Sept. 22 – Oct. 3 at the Mira Costa Library

Our New EBSCO Subscriptions

EBSCOFor the 2013-2014 school year, we significantly increased the number of nonfiction books available to our students by adding a subscription to the EBSCO eBook High School Collection database, giving us access to approximately 7,000 simultaneous use ebooks. Last week, we upgraded our subscription to EBSCO’s eBook Academic Collection. This is BIG news, since it increases our available ebooks to more than 130,000 and allows our students to take advantage of the kind of collection normally only available to university students. Most of the holdings in this collection are nonfiction. A huge advantage of these ebooks is that they can be used simultaneously by an unlimited number of readers; we aren’t restricted to one reader at a time.

In addition, we added EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier database, which provides us with full-text access to articles in approximately 4,600 academic journals. Together, these new subscriptions provide excellent support for Common Core across the curriculum. They also allow students to read about areas of personal interest to them, learning what they want to learn. When students get to explore their own personal interests, they are more engaged and learn more. The link to our subscription is posted on the library website Databases and ebooks page and the various subject pathfinders. Here is a direct link. The ebooks will also soon be searchable through our library catalog. Please contact me or come by the library for a handout to get the username and password for these great new resources.

I’d like to extend special thanks to Wayne Knutson and Bill Fauver for helping me to review these resources over the summer, and to our District Educational Services Department for providing a portion of the funding.

We also, of course, need print books. Here’s a display of recently-arrived nonfiction print books, many of which were funded by the PTSA to support Common Core:

nonfiction books

 

Finishing Freshman Orientations

During the last two weeks, I completed the final 9th grade orientations, hosting Ms. Wiseman and Ms. Wachell’s classes for a second day of orientation, and Mr. Zeoli and Ms. Mullen’s classes for day 1 and day 2. Here’s our display of printouts of some of the great slides that students created sharing their passions and a book they found related to these interests:

Freshman Passions

(You’ll have to come visit the library for a better view of these!) I look forward to seeing all of the Freshmen often when they visit on their own and with their classes for upcoming research projects and book selection.

Introducing Google Apps for Education and Google Classroom

As part of the Freshman orientations this year, I have been introducing students to their district Google Apps for Education (GAFE) accounts and to Google Classroom. The latter is a new Google application just introduced in September. It can make running a paperless classroom and using Google Drive features much easier for teachers and students. It allows teachers to share assignments and announcements with students, conduct online discussions, and have students submit work as Google Docs, spreadsheets, presentations, and more, and have it automatically organized in folders. For students, having a district GAFE account means that they can keep their school files and emails separate from any personal items and that teachers can easily know their students’ emails for sharing materials, contacting them, and offering comments and feedback on work.

I have also started sharing information about the benefits of using GAFE accounts and Google Classroom with Mira Costa teachers this fall. Last week, Michael Hayden brought his Music Appreciation class to the library to have me help them access their GAFE accounts and join a Google Classroom. Now, the class will be able to do all its assignments paperlessly! I look forward to helping more teachers and classes take advantage of these tools.

Mira Costa Hall of Fame

On October 3 Mira Costa hosted its third annual Hall of Fame. The breakfast and lunch for the distinguished alumni was held in the library. What an amazing group of alumni we had here! It included Noreen Harris Baer, Huntley Castner, Lance Dixon, Jim Lindbert, Jeff Rohrer, Marianne Selek Wibberley, and Cormac Wibberley.

Hall of Fame

Señora Rossell’s AP Spanish Class Blogging Project

Anita Rossell’s class visited the library on September 30 and October 1 to begin this year’s blogging project. This project warrants a posting on its own. So, please stand by for that!

Sept. 9 – 18 at the Mira Costa Library

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.

Welcome to the 2011-2012 School Year!


My goal for the Mira Costa Library this Fall was to complete the majority of textbook distribution during Registration days, so that most students would have their books the first day of school and we could begin regular library services as soon as possible. I was hoping to transition to library services by Tuesday, September 6. In fact, while tomorrow will be our first “official” opening day, we were actually able to make the transition and allow students to use the library as a library faster. The library began offering full services last Friday, the third day of school! I would like to offer a huge thank you to Cindy Gardner, our textbook clerk; Jessica Curtiss, our library volunteer coordinator; and all our volunteers who participated in making our smooth textbook distribution and quick transition back to the library possible.

The best way to find out all about what the library offers is to come by for a visit! Please come see us soon! In the meantime, you can also check our updated Mira Costa Library brochure and library orientation video. All Freshmen will get to learn about the library first-hand; we will be conducting two-day orientations for all Freshman English classes this month, starting on Wednesday, September 7.

Some news at the library this school year is that we now have wifi available, as well as a web-based library catalog accessible from any web browser. I will be writing more about these two options in coming posts.

I’m excited to be embarking on my second year at Mira Costa, and committed to making our library program the best of the best!