How do you get students engaged and excited to read and write about what they are reading? I’ll give you a one word answer – Feedly! Often overlooked as a classroom reading option is to use a tool like Feedly to pull things that truly interest students and deliver them directly in one place. Part of the appeal of the web is that there are websites and blogs for just about any topic you can conceive of! The beauty of Feedly is that it collects all the updates/new posts from all websites from their favorite topics in one place rather than them taking precious classroom time to find things that interest them. The concept is simple – keep their book bins full of great, interesting, thought-provoking things to read about without lifting a finger. The most exciting thing is they like it! But how does Feedly work? Feedly works on…
Read More...Do Patrons With Overdue or Lost Materials Get To Check Out?
This is an interesting question we all struggle with. We really need to sit back and examine why we are in business. Our job is to make learning resources available to students. How can students excel in reading when they don’t have access to the resources we have available? How can students excel in their learning area when they don’t have access to check out the resources of the LMC? All too often library media specialists are seen as the book police or library nazis. Is that encouraging a love of reading – a love for coming to the library where they will engage in lifelong learning? The students I deal with are more worried about getting to school when they are flip-flopped from household to household not knowing if it’s dad’s week or mom’s week – let alone which house the library book is in. I constantly ask myself…
Read More...Effective Internet Searching and the Common Core
Effective Internet Searching: Do you know how? Do your students know how? How many of us immediately Google something when we are looking for an answer? Is that the most effective thing to do? When is the last time you, as a classroom teacher, spent classroom time teaching students how to do an effective internet search? How many of us take for granted young people know how to use a search engine? Most teachers that I have worked with assume students know how to do research and answer essential questions when in reality, they do not. The fact of the matter is that many classroom teachers do not. This is a skill we need to master and practice with students. One of the neatest ways, I think, is to make this into a game and practice daily with your students. There’s a website that helps you do this www.agoogleaday.com This…
Read More...Become a Common Core – EdTech Ninja This Summer
We all need Summer to re-charge and re-invigorate ourselves and our teaching. Here are 5 ways we can use our summer to become a Common Core EdTech Ninja. Summer break is here for most schools in the United States. It’s a time to sip our favorite beverage and relax – but it’s also a time for us to concentrate on things we didn’t have time for in the hectic school year. With our internet-connected world, there are a plethora of resources we can access to hone our common core edtech skills. Here are 5 things you need to add to your “to do” list this summer to be common core – edtech ready. 1. Take In a Conference There are several ways you can take in a conference. First, you can actually attend a conference in person. There are many great conference that take place over the summer. Use Google to…
Read More...Are You Part of a Google+ Community? If Not, You Should Be!
Educators are flocking to Google+ for news, ideas and interaction. It’s a great sounding board for your ideas, and an awesome place to share great ideas. Whether you are interested in educational technology, the future of learning, or looking for ideas to support your subject area, there is a community for you to join. I think everyone should add a few communities to their professional learning arsenal. A great place to start would be to take a look at those of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. The DPI has quite a few Professional Learning Communities that it has established on the Google+ Community Platform. Some of these are “public” and you can just click on “join,” while others are “private” where you will click on “join” and then wait for the moderator’s approval. Here are some from the DPI that you can join: WI DPI School Libraries PLC WI DPI…
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