The One Where I Put Myself out There

Being vulnerable is hard for me. I never want to admit that there is anything I can't do by and for myself. While this is more true in my personal than in my professional life, it's prevalent. This entire summer was one giant risk for me. I am especially proud of my accomplishments in this class because I no longer feel like I am not technological. That is huge hurdle for me.

Case in point is this website listing 30 different web apps. I would have found this daunting in May. Today I just opened it, chose a couple to investigate, and picked one without even hesitating. I selected Storyline Online and looked for Spanish language books, since my new elementary school has quite a large Hispanic population. I found only two options that were available in both English and Spanish, but that is not bad considering that this resource is completely free. The one above is grades K-3, and the other choice was only grades 1-3. 

"An award-winning children’s literacy program, Storyline Online couples well-known actors with top illustrated children’s books. Each storytelling video features the actor’s dramatic narration, while skillfully animated illustrations unfold to tell the tale. The extensive teacher’s guide that accompanies each book / video includes a synopsis, standards, suggested grade levels, themes, activities, and printable worksheets. Storyline Online is endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Library Association (ALA)."

English video     English teacher's guide     Spanish video     Spanish teacher's guide

As for the rest of the semester:

Which ones excited you most?

Module 1 Readings Pedagogy before Technology

Module 2 Environmental Scan

Module 4 Acceptable Use Policy

Module 4 Copyright and Fair Use

Which ones were most difficult for you? 

Module 2 Diffusion of Innovation

Module 3 Social Media

Module 3 AI Assisted Newsletter

Module 7 Wakelet Gallery Walk

Which ones will most benefit students?

Module 5 Teach Someone to do Something

Module 6 Universal Design for Learning

Module 6 Universal Design Virtual Tour

Discussion Boards based on the textbook 

I will wrap it up with food for thought on church mission work, which I found appealing and relevant as a believer.-Food for Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards

"What have you overcome? What are you still battling? How are you leading your people? What has worked? What has failed? What is the local vision for community development? Who else is leading well? How is the partnership with your government? What systems are broken in your community? What is your greatest need right now? What is your greatest strength to that end?" My mission is to help everyone I encounter with anything they need. The best way to achieve my own calling is to listen to the community that I wish to serve.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Scan your Environment!

"Established in 1949 by the consolidation of 12 rural school districts, Northside today is 355 square miles of urban landscape, suburban communities, and rural Texas hill country. As South Texas’ largest school system, Northside is the “Destination District” for thousands of families wanting a high quality school system," according to www.nisd.net/district (about).

Y'all I got an elementary librarian job in my dream school district last week! I had applied there twice prior to this. They have the premier school library program in the state of Texas, following best practices to the letter. This is evidenced by the fact that it was discussed in each and every one of the FIVE interviews I had with different campus leaders in NISD.

As a matter of fact, according to www.nisd.net/district/history, "Since the turn of the century, voters have passed six bond elections allocating over $3.6 billion to build 47 new schools and facilities and upgrading current buildings with new roofs, infrastructure, and technology."

It's easy to tell from the "Parents" section of the website what is valued in this school district. Headings of interest include "Library Services" and "Technology Safety." "Library Services" and "Digital Resources" also feature prominently in the "Students" section. The "Library Services" section prominently features a link to the Follett Destiny online card catalog. At the bottom, there is information about how to volunteer with libraries or join friends of libraries.

The "Technology Safety" section includes "Digital Materials with Approved Applications" and "Digital Defense: Safe Students, Secure Data." There is also a section for "Legislative Measures Safeguarding Student Information," including "Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act (SCOPE)," "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)," "Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA)," and "Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA)." Additionally there is a section on "Usage of Student Data." I will not go into detail on the "District Online Safety Measures," as that was a prior assignment. Finally there is an extensive list of "Digital Wellness for Parents" PDF's, videos, and sites.

*In case you didn't notice, this is an effort at recruitment. We need 2 elementary librarians!*

**Update I found out at my new librarian training today that we are going 1 to 1 with carts this year and upgrading every 5 years.**

Everyone Loves a Dinner Party!

UDL: A Dinner Party Analogy

"The library complements and expands the classroom." Thus we are called teacher-librarians! "The school library is a very important learning center. It can dramatically impact learning and instructional delivery for students and teachers alike." If we don't have what our patrons need, then we must find it! "The richness and ranges of information sources underscore the importance of libraries for all students." The students who need the most varied sources can benefit the most from visiting our libraries regularly. "School librarians must work closely with general education and special education teachers to offer specific assistance to all learners." Building relationships with teachers from all departments will benefit all students.

Robinson, D. E. (2017). Universal Design for Learning and school libraries: A logical partnership. Knowledge Quest, 46(1).

This is an example of a guideline I am already using:

Action and Expression: Checkpoint 7.3 - Minimize threats and distractions  

Create an accepting and supportive classroom climate  

Vary the level of novelty or risk  

Charts, calendars, schedules, visible timers, cues, etc increase predictability of daily activities and transitions 

Creation of class routines 

Alerts and previews help learners anticipate and prepare for change in activities, schedule, and novel events 

Options, in contrast to above, maximize the unexpected, surprising, or novel in highly routinized activities  

Vary the level of sensory stimulation 

Variation in background noise, visual stimulation, noise buffer, number of features/items presented at a time 

Variation in pace of work, length of session, availability of breaks/time-outs, or timing/sequence of activities 

Vary social demands, perceived level of support and protection, and requirement for display and evaluation 

Involve all participants in whole class discussions

This is a guideline I could add right now to my teaching practice:

Representation: Checkpoint 5.2 - Use multiple tools for construction and composition

Provide spellcheckers, grammar checkers, word prediction software  

Provide Text-To-Speech software (voice recognition), human dictation, recording  

Provide calculators, graphing calculators, geometric sketchpads, or graph paper  

Provide sentence starters or sentence strips  

Use story webs, outlining tools, or concept mapping tools  

Provide Computer-Aided-Design (CAD), music notation (writing) software, or math notation software  

Provide virtual or concrete math manipulatives (e.g., base-10 blocks, algebra blocks)  

Use web applications (e.g., wikis, animation, presentation)

This guideline looks great, but I might need help to implement it:

Engagement: Checkpoint 2.4 - Promote understanding across languages  

Make information in the dominant language available in 1st language for LEP and ASL for deaf students  

Link key vocabulary words to definitions and pronunciations in both dominant and heritage languages  

Define domain-specific vocabulary (e.g. “map key” in social studies) in domain-specific and common terms 

Provide electronic translation tools or links to multilingual glossaries on the web  

Embed visual, non-linguistic supports for vocabulary clarification (pictures, videos, etc.)

I would like to explore more in terms of implementing UDL. 

"UDL and school libraries form a natural partnership." Libraries are universally open to all learners, and as such, must be designed to facilitate access to everyone. "Different students process and comprehend information differently." Therefore we must present any important information in several different formats. "A consistent expectation of school librarians is the effective delivery of instruction to students with a range of learning needs." For our instruction to be effective for all students, that range must be accommodated. "School librarians must meet the needs of all learners. UDL provides the ideal framework for collaborative curriculum planning and implementation to meet these needs." This framework gives us the buffet of tools to make it possible to meet the needs of everyone simultaneously.

Blue, E.V. & Pace, D. (2011). UD and UDL: Paving the Way toward Inclusion and Independence in the School Library. Knowledge Quest, 39(3), 48-55.

Resources to help clarify things:

University of Washington Do-It

UDL Guidelines

Oregon School Library Information System

Free Resources from Novak

AEM Take-Aways

Old Dog Learns New Tricks

This photo of my parents was taken in May at my younger daughter's wedding. I'm visiting them right now. My dad asked my mom to find something on the computer for him, and I seized the opportunity to "Teach Someone how to do Something." He is 76 years old, so just keep that in mind. My mom is much younger and hipper, a fact with which they will both readily agree. They just visited our baby girl and her new husband at their summer internship with a church in Kansas. My new son-in-law was set to preach a sermon last Sunday evening, which my dad wanted to watch but wouldn't be there for. The pastor offered to record it for him and put it on Facebook. My dad wanted to watch it, but he didn't realize he was about to have to learn how to find it on his own! He had no idea what he was getting himself into. We both had a lot of fun!

I took him to the search engine and asked him what he would do if he was home alone. He said he would call mom! I asked him what he would do if she didn't answer. He said he would wait for her to get home! I said, "Come on dad, help me out." He said he would type it in Google. I asked him what he would type. He said my son-in-law's name. Finally we were getting somewhere! I asked him if he would type anything else. He said he would add sermon. I told him that was exactly what I was hoping he would say. Then we looked at the video results at the top of the page. The first one was him preaching at their college congregation in March. We didn't even know that existed! I was so glad my dad didn't say to type the name or location of their current church, or we wouldn't have found it. The second and third ones were both what we wanted, but one was really short, and one was the entire church service. The fourth one was of someone with the same name who was a DA somewhere in Texas. Since my son-in-law is not an attorney, we discarded that one. Dad got to watch the longer of the two videos from this past Sunday, and as a bonus, he will get to watch the other sermon at some later date. This was a smashing success! Now he can Google all alone.

AI Newsletter (gasp!)

If you know me, then you know Chat GPT is at the top of my no list.

Thank goodness this is a group assignment. My group is a pair of hip and young techie types! WHEW!

Group girl 1 to the rescue wrote our artificial intelligence prompt!

Write an email newsletter from a junior high school librarian to students and parents. Make the content near the top engaging for students, encouraging them to scroll to learn more. The goal is to excite and inspire students and parents and include a call to action to get the community more involved in the library. Include 5 upcoming events to highlight.

Group member 2 was assigned to be the super hero to take what was automatically generated and format it into a usable newsletter.

Newsletter

That left this old lady to critique it.

Honestly prior to this, I was straight up anti-AI. I personally find it to be terrifying. However, the subject line scoring marketing results that followed were worth it all by themselves. The score of 70 said that it lost 7 points for having 2 exclamation marks, 6 points for containing any word with more than 8 characters, 16 points for lacking subtle urgency, and 6 points for using over 50 characters. Therefore, I chose to substitute the first "urgency" option from the list that followed and changed the first exclamation mark to a question mark, thus making it meet all four of the point requirements. Then I took off the unnecessary information and tweaked it so that it would fit on 2 pages that could be printed front and back. All of this took me less than half an hour, and I am not even minimally technological. Someone more adept would have been much faster at it. As for what is missing, since this is a sample, it's hard to tell. The same is true for accuracy. It would have been better with the updated subject line initially.

Is it a help? In a competent group! Is it annoying? By my old lady self. Do I like the result? Absolutely yes! Thanks to my amazing group girls!

The Good Old Days

 

Works cited weekly highlights:

I had an interview for a district librarian position in the DFW metroplex a week ago in which we discussed Common Sense Media. I emailed this link to the committee in order to follow up this morning.

https://www.commonsense.org/education/videos/blooms-digital-taxonomy

According to Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, "Collaboration is a 21st Century skill of increasing importance and one that is used throughout the learning process." (Churches, 2008, p. 6)

Churches, Andrew. (2008). Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. 

MARIST COLLEGE MINDSET LIST FOR ENTERING COLLEGE CLASS OF 2023

Born in 2001, the incoming class of college students contained my older daughter, so I was interested in this. "Their grandparents’ classic comics have evolved into graphic novels."

https://www.marist.edu/w/marist-news-the-first-marist-mindset-list-is-released

I had a job interview for a middle school librarian position yesterday in the hill country. The principal said the prior library media specialist retired after 25 years. He wants to innovate. I sent him this. 

https://www.k12blueprint.com/sites/default/files/informal_learning_space_library_0.pdf

Pedagogy before Technology

After reviewing the resources above, I was reminded that our students view technology very differently than I do. I didn't have a cell phone until I went away to college. It was a bag phone that plugged into the cigarette lighter in my car. An antenna attached to the roof with a magnet. No one knew where I was unless I wanted them to. No one took my picture or videod me without my knowledge or consent. No one posted mean things about me on the internet. No one cyberstalked me. I was unaware of how good I had it. My older daughter (pre-pandemic high school class of 2019) got a smart phone in high school, which was late. I shielded her as long as I could. She can't live without it now. After getting both a bachelor's and a master's degree in an integrated program, she now works remotely from anywhere her little heart desires. I could never even have envisioned this life for her.

Fast forward 6 years. I took Family and Medical Leave (FMLA) for Long COVID complicated by bereavement stress this past spring. I then worked remotely for no pay every day for the entire 12 weeks (and still got fired anyway, but that's another blog post entirely). I posted weekly videos to our website. I graded assignments digitally for my dual credit classes. I placed book orders online. I submitted travel requests via an online system. I sent and received countless emails. The list goes on and on. Essentially I taught from home. This would not have been possible in the pre-quarantine world at all.

Technology is only a tool for learning. My students missed seeing me and talking to me in person, although we had phone calls. It's not the same as a big hug and a warm smile. We need human connection. We must build relationships with our students and colleagues. We have to show our students we care about them in order for them to trust us enough to let their guard down with us so they can learn. We crave personal interaction. 

Had I not been a certified school librarian in my last semester of my MLS program, I would have been woefully unprepared for this hiccup. I didn't appreciate how much I had learned and developed until I so easily applied these skills. I had a bad case of imposter syndrome. It didn't begin to dissipate until I started writing this blog post. Look Mom, I'm blogging! She doesn't know what that means, but she would be proud of me if she did. My daughter does. She is.

I only have three years left until I am eligible to retire. This doesn't mean I will. I can though. That doesn't sound like very long. The time will fly by. Still the landscape of technology will change immeasurably in that brief period. I will keep up so I don't get left in the dust. Now I know I can. I had serious doubts prior to today. I'm typing this in line at the airport. I had a Zoom interview in a different airport last Wednesday. I can't believe I'm even saying that, but it's true.