Edublogs Awards

For at least a couple of years now, I have been enjoying reading about and voting on the annual Edublogs awards. This year, I have been intending to take some time and add nominations for several of the categories. But, here I am less than an hour away from the deadline, so my list is going to be shorter than I intended. I don't want the nominations to close without at least listing these three blogs:

Mrs. Yollis' Class Blog Mrs. Yollis and her third grade students do an outstanding job of blogging and commenting. This class project exemplifies how the integration of technology in the classroom can really enhance the development of students' writing, inquiry, and online citizenship skills. I am nominating this blog for best class blog.

Joyce Valenza's NeverendingSearch blog is always my number #1 source for discovering new web tools and how they can be used in the library and the classroom. I am nominating this blog for best librarian blog.

Jackie Siminitus does a great job of finding and describing new web tools in her 2CoolTools blog, which I am nominating for best resource sharing blog.

Book talks and individual student blogs

It’s hard to believe that there are just two weeks left until Winter Break. I am torn between being so relieved to have a two-week break coming and fretting that I won’t have accomplished as much as I intended with my students by then. Nevertheless, I am trying to tell myself that there is a lot to feel good about. Here are a couple of accomplishments that I feel pretty good about:

• With just a few exceptions, my students are all engaged in their independent reading and finding good books they will enjoy. I learned pretty early in the semester that my plan for reading aloud at the end of each period just wasn't working; we almost always ran out of time before I could get to it. About a month ago, I tried a new idea suggested by my friend Jody, a teacher at one of the other middle schools in my district. I am starting the period on most days with a book talk, and then I read a few pages of the book to get the kids hooked. As much as possible, I choose books the library has multiple copies of, but I am also including recently published books. I have had the students start a "Reading Ideas" sheet; if they like what I book talk, they add that book to their list. I am also encouraging them to add books that their friends suggest and those they learn about from other sources. My hope is that they will all have a list of at least several "next read" ideas ready whenever they finish a book.
• I am also proud of most my students for the work they have done on their individual blogs. I can't say that all of them are into blogging, and most still have a long ways to go improving their writing, editing, and proofing. That said, though, most of them are really enjoying the opportunity to learn Web 2.0 skills, to write for an authentic audience, and to read and comment on each others' work. This weekend, they are completing their third blogging assignment. For this posting, they are responding to a choice of prompts related to our current reading of Where the Red Fern Grows. To check out some of their blogs, go to my blog/webpage, select the Period 1, Period 2, Period 3, or Period 7 Class Blog from the sidebar, then select any of the student blogs links from those class blogs. You will also notice that the Period 1, 2, 3, and 7 blogs have student entries for each (or some) class days. I'm afraid that project -- of having a "guest blogger of the day" -- isn't producing the results I had hoped for. Too often, students forget to post on the day they volunteered for, or, when they do post, they don't take seriously the need to write well, tell about something interesting, and proof their work. Any suggestions would be welcome!

CSLA 2009 Conference Thanks

The CSLA 2009 Conference has now come and gone, and my duties as conference chair, other than a few wrap up items, are now over! We should have the evaluations and online handouts out to attendees by early next week. Be sure to also check our conference wiki for links videos, slideshows, and more assembled by Marie Slim, our terrific Social Networking Chair.

The conference provided a HUGE self-esteem boost for me, both getting to hear so much positive feedback about the conference as conference chair and winning the Technology Award sponsored by Follett Software! I have also taken note of all the comments I heard requesting improvements in the future and will pass them on to the next committee.

Please excuse this duplication below of my posting in CALIBK12, but I want to reach people in as many ways as possible to thank all the countless people who contributed to the conference's success.

While the conference is now over, I feel confident that the knowledge, great ideas, and camaraderie we gained from it will last us all long into the future. In addition to outstanding selection of general and concurrent sessions and terrific exhibitor offerings, we had a number of firsts --our first Book Cart Drill Team Competition, the world premiere of John McGinnis' "Library Follies," the MTV "Meet the Vendors" Scavenger Hunt, our first "Brag" session at the membership forum, live poster sessions, and the LAYAPALOOZA game show.

It all happened thanks to the hard work and support of so many people:

• Rosemarie Bernier, our wonderful new president, whose vision and wisdom set the theme and tone and whose hard work never stopped
• the outstanding conference committee members who worked long and hard both in planning and during the conference
• the CSLA State Board and the Northern and Southern Section Boards who supported the conference in so many ways
• our office staff who went the extra mile over and over again
• all the terrific presenters, authors, and illustrators who attended and so generously shared their wisdom and enthusiasm with us both formally and informally
• all the CSLA Committees that sponsored events and sessions
• the many loyal exhibitors who shared their products and support with us
• all the many attendees who came and supported our organization and volunteered in so many different ways while they were there

Thank you all for being there and making it a conference to remember!

FInally, I would like to thank Rosemarie for offering me the opportunity to serve as this year's committee chair. It was a true honor and privilege.

Keeping Busy with Blogs and My New Computer Rotation

While I have been furiously working away on the last fazes of the conference planning in the evenings and weekends, my classes have been busier than ever.

With just one or two exceptions, all my students have their individual blogs going. They have done their first posting about creativity. Their second posting is due tonight. Some of them were away for three days last week for an honors trip to Catalina. Those students are writing about that experience. The rest are responding to a choice of prompts about a recent book. The assignment also calls for inserting an image reflecting the post. I used that component as an opportunity to teach them about Creative Commons, how to find Creative Commons images at flickr.com, and how to create a link back to the flickr page to give credit to the creator. I'm looking forward to reading the posts. Only problem is that I don't even have the creativity posts graded yet! Grading is definitely the hardest part of this job.

Another change in the last month is that, due to budget shortfalls and less than expected enrollment at my school, one of my five language arts classes was eliminated and most of my students disbursed to my other four sections. I am now also teaching a sixth grade computer exploratory rotation in place of the fifth language arts class. While I hated seeing my fifth period class eliminated and my other class sizes grow, I am excited about the computer exploratory class. I had a curriculum all ready to go: CSLA's Middle School Learning 2.0 tutorial! I had tried promoting this "beta test" adaptation of CSLA's highly successful SSL 2.0 and Classroom Learning 2.0 tutorials last spring in the library. And, my friend Sheryl (see the October 5 posting) has been using it as the basis of the computer class she is teaching at my neighbor school with great results. I had my first round of students for just 3 1/2 weeks at the end of a rotation, so they only had time to get their feet wet with blogging. Nevertheless, they really enjoyed what they did. Here's my "cover" blog with links to their blogs. Last Monday I started a 10-week round with a new group of students, so we will have lots of time together to work on blogs, and I will also have a chance to incorporate lessons in various information literacy skills.

To introduce my students to the what they will be doing with their blogs, Sheryl and I had a "webinar" using Elluminate* and Skype* between the two classes. Several of her students, who are now a few weeks into their rotation, walked my students through their blogs and what they have most enjoyed working on. Both sets of classes loved it. :) My kids can't wait to be the demonstrators in December when Sheryl has new students starting her class.

* You can get a free Elluminate vRoom for up to three people through learncentral.org. That worked fine for us, since we were at just two sites. We used Elluminate to share our browser screens with each other. We could have also used Elluminate's built-in audio, but when we experimented in advance, we found that the quality of both the video and audio on our free Skype accounts was better. We want to learn more about Elluminate in order to take advantage of more of its features and may figure out how to tweak that. In the meantime, the Elluminte and Skype combo worked very well for us.

It's almost time for conference!

CSLA's annual conference is just around the corner! If you haven't registered yet, it's not too late to come and do so on-site. Check out our website and wiki for all the details. You can also start following the conference on Twitter at csla2009. What you learn in the sessions you attend will more than pay for your conference registration. For example, sign up for Sandra Yoon and Sarah Baron's "Successful Strategies for Grant Writing" workshop on Thursday, and you will come away with the tools you need to get your school or district a grant to support your library programs. I look forward to seeing you in Ontario November 19-22!

Reading and Blogging

I had a great resolution to use this blog as a regular journal on how my classroom teaching is going. So far, I have been doing a terrible job keeping up and contributing regularly. I am finding that doing my prep for each day and trying to keep on top of all the grading is all-consuming. And, my time outside of school is also filled to the brim with planning for CSLA’s Annual Conference November 19-22 and year-round planning for CSLA’s Southern Section. Please don’t miss the CSLA Conference! We have a wonderful line-up of presentations and special events. It’s not too late to register. Visit the CSLA site for registration information and our wiki for all the latest information. CSLA Southern Section also is making some terrific plans this year, including a Webinar with Joyce Valenza on January 23.

While I have been overwhelmed with prepping and grading for my classes, my students and I have been involved in a number of engaging activities. I am heartened to see how much they enjoy the reading that we do in class together, both the stories we have been studying and analyzing and those I have read aloud to them purely for pleasure.

Here’s a quick summary of some of what we’ve been up to. I started off the year with plans to read a story or book outside of our curriculum studies for a few minutes at the end of each period. It seems that I never have enough time for all the things we need to do, and I let that quickly drop off the list unintentionally. This week, I was determined to build that back in. My students were really excited when I got out Richard Peck’s Present Tense, Past Perfect to start another story. I’m really impressed about how good their attention is when I do read aloud to them; I’m going to do all I can to restore these read alouds as a regular activity.

As part of my technology-integration planning for the year, I started students off doing some assignments in our Moodle course. There clearly has been a learning curve for a number of them logging in and uploading files. Some of them have also experienced challenges using their flash drives and converting file formats from their home computers to .doc files that can be read on our school computers. I think that almost everyone is now up to speed on all these skills. A lesson in this for me, though, was that I couldn’t expect everyone to master all the procedures through just one assignment; a good percentage of the students needed several walk throughs to get it down.

The second technology tool I introduced the students to was blogging. My intention was to have a blog for each class period as well as an individual blog for each student. The period blogs are a place where students take turns being the guest blogger/reporter of the day, giving an account of what we do and learn. The students will use the individual blogs to respond to writing prompts, reflect on their reading, and add optional additional journal entries. I thought that starting with the period blogs would give them the experience of creating postings before we embarked on the individual blogs. I have, frankly, been disappointed in the period blogs so far. Some of the students have written lively, well-constructed postings, but a number have failed to check their work for good grammar, spelling, etc. Some have simply failed to post on the day they signed up for. I did keep getting questions from students about when we would start the promised individual blogs. I realized that I couldn’t wait until everyone did a good posting on the period blogs before starting the individual blogs. It took me a good chunk of time to get everyone’s screen name/blog name requests and generate all the blogs, but I did get that done last week. I used edublogs.org to create all the blogs, and set myself as a second administrator on each blog. I spent two class periods helping the students access their blogs, customize them, discuss what makes a good posting, and create a first posting about creativity. I am in the process of reading these postings. So far I am very pleased with their work and the variety of their responses to the questions about creativity. My next task is to link each of the individual blogs to the period blogs so the students can visit each others’ blogs and comment on them. I plan to do a lesson next week on what constitutes a good, constructive comment. Perhaps next I will backtrack and re-teach what constitutes a good “reporter” posting for the period blogs.

Sheryl's guest posting

Seems that time flies when you are having fun ... or are buried in paperwork and grading. I have actually been doing some fun stuff with my students in the month I see has now gone by since my last post, but I've also spent a lot of it trying to get organized, learn our new online gradebook, and grade, grade, grade. I promise to try to catch up on writing about the interesting parts soon. In the meantime, I'm very excited to have a guest posting by my friend and fellow "TL in the Classroom," Sheryl Grabow-Weiss. Sheryl and I were colleagues in the library in our district for years and are now colleagues in the classroom. Sheryl sent me two paragraphs for her guest posting. The first paragraph is from her own blog in late August. The second paragraph is one she just wrote this month. .... Here goes ....

"Summer is over: ( Time to face the reality that I'll be a classroom teacher this year. I am fortunate that I'll be at the same school I've taught at for 12 years. Instead of being the Teacher Librarian, I'll be teaching two sections of LASS (6th grade language arts and social studies) and a computer research elective for 6th graders. The elective is part of the 6th grade rotation; a 5 week long course covering a variety of topics including languages, computer graphics, art, music, drama and my Computer Connections unit. I've decided to utilize CSLA's Middle School Learning 2.0 for the elective. I plan on having students work on 2 "Things" per week, with an emphasis on web site evaluation, cyber safety and being a good online citizen.

"It is now the beginning of October and I’m settling into the routine of being a classroom teacher. It is a challenge, one that I struggle with every day. Being in the classroom has definitely given me a new perspective of what my teachers go through on a daily basis. I love the time I spend with “my” students. The planning, grading and classroom management tasks are the challenges I struggle with. I’m truly enjoying the elective I teach. This first group of students has taken to blogging like a duck to water. They have enjoyed learning about all of the web 2.0 tools introduced in Teen Learning 2.0 and have found other tools and gadgets to embed in their blogs. They have added gadgets I have on my blog, discovering and utilizing these gadgets without prompting. They love Shelfari and enjoy making VOKI’s – activities that were not part of the original program, but should be included. Introducing students to blogging has given them a voice – a place to explore their creativity.

Sheryl Grabow-Weiss

10/4/09"

You can follow Sheryl's blog "Keeping Up" with her students at http://aewkeepingup.blogspot.com. Thanks so much for posting, Sheryl!