Digital Citizenship

     Digital citizenship teaches students how to navigate online spaces in critical, healthy, and ethical ways. The lessons should be done in context with subject area teachers throughout the year.  It should not be done in isolation as the students will have no connection to the learning.

     Learning Digital Citizenship this way will be mostly incorporated, learned and remembered, and applied to the topic at hand.  This avoids disconnect of how students behave at school and then at home  do something differently.

      Librarians can work with teachers to help pose the right questions and teach skills to using social media, , the internet,( including video sharing, blogs, podcasts, & related media). Students can learn to use these products in creative and ethical ways.

Multi-tasking- not always the best choice

     Many teachers and workers boast about doing two or more things at once. But sometimes multi-tasking is really inefficient. It destroys the focus needed to complete tasks quickly and completely. Multi- tasking may cause us to not the task as well as we could. (or ask quickly)

     When your focus is on one job, then you can zero in on the task and get it done in an effective time period. The job/ task will be done with more competence. Then you can move on to the next task at hand.

      So it is good to know what types of tasks should not be done with others. Most important tasks require concentration, and focus.  Routine items are okay to be multi-tasked.  Determine for yourself what jobs  are to be single focus items.

Graphic Organizer for Primary Sources      Name  __________________________________________

1.       What kind of document it is ( letter, photograph, newspaper)	2.       Read through document. Make a list of unusual words or phrases.
3.       Is there a date on it? If so, write it down.	4.        If there is not a date, what clues might indicate when it was written?
5.       Is there a location indicted?	6.       Who wrote or created the source?
7.        What is the purpose of the document?	8.        What did you observe?
9.        What did you observe?	10.    What did you observe?
11.   Reflections?	12.   Questions?

Teaching with Primary Sources

     Primary sources offer direct insight to show case history as it was happening. Original photographs, newspaper articles, journals, diaries, speeches and artifacts give details to the time and place of the event.,

      Lesson: 1. Selecta primary source to share with the class (check out The Library of congress American Memory.

  2. Make copies of the document and also a graphic organizer and distribute them to students

 3.  Provide the historical context of the primary source document. Help student fill in the Organizer. Students can work on their own or in groups of 2 to 3 to do this.

4. Students study the document to help them describe what they observe. They can record observations on their organizer. Have students ask questions about elements of the source that seem important. See if students can determine the purpose f the document.

Other questions to ask: 1) how dependable do you think this source is?

2) Would you recommend this source for others to use.

5. Have students rank the document from 1 to 10. 10 being the most dependable. Have them support reasons for their ranking.

Breakout boxes

Breakout boxes – in libraries

     Breakout boxes are an active and immersive problem solving experience where groups of students work together to solve problems and get answers.

   The problem / task can be customized and coordinated to ane content / lesson area. The activity can have students practicing a skill, introduces new concepts, or review material at the end of the unit.

  The breakout boxes come with a large box, a small box, several locks, an invisible ink pen and a UV flashlight.  You can also use a timer if you want to limit time of activity.  

    Breakout edu has many educational activities on their site, created by the company or by educators who put their units on the site. Envelopes hidden in books, under tables, puzzles purchased cheaply, games made on the computer are other ways to create engaging activities. You can also use scavenger hunts. Virtual reality headsets, and other digital resources to create clues and activities for students.

   Creating different kinds of clues require students to work together to figure out answers.

Coming soon- benefits of breakout boxes.

Historical Fiction- Graphic organizer

Name _________________________________________________     Date _________________________________________

 Analyzing Historical Fiction

Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:
Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:
Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:
Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:
Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:
Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:
Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:
Chapter/ Pages __ to __	Historical Characters: Events:	Fictional Characters: Events:

Historical Fiction Lesson

   When reading Historical fiction many students have trouble sorting fact from fiction. A graphic organizer can give students a way to organize the elements of a historical fiction book. Students can also analyze how the book presented the true elements of a given time period.

    The process: Describe the elements of a historical fiction book. Remind students that historical fiction is based on a historical event or person and may include fictional events and people to complete the story.  Fictional characters may also drive the plot and give perspective to the event.

     Have students read a historical fiction book that is related to your unit of study. While reading, students can work on completing the organizer. For each chapter, students can note character, events, and compare fact and fiction.  Have students focus on only a few elements, key events and character or plot. Students can keep track of historical accuracy by sorting events and characters into the historical and fictional section.

 They may also use author’s notes, textbooks, online search or other sources to check for accuracy.

EduBreakout Boxes

     The other day, the Science teacher and I did the first try out with the breakout boxes. These boxes have online links to puzzles/ activities/lessons  that require small groups of students to work together to solve problems and unlock the boxes . Each clue reveals more clues to further the result and to get the boxes open to get the solution and the prize!
     The online activities are extremely detailed and also give the teacher step by step instructions to seeing up the boxes. Most have a video that accompanies it to show the process.
     The students really enjoyed the activity. One student told the Science teacher " This is better than gym class!" Students read directions, looked around the room for more clues and worked together to solve the hints and clues, The only trouble we really encountered was resetting the lock at the end of   each period.

Lesson-: 1-2-3 Summary

 Many times we ask students to read and summarize an article or a passage . We want them to be able to present an overview of the article. We need them to tell us what new information they acquired.

   An organizer can help them show what they understanding about the information given. Give then the article and a graphic organizer to the students. In the first section( it can be a bubble, rectangle, or square)  , they will fill in prior knowledge ( what they already know about the subject before reading) .

  While students read have them highlight or underline the important ideas  in the paragraphs Then in the second section ,they can write in 3 or 4 main or most important facts they have discovered.

  In the third space, students can write down a fact or idea that was interesting to them , or a question they had about the topic. Students can then use this to write a short summary if you wish.

  The first time you do this , you may want to model what to do in each section. This can be adapted to almost any grade level.  You could have students do this in pairs.
  

Library Jobs for students

   Our Professional Development person and our principals tell us that we as teachers are working to hard. They want the students to become more involved in the education and more invested in their learning.

  So during class time and instruction time, students should have responsibilities in the learning process. So I am incorporating this into my information literacy lessons. I have made a poster describing the jobs briefly.  So , there is a tech person who sits at the computer to deliver the power point. Also there are paper people who pass out paper, readers to read the slides. Recorders – which is most of the student taking notes.  The rest of the students are student repeaters who need to be able to repeat /explain the lesson or task to their table mates/ classmates.

Mrs.Yingling Reads.blogspot.com

  Mrs, YinglingReads bog is a great find! She is a middle school librarian who shares book reviews.
She has read all of the books in her library! What an accomplishment!!
   Her blog is so neat. I can't wait to read as many of her reviews as I can and get some good ideas for books for my library!  This will be a great resources for me and other librarians looking for ideas for books for their libraries.
   I like her reviews. They are detailed . She also gives the book strengths and weaknesses, and the verdict- what she really thinks  about the book.
  She is really organized with her reviews- there are also tabs with suggestions  for books similar to famous titles that are the same genre.( there are suggestions for Adventure, fantasy, historical, humorous, and sports books.
http://msyinglingreads.blogspot.com/

Getting More Done

   There are several rules of organizing your day to get more accomplished. I read everything I can on organizing in hopes of reducing the stress of having much to do in a short amount of time. Organizing my time seems to help the most. Through my reading, I have found some things that work for me and may also work for you.

   Step 1:   Keep a running record/ master list of items you need to do. Put anything you can think of that needs doing on your master list. That way it is written down and you don’t have to worry about forgetting something.  I am sure there is an app or an online way to this but I still like to use pencil and paper. If you find a good way to do this online, go for it, if that works for you.

  Step 2: Build your daily to do list. Take items from the master list and put them on your daily list. But only write those tasks that you can realistically do in one day. So don’t overload yourself. Give yourself some leeway if you have scheduled items, or if you find that some tasks might take longer than expected.

    Then at the end of each day (or at the very beginning) take 15 minutes to map out your priorities to see what your daily schedule will look like.

Newseumed.org-great site for education!

     Newseumed. org is a partner site of the Newseum Museum in Washington, DC. They offer to teachers and student s free educational programs, primary sources, and resources based on history, information literacy (media literacy) and social studies topics. Also there is online access to front pages, videos, and artifacts in their museum collection. 

   They are committed to offering educational tools that helps develop skills that learners can be knowledge about our countries past and present. 

    The sites provide online resources, and tools that include primary resources and online classes and training. Also they have specially curated collections with primary sources on many educational topics.

   This site can be useful to social studies, ELA, Librarians, and tech teachers.

  https://newseumed.org/