Technology Tuesday: Virtual Valentines

Here's a fun connecting opportunity that I saw on Twitter this year and sent to my teachers.

This group pairs up classes to exchange virtual valentines across the miles and learn something on the way.  

Here is a blog post from one of my 5th grade teachers that participated in the program.  

Mrs. Foreman's Virtual Valentines

Time for Change

Today the library director for our distrct stopped by to talk with me about the transformation plan for my library. See, she has a vision of what libraries should look like and offer students,  It is a vision of makerspaces, collaboration areas and really knowing what the students want and need from the library.  Last year, she told us about this "transformation" plan.  We were supposed to think about how we could change our libraries to be more innovative and relevant to today's students.  So I set to work genrefying my fiction collection and creating a teaching space by my smartboard by removing shelves and moving computers from the middle of the floor to against the wall.

Whew!  Done!  Check transformation off the list! Or so I thought...

Last month at our library meeting, she made a comment about phase 2 of the transformation process. Alarms started going off in my head. Phase 2? I transformed already.  I thought I was done.  What more could I do?

She says...Start with a blank template of your library, no shelves, no furniture and think about how you could make the space innovative and functional.  What would you do?  What would you change? Ask the students. What do they want to be able to do in the library?

I am not a very visual person.  I cannot imagine things in spaces or visualize how things might look in a different arrangement.  So panic started to set in for me.  Blank space? Not possible.  I have been living in this library for 12 years.  I love my space just the way it is.  I love the flow.  I love the arrangement.  I don't like change...

But I pretended like I was cool with this and I even asked her to come out and take a look at my space and give me some ideas about how I could redesign. And so she did... and now I am hyperventialting!

What if you moved your chapterbooks to the other side of the library and your Everybody collection over here?  Then you could remove these shelves and this would be a great place for your makerspace.  You could get tables that lend themselves to collaboration and have some comfy collaborative reading areas here and here...  I smile and nod and try not to pass out.

Then I get on twitter tonight for a #ce15 chat about innovation.  And this happens...

They are speaking to me.  My PLN knows what I need to hear tonight.  Another example of how being connected is so valuable for growth.

And so I'll go to sleep tonight.  Return my breathing to normal.  Bring my assistant some donuts in the morning.  And together we will make a plan to transform our library...one step at a time.

Technology Tues: Kate Messner Google Hangout

Writing, Writing, Writing... It is definitely an area that our school is concentrating on every year. Especially our 4th grade students that have to take a state writing assessment.  

Today, some of my 4th grade classes participated in Kate Messner's Google Hangout sponsored by We Are Teachers.  

She was specifically discussing the writing process of her Ranger In Time series.  This series is about Ranger, a search and rescue dog, who travels back in time to help people.  

Kate was so open about showing different parts of her work.  She held up her writer's notebook with her brief phrases about ideas.  She showed a long piece of paper where she collects all her ideas about a story in one place before she starts.  

The students were shocked to hear that it took almost 2 years to write and publish a book!  They were also glad to hear that even professional writer's have their papers marked up by editors.  

Our students were also surprised to hear one of the guest classes ask a question about what kind of "leads" Kate like to use in her books.  That class was in a totally different state and they called the beginning of their stories "leads" too!  

It sure does make more of an impact on kids when they hear that students in other states and professional authors go through the same writing process that they do... another example of the power of being connected.  

Being Connected: Another Virtual Author Visit

Thanks again to twitter, the students at my school were involved in another virtual author visit.  This time with Kate DiCamillo.  Last year, Jarret Krosoczka tweeted about a live event he was going to be doing.  I sent the information out to the teachers and almost my whole school watched as he talked abot writing, illustrating and Platapus Police Squad.  You can read about that here.

Back in August, John Schu @MrSchuReads, tweeted about a video conference opportunity in October with Kate DiCamillo.

 I immediately emailed my teachers about this awesome opportunity (even though we were not yet back in school from summer vacation)!  

When school did start, one of my kinder teachers asked if I had any recommendations for a read aloud to do with her class.  I mentioned the Mercy Watson books and reminded her about the upcomming video conference with Kate.  She jumped on the idea and started reading her kids book one and they were hooked!  She would tell me that her kids LOVED the books and couldn't wait for the end of the day when she would read.  They sat mesmerized, still and quiet while she read. They loved how Mercy loved buttery toast and asked questions about why Eugenia didn't like Mercy.  She said in all her years of teaching kinder, she had never had kids respond to a book like that.  So of course when she finished book 1, they wanted to read book 2. So they did.  And another kinder class started book 1. 

Today, they came back from lunch and were so excited to see "Mercy's writer" on the screen and the books that they had read displayed behind her.  Everytime Kate mentioned Mercy, they would gasp and giggle.  They "oohed" and "ahhed" when she mentioned the "buttery toast".  It was really something to be able to connect them with an author of a story they had just adored.

Meanwhile, in 5th grade, more amazing things were happening.  One teacher told her kids about the video conference and that they would only be able to watch the beginning of it since their lunch happened to fall right in the middle of it.  Tonight on her blog, this teacher wrote "After I saw the expressions on their faces, I offered to have them get lunch from the cafeteria and come back to the room during lunch.  They all had smiles on their faces!"  She emailed me after school and said that her kids loved it.  They had watched the whole thing and told me that they had eaten lunch in the room, and that it was the first time ever in her teaching career (21 years) that she had eaten in her room.  Wow!  The power of being connected!  

I love being able to find these opportunites for my students and it is only because I stepped out of my comfort zone and started tweeting that I became connected and in turn can connect my students and teachers.  

Live Video Feed with Jarrett Krosoczka

Another fabulous opportunity for my students discovered on Twitter...

Last night I noticed a tweet about a live opportunity Jarrett Krosoczka was offering for students today.

 I immediately emailed my teachers about it.  As usual, most were skeptical, but my two go-getter, willing to try anything, 4th grade teachers jumped at the 11:00 opportunity.   They even asked questions during the feed and Jarrett answered them!  

Wanting to get more teachers on board, I asked these two to reply to my email about how cool it was (sneaky, I know, but hey, it worked!)  and I brought it up with them in the teacher's lounge at lunch since he was doing another one at 1:00 our time.  

Once they heard how easy and fabulous it was, the rest of the teachers were all on board.  During the feed, Jarrett introduces his Platypus Police Squad books and how he draws the characters.  Some of my kinder students were even drawing along!  

 

He also showed how he changes characters facial expressions by drawing different lines around the eyes.  Here is a 2nd grader practicing.

What a super way to connect with kids and get kids excited about reading.  With summer coming up, I know what books my students are going to be looking for at the library.  

 

Here are some actual quotes from some 5th graders about the experience.  

"We are learning about his books online without him actually being here"

"We loved that it was interactive"

"Not only did he talk about his books, but he showed us how he illustrated them too"

"He gave us a sneak peak of his next book"

"We got to look at a live screen at a famous author that students across the country were able to see at the same time"

Thanks Mr. Krosoczka for a fabulous 20 min that our students will remember!  

Poetry Month

April is poetry month and for the first time in a long time I've got stuff planned all month!  I've been sharing some poems from some of my favorite poetry books.

I love the poems in  "Good Dog" becuase they are told from the point of view of different breeds... The Chihuahua poem shows hyper, yet tough personality.  The Maltese is a beautiful bride with a vow poem from her owner to love and cherish her. And my favorite is the Pomeranian who has just gone to the groomer and is admonishing his owner for embarrasing him by making him look like a "powder puff". 

Alan Katz visited my school 3 years ago and is just as funny in person as his Silly Dilly songs.  My favorite in this book is "Stinky, Stinky Diaper Change" sung to the toon of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". 

School Fever has great poems about the librarian who conquers a mouse in the library by reading to him, the cafeteria food, and my favorite from this one is a boy who professes his love for his teacher and since he can't tell her he loves her, drives her crazy instead.

And Judy Sierra take Mother Goose favorites and turns them into monster rhymes in this hilarious book.

We are also having Poetry Alive on May 4th and to get ready for their visit, another librarian and I created some centers based on the poems they might perform. My first class of 2nd graders visted today and had a great time writing a list poem, drawing the characters from "Don't Let Your Cat Wear an Apron" with DoodleBuddy on the iPad and using highlihters to find words that describe senses in "The Cat on My Lap". 

I have different centers for 3rd-5th grade that will start next week.

At the end of the month we are going to be connecting with other classes via skype to share poetry.  If you are interested in participating in that here is the link to the google doc.  We are also celebrating "Poem in My Pocket" Day on April 30. 

What are you doing to celebrate poetry month? 

Twitter Chatting with Students

Last week, one of the middle school librarians in my district, Irene Kistler (@irenekistler) and I were talking about how fun it would be to have the students in our district be able to chat and share via twitter.  She had been tossing around the idea after seeing a tweet from New Zealand .  We decided to make it easy since it was our first time and the week we came back from spring break.  We had 2 questions.

Q1:  What did you read over spring break?

Q2:  What did you do for fun over spring break?

Irene had a form that the students could fill out and then bring to me to get approved.  Then I took them to the computer and let them tweet.  I had the chat up all week on my Smartboard in the library and the students were thrilled to see their tweets pop-up on the screen.  

We also wanted the students to be able to give a shout out to a teacher, so we added that as a 3rd response on the form.  Not all of my teachers are on twitter, so I emailed the tweet to them if a student mentioned them.  

Irene and I let the other librarians in our district know about this and some of the G/T teachers.  As a matter of fact, one of our G/T teachers, Terri Eichholz (@terrieichholz)  wrote about how she used this idea in her classroom here.  It was fun to go through and read the tweets from different campuses. The part that I was missing though, was the students being able to read and respond to others' tweets. Irene had a great idea to have a week of questions and then a week to be able to read and respond. We are in that process now, so it will be interesting to see how that turns out.  

Today, some of our 4th grade students that were in the library during checkout had the opportunity to participate in the #stu2stuchat set up by Sandy Otto (@sandyrotto).

I had seen Sandy publicize this post over the weekend and made a note to check it out.  I happen to have 4th graders checking out at that time so I called a few over to check it out and a few turned into more.  

A couple of our students tweeted, but they really enjoyed seeing what other students were reading. We have plans to join the next #stu2stuchat on April 8th.  

I love that we are venturing in to connecting our students and letting them see things outside the walls of our school.  

Technology Tuesday: Skyping with Maryland

So last week, I wrote about how one of my students skyped with a few students from Maine. (read here).  Today, after rescheduling from a Maryland snow day yesterday, a whole class was able to skype with another class in Maryland for World Read Aloud Day.

I first heard about World Read Aloud day on twitter.  I asked a few questions and a very nice librarian in Maryland named Mr. Winner answered my questions and volunteered to show me the ropes if I signed up on his schedule.

He sent me the link to the google doc and you notice he is on p. 65.  Yes, it goes on and on, teachers and librarians everywhere looking for schools to connect with for World Read Aloud Day (or Week). 

Mr. Winner and I  discussed via twitter which book we would like to read and  thought we were all set, until Mother Nature got in the way and cause a snow day in Maryland yesterday.  

Lucky for me, Mr. Winner had a cancellation for today and we were able to connect anyway.  He had a 2nd grade class and I had a 1st grade class.  After walking me though a camera glitch, we were finally connected!  One of his sweet 2nd graders introduced themselves and told us a little about their school and then we did the same.  We had decided that we would partner read Shh, We Have a Plan by Chris Haughton.  He read a page and then I read a page.  

    

Then his 2nd graders took turns each reading a page of Hug Machine  by Scott Campbell.  We still had a few minutes so one of his students asked us a question and then we asked them a question. 

We said our "good-byes" and "thank-yous" and disconnected.  

Afterwards, the kids were full of questions about Maryland.  I pulled a map up on the computer and showed them how far it was from Texas.  Earlier in the year, we had talked about communication in the Colonial Times.  That was a great thing to bring up again to talk about how that connecting like we did would not have been possible back then and that people had to wait weeks or months to exchange letters and news and here we did it instantly.  

I am so excited to connect some more and see how my teachers might take an interest in this.  I know I am late to the skyping bandwagon, but I love the possibilities of connecting kids to other kids to talk about geography, parts of the world, books, research... the list is endless.   

Technology Tuesday: Skyping

Another item checked off my professional bucket list!  Been scared to do it until now.

I finally connected with another class via skype!  Well, actually we tried skype and my sound settings were messed up so we switched real quick over to a google hangout video chat, because you always have a plan B for technology, right?

Back at the beginning of February, I saw a tweet about ConnectED Bingo by Brad Gustafson.  I loved the idea and since I don't have a class of my own, I sent an email out to all my teachers telling them about it.  I suggested they could do it whole class, send it home for kids that wanted to do it at home or have students do it during our whole school intervention time in the morning.  I even threw in $5 gift certificates for the book fair for students who completed a bingo and a $25 if a class completed a bingo.  I have loved watching the tweets of my teachers as they post the student completed squares.

One of the squares is to hold a book talk with another class to discuss a book or author using skype or google hangouts.  One of my 4th grade students wanted to discuss Rump by Liesl Shurtliff.  So through the power of twitter, Ms. Melissa Guerrette in Maine replied back to my tweet searching for some students who would like to talk Rump.

Yesterday, we connected Texas to Maine.  They laughed when we said we were having a cold front and it was 30 degrees.  My 4th grade student had a list of questions that Ms. Guerrette's students graciously answered as they talked about their favorite part or the book, which character they would like to be, what they would have done differently if they were Rump and so on.  We even found out their class had skyped with Liesl Shurtliff!  How cool is that!

It was such an awesome experience. I am not sure who was more excited me or my 4th grader.  I can really see the power of classrooms connecting and hope I can convince more of my teachers to try it.  

WRAD Blogging Challenge: Week 1

In preparation for World Read Aloud Day, I am taking part in the World Read Aloud Blogging Challenge.  Here is my post for week one.  I hope you will consider joining in the fun too.  

Week 1: February 9 - 15
What is your favorite book to read aloud or to hear read aloud and why?

How can a librarian answer a question like this?  There are way too many to choose.  When I was in the classroom teaching 3rd grade, I loved reading Island of the Blue Dolphins aloud to my class.  I think because when I was in 4th grade that was one of the books my favorite teacher, Mrs. Patterson, read out loud to us.  At the time, that is not a book that I would have ever chosen to read myself.  I was much more into Little House on the Prairie or Ramona books.  But there was something about how Karana made a life for herself alone with only the animals, friends or foes, to keep her company. Mrs. Patterson always read to us after recess and I would sit there, head on my desk, listening to her voice and trying to imagine what made Karana strong enough to continue each day.  When I had my own classroom, I think I chose that book to read to my students as a way to introduce them to a genre they might not choose on their own.  Every day, after reading, they would beg me not to stop (and sometimes I wouldn't ;)) 

As a librarian, I love to read aloud fun books.  Books that the students can join in with me.  Books that have great language patterns.  Books that have surprise endings.  

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This is going to be my first year to celebrate World Read Aloud Day.  I found out about it through twitter this year.  During the week, I am going to be connecting one of my 1st grade classes and 4th grade classes with Matthew Winner's class and a 3rd grade class with Shawna Ford's classes. My whole school will be celebrating Dr. Seuss that week as well so many activities are being planned for that celebration as well.