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?