Pinterest Show and Tell

Today I was trying to come up with a few new ideas for professional development sessions that I could lead as part of our Tech Flex program.  As I wandered around online looking for ideas I remembered seeing something called a Pinterest party. Pinterest parties usually involve women bringing a dish made from a Pinterest recipe and materials to make a craft from the site. Some parties let people trade so they leave with the materials to make a craft, while others allow you to make a craft during the party. I have seen tons of teacher crafts on Pinterest, but I thought requiring teachers to bring materials would be too much for the large number of people that will be in attendance.
I love sessions like Appy Hours and Smackdowns, when participants share tools, so I thought I could apply that model to Pinterest. So my idea is to have a Pinterest Show and Tell.

I'll start the session describing Pinterest for those that may not be using it yet. Then I'll share ways that teachers can use Pinterest, boards they might want to follow, and share a few of the best ideas I've seen and tried. Then the sharing begins. Teachers will send pictures of projects they've tried ahead of time so I can display them or bring the project with them to show the group. I will invite everyone to share their Pinterest account names so we can connect with each other and create group boards.

I think this will be a fun session. I'll write another post to let you know how it goes. Right now it looks like I'll be doing this at the end of September. If you have a Pinterest Show and Tell I would love to hear about it.

PD With Two Snaps and a Twist

Any In Living Color fans out there? Anybody? Maybe its just me. You may remember the PD With a Twist session I was lucky enough to present with Tiffany Whitehead. I presented a modified version at the Upstate Technology Conference with my buddies, Kristen and Monique. The librarians have become a major force in offering professional development for our district and we have done several unique programs, many of which are mentioned in the presentation. This year we were asked by our district office to put together more professional development options for our teachers.
Our 21 Things program was extremely popular last year so we wanted to do another self paced option. The only downside to self paced courses is a lack of face to face time so we wanted to have a more traditional option as well. Luckily I found inspiration from my PLN. I'm excited about what we are working on and feel that it steps it up even more than what we offered last year.
Our two new programs are Tech Flex and Level Up Tech Quest.

Tech Flex
I attended an AASL Webinar called "Tech Flex: A No Cost Staff Technology Training Program Organized and Guided by the Librarian" after seeing it advertised on Twitter. The webinar was presented by the librarian and assistant principal at Peter Township High School. They shared their Tech Flex program here. I was inspired. Kristen, Monique and I worked on a similar program. The flyer is below, designed by the talented Kristen Hearne. We are still putting the wiki together and hope to have something similar in organization to the TL Virtual Cafe wiki. Teacher presenters will receive a badge to add to their web page that says "I flexed by tech" and receive additional renewal credit hours.

Tech Flex Flyer

View more documents from khearne

Level Up Tech Quest
My PLN came to the rescue again for this idea. I'm participating in the Level Up Book Club this summer. During a Twitter chat, fellow book clubber and librarian, Aimee Bartis, mentioned a gaming professional development course in the works at her school. I had already been brainstorming a reading program with a gaming model, but had not considered it for PD. This was great! Using ideas from the book and the gaming aspects of the book club we came up with a professional development gaming program that would work for our school. Check out the flyer below. Our wiki is under construction, but you can see it here. To see the other ten challenges, click on Pages and Files. We're only putting the pages in the navigation tab when we begin that challenge to keep our teachers together as we progress through the year. We're going to use badges in Edmodo to reward our participants after each challenge. You can see the other details on the wiki and flyer.

Level Up Tech Quest Flyer

View more documents from khearne

I originally wanted to wait until the wikis were complete to blog about the programs, but I thought these ideas might inspire some of you so I'm sharing everything in its is current state. I wanted you to have time to think about it before school starts. I was inspired by others and hope that I can pass it on by sharing here. I would love to hear about the PD programs you are working on and if you try something I've shared here please let me know. My administrators are very impressed when our ideas spread. 

RSS Reader Clean Up

My family will be traveling soon and there will NOT be internet access. Two whole weeks! I'm both nervous and excited about this. Who am I kidding? I'm completely nervous and unsettled about this. Maybe that is an indication that I need to get away from my social media habit for a while. I think I'll be fine without most sites for a little while, like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. There is no way to keep up with everything that goes on these sites so I think I can just pick up right where I left off when I return to civilization. I am most upset that I will not be able to check my reader for two weeks. I read so many blogs that I think there will be hundreds of posts waiting on me. I know that I can click "Mark all as read", but I NEVER do that. I might miss the next Comic Life Tutorial from the Daring Librarian, the awesome library program created by Jennifer LaGarde, the update on Tiffany Whitehead's new library or the best middle grade novels from Mrs. Yingling or Mrs. Readerpantz. I can't let myself skip them.
My solution was to take this opportunity to clean out my reader. I often read blogs on a mobile device so unsubscribing isn't very easy and I just put off cleaning out those that I lost interest in. Today I finally took care of it. I ruthlessly weeded my feed and even dumped a few blogs that are well loved in the library world. I kept the blogs that genuinely inspire me, motivate me, provide practical and useful ideas, and support middle grade collection development. If you didn't make the list. I am sorry! You're probably not reading anyway though:)
These are the blogs that I'm keeping:

Book Review Blogs:
Amity Middle School-Bethany Book Blog- Love this blog because it is geared towards middle school and they share a wide range of books, including YA that is still Ok for my kids.
BookTalk: KidsRead: This blog is maintained by the King County Library System in Washington. They have an adult and teen section as well, but I read this one for middle grade books and books for my young son.
Story Snoops Blog: This blog shares great lists of books based on theme, suggestions for promoting reading to your kids, and it is a non-library perspective. The bloggers are moms and I like having that perspective on reviews.
GreenBeanTeenQueen: YA book reviewer. Love her YA movie news updates.
Guys Lit Wire: Reviews of boy friendly books. Not always Ok for middle school, but I feel strongly about providing materials for my boys so I appreciate this blog.
INK: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids: Started following this blog because of the Common Core standards. NF authors write posts about research, their books, school visits and more.
Miss Christine: Middle grade book reviews from an Iowa librarian.
Mrs. Hill's Book Blog: Middle grade and YA book reviews.
Mrs. Readerpantz: Love this blog. She includes a Bottom Line, Readalikes and Content sections to her reviews. Also shares program ideas, top ten lists and more. If you are in middle school you must read her blog and...
Ms. Yingling Reads: Middle grade reviews. I like that she shares the strengths and weaknesses of each book and she often picks boy friendly books.
Talking About Teen Books: YA book reviews.
Teach Mentor Texts: Reviews of all levels of books. I really like that they give you the age range to read alone or with teacher, complementary books, reading and writing strategies to address, writing prompts and topics covered for each review.
The Nonfiction Detectives: Two librarians review nonfiction. Another addition for me since getting into the Common Core standards.
YA Love: YA reviews, but many are Ok for middle school.

The Life of a Librarian:
Better When Read- I like this blog because she is new to the profession, just finished her first year. She shares her challenges and thoughts as she begins her career (sounds like me:).
Library Displays: This blog shares displays ideas. A weakness of mine.
Love Chapter Books: Kelli Beason just started blogging and I found her blog after she commented on one of my posts. I like what she has written so far and look forward to reading more.
Mighty Little Librarian: I just <3 Tiffany Whitehead. I'm sure you do too. Great ideas for middle school, technology, and libraries in general. Reading her blog turned into a friendship that I hold dear.
The Busy Librarian: I "met" Matthew Winner through the Level Up Book Club. Can't believe I didn't know about his blog before this. Great stuff here.
The Daring Librarian: Gwyneth Jones' blog. Really...don't you read this already? Of course you do.
True Adventures of a High School Librarian: Nikki Robertson's blog. She is a co-founder of EdCamp Atlanta. She also has a great Pinterest collection that you must follow. Can't wait to meet her in ATL.
TLT: Teen Librarian's Toolbox: You should follow for the graphics she shares, but stay for the great ideas and content.
Try Curiosity: Elementary book talks and lessons from a librarian at an international school in Hungary.
Watch.Connect.Read: John Schumacher's elementary blog. Love his Newbery Challenge videos, book trailers, author interviews and passion.

Carolina Librarians:
Auntie Librarian: Jennifer Tazerouti's blog about her middle school library. She has an infectious attitude.
Cathy Nelson's Professional Thoughts: Cathy's blog is widely read and rewarded so she doesn't need my endorsement, but I love reading fellow SC librarian, Cathy Nelson.
Dear Diary, my teen angst has a book count...and a blog: The book review blog from Jennifer Chesney. A high school librarian that I am proud to work with in my district.
Informania: Fran Bullington has to be one of the sweetest people ever. She shares her thoughts, ideas and concerns about librarianship here. She is my advocacy guru!
It All Started in the Library...: This is my buddy, Lorena Swetnam's blog. She is a middle school librarian in SC. She just started blogging this summer and I've already learned from her. You should too.
Knight Reader: Kelly Knight is a voracious reader. She reviews YA books here but also has a Knight Reader Junior now that she is an elementary librarian. And one of the coolest blog names ever.
Tech Tips and Timely Tidbits: Our state organization's president, Heather Loy, blogs here. Love keeping up with her adventures and ideas.
The Adventures of Library Girl: Jennifer LaGarde's awesome, award winning blog where she shares programming ideas, advocacy ideas and more. I signed up to present at NC's library conference so I can meet her! Surely you already read this!
The Candid Librarian: Jennifer Northrup's blog about her middle school library. Can't wait to meet her soon and hang with her at the NC conference.
The Librarian in the Middle: Kristen Hearne's blog that mixes book reviews and technology. I love this concept and I'm privileged to be able to work with Kristen in my district. One of my favorite librarians on the planet.
This Space Reserved: This spot is reserved for Monique German. She is a middle school librarian in my district. I've mentioned her in blog posts before. She has spectacular ideas, an upbeat attitude, and she almost never tells me I'm crazy even though she probably thinks it:) Kristen and I have encouraged her to blog and she is such a perfectionist that she is still planning it out. Can't wait to add you to my reader one day, Monique:)

Librarianship- Big Picture:
District Dispatch: This is the ALA Washington Office's blog. They share legislation and other national issues related to librarianship.
Blue Skunk Blog: Doug Johnson's blog. His posts make me think and often laugh at his snarky sense of humor.
Neverending Search: Joyce Valenza's blog. I think it is a requirement to read this to keep your license.
Not So Distant Future: Libraries and technology. What more do you want?
The Book Whisperer: I'm putting Donalyn Miller's blog under this heading because I think her ideas and advice about literacy are so important. If you haven't read her book. Go now!
YALSA blog: Official YALSA blog. Great for Tweets of the Week and App of the Week.


Technology:
Free Tech 4 Teachers: If I had to only chose one tech blog to read this would be it for me.
Toys to Tools: Liz Kolb's blog about using cell phones in education. This is my favorite tech topic so I love this blog even though she doesn't always post very often.
I Education Apps Review: App reviews by educators. I'm always on the look out for more apps.
Learning in Hand: Tony Vincent's awesome blog on all things Apple. If you have Apple products at home or at school you should look at his site.


Just Because:
Daily Infographic: As the title describes they share one infographic each day. I really like infographics. I learn something every day and sometimes they are directly related to reading or education.
J's Everyday Fashion: I found this blog on Pinterest and started following because I am fashion challenged. I would wear a uniform if I could. She has cute fashion ideas and they are affordable.
Level Up Book Club: I'm participating in this book club so I'm dutifully reading and completing my book club assignments:)
Nerdy Book Club: If you're reading this you are a nerd. You should join the Nerdy Book Club and make it official. Book reviews, book promotion, reading lives posts and more.

I know what you're thinking. I thought she cleaned out her reader! Well, I tried to warn you that I like to read blogs. Now you see why I'm panicked about a two week hiatus. I hope that you find a few blogs that you like from this list. What am I missing that I MUST add?
I was reminded how wonderful the librarians are in my district and state. Look at that list! Wow. You're right, Cathy, we need to give a blog award from our state organization.

Your Common Core Secret Weapon

Today I had the pleasure of presenting a session at the first ever Administrators' Day at the Upstate Technology Conference with Kristen Hearne and Monique German.
We have dubbed ourselves the Librarians in the Middle. Kristen even made us a super cute logo that we've talked about putting on a Moo card, a la Gwyneth and Tiff.
When I found out that the Upstate Technology Conference was adding a day just for administrators I immediately thought that it would be a great time to present something about librarians. We often present to each other and never reach out to other groups and who has more power to change the landscape of librarianship (other than ourselves) than administrators. So I went online to submit a session proposal. I didn't see the Admin day listed on the drop down choices. Did that deter me? NO! I just put in the comments section that we wanted to present this at the Admin Day. A few days later I spoke with the conference organizers. Originally the entire day was going to be led by staff from Discovery Education, but when they saw my session pop up they liked the proposal so much that they agreed to let us come to speak that day. Hooray!
Let that be a lesson to those sitting back waiting to be asked, just go for it! We have valuable information to share and a worthy message to spread.
We wanted our session to attract as many administrators as possible and we know that Common Core standards are so important. We know that we have worked hard with our administrators and teachers to prepare for this change so we had lots to share about it. Our session title was "Your Common Core Secret Weapon."

Your Common Core Secret Weapon

View more PowerPoint from Palmetto Middle School

We started the session by asking what comes to mind when they hear the term "librarian". Immediately our first group all shooshed us. That really broke the ice and had us laughing. Then we used the amazing graphic from Jennifer LaGarde to share with them what we really do and what they should be expecting. If their librarian wasn't living up to these standards ask yourself why. Do they have time to collaborate? Are they included in staff development plans? Do they have the staff, support and funds to provide adequate services?
We talked about our standards and how they overlap with the Common Core standards. Then we dove into providing ways their librarian can help them transition. The first suggestion we had was for the librarian to evaluate her collection. We wanted to emphasize to administrators that full shelves doesn't always equal a quality collection. All of our librarians submitted data that was compiled into infographic that simplified collection analysis. We urged them to ask their librarians to share the status of their collection and they in turn put trust in their librarian and allow her to remove books without being chastised at the dumpster. We wanted to emphasize that the goal of promoting recreational reading was more important now than ever since the Common Core places such an emphasis on nonfiction in the classroom. The good and bad of fixed vs flex schedules were discussed.
Administrators have the power to encourage classroom teachers to collaborate and we highlighted the value of those relationships. We followed that discussion with some of our professional development offerings and asked them to consider their own librarian as a resource for quality PD.  Finally we ended with the request that they encourage their librarian to attend conferences and bring back what they learn.
I feel like this may have been one of the most important sessions that I have ever helped present because it has the potential to influence so many schools. I hope that the administrators left with an excitement about how they can involve and appreciate their librarian. I know many did because they stayed after and talked to us about it. My worry is that some of them will want to see these ideas implemented in their school, but their librarian will not be receptive. I wish that all librarians were as passionate about the profession as my PLN, but we all know that isn't always the case.
We had a few people ask for our contact info so that we could visit with their librarians. I'm excited to see where this goes. The past two weeks have been extremely busy, but extremely rewarding. Now my summer can official begin and I can focus on the Level Up Book Club, #bookaday Twitter challenge and the approaching #summerthrowdown reading competition.

On the Road With the Librarians in the Middle

I have to start this post by bragging on my two middle school colleagues, Monique German and Kristen Hearne. I couldn't ask for more supportive, creative, and talented people to work with. I am so lucky to have them. Lately we have been on the road with our library show.

We recently presented a session to our middle school English/Language Arts teachers that explained the three components to evaluating text in the Common Core Standards. After explaining how to evaluate text we shared titles that we felt were exemplary novels. We shared genre bookmarks that we created on topics like zombies, after the Hunger Games, something for the sweet sixth grade girl, action packed, novels in verse, and more. We highlighted titles from our SC Junior Book Award nominees, and gave them several blogs to follow that would help them keep up with new and noteworthy titles.

Last week we presented two full days of professional development for our teachers. One day was for our foreign language teachers. We had so much fun with them. Kristen, Carla Nash and I led that day. We shared web tools, shared tools to create a PLN and had a very personalized version of the gadget petting zoo. They were so enthusiastic. It was a great day. The following day Kristen, Monique,  Jen Chesney and I presented to our social studies teachers. I started the day with nonfiction literacy strategies, followed by social studies resources with Kristen and Monique, and ended the day with tech tools with Jen. This was a session specifically geared toward helping them prepare for the new requirements in the Common Core standards.

This week we have been busy at the Upstate Technology Conference organized by the Greenville County School District. This is one of my favorite conferences and completely free! We presented two sessions together. Our first session was "Tech Gadget Speed Dating". Eleven of our fifteen librarians were able to attend the conference. We each adopted a gadget. Attendees came into the session and started at one station. Every five minutes we rotated. Just like a speed dating session, they had a few minutes to meet and get to know a gadget before moving on. The gadgets we discussed were cell phones, digital frames, iPads, iPods, Edmodo, Flip cameras, QR codes, ereaders, and the Livescribe smart pen. Attendees were raving about the session as they left and we even had people coming up to us during the day saying their friends were talking about how much they enjoyed it.

In all the pictures we are the ones in purple. We wore our state organization's t-shirt so they would know were to go for the next station as well as promote the fact that we are proud, techie librarians.



I'm excited that the attendees learned something, but I am also proud that so many of our librarians came and presented. We showcased ourselves, as librarians and Anderson District One employees. I know that many of them have not presented tech sessions before so it was a big confidence booster for them. Only having to learn one gadget and prepare one five minute lesson let everyone get involved, regardless of comfort level with technology. If you are hoping to motivate your group of librarians you may want to try something similar. I hope we can do this again next year.

Our next session was a modified version of the PD With a Twist webinar that I presented with Tiff Whitehead. Kristen, Monique and I shared all of the professional development sessions that we have organized and presented to our teachers. There were a few librarians in attendance, as well as instructional coaches and administrators. We hope that they all left with ideas for their school and an interest in asking their own librarians to share expertise and lead PD for their school.

After the session we had administrators from neighboring counties asking if we would be willing to come and talk to their librarians and share these ideas. This is really exciting and makes me so proud to work with these ladies.

Fiction Has Been Genrefied

With a little prompting from the super-cute-in-an-ISTE-or-Bust-balloon Tiffany Whitehead, I finally genrefied my fiction. I put genre stickers on my fiction last year, but left them in alphabetical order because I changed my nonfiction to subject last summer and frankly, I was tired of moving everything around. I've been thinking about it for a while. I read this post from Jennifer Northrup and Tiff's post about changing her fiction around.  I have collected other posts on Scoop.it if you want more inspiration.

This is me in the middle of moving things around. 

Luckily I have some awesome student helpers that assisted me in the switch. Having stickers on the books already made it pretty easy.
Here is what a finished shelf looks like with signs made from the sticker design.



Here is another shot of the graphic novel section.


The sections in our library are Adventure, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Humor, Manga, Mystery, Picture Books, Realistic Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction, Sports, Thrillers. My library helpers and some of die-hard visitors that have continued to come in these last few days already love it. I can't wait to show all of the students when schools commences in the Fall.

Trying Out Summer Checkout

I'll make a confession. Summer checkout makes me very nervous. I know all the arguments about the books sitting on the shelf for weeks isn't helping anyone and the books belong to our students. I know and I agree, but it still caused me to hold my breath when I thought about it. We have a high level of poverty in our school, which means a large number of transient students. Here one day, gone tomorrow or moving from mother's to father's to grandma's house and losing books along the way. Add to the that the inability to pay for those lost books and it just made me nervous. We have these problems when I see them regularly and hunt them down all year so I knew sumer check out was a risk. I have thought about summer hours, but our cleaning staff is usually in the building waxing floors and other big projects that can only be done with no students around so scheduled hours wasn't feasible. Transportation is another issue that makes me think I would not have a big turn out even if I were able to open. Excuses, excuses...

Well, finally a solution presented itself. First I saw a tweet from Beth Redford (@bethredford) about her summer checkout which led me to her post. Then I saw this post from @Mrsreaderpants and I decided to go for it.
I created a short permission slip that students would have to return to me with parent signature and I emailed this to our English teachers with instructions to share with readers, especially those that probably could not afford to satisfy their reading habit with book purchases. I also put in the stipulation that they could not owe me books or have a history of late or lost books. This is a small group that I usually know by name. Granted this was on the last full day of school, but I still had 5 students come to the library the next day with permission and big smiles on their faces. I had two more today and one that had already finished a few over the weekend and wanted to trade for more.
I'll admit I was actually glad that it was a small group because I want to see how this goes, build up my confidence and try again next year with more preplanning.
Thanks to Beth Redford and Mrs. Readerpants for inspiring me!

Here is a pic of one of my lovelies leaving with his stack of books. I played around with the picture in the new app Snapseed on my iPad, thus the grungy look to the photo.