Tag Archives: YABA

Schools Out For the Summer!

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“Schools Out for Summer …  Out till fall, We might not go back at all”  - Schools Out by Alice Cooper

Wow, seems like just yesterday we started back and now the year is done.  This was a crazy and busy year and I am very glad to have it over; however, the end also brings students and faculty moving on to better endeavors.

Friday we celebrated our 87 seniors graduating – their last official act as students of Wagener-Salley HS.  May their futures bring them all they dream and desire.   A bright spot of graduation was seeing former students there to see their family and friends graduate.  Two former drama club members, one a founding member, were there to see their sister graduate.  I don’t know how I’m going to deal with no longer having a Parsons with me next year!

Friday also marked the end of our time with the faculty who will not be returning next year.  I will especially miss seeing Ms. Blizzard’s smiling face and our talks of God, art, family and sharing.  I will miss the ladies of Special Ed – it has been a joy to work with you guys and you will be hard to replace!  Kyle, I would have loved to have worked with you more to incorporate our shared interest in technology with your students’ learning.  I hope we continue to learn and share from each other.

The one teacher that is hardest for me to have to say goodbye is, of course, Carrie.  Carrie, are you sure you have to go?  I know, it is time to move on, but I’m loosing too many of my dear friends.  Who am I going to rely on for PowerTeacher backup?  Who’s gonna be my collaboration buddy now?

DON”T LEAVE ME!!!!

But seriously, I wish you and all of the folks heading out that you live your dreams and find happiness where ever you land.  Knowing you all, you’ll have no problems making new friends.  I also believe that those who will have your positions next year, while they can never replace you guys, they will find their place and we’ll build new friendships, too!

On the library side, my End of the Year Report can be found on the library webpage - scroll down the left side and you’ll find a section called Reports.  While the format is the same as last year, I’ve added some sections and lots of photos to make it more visually pleasing.  I’ve also created an iMove from the photos taken in the library and at library events.  Unfortunately, I cannot post it to the public web as I don’t have student permissions.  I will try to load it to my Dropbox account and if you want to view it, let me know and I’ll send you the shared link.

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Summer plans:

If you don’t have plans already, why not come join me at the Upstate Technology Conference June 22nd and 23rd?  I’ll be co-presenting with Cathy Nelson, LMS at Dorman HS and Fran Bullington, LMS at Boiling Springs HS.  Our session, There’s an App for That: Using Web Apps to Organize, Simplify, and Enrich Your Life is Wednesday, June 23rd from 1-2pm.

Well also be presenting the same session at the ETV Technology Workshops July 27th – 29th.  I’ll also be presenting a session titled Web 2.0 Speed Dating. I’d love to see some of you guys there!  (but don’t feel you have to come to my sessions, just come learn and share with us!)

I plan to keep myself very busy this summer – I was really bored last year since I didn’t go anywhere or do anything.  This year I will be at three conference (UTC, ETV, and the High School’s That Works National Conference in Kentucky).  I will be spending a week in Orlando, Florida.  I’m meeting with former teachers and my co-presenters this week.  I’m meeting another fellow librarian in Charleston one weekend.  Then there’s my Grandmother’s 80th Birthday and we’re planning a huge party and it just so happens to be on the SAME day as my 20th High School Reunion (ye-gads!  20 years – where did the time go?)

But most of all, I will be reading, reading, reading.  I have 80+ books still to read from the consideration list for the SC Young Adult Book Award Committee.  The goal is to have them all read before our August meeting, so keep you fingers crossed for me!

Have a Spectacular Summer!

Creative Commons Flickr Photo Credits:  “Summer” by Teo’s Photo  and “Summer Feet” by aussiegall

Busy Days Ahead

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The library has been hopping lately, what with English III research papers and what seems like every teacher needing to schedule research or computer time. This is by no means a complaint; the more use of the library the better! I’d much rather stay busy than be twiddling my thumbs. But if I seem a bit distracted lately, I’d like to share with you two tech projects that have taken over my mind, heart, and time:

The first is the Mayan documentary collaboration project with our Spanish teacher, Ms. Andrews. This isn’t exactly a new project as we tried it out last year with mediocre success. We’ve tweaked it this year and things seem to be going much better. We adjusted the grading rubric and gave students specific deadlines for turning in sections. Students have the option to work alone or in groups. They have to have a minimum of three topics per documentary (if more than 3 members to a group, each member has to contribute at least one topic). Topics cover such areas as religion, daily life, agriculture, architecture, sports, astronomy, writing, etc. Their first task is to research their assigned topic. I created a StreamlineSC assignment builder with images and video clips that the students could use in their project. I created a Mayan pathfinder listing books in the library as well as useful websites. Ms. Andrews also brought in additional books from the public library for students to choose images that I then scanned into the computer.

After they have gathered all of their “stuff” and have documented it on a citation page, they have to then plan out their section using a storyboard. This was a difficult concept for them to grasp and took much explaining on our parts. They kept comparing this to PowerPoint and didn’t understand that we aren’t allowing text except for titles and credits! Many of the students freaked out when we told them that they would be narrating their movies! The storyboard forced them to look at what they were gathering, determine relevance, and plan what they felt was important to say about their topic. At this point, I showed them the basics of using Windows Movie Maker and how to add narration to their sections. They have a few weeks to complete their sections and then I will instruct them on how to finalize their individual sections and combine them into one final documentary/movie.

While we know there will be some students who choose not to participate or will turn in shoddy work; that there are some who will do the bare minimum and are only grudgingly participating; it’s the ones who are excited about doing something different that I find a joy to watch. The ones who are finding WMM cool and who have a “we can do that!” fascination and attitude that make this project one I hope we continue to offer from year to year. If you are interested in the project outline and grading rubric, leave a message in the comments section and I’ll email them to you.

For my second favorite new project, you may not be aware that I’m a member of the South Carolina Young Adult Book Award program. The committee reads 75 consideration titles and narrows them down to 20 nominee titles for student to read and vote on their favorite. The committee decided that this year we’d like to produce podcasts for the individual nominee titles using the booktalks from our activity guide and make them available on the South Carolina Association of School Librarians (SCASL) webpage. Well, me being such a jump on board kinda gal and loving anything tech related immediately nominated my drama club kids to record the podcasts. Thankfully, the drama kids have been excited about this project, too. What we didn’t realize was how difficult it could be to simply read a booktalk into a microphone without any errors! I’ve only had one student successfully complete a one-take recording. Most have to start and stop over and over again and not always because of their mistakes. Because we have no studio or quiet room, the students keep getting interrupted by the intercom, the class change bell, students coming in and out of the library, etc. Originally I gave them this past Friday as the deadline, but with so many more left to record I’m going to have to see about recruiting additional students to help with the recording process. Otherwise, I’m going to have to record the rest of them myself, and while I don’t mind doing that (kinda fun actually) the whole point was to have teens recording them. Maybe a miracle will happen and we’ll get the rest of them recorded Monday! BTW, the podcasts will not be publicly posted until after the Young Adult Book Award booktalk session March 14th at the SCASL annual conference. Sorry.

Speaking of books, here is a site that I came across while searching for audiobooks: LibriVox provides free audiobooks of titles in the public domain. I only listened to a little of part 1 for Peter Pan (one of my all time favorite stories) and it is a pretty good recording so far.