A Busy Friday



Next week is the week for my Site Visit!  I have changed my lesson 5 times!!  I have no idea why I am so nervous about this.  I have finally decided on the Zimmer Twins.  The site is so fabulous for digital storytelling.  I cant wait to show my students as well as my professor this fabulous find!  On the Zimmer Twin site, students can create really impressive cartoon animations.  They can direct and produce their very own animated movies. There are so many options for the students to use.  Their imaginations are going to flow like crazy.  This site gives the term book reports a new spin.  It is a perfect Web 2.0 tool for teachers and students.  Students are going to love sharing their creations.  Usually any site that is interactive is a sure winner in the computer lab, but the Zimmer Twins goes above and beyond interactive.  I can wait to use it!!

Tuesday Webinar



Lately, I feel like my practicum course is whizzing by too quickly.  I think its Spring giving me the fever!  I am trying to work on portfolio daily.  Last week I focused on reflections for each standard.  Today I am going back to my reflections and adding links that are appropriate for each standard.  My site visit is next week, so I am a little nervous about that.  I have already started the lesson plan, I just have a few tweaks in the written aspect of the lesson plan.  I hope everyone enjoys the lesson the students and the professor.  As many times as I have been observed I shouldn't feel nervous!  O well that's human nature.  Today was a scheduled Webinar for all first grade teachers so I joined in.  The webinar related to first grade mathematics and how we should compile our units to the common core.  It discussed moving from the Georgia Professional Standards to the Common Core, and gave some great information to make the transition easy.  The website address is http://www.gpb.org/education/common-core The site has a calendar that lists all the upcoming webinars. The webinars on the site are awesome. The webinar we watched was 2 hours long.   You can view them live or you can view the past webinars.  The site made it very simple.  Of course you cant participate in the live chats if you view past webinars, but you get the information all the same.  I am glad that the

Site Visit To Pike Elementary



Today I went to the Pike County Elementary School and shadowed the Media Specialist.  It was a very busy day.  At my school the main reason the students come to the library is to check out 'any' book
 or to take an AR test.  That was not the case at the Pike County Elementary School.  The students came with an agenda!  The had certain book titles in mind, or either they knew what topic they needed for a class.  Some students just had special interests in reading and wanted a cool book!  I loved it!!  I got to work with students finding books and also helping them get excited about books!!  I never wanted to be a Media Specialist more.  Mrs.  Karen told me that not all days are like today.  Most days are spent on inventory, pulling things for teachers, updating websites, streaming videos to MediaCast, budget, ordering supplies, and of course cataloging books, etc...  I told her I know this- I know a Media Specialist wears many hats and plays many roles.  However, I had the best day and I truly thank her for allowing me to work at the circulation desk and with students all day.  It was a most excellent day.  I truly know I want to be a Media Specialist when I grow up.  LOL!!

March Media Meeting

We had a Media Meeting after school yesterday afternoon.  I am already a member of the Media Team so this was nothing new.  We have a Media Meeting 4-5 times every school year.  The meetings are about an hour long depending on how much we have to discuss.  At our meeting this time, our Media Specialist read the list of new books that she purchased for our school.  We discussed what will be occurring during the next month.  Read Across America is March 2^nd that celebrates Dr. Seuss’ birthday. The PBS Go Writers contest is March 7^th, Student Media Festival Entries is March 9^th and the Spring Book Fair from March 23^rd to March 30^th will be happening. The book fair was discussed a lot.  We talked about our theme ( which is a luau) and what decorations we would be using.  We discussed what jobs needed to be done and how many volunteers we would need.  We talked about the writers contest.  For the PBS Go Writers contest students have to write a story that has 5 pictures and particular word count.  Student Media Festival entries can be a book that the student has written and illustrated that can be made into a movie, a photo essay, almost anything media related.  The meeting was very successful we discussed a lot.  I even brought a big bowl of M&M's for everyone to share!   It looks as though March will full of fun for our Media Center. 

Weeding



Today I went to the library and discussed weeding with our Media Specialist.  She said that weeding was something that took a lot of time- a lot of time that she did not have.  She said she weeds mainly at the end of the year when she is cleaning all the shelves.  The section that my Media Specialist and I choose to weed was the Easy Reader Section.  The reason we picked this section was due to using Destiny and looking at the circulation statistics.  We choose the books that were not circulating within this section. This section is the MOST used section in the library.  This is due primarily to the fact that our school is grades Pre-K through Second Grade.  Within this section we weeded 18 books.  Some of the books in the statistics of the circulation were not in the Easy Reader Section.  They were missing,  The Media Specialist told me some of them might have been damaged beyond repair and she just threw them out, she said some of them might have never been returned, or they could have been taken from the library without checking them out.  We not only weeded the section, we also updated the catalogue within Destiny.  We updated and catalogedd 12 different titles.  We took 8 book titles out of Destiny.  We added 4 bran new titles.  They came in UPS this morning.  Our Media Specialist always picks great titles.  One of the books that we added today was Balloons Over Broadway.  It was on the ALA Award winner list for 2012. I  love working with Destiny!  Its user-friendly, and it has so many cool bells and whistles that every time I go into the program I find something new that it will do.  This time I was inspired to create a lesson with the students to help them use Destiny Quest.  I love how it has pictures for easy clicking fro our younger students. (pic above of me and section weeded)

Field Experience and PLN Day

                       

Today was such a great day!   I went and shadowed the Media Specialist at the Middle School.  It was so neat to work with middle grade students.  I have always worked with primary students K-2, so working with teenagers was quite a change.  The library was quieter than at my school.  Although I noticed 13 year old were just as silly as 6 year olds.  While shadowing Mrs. Merrick, she showed me how they use Destiny at their school. She showed me around the library ( all the nooks and crannies)  She showed me the budget for 2011, and how she worked around it.  SHe said her funding has got lower and lower over the last 7 years.  Here is a link to our budget that Mrs. Merrick shared with me.  It was quite eye opening.http://pikecountytimes.com/2011SchoolBudget.pdf 

During Lunch, I hung out in the computer lab, while I was there- I made my PLN something that I can be proud of.  I added my favorite feeds.  I love Ilearntechnology from Kelly Tenkely.  She has been part of my PLN on Twitter since I joined a few years back.  I also like Kevin Jarrett.  I learn so many things from these 2 educators.  Although Twitter is blocked from school- I use it ALL the time.  It has made me a better educator.  Another social tool I added to my PLN was Pinterest.  WOW!!  Pinterest has given me a creative side to teaching that I never knew I had!  I get so inspired to create things for my students every single time I click within Pinterest.  Our Kindergarten teachers are going to create a Kindergarten boards in Pinterest and share that account among themselves.  What a SUPER way to collaborate!!  You should see the Kindergarten hall- Pinterest has made it look a lot more creative than it did last year!  I think Social Tools are great for education's future.  I just wonder when everyone will jump on the bandwagon!

Catching Up!



According to the Practicum Portfolio checklist for February 20th, I am on schedule.  I only have a few things left to embed.  Then, I can start with some more of the checklist items.  I have been working hard on the portfolio the past few weeks trying to make sure everything is in order. I was a little confused on where to embed all my key assessments, but I finally got everything figured out.  HOORAY!!   For valentines this week I showed my class http://www.thisissand.com/  They were so excited- it was a great Valentines present for me to give them.  During the time they were playing on the sand, I spent that time catching up with my class blog reading task.  The class has all read "The Mitten", and I made a display board for our school about the author.  The class made Wordles about the story and we printed them and took them home.  Above you can see a picture of a class working on their wordles.  Wordle is such an excellent Web 2.0 tool to show what you have learned about a story.  The students particularly like it because they can write words instead of sentences.  It seems students are always looking for shortcuts in the world of education- so technology makes it easy to learn, show, and assess!  Between the class blog and our wordle projects our reading unit has been lots of FUN!   I am working on a rubric to grade my students motivation, effort, and work on the reading enrichment unit.  So far, everyones motivation is through the roof- technology does that to students!  I love being an educator in today's time.  Taking my students to the 21st century is an awesome experience.