Phenomenal Read Aloud Program

Stumbled upon Pernille Ripp’s Global Read Aloud at Edmodocon several years ago. Took part in the Eric Carle author study for GRA that year. Last year, decided to up my school’s involvement, so in addition to doing the Peter H. Reynolds’ author study with kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 students, the grade 5 teachers and I took part in Jennifer Holm’s The Fourteenth Goldfish GRA. What an amazing time we had. You can see some of what we did on our Tackk.

Though I would love, love, love to do Global Read Aloud with grade 3, 4, and 5 students with Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s Fish in a Tree, I’m only going to do the Amy Krause Rosenthal author study with kindergarten, grade 1 and 2 students. Super excited for this program. We’ll be learning how to use chopsticks after we read Chopsticks this week! We’ll be sending video clips to a teacher who’s going to put them all together from wherever they are sent. Should be super fun to see the finished product. Can’t wait to see all the rest of the cool stuff we’ll do to connect with others throughout the world.

It’s not too late to join Global Read Aloud–it starts tomorrow–MONDAY, OCT 5th!! If you don’t want to join late this year, then mark your calendars for next year.

On My Mind for the Past Several Months

AASL in Hartford last November was incredible. Still on my mind from the conference:

  • After returning, a colleague asked me to sum it up in one word. A tough task, but I finally came up with “wonder.” Wonder can be at the heart of so much in education.
  • The authors I met and/or listened to were phenomenal. Libba Bray, Toni Buzzeo, Shane W. Evans, the whole “guy group–” they were absolutely histerical
  • Talking with and learning from colleagues from around the country was priceless
  • PBS’ phenomenal resources
  • Stripling Model of Inquiry

Apps and/or software tools that have been effective in Rumsey’s library:

  • EasyBib School Edition
  • Pic Collage
  • Google Lit Trips
  • Google Forms

Thoughts on Apps/Software

Some apps/software that have made my teaching/learning more fun and effective this year:

  • Tourwrist app: got into an even deeper New York State of Mind (book and song by Billy Joel) during grade 1 “Music and Books” unit. After enjoying the book/song, students used the Tourwrist app to get a panoramic view and interactive experience of places in New York. When Latin Gamma students came in to the library to research the Pantheon, we started off research viewing the Pantheon up close thanks to Tourwrist.
  • Nearpod app: deliver presentations (with interactive slides) to every device get immediate feedback from participants; get reports of participants’ responses; control their devices during the presentation.
  • EasyBib School Edition: students create projects, add citations, notes, and outlines all in one place; the LearnCite feature and evaluating sources feature are helpful tools to teach information literacy.
  • Edmodo: join professional groups and/or communities within Edmodo; create a group for each class; powerful and safe way to keep class organized; communicate with students individually through posts or allow them to post to the group (students cannot post directly to each other only to the whole class); attach links and documents to posts; assign projects; give out badges and so much more!

edcamp and more

If you aren’t familiar with edcamps, you’ve got to check them out. Click here to access all the edcamp details throughout the world. If you’re in CT, attend edcamp RSD6 held at Wamogo High School in Litchfield. Only one camp left at Wamogo. So what is an edcamp? It’s an un-conference. Attendees don’t know what’s going to be offered until the day of the event. People can prepare to lead a session ahead of time or they can lead a session on a whim. Or, if an attendee would like to know more about a topic, he/she can post the topic as an inquiry and people will show up at the session who know a bit about it. It’s truly an incredible PD model and one that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.

I’ve learned tons from others, poked around on all sorts of apps/tools that I had heard of previously but hadn’t found the time to explore, and I’ve shared a bit of my knowledge too. Just a couple of highlights for me: connecting with colleagues (both ones new to me and quite a few from my past); learning from and sharing with others (dropbox, twitter, Wevideo, class dojo, edmodo–edmodocon coming in August!, nearpod, and so, so much more). Amy shared an excellent visual today created by Stacy Stephens about formative assessment and technology integration. I don’t quite agree with the line in small type at the top of the visual, but the visual creates an excellent overview of apps/tools that work in the classroom.

Looking forward to the last week of edcamp RSD6 and beyond–to continuing to collaborate/connect with colleagues.

CPD23: Thing 1 and Thing 2

The Library Notes was created last July and not much got posted once the school year began. I’ve always wanted to take part in the 23 Things program (initially the adapted version in CT), but when I saw that the “official” 23 Things was going to start up again this summer, I knew I had to participate. Coincidentally, at my school all faculty have to learn a new software platform for summer PD. My “official” PD will be to use Schoolsuite to update the library’s web pages since I haven’t done that since I started last August. For me, though, 23 Things will definitely be a part of my summer PD and I’m looking forward to it.

As a school librarian, (maybe I should call myself a media specialist?!), I’m totally fascinated by and interested in technology. I love sharing with and learning from others. I’ll be hooking up a new LED projector in my library soon and I’m so excited. It’s going to make teaching/learning so much more efficient, interesting and productive. I will be so glad to get rid of the “media center” that is currently there.

I think I read that we will be looking at “branding” in 23 things. This is something that a colleague (also a newer school librarian) and I have frequently discussed. I always keep going back to “The Energized Librarian.” I think that’s what I’ll use. I have a bit of energy and this year during National Poetry month, I organized a Poetry Cafe, complete with some cool plasma globes and such. I find it challenging to see how much I can put my energy into at once.

I did glance at some other blogs that are a part of 23 Things. Looks like several have just started as a result of this program which is great. I’m looking forward to easily connecting with people from other parts of the world as well.

Looking forward to next week.

On vacation and have time to explore tech again

Attended a great edweb webinar today “Microblogging” #edwebet . Much discussion about Twitter. I should really make it a habit of checking Twitter daily. I always find great info there; from last summer when I learned about Apple’s free video camp for kids (thanks to David Pogue’s Tweet) to all the details about how Buffy Hamilton created a Kindle program in her library, and so much more. Thanks to Michelle Luhtala for renewing my interest in Twitter today. Michelle also mentioned Diigo. Coincidentally, I just created a Diigo account earlier today before the webinar; or did I create that account yesterday?! The days are pleasurably longer now that I’m on vacation! In any case, Diigo has been great to explore and it’s helping me to organize some of the information that’s floating around in my head from today’s webinar and yesterday’s webinar about eReaders.