Makerspace

May at the Library

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Mira Costa was overwhelmed with testing in May – AP tests and Common Core tests for 11th graders. Sadly, many school libraries virtually shut down and become testing facilities this time of year. The library had its share of testing sessions; I helped several English teachers administer Common Core practice tests. Fortunately, though, most of the testing took place in other classrooms, and the library remained open for class and individual student visits throughout the month. Here are some of the highlights:

Book Talks Lesson

Ms. Clarke’s students visited the library in preparation for creating video book talks for their outside reading books. We discussed tips on creating an engaging book talk. We also discussed options for creating their videos and how to upload them to YouTube from either a computer or a mobile device. Finally, I showed them my favorite QR code generator, qr.snipp.com, since they will all be creating QR codes for their book talks and posting them in the library. Here’s an example of the beautiful QR codes it can generate, going to my video book talk on If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go, by Judy Chicurel:

Chicurel Book Talk

I look forward to Ms. Clarke’s class visits next month to share their book talk QR codes.

Health Class Digital Citizenship Videos

Health Class Digital Citizenship PSA Videos

Mr. Davidson’s Health classes visited for lessons in digital citizenship. We discussed being an upstander and not bullying or cyberbullying, building identies and positive digital footprints, online privacy, and respecting intellectual property. I used this slideshow as the basis for the lesson: (direct link: bit.ly/mchsdigitalcitizenship):

Next we went over this assignment, in which the students were to create a PSA video on one aspect of digital citizenship. We gave the students several days to learn more about their topics and work on their films. Finally, we had a day to share them with the class. Here are some example of their work:

 

 

Please visit this page on the library website to see more examples.

Calculus Class Videos

Calculus project

Last week, Ms. Gesualdi’s and Mr. Robertson’s Calculus classes visited to work on instructional videos on a calculus topic. We started by discussing intellectual property – copyright, Creative Commons, and fair use – in preparation for making the films so the students would understand what they can and cannot include in a published online work. We also discussed different software options for producing their films. As was the case with the Health classes, most of the students are choosing to use Powtoon, fun, easy, and free software for creating animated videos. Here is the assignment. I am looking forward to seeing their work next week. I will be posting it on this library webpage, where we currently have examples from previous years.

Library Club Poetry Open Mic and SWVBC Discussion

Poetry Open Mic event at the library

Last month (April) was National Poetry Month. Our Poetry Open Mic event didn’t quite fit into April, so we held it on May 6. We had a great turnout and everyone enjoyed hearing the students share their favorite poems.

Our library club also participated in our monthly “Somewhat Virtual Book Club (#SWVBC)” discussion of Winger by Andrew Smith. As always, the discussion was lively and the students and librarians all enjoyed visiting with the other schools in the group. Here is the recording:

And, some photos:

SWVBC on GHOI

TYSL

I am a member of the advocate board for the “Transform Your School Library” movement sponsored by Mackin, and I wrote a blog posting about our Somewhat Virtual Book Club for the Mackin TYL (Transform Your Library) blog. You can read that posting here. 

Geeks Club and Making

The Geeks Club has continued to support our making activities. Students have been taking advantage of our 3D printers, our green screen, and popular craft table. 

May Making

 

March 7 – April 1 at the Library

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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

2016-04-01 12.08.46

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

 

#CUE16 Conference

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Last week I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the CUE (Computer Using Educators) Conference in Palm Springs. It is a huge conference, with approximately 7,000 enthusiastic educator attendees this year. As always, I came away charged with a wealth of new ideas, new information, new friends, and motivation to try new ways to make our library program better.

We were also so lucky to have Joyce Valenza as a spotlight speaker this year. She is a top leader in the school library field, my #1 role model for my work, and has so much to offer all the educators at CUE. I was able to attend two of her sessions, and, even though I regularly follow her blog and hear her at national library conferences, I still learned many new ideas from her. I was inspired by her presentation on all the important transliteracies we need to be teaching students today. She also did a great session on ways that we can be curating helpful sources for students and how we can teach them to curate their own research. Some of the other inspiring sessions for me were one by Anna Kozma on the ins and outs of using green screens for filmmaking and one by fellow teacher librarian Liz Dodds on ways students can building positive digital footprints by creating social media content.

To quickly share my CUE highlights and take-aways I’ll be taking advantage of in my library, I have assembled a “Storify” story using my tweets and those of others at the conference. I’ll also share my presentation slides below the story. Be sure to scroll to see the full story.

Here are the slides from Gail Desler’s and my “Can I Use That?” session (link). I share as much of this information as as I can when classes visit to work on projects that include use of images and sounds.


Here are the slides from my “Students Are Makers” session (link). You will see lots of photos of engaged Mira Costa students in it!

Obviously, sharing a slide show doesn’t really begin to convey what was said during a session. Please contact me for more information about the content of either of these sessions.

January 4 – 15 at the Library – Lots of Making!

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LittleBits & Robotics activities at the Maker Fair

While we have, of course, had a number of classes visit for research projects, lessons, and support, the theme for early January has definitely been on making with our 3D printer and other makerspace resources.

Maker Fair

On Thursday, January 14, we had a great maker fair after school, with activities from the Geeks Club, Library Club, Art Club, Robotics Club, and Girls Coding Club. Students got to experience a wide variety of activities, including:

  • designing in 3D using these “Sharpie Drawing to 3D Object” directions (bit.ly/2Dto3Dprint) and getting their projects printed with the help of the Geeks Club
  • experimenting with Google Cardboard virtual reality and littleBits electronics, also with the help of the Geeks Club
  • making pinwheels as a community service project in support of Syrian youth, organized by the Library Club (Get information on the community service project here.)
  • manipulating robots in a fun competition from the Robotics Club
  • making art from recycled books, organized by the Art Club
  • programming our Sphero and BB-8 robots with the help of the Girls Coding Club

Many thanks to all the clubs and students who participated.

Here’s a slideshow with photos of some of the activities and student creations:

Maker Fair - 1/14/16

Computer Science Class 3D Projects

Mr. Braskin and Mr. Brennen’s Computer Science classes visited the library to learn about 3D printing, then embarked on a project in which they:

  1. programmed a 2D geometric shape using Scratch, a programming language
  2. converted their file to .svg format, which is readable by 3D modeling software
  3. imported their files into Tinkecad.com, a 3D modeling app
  4. exported their files to .stl format for printing on the 3D printers

They all came up with amazing, unique designs. Here are just a few examples:

Computer class 2D geometric shapes to 3D printing

ComputerComputer class chess pieces class 2D geometric shapes to 3D printing

Computer class 2D geometric shapes to 3D printing

And, to follow up this first project, they are now working in teams to design chess pieces we will be printing.

Computer Class chess piece project

Stand by for some of these examples!

Malik’s iPhone Stand

In a recent posting, I wrote about how projects often require several design iterations and printer adjustments to make them work, representing an exercise in persistence. Here’s Malik’s Phone stand completed!

Malik's iPhone stand

More Photos

For more photos of our 3D printing activities, visit this Flickr album.

December 2015 at the Library

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December was a challenging time at Mira Costa. We were closed on two different days and sheltered in place for an hour a third day, all due to bomb threats. I can’t pretend I wasn’t ready to have some time off for Winter Break. I believe we all were. Nevertheless, the library was busy with student and class visits our last three school weeks of 2015. Here are a few highlights.

Class Visits and Projects

Along with a number of other class visits, Mr. Zeoli’s Freshman English class spent several days in the library for a mythology project in which we helped the students learn about good sources, bibliography and note-taking with Easybib, and finding and crediting copyright-friendly images for their slideshows. They also learned about Twitter as a learning tool, as they set up accounts for their gods and heroes and tweeted in the role of each god or hero. Here’s a link to the site for their project, which was also used by Ms. Clarke’s students earlier in the fall. Students will be finishing the Twitter portion of their assignment after the break.

Mr. Brown’s English Language Learners class visited to “speed date” biographies. We planned three rounds of visiting tables with different categories of biographies to sample. Every student in the class selected a book by the end of the second round!

Speed dating biographies

3D Printing

The two 3D printers were busy all month printing cookie cutters inspired by our December challenge and other student projects. Ms. Arazi’s DHH class took up the challenge in their classroom as a group, and sent us a cookie cutter to be printed. While the design was lovely, it was too complex to print well on the printer. The class came to visit and we talked about how the printer works, then some of the students made new designs. Here’s a photo of the original design they drew and of the cookie cutter made from it:

DHH class 3D printing visit

Here’s a photo of us watching the printer in action and discussing how it works:

DHH class 3D printing visit

And, here is one of the students’ new designs:

3D cookie cutter design

3D cookie cutter

We are learning that mastering 3D design and printing is an iterative process. We often need to tweak both designs and printer settings a number of times to make things work. Perhaps perseverance will prove to be one of the most important skills learned by all of us making use of our printers. Malik, one of our students, has been working on a stand he designed for his iPhone. He has tweaked the design a number of times to get it small enough to print on our printers, to make the printing time more efficient, and to ensure adequate support for the portion that doesn’t lie flat at the bottom. The Thursday morning before the break, we loaded his design, which the Cura software told us would take  8 hours, and let it run all day:

malik design

It was going really well before we left at 3pm:

iPhone stand printing

Unfortunately, something went wrong after we left. This is what I found in the morning:

iPhone stand printing

Malik plans to keep working on the design, and I am confident we will get it to work. Here he is with a smile and the completed portion:

Malik's iPhone stand design in process

If you haven’t seen a 3D printer in action, you need to come by to watch it running. It’s fascinating to watch each layer being laid. This film will give you an idea, in – at 10x the actual speed – of the process:

Hour of Code

The library served as one of the sites for Mira Costa’s Hour of Code on December 9 during morning and afternoon office hours, coordinated by Mr. Braskin’s computer science class students. Ever computer was taken in both the morning and afternoon, and we were standing room only in the morning.

Hour of Code

Hour of Code

Office Hours

The library is also always standing room only during Office Hours!

standing room only during Office Hours

Standing room only during Office Hours

Alexander Street Video Streaming

We were very fortunate in December to add Alexander Street Publishing’s Academic Video Online Premium video streaming for both teacher and student use. It offers an amazing selection of over 48,000 titles from producers such as 60 Minutes, PBS, BBC, NBC, and many more, spanning every discipline. Here is an overview of the collection. Here is the login portal link. Check with me by email or at the library for login information.

 

October 12 – 30 at the Library

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Library Lessons

We had lots of classes in the library the last three weeks. Here are some of the lessons I taught during visits:

  • Ms. Cabrera’s Senior English Philosophy Seminar students, who started blogging a few weeks ago, came for a lesson on writing good comments for their blogs. Students who blog build skills in all aspects of digital citizenship, and the commenting part of blogging allows them to learn about and practice good online etiquette.
  • Mr. Westerberg’s Freshman English classes began a Mythology project, and learned about finding good sources, and citing sources and note taking using our Easybib subscription tool.
  • Ms. Sieker’s Senior English Literature of the 1980’s class also learned about good sources, citations, and note taking for their 1980’s research project.
  • Ms. Vaughan’s English/Social Studies block class visited for two days to work on a research project analyzing art related to the French Revolution period they are studying in Social Studies. She and I collaborated on lessons on good sources, citations, and note taking using Easybib and Google Classroom. I also visited her class one day to teach a lesson on how to incorporate quotations into papers.
  • Ms. Clarke’s Freshman English classes were in the library for five days this last week working on a mythology research project. She and I collaborated on lessons introducing the students to using Google Classroom, finding good sources, taking notes and citing sources with Easybib, finding copyright-friendly images for their Google Slides, and using Twitter as a vehicle for having their gods and heroes converse. You can read about the assignment on this webquest site.

Library Maker Fair

Halloween Maker Fair

On October 29, we had our first-ever maker fair in the library after school, sponsored by the Geeks Club with help from the Library Club. Everyone had a great time! Attendees got to: 

  Halloween 2015

Google for Education

On Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18, I traveled to San Diego to participate as a presenter at the EdTechTeam Google for Education Summit. I presented sessions on “Google Forms: You Can’t Live Without Them” and “Become a Google Images Ninja.” I learn so much while preparing such presentations and interacting with the attendees. I also was able to attend lots of inspiring sessions I can take advantage of at our library and share with our teachers and students.

Staff Collaboration and Professional Development

During our recent office hours/staff collaboration Wednesdays, I have been able to lead several workshops with our staff, including sessions on our new Learn360 streaming video, which is available to both staff and students; Google Classroom; and Google Forms.

May 26 – June 12 at the Library

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It’s that time of year when, sadly, library activities ramp down a bit and textbook returns start to take over the library. Still, we’ve had a busy last few weeks at the library. Here are some of highlights, including blogging, Calculus videos, booktalk videos, 3D printing, library club, summer reading, and more:

Blogging

Anita Rossell and I have been collaborating on her AP students’ blogs for two years now. Last week, her students visited for the last time to work on posting assignments. I will miss them! You can see links to their blogs on this class blog. Several of the students wrote optional last reflections on blogging, including Chris, Jasmin, and Noemi. Thanks to all of you!

Some of Mr. Carlson’s music students also started blogging this semester and were in the library working on their postings.

Calculus Videos

This is the fourth year that Linda Gesualdi and I have collaborated on an end-of-year project in which students create Calculus videos for future Costa students. Since they publish them on YouTube or other public sites, they become available to a world audience, and help students build their digital footprints. We ask the students to develop an engaging story to explain a Calculus concept. In addition to sharing their Calculus knowledge and learning to use a new technology tool for digital storytelling, they also learn about finding copyright-friendly images and sounds to include in their videos and about how to give proper credit to material they use. You can see the assignment here. All the students chose to use PowToon as their video-creating tool this year.

I will be adding many of their videos to the library website over the summer in preparation for the fall. You can see selected previous videos there now on this project page. Here are just two great examples from this year:

This one, by Trace and Brooke, tells the story of determining how many people will be at the zoo at 6pm using simple integration:

This one, by Ed and Leora, uses implicit differentiation to make sure the world doesn’t explode!

Booktalk Videos

In my last posting, I shared about Ms. Clarke’s students’ booktalk video assignment. The booktalks are now complete. I will be adding many of them to the library website over the summer and will create QR codes to display on copies of the books in the library to help other students select books they will enjoy reading. Here are a few great examples:

Makerspace / 3D Printer Progress

Members of the Geeks Club, library volunteer Sue Hefner, and I have been working on getting our new 3D printers calibrated and operational. We still have things to figure out, but we have been pleased to succeed in printing several objects so far. Here’s a time lapse video of printing out my own first design, the initials “MC”:

3D printer hyperlapse

Based on our experience so far, I believe that the free tinkercad software is the best option for students who want to practice designing objects we can print. To print on our PrintrBot Simple Metal, files need to be in .stl format. Tinkercad runs entirely in the cloud so no software needs to be installed on your computer, it is very user-friendly, and it makes it easy to save files in the .stl format. Unfortunately, we are running out of time to print student projects this school year, but the printers will be available to any students interested in designing and experimenting with 3D modeling in the fall. Our new littleBits and Raspberry Pi will also be available. See my last post for more information about these items.

Library Club SWVBC meeting

The Library Club had our final monthly “Somewhat Virtual Book Club” Google Hangout discussion for the year on June 3. Our book for this month was The Martian by Andy Weir. (By the way, The Martian is one of the Alex Award winners this year, so on our list of summer reading options for 11th and 12th graders.) I believe this month’s discussion was the best one of the year! The students had many very interesting insights about the book, and our discussion branched off to a number of thought-provoking related topics. Here’s the recording of the session:

I am very proud of our club members for their consistency in participating in our club and our discussions. Our own club is the only one in our library club network that hasn’t missed a single one of our monthly discussions. Even in February when I was en route to my CSLA conference, the club set up the Google Hangout and held the meeting without me.

Summer Reading Requirement

Each year, the English Department has a required summer reading program. I have been delighted to participate in the department’s planning and the new program for this year, which includes having 9th and 10th graders select books from the prestigious Printz Award list and 11th and 12th graders select from the equally prestigious Alex Award list. Both of these awards are given by committees from YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. The awards are announced each January at the American Library Association Midwinter conference, and I always wake up early on awards morning to watch the streamed ceremony and wait with excitement to learn which books will be winners. Then, I immediately order those we don’t already have in the library. The Printz Award recognizes the best young adult titles published in the previous year, while the Alex Award recognizes adult books with particular appeal to young adults.

Please visit this page on the library website for links to all the summer assignments and more information about the options –  including audio clips, book trailers, and author interviews –  to help select a book you (or, for parents, your child) will love. Please also feel free to contact me for suggestions based on my reading of most of the books.

More on Summer Reading

Please don’t stop reading after doing the summer reading assignment! Stand by for another posting on lots more summer reading ideas.

CUE Blog

CUE Blog

During the month of May and early June, I served as guest editor of the CUE blog. I wrote two postings and solicited and edited two more. Please check them out:

Teaching Twitter

As many of you know, I am a big fan of using Twitter for positive social networking for students, teachers, and anyone interested in developing a personal learning network. Last January, I developed and taught an online class, Learn2Tweet, for California school librarians attending the California School Library Association conference. By going through the four week class, they were prepared to participate as active tweeters during the conference. Over the last month, I have had the pleasure of teaching a similar course for the American Association of School Librarians leadership, in preparation for the American Library Association Conference. While that course content is password protected, you can get an idea of the content from my Learn2Tweet course. Please contact me if I can answer any questions about Twitter or get you up and running on it!

May 11 – 22, 2015 at the Library

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Our Makerspace Supplies Arrive!

Since the library is one of the several places on campus with class sets of computers, it has been used for the new California standardized testing during much of the last two weeks. All 11th graders participated in two mornings of testing May 14 – 21. That meant, unfortunately, that the library was closed for other class or individual student visits all those mornings. I do, nevertheless, have some exciting library lessons and other activities to share.

Makerspace Startup Supplies Arrive!

On May 11, the Geeks Club, with help from the Library Club, unpacked startup supplies for our library’s new makerspace! We are very excited about what we will be able to do with these these and how we can share them with the entire Mira Costa population. The supplies include two 3D printers, a Raspberry Pi, and two littleBits kits. So, you may be wondering, what are all these items I just mentioned? And, for that matter, what is a makerspace? Here are some short explanations:

  • A makerspace is a space in which students can tinker with electronics and other materials, have fun, challenge themselves to figure out how to design something, and make creative products. While many of our students take classes in which they learn about and practice programming, art, and/or electronic building, a makerspace allows all students to tinker, explore, have fun, and be creative. The library is an ideal place in which to start a makerspace, because it is open to everyone on campus and has a staff person (me, your librarian) and enthusiastic helpers (the Geeks Club members) to provide help and support.
  • 3D printers provide the capability to “print” 3D objects designed in 3D software applications from strands of plastic filament. The printer melts the plastic filament and then reshapes it in layers into an object using directions derived from the 3D software.
  • A Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer. Once plugged into a computer monitor and keyboard, students can use it to explore computing and to learn how to program the operating system in languages like Scratch and Python. Our Geeks Club members, and anyone else interested, will be using it to learn about and experiment with programming computer operating systems.
  • littleBits are small electronic light, sound, motor, and sensor building block modules that all snap together with magnets and allow students to experiment and create machines. Students will have the opportunity to try out unlimited combinations of the components to create working machines.

These supplies came to us thanks to a special Google-sponsored offer from DonorsChoose. Twenty one of our students completed a Khan Academy self-paced introductory course in JavaScript, which earned us $100 per student. Many thanks to Jeanne Reed and Aaron Braskin for bringing this program to my attention and supporting getting students signed up for it.

Right now, our Geeks Club members are working away getting the 3D printer up and running. Stand by for introductory makerspace events open to all students very soon. In the meantime, contact me or any of the club members if you want to get involved in the planning.

Booktalk videos in progress

Laura Clarke with her English Class

Ms. Clarke’s English students visited the library for a short introduction to booktalk videos. As a final project for the year, they will all be creating short videos promoting a nonfiction book they recently read. We talked about what makes a good booktalk, using these guidelines I provided. Once the projects are complete, we will be uploading good examples to the library website and adding QR codes to books so students can view a booktalk while considering whether to read a book in hand.

Here’s an example of a booktalk done by one of our students earlier this year:

The Library — a very busy place!

And, as you can see in one of my first experiments with making a hyperlapse video, even on Senior Ditch Day last Friday, the library was a very busy place during lunch!

CUE Blog

CUE Blog

One of my activities outside school this month has been serving as guest editor of the CUE (Computer Using Eductors) Blog. You can see the post introducing me here. My first of four postings summarized highlights of California School Library Association’s Information Literacy Summit during the March CUE Conference. The second posting, on how we can support teachers implementing the new standards, was one I solicited and edited. It’s by Mark Archon, Director of Instructional Technology Services for the Fresno County Office of Education. Stand by for two more postings about selecting quality research sources by Tasha Bergson-Michelson and why we need teacher librarians by me.