by Mark Hammons, Educational Technology Consultant for the Instructional Technology Services team at the Fresno County Office of Education, on iTunes U and on the Apple TV in Education. At the latter, I got some tips on new ways to use my Apple TV. In the former, I learned the basic steps to creating courses in iTunes U. iTunes U is becoming a popular platform for schools and universities to upload both self-paced and in-session courses. The courses are all free, and can be public or private. I am excited about drawing from and contributing to this free sharing community. I have set myself a goal to create a self-paced course on the topics I covered in my “Build Digital Citizenship Skills & Inspire Creativity with Creative Commons” presentation asap. The one drawback I see to iTunes U is that, while the courses can be developed on either Macs or PCs (with some browser limitations), they can only be delivered on iOS devices. I wish Apple would offer an option to deliver the courses on desktop and laptop computers and other types of mobile devices. Are you listening, Apple?

And, it was very interesting hearing my Principal Ben Dale and Vice-Principal Ian Drummond’s background thinking about the evolving iPad program at Mira Costa High School. Here’s a photo of them presenting:

Ben Dale (right) & Ian Drummond (left) presenting at CUE Conference
Ben Dale (right) & Ian Drummond (left) presenting on at CUE Conference on “High School iPad Implementation and the Student-Use Model”

You can see all the presentation files/handouts posted so far on the CUE Schedule at 2013.cue.org. When you click on any session, look for the “Presenter Resources” link. Since many presenters wait until after they present to submit these links, I would check back periodically for resources from sessions that interest you.  You can also find a lot of links to session materials in Twitter by searching for the hashtag #cue13.

Here are the presentation files for my own sessions, but do contact me for a “walkthrough,” since these show only the visuals, not what I said as I presented.

My concurrent session was on “Building Digital Citizenship Skills & Inspire Creativity with Creative Commons.” I shared how to teach students about these concepts, as well copyright, public domain, and fair use, and why they are so important. I also urged the attendees to join the “Commons” and share their own work with Creative Commons licenses so that we can all benefit from each others’ knowledge and creativity. Here is the presentation file:

(If this embedded file doesn’t display in your browser, you can access it at this link. Also please note that these files are graphics-intensive and may be slow to fully download on a mobile device. I would recommend viewing them on your computer.)

Pam Oehlman and I did a CUE Tip talk (informal 20-minute session) on “Free Web Tutorials for You and Your Students.” We walked the audience through five free, online, self-paced, reusable and remixable tutorial options available from CSLA (California School Library Association).

(If this embedded file doesn’t display in your browser, you can access it at this link.)

Finally, here’s Pam and me at our CUE Tip session:

Pam Oehlman & Jane Lofton presenting

We’re wearing our Avatar T-shirts from the November 2013 CSLA Conference, on theme since creating avatars is one of the activities in the tutorials we were promoting.

Here’s me at my concurrent session:

 

Presenting at CUE