SCASL Conference Notes

R David Lankes: Keynote

Notes and Quotes:

• don't be "too modest"
• share clear collaboration and announce its benefits
• recognize opportunities and potential to be involved and grow
• "boundareis are temporal and passable"
• we have an obligation to lead thought change
• "you can aspire"
• encourage communities to make smarter and more informed choices
• "bring the world into our classroom and bring the classroom to the world"
• every proposed filter is a moment of opportunity
• the core of librarianship is sharing instead of data technology
• repetition of "knowledge"
• developing and sharing the best practices with each other
• we have a "social mission" of values and ethics and service and intellectual freedom and civic discourse and...
• our goal is to generate great supporters of libraries
• not about an individual program or school, but about a community and world and workers and and and

Response:
Dr. Lankes keynote address certainly set the tone for the conference. It was both empowering and realistic about the goals and roles we have been studying in the MLIS program. I did feel a little like I would need to be Superman in order to fulfill the sort of social role and responsibility Lankes was suggesting. Sure as a whole group I suppose we can accomplish these major goals of leading a "revolution" in the "values" that he talked so much about. I know that those of us in that room certainly do value the things he talked about. I think that Lankes was offering collaboration and establishing connections as the new leader of the LIS school, which will no doubt benefit both USC and the schools in the state.

Passive Programming by Leigh Jordan: Session

Notes and Quotes:

• "I Spy" to acquaint students with the library
• one month program
• prizes rotate through the day/week
• 3-year program rotations (middle school)
• Big focus and programs during April's National Library Week
• One station per week in April
• Activity Ideas:
• Fortune teller template to recommend books
• Spine poetry
• craft/maker space
• duck tape website
• 9 Hole Golf course through the shelves
• Lego build & write 
• Memory with books/authors/characters
• Candyland through the stacks
• Use materials or texts or genres as themes for activities
• Advertise activities throughout school/on newsletter
• Summer drop in for middle schoolers and siblings
• 4 times over summer
• paid via district stipend
• open 2 to 7 PM

Response:
Ms. Jordan had many creative ides for her library. Some seemed rather involved and requiring several materials. Jordan did suggest that most were collected through donations or bought at second-hand stores, but would still require quite a bit of prep to include into the library program. One of her biggest suggestions was to develop the program over the course of a few years to really collect this many activities. I liked the creativity she displayed; however, I felt that most of the presentation could have been drafted into a suggestions list that could have been easily published and distributed for SLMS use and reading at our leisure. Additionally, "Passive Programming" was not at all what the topic of this session was, so I was a bit disappointed once the lecture actually began.

Reading Using Technology by Eve Heaton: Session

Notes and Quotes:

• Seven Sneaky Ways (to get kids to read)
• digital timer
• "realistic time"
• students to set timers to give power
• challenges and badges
•  build from easy to harder challenges over school year quarters
• ClassFlow for interactive lessons via Promethean
• "MicroCredentials" for skills building
• multimedia books
• i.e. Patrick Carmen, videos follow at the end of each chapter
• 3:15 series of short stories
• advertise as a "Scary Book Club...don't come, it's too scary!" (reverse psychology)
• online libraries
• free AT SCHOOL: epic!, Big Universe
• subscription: OverDrive
• gamify reading
•  BookAdventure.com
• Book Scavenger
• size matters
• DOGO News!
• Newsela
• ReadWorks and ReadWorks Digital to teach Text-Dependent-Analysis and test literacy skills
• transcripts and closed captioning
• have students listen only, then watch video
• have students watch video without sound to read captions
• Flocabulary (subscription)
• CNN Student News
• Discovery Education (subscription)
• YouTube (CC)
• My Simple Show
•  copy of her PPT: https://goo.gl/J0g9hw

Response:
Let me tell you, I was more than a little miffed when, at the end of the session, Ms. Heaton said that her whole presentation could be read on a published website. What a waste of an hour! At least I had some tasty hand pies from the Hyatt and got free swag from her room! Despite this, several of the ideas I have used in my own classroom before and have found them effective. I did learn of a few resources, but again, this could have easily been distributed as a published list rather than required a whole session of the conference.

Day 15: Teaching 3rd, 4th, and 5th

Today was a marathon! I taught all three of Mr. Dent's English classes about how to search using WebPath Express and why using Google and Wikipedia isn't the best method for searches. As I was planning, I tried to create a logical approach as to why these simple-to-use resources weren't the only easy resources out there. Here is the PowerPoint that I used to outline the reasons why Google's exponential results and Wikipedia's authors aren't the smartest ways to research.

Third grade was up first. They were excellent at taking notes and focusing on what I was telling them through the lesson. Especially for a group of all-but-three eight-year-old boys, the students stayed on task with very little prompting. About halfway through, we did an activity on GoNoodle to take a mini brain break to help them stay focused. I was glad I planned this into the lesson because they definitely needed it! When I got to the portion that the students were practicing searches on their own, the students really struggled with following the directions and replicating the results. After seeing the other groups, I think this is because the students aren't developmentally ready to do this sort of research on their own. Their follow along papers and answers in class showed that they knew what I was talking about, but then they still needed the step-by-step instructions to complete an individual assignment.

The fourth graders were the best to work with. They were excited before I even got started, but were also focused and prepared to do this work. I think these students got the most out of the lesson. These students had recently completed a research project for a wax museum. Their resources were pre-selected books from the library as well as informational websites pre-posted on the library's homepage. This made the students familiar with the research process, but not knowing all the things about how to search on their own. When they got to the independent practice portion, the students could complete the activity with little assistance. A few of the students would struggle with one step or another, but the rest of the table group was really good about leaning over and giving an extra hand or direction. They were definitely the most fun group to teach, and I think they got the most out of this lesson.

The fifth graders were attentive and added great experience and knowledge to the class discussion and lecture. On the other hand, the students thought they already knew what to do with research, so their follow along papers and independent practice was the least accurate of the three classes. When I said this to Mr. Dent, he also suggested that since these students are gifted-labelled they can sometimes act this way with lessons on any day. Despite this, I think that the concepts I was teaching were both well received and well understood. This lesson took the shortest of the three classes, but the students had independent reading they continued once my lesson was over.

Overall I thought that the lesson went well, especially considering I had not taught any third, fourth, or fifth graders before. I would definitely break up the lesson for third graders and make sure the lessons developed over more time and multiple units. I think this way would help the students learn better and more effectively. Clearly, this lesson was best appropriate for fourth grade. I think that all of the students got something out of the lesson, but the fourth graders definitely benefitted the most from this message. By doing the same lesson with multiple grades, I learned a lot about the ability levels of each age as well as the sort of emotional/presentation tactics that appeal more to younger or older students. Even though there are less than three years difference between most of the students' ages, the outlook on learning, social habits, and performance ability were vastly different for each grade level. Mr. Dent's only constructive criticism was the length of the lesson--not that the students were engaged for too long, but that most teachers would be unwilling to "sacrifice" that much of their instructional time to give for the LMS. Especially as the only students that come to the LMC on a regular basis are K4, K, 1, and SPED, I was not surprised by this comment. However, in my own LMC, I will want to make my instruction a regular part of the curriculum and growth for the students year to year. 

Day 14: Finalizing Plans

Today I spent more time than I expected finalizing the lesson for tomorrow. A big reason this took longer than expected is to prepare for the guests Ravenel will be hosting tomorrow. Literacy coaches from the district are coming to observe in several classrooms for the day to see practices and behaviors of the students and teachers. I asked if this required me to teach on another day, but Mr. Dent insisted that they were interested in all aspects of the curriculum. Thankfully, I teach the same and am comfortable regardless of who is in my room! (Not that I'm not a little extra nervous to have a few more intelligent adults present for my first lesson to eight, nine, and ten-year-olds!) Because they are visiting, I created a more detailed rationale lesson plan to have available for these visitors.

I had also planned to teach the students via real-time modeling. The internet had been having connectivity issues earlier in the week, so i decided to add screenshots to a PowerPoint to make sure that the students could at least see the portions of WebPath Express that they would be using. This was an easy addition to the lesson, but did take some time to create and crop screenshots.

I also wrestled with the copier for a bit. Such inevitable moment of an internship! Though I had had some problems with copying the bookmarks/book handouts during my booktalks in February, I again struggled with sending a document digitally to the copier. Between all the drawers and passwords, it is one of the most complicated systems in the library!

Unfortunately, finalizing the lesson and pulling resources for teachers was almost all I got accomplished today. I was thankful that Cindy recognized this need and allowed me to focus my work. I also apologized to Toni for not being able to help with the books' circulation. This is something I will have to work toward as a full LMS: not feeling guilty for doing my parts of the job while an assistant shelves books, etc, and better using my time to prepare for lessons and curriculum development.