What we need for our students- Part 6

    Another program to engage and encourage our students is Voice Threads.  This is a subscription based online tool where students can share their voice and their work.
   We have used it  the final part of a project . Students in grades 1-2 were beginning a unit on nonfiction and research. I worked closely with the teachers and students  preparing them for research  and having them do research with books and  a specific database.
     Then students did illustrations ( posters) of their animal and wrote a report on their animal. . I took photos of the illustration . Then the students read/ told about their animal. Both of the these were placed on Voice Thread ( which lives on our website so it can be viewed from home)  A couple of rules we follow, students never mention their last name.  Last names are also NOT put on the web.
     Older students use voice threads to write and illustrate book commercials. They love to do this!

Check out the site on Voice Threads and see if you think it would for your students.

 Free to Help you get started and see if you like!

http://voicethread.com/support/howto/Account_Types/Free/


Educator Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/products/k12/

A new site for book reviews!

             I recently started doing book reviews for a really interesting site  (2ndGradeReading.net.)
This site has been developed by Darcy Pattison. This author believes that Reading Changes Lives. Yes, I totally agree with her. What librarian, and teacher would believe otherwise?  She  also , like myself, had a family that love to read.
           This site would be great to share with your  first, second and third grade teachers. It highlights some of the newest and best books. Coming soon will be a 3rd grade site.

           Find it here:     http://2ndgradereading.net/

            Darcy's Website for her books can be found at  .http://www.darcypattison.com/darcy-pattison-books/   .   She also is dedicated to the common core so that is a site to become familiar with.

What we need for our students.

     There are many free available web tools that we can use with our students to help them with reading and writing.  One I have found is at Kids.Com and  gives the younger students an opportunity to work on line writing and creating story's.. This site provides writing prompts and characters. It is a fun site and students will enjoy using it and working with it.
     The students will find  they can vote on this week's stories and read last week's stories.  There is a writing challenge . There are games that students can play.
  Check it out and see if  this will be beneficial  for you and your students.


http://www.kidscom.com/create/write/write.html

A New School Year!

     A new school year! Time for new schedules, meetings, Common core standards, and library information skills and library literacy!  But the most important are the students! We need to instill a love of literature, learning, and reading. 
    I am reading The Book Whisperer  Awaking the reader in every Child. ( Donalyn Miller)  This is an excellent book that all teachers should be required to read.   This reading teacher shows how  she instilled the love of reading by allowing readers to read what they choose . I hope to write a review here or on Amazon.

What Administrators Want from their Librarians

     What do administrators want from their librarians?  Librarians are asked and need to do many things as we have seen in the past blogs.   Most of us love to learn about new ideas, strategies, resources and books. We love working with students, teachers , and parents.  As part of our jobs, we need to learn about  new  ideas and we need to model that love of learning to our students and teachers.
 
    Most of all ,the Librarian does not work alone. For a school to have a successful library program it takes everyone (  librarians, , teachers  , and administrators) working together for the students to be successful in their education and in their lives.


 

What we need for our Students- Part 5

     As  librarians we are in a profession focused on preparing students for the future. So we need to keep learning the new technology so we teach them how to use these tools safely and effectively.     Most of these tools  allow students to  create and build knowledge.
   A tool that I have used  with students is Wordle.   Wordle is a toy where students create visual displays ( clouds) of words in multicolor  and multi-sized graphics. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the text. You can  change your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. These images can be shared by link or printed out.
  
   What I have done is used this tool as a culmination of a resource project. We have done research on women , presidents, and  science topics. Then students make a Wordle either for a final project or as center to a poster about their topic. Students love to see how theirs and their classmates Wordle comes out.

. Check out this site and see what you think. Has anyone else used Wordle-How did you use it with your classes?

http://www.wordle.net/

What Administrators want from their Librarians

      For those of you who have been school librarians for a while can attest that our jobs and responsibilities  have changed quite a bit over the years.   When I first started ,  the emphasis was only on print resources . At the time , that was all there was.
      But over the years, the profession and the collections have changed.  Now we are the keepers and teachers of technology. We are called to help teachers integrate technology into their curriculum.  We need to teach students to use the online card catalog , and data bases. We need to update and teach students and teachers on Web 2.0 tools and integrate these into the curriculum and the common core standards.
    Yes- now we are technology integrators! So we need to keep up to date on the latest  technology- e-books,  book apps, date bases, web 2.0 tools and more.