A Roundup of Space-Related Links

Posted on August 12, 2012 by GLMA Executive Office

I’m sure you have more than enough Olympics news and links to last you through the month, but there has also been an amazing amount of space-related news these past few weeks. The 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The Mars Curiosity Rover landing. Now the Perseid meteor shower this weekend. Some news about our old friend Voyager leaving the solar system.

I’ve been reading Brian Floca’s Moonshot to my kids. It’s a GA Picture Book nominee and ties in well with all this news. Plus it’s a perfect read aloud for any age level. Even the teachers who have stuck around to listen find it interesting. Here’s a link to Brian Floca’s website.

A few years ago (on the 40th anniversary of the Apolo 11 landing) this mind-blowing site was created: WeChoosetheMoon.org. It’s a recreation of the entire mission from launch to landing with real audio, photos, videos and other goodies.

NASA’s site is, of course, the perfect place to catch up on what’s been going on with Curiosity and to go back and watch highlights from their video gallery. Exciting stuff!

And if you are not familiar with him yet, you need to introduce yourself to the link-happy Larry Ferlazzo, a high school ELL teacher in California who seemingly spends 30 hours a day collecting and sharing the best links on, well, anything and everything including the best sites to learn more about the Mars Rover Curiosity.

Now I gotta go get ready to stay up tonight for the Perseid show…

Jim Randolph

Partee Elementay

Snellville, GA

Infographics

Posted on August 5, 2012 by GLMA Executive Office

By now you’ve probably seen an infographic or two – they are popping up everywhere. Infographics are an interesting way to display statistics for the media center, whether to administrators or to teachers and students. I also think this has tremendous potential in the classroom as a meaningful way for students to represent information. However, they are not easy to create for those of us who are not graphic designers. That’s where Piktochartcomes in handy!

I’ve played around with and it’s easy enough to use that I’ve recommended it to one of my teachers that is willing to try new web tools with her students. After creating an account, Piktochart provides 5 templates to choose from. (Think making a brochure with Publisher.) Our plan is to have kids use piktochart to represent each time period in American Lit. Last year she said her students had trouble connecting one time period to the next, so we’ll be sure to include that as a requirement in the infographic (i.e. What were the people in this time period reacting to from the previous time period?) We’ll print them and use them in the classroom as a refresher before tests.

I’ll try to remember to update this post after we complete the project. In the meantime, I wish everyone the best for a happy and productive school year!

~Holly Frilot, CHHS Media Center

Power Searching with Google

Posted on July 12, 2012 by GLMA Executive Office

Dan Russell has a very cool title: Senior Research Scientist, Google Inc.

He’s also a clear-spoken and affable guide to the ins and outs of really searching with Google.

If you want to sharpen your Google-searching skills there’s a short, free course going on right now over here: http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/course.

I admit, I use Google enough that I didn’t learn too much from the first two classes. But I did learn a few tings and found the course design well done (which has given me some ideas for future online learning I may do with students and teachers).

The third class gets into more advanced stuff and I did learn more there. I happily got an A on my midtem this morning.

Apparently if you take the midterm and final you will get a certificate emailed to you so you can show off your new found skills.

Here’s a news article from Mashable on the course: http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/google-search-classes/

Go for it! And share the course with other students and educators you think may benefit.

Thanks,

Jim Randolph

Partee Elementary

Snellville, GA

Web 2.0 in the Good Ole’ Summertime

Posted on June 7, 2012 by glmaguest

As summer has set in and I look back over 2011-2012, I am reminded that school library media specialists are some of the most creative, resourceful educators in the teaching profession. With every year and semester that passes, I see my students generating more and more innovative strategies and activities in their programs. Teachers (and students) are incorporating a vast number of web 2.0 tools in their teaching and learning. The large number of quality web 2.0 tools that surface on a rather constant basis is sobering. I often hear, “There’s just too much. How do I know what’s best to use?” The answer is simple: it depends.

Now, while the answer is simple, the process is a little more complicated. Indeed, it does take time to explore “what’s out there” and how specific tools can best be integrated at the most relevant point of need. For example, while powerpoint might be a tool that works great for an in-class presentation, sliderocket allows you to go mobile and show your presentations on the move. Prezi is a wonderful way to present ideas, but animoto might be the better way to go with presenting photos/pictures. If the idea is to focus on history, the best tool might be museumbox. Maybe sharing information in a variety of formats is your need, so LiveBinders could organize and provide a forum for sharing the data for you. The point is, with exploration and some time commitment, capitalizing on the right tool for the right event for the right group is worth the investment.

Just for fun, I’ll share an example of how the right tools were used at the right point in time…

Recently I was asked to prepare “something” to show a group of program evaluators what we do in school library media and ways in which our program attempts to adapt itself to respond to input from our stakeholders and to changes in the profession. I considered a variety of free web 2.0 tools because I wanted to impress upon the visitors that much of what we can produce here and in P-12 schools is good quality and is FREE. So, I gathered pictures from public domain sources and found the perfect background songs on youtube. (Song creator Bryant Oden gave me full permission to use his songs in the presentation and on the GLMA blog.) I had to strip the audio using the video2mp3 free download. Next, I used audacity to put the 3 songs into one file and uploaded the file to animoto (educator’s edition allows for full length videos…free). I organized the pictures in animoto so the sequence would work well with the music, then produced the video. The final product is linked here.

Summer may provide you with a great opportunity for time to take a look at some of “what’s out there” at your leisure. I encourage you to test the tools, explore, and provide a true adventure for your students and teachers as they find just the right tool for just the right moment. Perhaps I’ll share some of my creative student work (which will far outshine mine!!) later in the Fall. Some creations just need to be shared!!

Dr. Phyllis Snipes
University of West Georgia
School Library Media & Instructional Technology Department

Senior Presentation Tools

Posted on April 18, 2012 by GLMA Executive Office

Over the past two years I have worked with the Senior Language Arts teacher to change the “Senior Memory Book Project” into a digital “Senior Portfolio.” Different teachers have varations of the requirements, but basically it includes selections from personal writings they have completed over the year, thoughtful answers to cumulative questions, and illustrations of some kind (pictures, videos, etc.).

Talking about presentations tools with students is one of my favorite things to do. We’ve been working with Prezi, Popplet, SlideRocket, and Mixbook. All of these tools offer something a little different, but they also allow a student to share a link with a teacher. This is important for us, since many teachers want to have something they can refer back to when grading without having to deal with knowing student log-ins and passwords. However, I do warn students to be careful with the personal information they post, as most of the “free” tools are public.

If you know of any other free, student-friendly presentation tools, please comment!

Holly Frilot

www.chhsmediacenter.com

Skype author visit

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Collins Hill Media Center

Gail Giles, a YA author that has appeal to guys, girls, high and low level readers, Skyped into Collins Hill HS a few weeks ago. I was a nervous wreck, anticipating the many things that could go wrong when you combine teenagers, technology, and the first attempt at something new. However, it was a resounding success! Gail Giles was witty and fun, and our students did a wonderful job asking questions and keeping the conversation going. If you want to see the highlights, see our short video here. If you want more details, keep reading…

Amy Golemme, my co-media specialist, and I brainstormed authors that would have mass appeal. Gail Giles was our first thought, so I took a shot in the dark and emailed her. She emailed back quickly and we got the details planned out – one test session a few days before, then 2 sessions during our 2nd and 3rd periods. We decided to use the media center to keep it cozy and inviting, rather than a larger space like the commons area or theater. I made signs for the hallways and classrooms and the media center. I went into all the 9th and 10th grade LA classes to promote it. Students that wanted to participate had to read at least one of her books, answer a few questions, and write a few questions they’d like to ask her. For those students, I gave them a pass out of class during 2nd or 3rd period and they were our VIPs. I also invited two language arts classes per session and any media specialists from the around the county that could come.

In Gwinnett, we aren’t allowed to use Skype, but we do have an alternative – Polycom and the Blue Jeans network. We use those tools and the author uses Skype. Kevin Tomlinson from the county was excellent technical support for us and helped put my technology fears to rest. On the day of the event, we set up about 80 chairs in the media center, created VIP seats, put out a breakfast spread, set up the technology, and hoped for the best! Gail came on, introduced herself, and then we had the students come up to the computer to ask questions. We had a webcam and external mic hooked up to my laptop. The students asked good questions, and Gail was entertaining, funny, and informative. When I polled the students after the event, they all said they had a positive experience and many expressed interest in doing it again. One student even turned in a top ten list of authors she’d like to Skype with!

If you have any questions or want templates for signs, the handout students filled out, or any other details, don’t hestitate to email me at holly_frilot@gwinnett.k12.ga.us or call at 770.682.4126. It was a lot of work, but a great experience for us and for the students.

Holly Frilot, Collins Hill High School

How to teach 3 social studies units covering over half a century in 4 weeks: A 5th Grade Glogster Project

Posted on February 3, 2012 by plemmonsa

Last year, I began a journey with 5th grade that integrated multiple social studies standards into one big project. The teachers put students in cross-classroom groups and assigned them social studies topics for a unit on the turn of the century. Each group made a glog about their topic after using print and digital resources to gather information. We were amazed by the leadership, collaboration, and innovation that took place in that project, but we made a lot of mistakes along the way too. You can read more about last year here and here.

This year, we almost didn’t do this project. The teachers were feeling even more overwhelmed by the content this year because they had to teach 3 social studies units and 2 science units in 9 weeks. You would probably feel overwhelmed too if you knew you had to teach these units in that amount of time:

[slideshare id=11402190&doc=unit5planner-120203062829-phpapp02&type=d]

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[slideshare id=11402191&doc=unit7planner-120203062828-phpapp02&type=d]

Even the district planner recommends a total of 12 weeks for the units, but requires that it be done in the 3rd quarter (9 weeks).

After multiple combinations of meetings between me, the 5th grade social studies teacher, the gifted collaboration teacher, and the instructional coach, we developed a plan for how this year’s content might look. Each of the 3 social studies classes were assigned a unit. Within each class, topics were assigned to individuals as well as groups of students. These students made plans of how to divide the content among their group. On Mondays and Fridays, the social studies teacher and gifted teacher did direct teaching of some of the content from all 3 units. On Tuesday-Thursday, students came to the media center to research their topics in online databases, websites, and books. Last year, students just took notes as they read, but this year we wanted students to have a better structure that was based in questions that came from the standards. The gifted teacher combed through the standards and created 2 different graphic organizers with questions for students to consider. The organizer also had space to document resources used. Some students chose to use digital copies of this organizer while others chose to print it out and write their notes.

[slideshare id=11402093&doc=electronic3columnnotesforunits567event-120203061957-phpapp02]

[slideshare id=11402092&doc=electronic3columnnotesforunits567person-120203061959-phpapp01]

Once again, I pulled together a pathfinder divided up by topics. This pathfinder gave each student a handful of websites about their topic. I also showed them how to search the databases found in Georgia’s Galileo collection. My paraprofessional took the topics and searched through our print collection. If a book matched one group’s topic, she put a post-it with their names on the book. If a book spanned multiple topics, she put it in a shared stack.

To begin our journey, I briefly introduced the pathfinder, graphic organizers, and how to take notes (not copying and pasting entire paragraphs of information from websites). I also showed a glog from last year’s students to give them an idea of what they would ultimately be doing. We chose not to introduce how Glogster works at the beginning. We also chose to not give students logins and passwords to Glogster. Students then began a week of research. The social studies teacher, gifted teacher, student teacher, my paraprofessional, some college students, and me began working with students as much as possible to support them in their search.

After a week, I introduced how Glogster works by showing a very basic run-through of the kinds things it can do. Students continued to research, but as they finished, they checked in with one of the adults. Most of the time we offered additional guiding questions and support so that they had the most complete information possible. Once students reached a point where they had enough information, they received their username and password to Glogster.

Most students began Glogster with deciding on their wall background. Then, they moved to adding text from their organizer. Eventually, students branched out to include photographs from public domain searches and linked their pictures to the sources they came from. Some students also did audio introductions to their glog or recorded audio for various parts of their glogs. Some students used Screencast-o-matic to do screencasts of timelines from PebbleGo or tours in Google Earth. A few students used webcams to record themselves talking. One group even did a webcam video of their resource list rather than just creating a text box for it.

You can view some of the finished or in progress glogs here:

Recovering from the Great Depression

Black Cowboys

Wright Brothers

George Washington Carver

Alexander Graham Bell

US Contributions and Treaty of Versailles

Lusitania and Other Ships

Stalin, Mussolini, Roosevelt, & Churchill

Holocaust

Presidents of WWII

Bombing of Japan

Changing Role of Women

Tuskegee Airmen

Cold War

Khrushchev & McCarthy

D-Day, VJ, & VE Days

Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, & Hirohito

Panama Canal 2

Once students finalize their glogs, they will present them to the rest of the 5th grade to share the responsibility of teaching and learning this massive amount of content.

Andy Plemmons

School Librarian

David C. Barrow Elementary

Athens, GA

http://barrowmediacenter.wordpress.com

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/aplemmons

The Kid Should See This

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Jim Randolph

All the kids should, actually. All the kids from 9 months to 99. It’s just a blog collecting cool videos from around the interwebz, but it’s done better than most. When I came across it a couple of months ago it was one of those head-smacking moments. The blogger, Rion Nakaya, is doing what I should have done. I’m forever coming across funny, interesting and mind-blowing little videos online and sharing them with my daughter. Never thought to put them all into a blog to share with everyone. We’d actually seen many of the ones on the blog at first, but now she keeps on digging up fantastic stuff and it’s just an amazing resource of wonder.

Jason Kottke wrote, ”With obvious exceptions, media ‘made for kids’ is mindnumbingly dumb. Youtube, Flickr, and Vimeo are amazing resources of not-made-for-kids but totally-appropriate-for-kids-stuff like what Rion is posting here.”

She answered, ”This is the exact reason that I started this blog. So far, my guidelines have been that my kid(s) watch stuff that should also educate/entertain me, and that what I post here must be approved by my kid(s). My 3 year old co-creator has been a big help.”

Using the aforementioned youtube, Vimeo and other sources like Science Friday and TED talks, she is continuing to ”curate” videos about music, art, science, human tricks, robots and all manner of delightful things. Flying planets, exploding experiments, Jerry Lewis, Ella Fitzgerald, Legos, insects flying, robots flying, ”the greatest dance number ever filmed,” and more.

I have shared it with my art teacher, science lab teacher, music teacher and the other staff members and it’s becoming a favorite resource for us all.

As soon as you finish reading this post, do check it out. But make sure you don’t mind leaving a little vacuuming and laundry undone, because a couple of hours will go by before you know it. Amazing, wonderful, delightful hours.

The Kid Should See This.

Enjoy!

Jim Randolph

Partee Elementary

Snellville, GA

Using Poll Everywhere to Craft Poetry

Posted on August 31, 2011 by plemmonsa

Until September 28th, I am hosting the Ashley Bryan Traveling Exhibit of Illustrated Africana Children’s Literature featuring the artwork of Shadra Strickland. This exhibit showcases 8 works of art from the books White Water, Bird, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, Our Children Can Soar, and Eliza’s Freedom Road. There is also a curriculum guide that incorporates the art and books into lessons about making text to text and text to self connections, response to literature, and more. I took these lessons and wondered how I might adapt them to various kinds of learning that I try to support in my media center.

One of lessons invites students to write “Where I’m From” poems from the perspective of a character in the story or artwork. I wondered how I might support students in writing a collaborative “where I’m from” poem rather than individual poems, so I turned to Poll Everywhere

Poll everywhere allows you to create an open ended or multiple choice questions that students can respond to in a variety of ways: poll everywhere website, texting, tweeting. With a free educator account, you can receive up to 40 responses per poll and the responses feed into a real-time screen. The responses can be downloaded into an Excel file, used in a word cloud, or scrolled through on the poll everywhere site.

For my lesson, I shared George Ella Lyon’s original “Where I’m From” poem as well as a template that pointed out pieces of the poem such as phrases, everyday items, foods, etc. Then, students thought of lines that might be in their own poems and shared them with partners or with the whole group. We moved into reading White Water by Michael S. Bandy & Eric Stein; illustrated by Shadra Strickland. This book details an African American boy’s curiosity with what it might be like to drink water from the “whites only” fountain during segregation. All along the way, we paused and thought about possible lines that the main character in the story might write in his own “Where I’m From” poem.

Students then moved to computers where I had the Poll Everywhere site pulled up with the question “My line in our where I’m from poem is…”. Each student thought of one line for the poem. The teacher and I conferenced with students about their lines to look for spelling and repetition, and then each student submitted their response. We reconvened in front of the smart board to read our poem, which was already waiting for us on the screen. Finally, we took the words of our poem and pasted them into Tagxedo to make another version of our collaborative poem as well as to look for the words that we used the most and least.

There are numerous uses for Poll Everywhere, but I loved the fact that it could support a collaborative writing effort with a class. The whole process took us less than 45 minutes to complete.

Here is a final poem from a 2nd grade class:

Where I’m From: A Response Poem to the book White Water by Michael S. Bandy & Eric Stein; illustrated by Shadra Strickland

Mrs. Brink’s Class

I am from I know everything

from tricking my grandma.

from White Water at a water fountain in town.

from 6 blocks away from the bus stop.

I’m from drinking out of a colored water fountain.

from telling a lie to the bus driver.

from I can do anything

from drinking lots of water because fresh water is good.

I AM FROM

I’m from not being able to drink the white water

from pretending to be sick.

from that good ol’ time of riding the bus to town, waiting to drink water.

from boy you better not do that

I’m from white people sitting in the front seat

from going to town with my grandma

from trying to get white water because I thought it was fresh and cool.

from nasty muddy gritty yuck!

from I can do anything

I’m from

I’m from a water fountain

I’m from I can do anything

Andy Plemmons

School Librarian

David C. Barrow Elementary

Athens, GA

http://barrowmediacenter.wordpress.com

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/aplemmons

Student Poetry Webcasts

Posted on April 16, 2011 by plemmonsa

Amazing! Global! Collaborative! Snap! I’m overjoyed by how today’s Poem In Your Pocket Day went. For the past 3 years, we’ve been observing national poem in your pocket day by carrying poems in our pockets, wearing stickers to promote the day, and holding a day of poetry reading in the media center where every child (and adult) has a chance to read poems into our open microphone. This year, we tried something new: a live webcast. Using Clarke County’s new purchase of Adobe Connect, Joel Frey setup a room for the Barrow Media Center. The link was sent directly to the PTA listserve and an online registration was setup via Google Forms for anyone else interested. Registrants on Google Forms were emailed the room link.

Today, 18 classes came to the media center for 20-minute poetry reading sessions. Students came up one at a time and read their poems. We all celebrated with snaps. At the same time via Adobe Connect, parents, media specialists, classrooms within our school, classrooms across the district, and family members in other parts of the United States and the world were watching, listening, and making comments about the student poetry. As online participants made comments, I shared the comments with the students in between poets.

Amazing things started to happen. Students started huddling around the computer waiting for the next comment to come in. They got excited when they saw that someone was typing. They wondered why someone didn’t make a comment about their poem. They kept asking, “You mean people can really see us? They’re watching us right now?” Students took over the computer while I got up to make announcements and when I read my own poem. In a matter of minutes, they discovered multiple functions of the Adobe Connect software just by watching it in action. It was electric.

Online, participants made comments about how much they appreciated being able to connect with their child, nephew, cousin, etc. People joined us from multiple locations: Mrs. Marsha West, Barrow’s former media specialist, joined us from Lincoln, Nebraska. One student had family members join us from Chicago, Illinois, Cohutta, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Another student had an uncle tune in from Afghanistan. Parents explored a technology that many had never tried, and they appreciated this opportunity to think about learning and connecting globally in a new way.

At the same time, every teacher in the school got to see a new technology in action, and now the ideas are beginning to spark about how this can be used in the future. At least two teachers have already approached me with ideas for future events or lessons.

Did everything work perfectly? Well……no. However, I learned many things along the way. Think about how to market your event. I posted on my blog, facebook, PTA listserve, and sent some personal invitations. This opportunity to webcast came only one week before my event, so I didn’t have a lot of time. I would have tried other avenues of invitation if time had allowed. It is a good idea to have someone who can login and monitor sound quality while you manage the chat, camera, audio, and recording. If you have a registration process, it’s good to have that same person managing audio also watch for new registrants so the link can quickly be sent out. Using a wired connection is better than using wireless. My wireless dropped me off the network twice, and I had to get back into the room. It was quick to fix and not a big deal, but I wish it could have been avoided. The great thing about Adobe Connect is that even though I was dropped from the room all of the people were still in the room when I got back and everything was just as I had left it. You should also think about what part of your session you want to record. I pressed record at the beginning of each session and stopped at the end of each session so that separate archive links were created for each class. Also, think about what your users need to see on their screen. For the first few sessions, Joel Frey, my technology integration specialist, helped me arrange the chat, webcam, participant list, and power point on the screen so that it could be seen by all in a logical way. Originally, I made the video full screen, but participants weren’t really sure which class was reading poems. By putting the slide with the class name, grade, and time beside the video, it was easy for users to stay informed. Finally, I had to periodically remind people in the chat to participate. For many, this was a new experience, so it was important to give them reminders and tools on how to connect with students through their comments, snaps, and virtual applause button.

This afternoon, as I walked down the halls, a student stopped me and said, “Mr. Plemmons, did anyone else make a comment about my poem?” Kids want authentic audiences beyond their classroom walls. Thank you, Clarke County for giving us this tool. Now, our task is to keep using it, seeking out authentic audiences, connecting with experts around the globe, and collaborating with classrooms in our own district and beyond.

You can listen to every class recording on Adobe Connect below. At each link, you will hear and see the students reading poetry. You will also see the chat comments that took place during the webcast and hear my announcements to the students each time a comment came in. I hope you will take some time to see what an important day this was for us in the media center and consider how this might work in your own media center or classroom.

You are also invited to tune in on Monday April 18th, where several PreK, Kindergarten, and 1st grade classes will read their poems between 8:00AM-12:20PM EST.