A New Space for a New Year

This year, I am so excited to roll out our new Reading Nook. A couple of years ago, there was some talk about possibly updating the high school library. At that time, I sat down with a few students in their English class and asked what they wished we could have in the library. A number of them asked for a quiet place to read. Our library is set up with many large tables that easily facilitate collaboration - and for better or worse, it can get pretty noisy sometimes. The request seemed like a necessity that had been overlooked. Although the funding never materialized, I still felt compelled to make our reading nook happen.

Over the summer, I asked for one of our shelving units to be moved into the fiction section (we can always use more shelving in the fiction section!), which opened up a nice bright space by a window. Then, I moved a few of our reading chairs into a quiet, secluded area of the library. I bought a rug and inexpensive end tables at Ikea for a total of $120. Luckily, I had a small grant left over and was able to be reimbursed for this cost. Now, we have a lovely reading nook that seems to really provide something special for our library.

Our First Author Visit!

We were very lucky this past April to invite YA author Jessica Warman to visit our school library. I had written a small grant earlier in the school year that included a request for funds so that we could enjoy an author visit, which we had never experienced before. Luckily, one of our awesome Knight Readers had a connection to YA author Jessica Warman, whose book Between was on our reading competition list! After just a couple of emails back and forth, Jessica came to our library for a visit! She requested an interview format, so I prepared a few questions after reading her book The Last Good Day of the Year and after reading several articles and online interviews with the author. As a true crime podcast fan myself, her most recent book, a bit of a mystery thriller, appealed to me. In an effort to keep the group small and engaged, I invited members of the reading team, our student-run book club, students who had checked out Warman's books from our school library, and finally anyone who expressed an excitement about the author visit. Students had permission to miss about an hour of class, as I didn't want lack of a ride home to inhibit students from participating in this experience. Ms. Warman was just absolutely lovely during our interview, and then she very graciously answered a number of student questions about her books, about being an author, and finally about living in Pittsburgh. She revealed that one book had been optioned for a movie, so we will continue to look forward to that! After expressing that the time had flown by quickly during our visit, Jessica offered to send autographed bookmarks for all students who attended. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later I was able to surprise our students with a souvenir from our first author visit! I decided to hide the extra bookmarks inside of all four books we have in the library authored by Warman with a little note stating that the bookmark is a gift for the reader. Our students (and I!) very much enjoyed this visit, and we cannot thank Jessica enough for making the trip out to our school library!

Google Earth and National Geographic Society: One Educator's Story

At Metsker Maps in Seattle

One of my fondest memories as a kid growing up in central Pennsylvania was frequenting the Penn State Creamery with my family. My parents would patiently wait while my little brother and I would mull over flavors like Peachy Paterno and WPSU Coffee Break in order to choose the perfect scoop. While we licked our cones trying to chase each drip before it reached our sleeves, we would flip through National Geographic magazines piled high on each outdoor table by a local collector. I remember staring at the iconic yellow borders and marveling at the photos inside depicting the splendor of our National Parks or the seemingly fantastical traditions of people from far away lands.

So when I was offered an opportunity as an adult to attend a workshop in Seattle, WA hosted by National Geographic Society and Google Earth, I felt nostalgia mixed with excitement. While I was expecting to be wowed by some amazing tech, I had not expected to be in the presence of such skillful, inspirational, and worldly educators. A number of very mindful teachers there follow the UN Global Goals, which strive to end poverty and inequality, and to make a dent in climate change.

@ Google Headquarters in Seattle

As I click through the stunning photographs depicted in the Pristine Seas Voyager Story, I can't help but marvel at how this new platform has transformed National Geographic. And yet, I am reminded of the wonder I felt as a little girl flipping through glossy pages outside of the Creamery. Because whether the platform is print or digital or video matters little, as long as it inspires the next generation to care about conservation and cultural literacy. So thank you Google Earth and National Geographic Society for an absolutely unforgettable experience. But more importantly, thank you for continuing and updating the 130 year legacy that National Geographic Society has established for inspiring kids to care about making the world a better place.

Prior to attending the Hackathon, we were asked to participate in Phase I of the National Geographic Educator Certification program. During the webinar, we learned about Nat Geo's philosophy on teaching and learning, which includes "how the human and natural worlds work at local, regional, and global scales." Meaningful units can start with a question, then students collect data to begin formulating an answer to the question. Students continue by bringing data sets together using a visual tool, such as a digital map, before creating a product to share with their teacher and classmates and perhaps even parents or community members. Finally, and this is the piece that pushes a lesson beyond school into the realm of meaningful learning, students must act to bring about change. A number of educators present at the Hackathon shared how they are already doing this in their schools or classrooms, breaking down each step and aligning each piece with the UN Global Goals.

Googlers shared with us the Google Geo tools that are now available to make the stories we want our students to hear, and ultimately the ones we hope they can tell, incredibly compelling. Just this past Monday at ISTE, the Google Earth team rolled out the Google Earth Education Program, which features Voyager Stories. Under the Education tab, a number of these stories were created in conjunction with National Geographic Society and their explorers. These stories are tied together with Idea Sets (including discussion questions, activities, videos, and more) for teachers on the National Geographic Society Education site. Now teachers have a wide array of meaningful lesson activities to choose from when carefully crafting engaging units for their students. We don't have to start from scratch! Many lesson activities are guided by Nat Geo explorers, they outline problems, and most importantly they provide students with opportunities to propose solutions.

Check out a brief tutorial below:

PBS Blog Post Number 2: A Trip Back in Time to Mercy Street

We had our first experience using 360 video in the Norwin HS Library, and PBS asked me to document it in a blog post. Here is my second blog post for PBS Teachers Lounge: "A Trip Back in Time to Mercy Street."

PSLA Annual Conference: A Homecoming

Last school year, I attended the American Association of School Librarians National Conference in Columbus, OH. I had a blast teaching and learning from librarians located all over the country (and even the world!). But unfortunately, this meant that I had to miss the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Annual Conference in Hershey last year. AASL was a wonderful experience; however, coming back to PSLA this year felt like coming home. I missed running into colleagues with whom I collaborate on the listserv and Schoology, and I missed the chocolate, of course! Speaking with librarians from other states at AASL also made me realize just how special of an organization PSLA is, and how lucky we are here in Pennsylvania to have such supportive and involved colleagues.

A highlight for me this year at PSLA was meeting with my team members for the Regional Leaders Academy over dinner on Thursday night. I am very much looking forward to working with them throughout the next year. Another wonderful experience was attending the Advisory Council lunch and meeting some of the people that make this organization what it is. Hmmm...I'm sensing a food theme here...

I also appreciated learning more about Future Reading Librarians - this was an initiative that I had heard a little bit about but didn't quite know how to incorporate into my own program. Shannon McClintock Miller, spokesperson for the Future Ready Librarians initiative, shared more about the various roles that future ready librarians must be able to fulfill. Participants had an opportunity to discuss which roles we already perform well and which roles are still challenging. I identified that I am proficient in leading PD, I am always working to cultivate instructional partnerships, and I have just begun working on community partnerships. Luckily, we received a wonderful resource for future reference as we continue to grow our programs: bit.ly/PSLAfuturereadylibs.

I was extremely excited to share my love of Google Street View and Google Cardboard during my session Come Fly With Me: Virtual Field Trips. Participants seemed to really enjoy using Nearpod to explore VR, and they also seemed pretty amazed at the places they could visit using the Street View and Cardboard apps. One participant taught me about a United Nations Virtual Reality website, which features a number of important stories in VR. Additionally, we had a great discussion about videoconferencing with authors. I learned that the most important prep a teacher can do is to test out the equipment ahead of time! Overall, I was really happy with how the session went, and I will continue to incorporate short bursts of discussion and tech practice during upcoming workshops. I know that I've said this before, but I truly do lead workshops on topics I am passionate about in part so that I can learn from other experts in the room.

The school librarian community is just that: a community. And this group is giving and kind and smart and helpful. I am always thankful to be a part of PSLA.

Blog Post for PBS Teachers' Lounge

I was thrilled to contribute a blog post for PBS Teachers' Lounge, published on March 24, 2017. It was based off of a PA School Librarian post entitled "Virtual Field Trips," but it goes into much more step-by-step detail as to how a beginner can create a successful virtual field trip for their students. Here's the post: http://www.pbs.org/education/blog/foreign-language-virtual-field-trips-a-travel-guide-for-beginners. After creating the post, I learned about a PBS virtual field trip that students could take using 360 degree video content from their Civil War series Mercy Street. The brief video is available from the free Littlstar app, and the lesson can be extended to include a discussion and a written activity or assessment. I had the opportunity to forge a new collaboration with one of my social studies colleagues, so this is why I am so thrilled to learn about new and engaging PBS virtual reality content. Hopefully a post on this lesson soon!

Reading Graphic Novels

When I was first asked to teach a group of students how to properly read a graphic novel, I wasn't quite sure what to teach them. But as I began to research the topic, I realized that students who have never read a graphic novel or comic book could easily be confused by panels, thought bubbles, or dialog bubbles that do not always follow our traditional straight lines of left to right text. Get Graphic, a website created by the Buffalo and Erie County Public Libraries along with their partners, offered a lot of help on the topic: http://www.getgraphic.org. These fantastic librarians put together an easy-to-follow guide on how to properly read a graphic novel, along with definitions for terms, and examples of pages. I uploaded some of these materials into Nearpod and created interactive activities in which students had to number dialog bubbles to demonstrate their knowledge of how to read a graphic novel page. After the lesson, several students ended up checking out graphic novels from the library, so I was excited to be able to introduce this genre of literature to students. I was especially excited to see how engaged some of the boys in the English classes were in the novels they were reading. Some started side-conversations about funny moments in the text or neat illustrations that they wouldn't normally see in their required reading. I hope I have the opportunity to teach similar lessons to this one in the future, as the students were engaged and excited about what they were reading! Additionally, as someone who rarely reads graphic novels, I learned a lot and was even inspired to read one of the graphic novels I had just purchased for the library.

Students number panels to demonstrate understanding of how to read a graphic novel.

Students answer brief questions about the experience of reading a graphic novel