Welcome Back to my blog!

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging (like several years) and have begun a blog for our community at https://athenscommunityofreaders.blogspot.com/.  Please consider following that blog to hear about what our community is reading during this time of distanced learning!  I hope to also share here at Middle Media Center Madness about the professional side of being a distanced learning librarian too, but we shall see if that happens.

Thanks,
Shawn Hinger

3D Printing and More in the Library Media Center

Since receiving our MakerBot 3D printer through many generous donations with DonorsChoose.org, we have been able to do some exploration and have now started our more serious projects.  I was so nervous to begin with about how to work with the 3D printer, but I feel really comfortable using it now AND also feel comfortable allowing students to use it.  Any chance I can, I want to have the kids to do all of the making, converting and button pushing.

Anytime the MakerBot is printing we draw a crowd! 

Tinkercad is web based so kids can access on various computers

This week in the CMS Library Media Center, we printed the geodes our 6th grade science students made in Tinkercad during their investigation of the contribution of minerals to rock composition.  We have had quite an interesting array of designs.

Next week, we hope to begin printing the winning 3D product designs that our 6th grade social studies classes are creating as they learn about economics and environmental issues.  

In a few weeks, our next, and more ambitious, project is to use the FREE 123D Creature iPad app to design monsters that will inspire our writing.  Right now, we are in the testing phase by creating test designs and attempting an export from 123D Creature and then into MakerBot.

One of our students suggested we make a video of a MakerBot build and speed it up, so I told her to have at it.  She set up the iPad in front of the Bot and we recorded away.  After a bit of editing in iMovie here you go.....

News from the CMS Media Center--letter to parents

Celebrate International Literacy Day with CMS by having a 'turn off the TV and read night' at your home this evening!

OWLS Read Poster Contest--As another way to celebrate literacy at CMS, we are hosting a Read Poster contest.  We will select a winner for each of the following categories:  student, faculty and parent/guardian.  Snap a picture of yourself or your child reading, and if you like, edit the picture in photo editing software, and then send the picture to Mrs. Hinger at CMS.  We will print these in posters to hang outside the media center, and a winner will be selected from all entries received by September 19th.  Winners will receive Jittery Joe's Gift Cards (thanks JJ for the donations)!

Owls Read Program--Once again this year we are using the Owls Read program to promote reading both at CMS and at home! Students are encouraged to get 'caught reading' at school when they have any downtime, to read at home and report back their at-home-reading to their ELA teacher and to do a good job on reading assignments during class.  When we see students doing these things CMS faculty will reward students with Reading Talons.  Once students have earned 35 Reading Talons, they can turn them in for a free OWLS READ long sleeve t-shirt.  This shirt is very special because it may be worn on Fridays, on special OWLS READ Days AND can be worn any day of the week over a uniform shirt. The only way students can get this shirt is by earning it through reading.  Students cannot purchase the shirt.  So, please encourage your child to read, read, read and earn a shirt ASAP!

Personal Learning Device Updates (student computers, laptops, Chromebooks, netbooks, etc.)

If you have not already done so, consider coming in for one of our parent orientations for the personal learning device so that your child can take theirs home from CMS soon.  Here are a few opportunities for you to get this quick orientation.  

Tuesday, September 9th 4:00 p.m. CMS Media Center

Friday, September 12th at the end of the parent coffee in the CMS Media Center 

Saturday, September 13th at the Parent University (for more info cavinli@clarke.k12.ga.us)

If you cannot make one of these orientations, just let Mrs. Hinger know a time that you are available, and she will schedule a personal orientation for you then.

CMS Media Center's MakerBot 3D Printer--Our brand new MakerBot 3D printer has arrived (thanks to Mr. Simpson and all the donors on DonorsChoose.org) Students are already submitting designs to be printed. We've printed several student created 3D objects today! We are hoping to begin using it for classroom projects in the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I am challenging the students to play in 3D design software and MAKE whatever they like so that they can begin experiencing what can be done with the MakerBot and 3D design.  I will print the most unique and exciting 3D designs that are sent to me!  A super user friendly and free online software is TinkerCad  Tell your child to check it out, or feel free to help them explore other 3D design products.  Students should share any designs with Mrs. Hinger via email or Google Drive.

Clarke County School District Library Media Specialists Hanging Out Live with LibraryGirl

Clarke County School District Media Specialists Hanging Out Live with LibraryGirl @jenniferlagarde

Live Google Hanout: Careers and Education in STEM with Rebecca Byler from Georgia Tech

The 6th Grade Math Research ELT is studying careers in STEM and today we had a guest from Georgia Tech.  Rebecca Byler is a senior studying biomedical engineering and will continue her studies in graduate school at Yale after the first of the year.  Rebceea spoke with us about the many fields of study at Georgia Tech and all of the exciting carrers in STEM that may result from these studies.  These students will research a career, create a presentation and we will publish our presentations to share with the world.

A Reflection on Literacy Events for Families

We had a nice turn out for our Family Literacy Night again this year.  I have had many different variations of our family night: a reading carnival, a reading pep rally, and the the current version: an evening of many literacies.  During the last two years, in the spirit of participatory learning, (which got me all excited when I learned about it from Henry Jenkins) students have led sessions for parents on several different #literacies  (which is one of my passions brought on from the teaching of great Donna Alvermann at UGA and all of my PLN friends in the area of  #literacies  Anna Smith, Emily Pendegrass and Buffy Hamilton just to name a few).  Parents rotate among the classes to experience all of the student-led sessions.  Probably my favorite part about this year's fam lit night was our collaboration with the teen services librarian at Athens Regional Library.  Lauren came and provided activities for the middle schoolers while the parents were in the sessions.  We have done quite a bit of collaboration with Lauren from the library this year, and I'm super excited to share more about that....in another blog post soon.

I found our current lit night model to be pretty successful, and the parents seem to be impressed with the student experts and many literacies for learning, but I wonder how we could get more parents to attend.  I've used the trick of having kids perform or be involved to get more participation with orchestra and step team performances as well as student presenters, but sometimes the parents come begrudgingly to the literacy sessions b/c their only real motivation for coming is to watch their kid perform in the orchestra/step team, etc.  With the 600 students in our school, I guess I'm an overachiever to hope we could pull more than the 50 or 60 parents that show for the evening.  Do you think this is a reasonable turnout?  Do most schools have a family literacy night or event to promote literacy with parents?  How do you get more parents to participate?

CMS Family Literacy Night is this Tuesday!

Please join us for the CMS Family Literacy Night this Tuesday from 6-7 p.m.  We will have the book fair open for your shopping pleasure and will have literacy sessions for parents, middle school students, as well as the younger siblings. 

Students will lead sessions for parents on Digital Literacy, Writing 6 Word Memoirs, Book Talks, and Information Literacy. CMS Middle Schoolers will be able to participate in exciting activities provided by Mrs. Lauren, Teen Services Librarian, who will be visiting CMS from next door at the Athens Regional Library.  AND the elementary and preschool age children will be have a chance to participate in foreign language literacy activities with the CMS Foreign Language Staff, so bring the whole family for this ultra engaging night of learning and fun! 

For our entertainment during Family Literacy Night, we will have performances by the fantastic CMS Orchestra Ensembles and the world famous CMS Step Team.  The Books for Keeps Staff will be at CMS collecting donations of new or used books to support this very important local charity.  Students who bring in books to donate will be rewarded with one OWLS Read Talon for each book they donate up to five (of course we will take as many books as you bring).  Books for Keeps will take book donations of any type.  

Tuesday will be an OWLS Read t-shirt day at CMS, so if your child has earned an OWLS Read shirt, they may wear it to school with uniform bottoms this Tuesday to help us celebrate literacy. If your child hasn't earned their OWLS Read shirt yet, encourage them to read at school and home to earn the 35 Owls Read Talons soon!

We can’t wait to see you on Tuesday night, so grab the whole family, and maybe a stack of books to donate, and come on out to the CMS Family Literacy Night!      

OnAir Hangout with Ray Gilstrap Chief Technology Officer for Information Technology at NASA in Silcon Valley

At 3:00 today CMS 6th Graders will be participating in a Google OnAir Hangout with Ray Gilstrap from NASA to discuss jobs in STEM.

Our Very Own Student "Geek Squad"--Student Technology Helpers

A blog post I created for our new CCSD Technology Blog:

Over sixty Clarke Middle 6th, 7th and 8th graders attended a special technology training in the Clarke Middle School Media Center last week.  They will become technology experts in order to help their classmates and teachers use 21st century skills and devices at CMS.  This student technology squad is a huge asset with over 300 new netbooks at Clarke Middle School as well as the upcoming bring your own technology initiative that will begin very soon at Clarke Middle.  Twice a month the CMS "Geek Squad" will come together for technology session conducted by Clint Winter, CCSD Technology Integration Specialist and me, the school library media specialist.

With a focus on collaboration, positive attitude, and teamwork, the CMS tech squad members learn skills such as: technical troubleshooting, working within the Google Apps for Education Suite with tools like Google Drive and Blogger, as well as using the screencasting tool Screenr to create video tutorials for others.  We hope to provide our "Geek Squad" with the skills necessary to assist our school community and beyond.  Our vision would be that one day these students could not only help their classmates and teachers, but could also conduct training sessions for new CCSD teachers or maybe even hold webinars or training sessions for other school districts around the world.  

Worlds Collide: Libraries and Trans-#Literacies

Worlds Collide: Thursday, November 15th at 7:00PM ESt with #literacies twitter chat where I will be guest hosting. We'll discuss:

• What do you think is important about #literacies in the library? 
• What are your thoughts on transliteracy and the library? 
• Why is the library program important to fostering literacies?

The school library (or media center depending on what part of the country, or world in which you reside) is a fantastic place to experiment with multiple forms of literacy as well as provide a space for students to “play around” and “create” in the sandbox of literacy. Many school libraries today provide access to plethora of varied resources and devices as well as a flexible, casual and creativity provoking environment for student to work individually, in small groups or as a whole group while supporting the curriculum, but also allowing a multitude of enrichment opportunities in literacies that may not be given time in the classroom where there is so much that is required to be covered. The school librarian can also be one of the best resources in a school to provide instruction for students and faculty on information literacy as well as various forms of digital literacy. 

Just last month I attended the AASL Fall Forum which was focused on Transliteracy and how school libraries and school librarians can help create environments and collaborative opportunities for their students in transliteracy. With a keynote presentation by Henry Jenkins on library as a place for participatory culture for “a generation with a mouse in one hand and a book in the other” I found that I left the conference with my head buzzing. He shared with us YOUMedia Chicago which I have been trying for a few years to recreate in my own school library. He talked about the 4 C’s: create, collaborate, circulate, connect, and I could feel how the resources and space I provide in my library should facilitate these four concepts. And most of all I left the conference buzzing about Transliteracy--defined by Thomas, Joseph, Laccetti, Mason, Mills and Perril (2007) as "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks." How could I do more to connect my previous knowledge in literacies with these new concepts and infuse the school library program with all of this? 

Over the last few years, I have learned so much about literacies while taking a class with Dr. Donna Alvermann and my discussions with dear library world friends such as Andy Plemmons,  Buffy Hamilton and Beth Friese as well as the many, many Twitter conversations I’ve had with the founders of #literacies chat and lots of other folks in my PLN on Twitter and now my worlds collide with the #literacies twitter chat and my recent musing on transliteracy. So, what do you think is important about #literacies in the school library?   What are your thoughts on transliteracy and the school library?  Why is the school library program important to fostering literacies?

Thomas, S., Joseph, C., Laccetti, J., Mason, B., Mills, S. and Perril, S. (2007). Transliteracy: Crossing divides. First Monday, 12(12). Retrieved July 13, 2010, from firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2060/1908

A Summer Adventure: 10,000 Book Community Reading Challenge

After five years as a school librarian and another five as an English teacher, I've created many a summer reading list and promoted several different types of summer reading programs, but this year my goal was to do something a little different. So, after a discussion with one of our English teachers and my principal and a whole lot of help from one of our gifted divas, we came up with the Clarke Middle School Community of Readers Summer Reading 10,000 Book Challenge!

Ready Set Read.... 

We created a summer reading information sheet and log for each student and then created a summer reading webpage on the CMS Media Center Website We set a goal for our school family (students and their families and faculty and their families) to read 10,000 books collectively. Each CMS student was asked to become a cheerleader for reading in their home. Each family will log the books they read this summer (parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, cousins, anyone that may live in your home). Any book counts: books read alone or together, story books, chapter books, novels, graphic novels, picture books, whole magazines, etc., etc., etc. 

So far, I've promoted the Summer Reading Challenge to the rising 6th graders on their visit last week, to the parents via our school listserv, media center blog and Facebook page, and the English teachers are promoting the challenge to their classes. I have several students drawing and painting a five foot tall wooden owl with a stack of ten books to track our progress toward the 10,000 book goal. We will show off our owl this summer during the summer library media center hours where we will open for families to come in on select Thursday afternoons to check out books, use the computers and iPads, read, play games, talk about books, etc.

At the end of the summer each student and faculty member that turns in a log with at least 15 books their family read this summer will be able to attend a pizza party. Once we reach the 10,000 book goal there will be a HUGE school-wide surprise!

My goal for this project is to get the whole family involved with summer reading and to build a community of readers around our school family. I hope this summer reading challenge leads to many meaningful discussions about books and the habit of reading!

Library Day in the Life: Recording my activities as a school librarian for a week

If you interested in what I do for a whole week as a school librarian then check me out on Twitter @cmslibrarylady I'll be tweeting with the hashtag #libday8 and recording a play-by-play of life as the Clarke Middle librarian. I'll be updating my Chirpstory daily.

GaETC Georgia Exemplary Media Program Presentation

I am presenting at the Georgia Educational Technology Conference on Thursday, November 3rd with some of my talented colleagues from the state of Georgia.  All of the Georgia DOE Exemplary and Georgia DOE Exceptional Library Media Programs were asked to present about the award and our programs.  I've been "meeting" and planning with the five other middle school librarians via my favorite collaborative web tool Google Docs.  I'm so excited to meet them face to face!  Thanks to Christa Dover's hard work and our online collaboration we have created a website for the presentation complete with our links and contact info.

 http://2011gaexmsmediaprograms.weebly.com/


Here's the outline of what I plan to discuss....

• Exceptional to Exemplary ---my process but maybe not the same as your....
• Changes to be made--more info lit, digital lit, and professional sharing
• Library as a place to inquire, create, construct and share (broadcast as participatory learning in copyright, using Web 2.0 tools w/lots of research projects, and Elizabethan Faire w/UGA research)
• Beyond our walls
• Advocacy and Learning--share, share, share and be transparent!  I'm a Tweeter... @cmslibrarylady

What we've been working toward: Our program is Exemplary!

The CMS Media Center was named a Georgia Exemplary Library Media Program for the 2011 school year! This is what we have been working toward since 2009 when we changed our program development planning to use the Georgia Exemplary Rubric as our guiding document. After receiving GA Exceptional status (step below Exemplary status) for the 2010 school year, I made some changes and our program was nominated again, so I rewrote our application for the 2011 school year back in the spring, and finally, last week the Georgia Department of Education called our administration and told them we had won!

A little more about the award and our programing:

A library media program named as Georgia Exemplary Program must be nominated first. Then, the library media specialist must write a six page narrative detailing their programing, and the program must be evaluated and receive Exemplary in all twenty areas of the Georgia DOE Library Media Program Rubric.

A strong focus of the CMS Media Program in the last few years has been on information and digital literacy skills. We have collaborated with teachers to provide participatory and inquiry based learning experiences for our students. Many of these collaborative projects integrated technology in various content areas through hands on experience with digital media, Web 2.0 tools and using music and images from the public domain through Creative Commons Licensing.

One significant change we made in the media program this past year was to add additional hours outside of the normal school day and to extend a warm invitation to families and community members. The CMS media center was open before school and after school until 6 p.m. this past year. In addition, over the summer, the CMS Media Center Website hosted a Summer Reading Blog in which students blogged online about the books they read this summer, and we opened the library media center on Thursday afternoons in the summer time for students and parents come and check out books, play games, read, use computers, or just hang out.

Additionally, an area reflected in the GA Exemplary Rubric that I felt I needed to improve in was professional sharing.  Although I have done a pretty good job with sharing with my district media specialists, I had not created a state or national professional learning network for myself.  I have since started this blog, acted as a guest speaker at new library media specialist grad school classes, returned to graduate school to work as a TA in grad level LMS classes, become a National Writing Project Teacher Consultant (with Red Clay Writing Project/UGA SI) , and most importantly joined Twitter.  I would say that this professional sharing, especially my Twitter PLN, has probably been the most beneficial change for me as a teacher.  I have learned so much from this sharing and my new professional learning network!

Our 2011 Application

Five steps to a Rocking Library the first week!

The new school year has begun, and our library is Rocking! Remember the old days when school librarians would wait until the second or even third week of school to open their library, not the case anymore. To provide access we must be open from the first day!


1. Open the library over the summer with a summer reading program!
We had a chance to open our library on Thursday afternoons over the summer. This was a great opportunity to meet students and their parents before the school year began. On the first day of school students were ready to check out new books or renew the ones they checked out over the summer. Students were able to blog on the media center blog over the summer. We had 300 plus posts of book reviews, and we hosted a Summer Reading Ice Cream Celebration the 2nd week of school for students who blogged!

2. Start your daily broadcast the 1st day of school!
Last year was my first facilitating the OWLS TV program. So, this year I brought a few kids in during pre-planning and we were ready to go live on the first day of school! It was so exciting to have this flurry of activity in the library on the first day, not to mention the chance to pitch our media programs to the whole school right away.

3. Get classes in for checkout right away!
I talked with my English teachers and invited their classes in for checkout starting the 2nd day of school. You'd think they would want to get their classroom procedures down, but their main focus is to get books in the hands of their students, so they jumped at the opportunity! The excitement over books put the perfect spin on a new year.

4. Open before school even on the 1st day!
My doors opened at 7:30 on the first day of school and there were 50 plus kids in the library by 8:10. As classes came for checkout I promoted the library as a place to "hang" in the morning and by the second week of school we have over 100 kids each morning. They play the Wii, prepare for morning broadcast, use the computers for work and gaming, check out books, read, play chess, work on our community puzzle, or just hang out with their friends.

5. Meet with teachers on collaboration ASAP!
Within the first few weeks of school I have had a chance to start planning collaborate lessons with many of my teachers! It's very important to get out to the teachers' collaborative planning meetings, build relationships with your faculty, and jump on any chance you get to offer resources or collaborative teaching opportunities. Our teachers are very busy so it is important that we help them! I'm working on a pathfinder and curating from the Internet on topics related to the American Revolution for a collaborative unit for a Hollywood vs. History Extended Learning Time Class. They will be in Thursday to get started on their research and learn about digital literacy project options they will be able to choose from to present the findings of the research!

What are other suggestions for ROCKING your library during the 1st weeks of school?

Library Day in the Life--cmslibrarylady

A Guest Blogger on One Crazy Summer

Our students have been reading this summer and posting book reviews on the CMS Media Center Blog. I thought I'd share some of them with you. Katy M., a rising 6th grader, wrote this one on the Georgia Book Award One Crazy Summer.

Guest blogger, Katy M. rising 6th grader:

I read, and loved, the book One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia. It was a fantastic, humorous tale of three young girls who visit their runaway mother in Oakland, California. I, along with the three sisters, learned a lot about the controversial times, groups, and happenings of the 1960's- especially a Civil rights reform group the girls join called the Black Panthers. Through this book, and the Panthers' adventures, I discovered a whole new side of protests and reforms- and the people behind them. I learned that behind any good social movement is a good plan, hard work, and courageous men, women, and as we learn in One Crazy Summer, children! I know that I related to Delphine, Fern, and Vonetta (The three sisters) and everyone in the wild cast of characters, from "Go-karting" Hirohito to Crazy Kelvin to serene Sister Pat. I, and many people I know, love the center of attention, and all the spotlight all the time like rising star Vonetta, pleading for her audiences' full focus. And I'm a big sister, so I sometimes feel the need to watch over, guide, and discipline my little brother, just like big sister of two, Delphine. And, as we want to guide and watch over, we all sometimes want to BE guided and BE watched over like little Fern does. All in all, I got a lot out of One Crazy Summer, and I think it's a great read for anyone's crazy summer- or spring, fall, or winter! I found this story really intriguing and interesting, and I highly recommend it!

Summer Fun

Here are a few projects that I am working on this summer...

participating in The Red Clay Writing Project in order to work on my professional writing and to learn more about language and literacy so that I may improve my collaboration and inquiry projects with my school community; students, teachers, and families. My goal is to continue my broadcasting digital literacy project to include the knowledge I have gained this summer about writing and to include more digital writing and participatory learning.

hosting the CMS Summer Reading Responses on the CMS Media Center Blog

working on my Applied Project for my Ed.S. in the SLM program at UGA. My applied project is looking at the roles of the media specialist and creating a balanced program through program development using the Georgia Exemplary Library Media Rubric.

opening the CMS Media Center this summer for students and families on Thursday afternoons!

I plan to share more about all of this soon.

If you have experiences with opening school libraries for the summer, Red Clay, or program development you want to share, I'd love to hear about it.

Today is also Poem in Your Pocket Day!

All students and faculty are encouraged to carry a poem in their pocket today to share with others. Students and faculty "caught" sharing their poem today will have their name entered into a drawing for a Jittery Joe's gift card! Which poem will you have in your pocket? See Mrs. Hinger in her pocket apron or the pocket sign outside the media center for a poem if you do not already have one. Thanks to all of our teachers that have helped promote this over the past few weeks!

Georgia Exceptional Library Media Program Open House Today

Today is our Georgia Exceptional Open House from 9-11 a.m. Come on out and see all the exciting things going on in the CMS Media Program! You can see our newly redesigned media center. Thanks to the efforts of several teachers, students and parents the CMS Media Center has been updated and transformed. We will have Jittery Joe's Coffee (thanks to the donation from the Googe's) and brunch type snacks as many of our students will present about our ongoing collaborative information literacy projects. I'll post highlights from these projects soon!