It seems hard to believe that 2 months have passed since my last post. Being a library media specialist is akin to walking the Schuylkill Expressway during rush hour traffic in Philly. Always something to do, learn, ponder, research, and more. Speaking of Philly (my home town region), I'm watching a center city Philly piece on HGTV which makes me a wee bit homesick. I so miss my museums and the huge Philadelphia Library in center city.
Meanwhile, back in Beaufort I'm getting ready to spring March Madness at the Media Center upon my school community. I can hardly wait! Books are ready for the Read Across America book give-away. One of my two costumes is on hand. I'll be the chick with the blue hair at some point during the week. Friday, March 6th will be our Books, Blankets, Jammies and Reading Stuffies Day. Everyone, YES, EVERYONE puts on their jammies, stretches out on a blanket and reads. This will be an all morning event and Thing 1 will be on the loose, and maybe the Cat in the Hat, too! Kids will be challenged to read as many books as they can in March. Logs will be kept and the ones who reach their goals will be rewarded!
Next on the to do list will be the SCASL conference in Greenville, SC. I'm looking forward to this one as Doug Johnson will be there. Author Angela Johnson [The First Part Last] and others will be on site as well.
Now that I've told you where I'm going, I need to tell you where I've been. January and February have been busy months - like what month isn't, right? Many books to read and share, poets to introduce and more. This week was a classic example. To cap Black history month, I focused on Langston Hughes who was, in my estimation, a very compelling author. I shared two of his short poems with the kids: Dreams and Children's Rhymes. I read a newspaper article about St. Luke's AME Church in Lawrence, Kansas - the church Hughes attended as a child. It is in need of restoration and was added to the National Historic Register in 2006. Hughes stated that his church influenced his writings. Then I used Google Maps and the Google Dude to take them to Kansas and stand in front of the church. WOW! The kids were spellbound! After that we "flew" via Google Maps to visit President and Mrs. Obama. The only problem was we did not make a reservation and the Secret Service would not allow the Google Dude to stand on the White House grounds. UGH! Not to disappoint my young travelers, we used our Google Map "jetpack" and went a few blocks west to visit the Lincoln Memorial. One class visited Arlington National Cemetery. After that we sent the Google Dude to our Principal's office at our school.
Like I told the kids, you have to hang on to your dreams as dreams can and will take you just about anywhere. Without a dream, you have no hope. I shared what my 2 dreams were. #1 was to become a teacher when I grew up, and I did. #2 was to become a library media specialist, and I am living that dream now!
I do believe that this is the best of times to be an educator, and the greatest of times to be a library media specialist. I am indeed very fortunate.
So what if I miss center city Philly, the Franklin Institute Science Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Free Philadelphia Public Library, Independence Hall, and others. I may miss them, BUT with Google Maps and the Google Dude, I can stand in front of them whenever I want!
Til my next great adventure, read, read, read and dream!
Showing posts with label learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learning. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Time Flies or what?
I didn't realize how long it's been since I posted on my blog. Well, I'm back for a quick post for now. The first semester has concluded, and the second has begun. I feel like I've been caught up into a time warp called library media and more. I'm enjoying and savoring every moment of every day. I'm in a constant learning mode, and when time allows, inventive/creative mode. In short, I really do believe I have found "the job" for which I was wired by the Creator.
What's it like being a library media specialist? Hmmmm....hard to put into a few words. I love books, technology, diversity, creativity, kids, and people in general. Now if you take these raw ingredients and mash them in the media center, life gets very interesting. I am always exploring with my school kids, constantly looking for that new, something special twist to put on the learning ball to minimize the learning curve for the kids and the teachers.
Books are a great adventure, and when coupled with learning projects, it creates a very royal cranial explosion of ideas, thoughts, and products. Take the past week as an example. I meet with a small group of 4th graders daily to work on ELA skills. These are the classic digital natives who really come to life when given anything of the digital kind as their tools of choice. The task was learning about a variety of evergreen trees. This mini project started when they had a short story to read about the red mangrove tree a.k.a. the walking tree. It is in the evergreen family and yours truly decided that these kids needed to expand their depth and breadth of knowledge about all things evergreen. They were busy researching using virtual library resources as well as traditional reference books in the media center. Once they had learned all they could possibly learn, they created and communicated that new found knowledge using PowerPoint. I must say that they did an awesome job. Little do they know that this is their first digital artifact for their e-portfolio. They are true 21st century knowledge workers.
Stay tuned as I hope to update more frequently about my life in Library 2.5 or the 21st Century Library Media Center. I really don't think it can get much better than this. But with emerging technologies and intelligent kids, it surely will.
Linda
What's it like being a library media specialist? Hmmmm....hard to put into a few words. I love books, technology, diversity, creativity, kids, and people in general. Now if you take these raw ingredients and mash them in the media center, life gets very interesting. I am always exploring with my school kids, constantly looking for that new, something special twist to put on the learning ball to minimize the learning curve for the kids and the teachers.
Books are a great adventure, and when coupled with learning projects, it creates a very royal cranial explosion of ideas, thoughts, and products. Take the past week as an example. I meet with a small group of 4th graders daily to work on ELA skills. These are the classic digital natives who really come to life when given anything of the digital kind as their tools of choice. The task was learning about a variety of evergreen trees. This mini project started when they had a short story to read about the red mangrove tree a.k.a. the walking tree. It is in the evergreen family and yours truly decided that these kids needed to expand their depth and breadth of knowledge about all things evergreen. They were busy researching using virtual library resources as well as traditional reference books in the media center. Once they had learned all they could possibly learn, they created and communicated that new found knowledge using PowerPoint. I must say that they did an awesome job. Little do they know that this is their first digital artifact for their e-portfolio. They are true 21st century knowledge workers.
Stay tuned as I hope to update more frequently about my life in Library 2.5 or the 21st Century Library Media Center. I really don't think it can get much better than this. But with emerging technologies and intelligent kids, it surely will.
Linda
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Welcome to my blog spot
On a Saturday afternoon in early July, I find myself gearing up for another one of my infamous life's greatest adventures. In a few short weeks I will be working as a school library media-technology specialist. As I begin to imagine what life will be like in this new role, I revisit my experiences with school libraries and media centers.
I have always loved books. In fact, they were and still are my best friends as once engaged with a good book, I can travel anywhere in the universe - for FREE! I grew up in a small borough outside of Philadelphia, PA. Our borough was barely 2 square miles in size, and our library was located in an old store that was about 900 square feet. It was open a few days per week, and whenever I would go, I would check out as many "friends" as I could find to take home and read. Fast forward a few years to when I first started my teaching career. I discovered that the librarians had the best toys - things that plugged and played like 35mm projectors, 16mm projectors, record players, cassette tape recorders, and Systems 80 machines. A few even had a spare tachistoscope collecting dust on a shelf. Uh huh - you guessed it. I gathered up as many of these toys as I could carry and set them up as learning centers in my classroom for my kids. Oh what fun I had! As the technologies advanced, so did my fascination with them. Moving ahead a few more years to the 1980-1994 time frame, and I discovered that librarians were called media specialists. I also learned that they had, in addition to great books, more new "toys" such as VCR's, laserdisc players, and computers!
Now I find myself in the first decade of the twenty-first century pondering what my new media center will look, feel, and sound like. For sure it won't be the quiet library I knew as a child and young adult. I envision it as a place where children come to explore, learn, and become actively engaged in information resources that will be in a variety of formats. They will extract from this plethora of information data sets to create their knowledge in forms that only they will be able to imagine and craft. Things like podcasts, vodcasts, blogs, wikis, virtual libraries, and virtual museums come to mind. Add to this project-based learning activities with children located somewhere else on the planet - Germany, Japan, Alaska, Pennsylvania, or wherever else we can make connections, and you will readily see that my media center, BES Media 2.0, will be center stage for children who will be excited about exploring, learning, communicating, and sharing what they are learning and discovering about the amazing world in which they live.
See you at BES Media 2.0 - where life is taking on a new twist.
I have always loved books. In fact, they were and still are my best friends as once engaged with a good book, I can travel anywhere in the universe - for FREE! I grew up in a small borough outside of Philadelphia, PA. Our borough was barely 2 square miles in size, and our library was located in an old store that was about 900 square feet. It was open a few days per week, and whenever I would go, I would check out as many "friends" as I could find to take home and read. Fast forward a few years to when I first started my teaching career. I discovered that the librarians had the best toys - things that plugged and played like 35mm projectors, 16mm projectors, record players, cassette tape recorders, and Systems 80 machines. A few even had a spare tachistoscope collecting dust on a shelf. Uh huh - you guessed it. I gathered up as many of these toys as I could carry and set them up as learning centers in my classroom for my kids. Oh what fun I had! As the technologies advanced, so did my fascination with them. Moving ahead a few more years to the 1980-1994 time frame, and I discovered that librarians were called media specialists. I also learned that they had, in addition to great books, more new "toys" such as VCR's, laserdisc players, and computers!
Now I find myself in the first decade of the twenty-first century pondering what my new media center will look, feel, and sound like. For sure it won't be the quiet library I knew as a child and young adult. I envision it as a place where children come to explore, learn, and become actively engaged in information resources that will be in a variety of formats. They will extract from this plethora of information data sets to create their knowledge in forms that only they will be able to imagine and craft. Things like podcasts, vodcasts, blogs, wikis, virtual libraries, and virtual museums come to mind. Add to this project-based learning activities with children located somewhere else on the planet - Germany, Japan, Alaska, Pennsylvania, or wherever else we can make connections, and you will readily see that my media center, BES Media 2.0, will be center stage for children who will be excited about exploring, learning, communicating, and sharing what they are learning and discovering about the amazing world in which they live.
See you at BES Media 2.0 - where life is taking on a new twist.
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