Joined American Library Association

Today I joined American Library Association online.  What an experience that was!!  It was quite lenghty.  First I had to go on the site and create an online profile within the site.  I had to fill out the membership application- which consisted of the regualr items like email and my preferred mailing address so I can get the mail, demographics, etc...  In my email preferences I choose to receive communications from ALA, chapters and affliates.  I wonder how that is going to fill my inbox. I might go back later and change some of that.  Time will tell.  One cool thing about membership is I am now connected to ALA connect!  I choose the membership type of regular member.  The price of a regular membership is $65.00.  You can learn more about the American Library Association from their website.  http://www.ala.org/aasl/    I found myself lost for about an hour on the site.  The links within the site are awesome too.  I found a site that I am going to show my students within ALA  http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/.  It was filled with goodies!  Thanks ALA!  You rock!!

Leading My Teachers

This week I planned to help train my teachers with a testing program we are using at our school by a company called NWEA.  The test is called MAP.  That stands for Measures of Academic Progress.  All first and second grade students will be administered the test by computer.  All teachers will have access to a score report 24 hours after their students take the test.  My job is to help the teachers utilize their score reports better.  Also, they need help accessing the reports that the nwea site has to offer.  Too often teachers are bogged down with too things to learn so I thought I would take advantage of my candidate as a leader requirements and create a staff development unit to teach the teachers with their MAP scoring.  I created pdfs and documents as well as a PowerPoint to aid them in learning.  It was quite rewarding making all these tools for the teachers.  I think they really appreciated the help.  We scheduled grade-level meetings and taught each grade separately.  The meetings were quite a success, and each teacher received a PLU for attending the meetings.  I am so excited at how successful things went- I am now working with second grade, first grade and kindergarten to create grade-level wikis to store their units.  If these things are the job of the Media Specialist then I LOVE IT!!!
Link to Wiki site>>>   http://pikeprimarymaptest.pbworks.com/w/page/50484242/FrontPage