Not at #ALAAC16 and #NOTATISTE16

Every year in June it's a dilemma for teacher librarians: whether to go to the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference or to the International Society for Technical Education (ISTE) Conference. Those of us who thrive on conferences and all the wonderful new information, inspiration, networking, energy, and camaraderie they offer, can't help but feel torn between the two events. Some overachievers actually split their time between the two. I did that only once, when ALA was in Anaheim and ISTE was in San Diego. This year, I was saved the dilemma; instead, I had to make the hard decision to forgo both of them, since my husband and I are leaving on a trip to Scandinavia this weekend. 

So, my focus this week is really supposed to be on getting ready for the trip, but, being me, I can't resist taking advantage of at least some of the opportunities to benefit from both these conferences from afar. Luckily, for anyone unable to attend either event, there are so many wonderful ways to take advantage of these conferences remotely. This posting is just a small selection of what I've enjoyed so far this week and that you, as a reader, can take advantage of as well, either live or after the fact.

One of the exciting events at the ALA conference each year is the announcement of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning and the 25 Best Apps for Teaching and Learning. It's always a great summer activity to work through these sites and apps and consider how to apply them to enrich our students' learning and, frequently, our own productivity. I've had the pleasure of serving on the Best Websites Committee for the least three years and enjoyed having a roll in the selection. You can learn about and start to explore the best websites here. And, be sure to also visit this page on the AASL site for link to the presentation, and Symbaloo and Pinterest collections of the sites. For the best apps, visit this link. Also, visit this great interactive infographic for the best apps created by the amazing Joyce Valenza. A good summer activity would be simply to get familiar with the 25 websites and 25 apps and decide which ones will work for you and your students.

For more ALA information and inspiration, follow the #ALAAC16 hashtag on Twitter and the conference site.

For those regretting being unable to attend ISTE, there are probably more resources than you will ever have time to explore! Jennifer Wagner has been doing an incredible job spearheading a Google+ "NotatISTE" community with  lots of lively discussion, fun challenges, resource sharing, and badge making and posting. (I'm even going to get points in the challenge for doing this posting. :-) ) As a part of the community, the phenomenal Peggy George has been curating useful resources in a LiveBinder. To follow ISTE on Twitter, check the #ISTE2016 hashtag. To follow the NotatISTE, community search both #NOTATISTE and #NOTATISTE16. And, did you know -- I just found out yesterday, during Tony Vincent's Periscope session (see below) -- that you can search for more than one hashtag in Twitter? Just include OR (and be sure to use full caps) between your search terms. I can't believe I've been missing that easy option all this time! You can do that both in Twitter and Tweetdeck. Here's my busy Tweetdeck, trying to track both conferences: 

Here are a few of the #NOTATISTE activities I've most enjoyed: 

Tony Vincent (@TonyVincent on Twitter and Periscope) has been Periscoping poster sessions and more around ISTE. Periscope is an iOS and Android app that allows you to create and watch very informal live streams of events. The connections can be unstable, but it has been worth the effort getting to follow Tony around sessions and hear him chat with poster presenters and more. In the course of watching, I've been learning how the Periscope app works, and I know I will want to try broadcasts of my own the next time I attend a conference live. The app allows viewers to send "hearts," indicating they like what they are watching, make comments, and share the stream to Twitter for others to view. And, the broadcasts are all recorded so people can view them later. Visit the link to Tony Vincent's ISTE page to view recordings of all his sessions. You will also see links to notes that various volunteers took during each session. You can follow people on Periscope to get notifications when they broadcast. Another person to follow whose been generously Periscoping the conference is #CraigYen. 

The EdTechTeam has been an active group during ISTE, and has been having a whole series of lively, informative 20-minute presentations at the group's booth. Yesterday, all the sessions were streamed live and you can view the entire recording on YouTube. For example, I got to see Katy Perry share about how to create an unGoogleable question. Here's one of her slides with things to have students do rather than simply answering questions: 

The EdTechTeam hosts summits all over the world, and I have heard Katy present on this same topic at a Google for Education Summit in Coronado, CA last fall. Some topics, though, benefit from hearing them and working through the concepts and ideas more than once, so I was delighted to view her session yesterday. To find out about the EdTechTeam GAFE summits, visit this page. I hope to present at the one coming up in Laguna Beach in August. 

One of the challenge options for the #NOTATISTE group is to use Do Ink's Green Screen app, available for iOS on iPhones and iPads, to photograph ourselves at an ISTE location or event. I have been incredibly jazzed by how many students at my school have taken advantage of the green screen kit and the Green Screen app I installed on the library iPad for class projects. They have made films for Government, Chemistry, and English Language support classes, and more. Here at home, though, I don't have access to the green screen kit. So, to participate in the #NOTATISTE challenge, I went to the 99 Cent store, and bought a green tablecloth. Here's how I created the #NOTATISTE photo with me in the forefront you see up near the top of this posting: 

1. I have Do Ink’s $2.99 Green Screen app on my iPad. (I could also have used my iPhone.)
2. I downloaded the photo from the ISTE conference site home page.
3. I used Picmonkey.com to add the “#NOTAT” text.
4. I made that photo the second layer image in the Green Screen app.
5. I hung my 99 Cent store green tablecloth over my couch.
6. I sat on the couch and held the iPad as far away from me as I could. I made the camera the top layer in the Green Screen app, switched it to selfie mode, and adjusted the color and sensitivity as best I could, then shot the image.

So … you can see that I’m too big and it’s not exactly “professional,” but for made all by myself without a camera person or a proper green screen, I think it will do :-) I tried setting up a tripod for the iPad, but couldn't get the angle right. Maybe I'll enlist my husband as a camera person for a second try today. Or, maybe I better just focus on getting ready for my trip, huh?

Check out some of the other green screen photos from members of the #NOTATISTE16 community in this group slideshow.

Time for the Next Adventure!

If you have been reading my school library blog, you will already know that I made a big life cycle change last Friday: I retired from my position as Teacher Librarian at Mira Costa High School. Here's a short summary of my "wrap up" at Mira Costa and my plans for the "next adventure."

Throughout my six years at Mira Costa, I never felt like I was able to accomplish all I wanted to, but I know that I do have some things to be proud of. It was always my top priority to help students, both through lessons and one-on-one, prepare for college and career, become good digital citizens, find and pursue their passions, and be positive contributors to our society. And, nothing has been more touching than receiving some validation of that work when I was recognized as one of three Sandacre Teachers of the Year by the Senior Class at their Awards Assembly on June 1. "The criteria for this recognition," according to the letter from Denise Anderson, Sandacre Teacher of the Year Facilitator:

“is for senior students to nominate a Mira Costa teacher who has stimulated, inspired, and/or prepared his/her students for their future studies and/or other endeavors. You, as an educator, mentor, and friend have had a strong impact on your students.”

You can read more about the award and my open letter to seniors in this blog posting on my school library blog.

And, here is a short "report" of some of the highlights of this last year at the library I created to share with students, staff, and parents:,



Each year, I have tried to experiment with and demonstrate different tech tools for compiling an end-of-year report. This film was truly an "apps mashing" effort.  I created the graphic slides with Canva.com and the photo collage slides with Google Drawings. I used Animoto software and its built-in music to actually make the film. Then, I posted it to YouTube for easy embedding and linking. My Animoto "Plus" account limited me to three minutes. I had intended to use iMovie to make a longer film with variable-length slides, but that software has always defeated me! (It's on my "things I need to learn now that I have some time" list.)

The three-minute length had pros and cons. The good thing is that it is short enough that I hope people were/are willing to watch the entire film. The bad thing, of course, is that I had to be so concise and leave so much out. And, since every slide needs to be the same length, I know that some of the slides go by a bit fast, making it difficult to read them. So, I also uploaded all the photos I used in the video to a Flickr album. I also included a lot of other photos I wanted in the video but couldn’t fit in the time allotment. Here is the link.

So, what's next for me? I plan to enjoy more travel with my husband, more reading (of course!), more time with family and friends, and more exercise. I also plan to stay active in the school library and educational technology world both to learn and share. I already have the August Orange County EdTechTeam Google Summit, October School Library Journal Summit, and February CSLA (California School Library Association) Conference on my calendar. And, I am excited to have just been appointed co-chair of Social Media for the AASL 2017 Conference. That also means I will be at the next ALA Midwinter and Annual conferences for committee meetings. Of course, I will continue to be active on Twitter, and I hope to devote more time to this blog. I know the banner needs a facelift and I want to ponder some on its focus. Give me a bit of time to clear my head first. You probably won't see another posting until after the first stop on my next adventure, my Stanford Alumni Association trip next month to Scandinavia:

This photo was taken with the library’s green screen and the Do Ink Green Screen app. For the background, I used a CC0 photo I found on Pixabay. Then, I added the frame and labels with Picmonkey.

Wishing everyone a wonderful start of summer!

The #SWVBC: Connecting Library Clubs Across the Country

[Cross-posted from my May 23 posting on Transform Your School Library]

For five years now, my school library club at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, CA, and I have had the pleasure of participating in the “Somewhat Virtual Book Club” (#SWVBC) founded in Fall of 2011 by Joyce Valenza and Shannon Miller. Here’s a link to Joyce’s original post. So, what is the Somewhat Virtual Book Club? It’s a network of high school library clubs from around the country that participate in monthly book discussions using Google Hangouts on Air. For a while, we were even international with two schools in Japan, but, alas, the time differences proved too difficult from them to continue.

Each month, one of the schools volunteers to moderate, set up the hangout, and select the book to discuss. And, on occasion, we have been able to have the author of the book join us. Here, for example, is a recording of the amazing discussion with Elizabeth Wein in January when we read Code Name Verity:

Elizabeth Wein actually lives in Scotland, but was still willing to join us at 11 PM her time, and she couldn’t have been more generous, friendly, and open in discussing her craft as a writer.

The greatest feature of the club is how we are able to connect our students with other students in other places so they can both see what they have in common and learn about regional differences. It also means that, even if just a handful of students from one school show up, the presence of students from other schools together form a large enough group to generate a lively discussion. And, using Google Hangouts on Air, we are able to easily network in people from home and record our sessions so that those who can’t make the meeting can watch later.  At the same time, students are experiencing what it is like - with all the potential tech glitches - to participate in a virtual meeting. Finally, we librarians love it, too! Several of us have attended the meetings even when we didn’t have students able to participate. We’ve even had other teachers participate. I had an English teacher attend regularly last year, and Shoshannah Turgel’s group at James Caldwell High School in New Jersey has includes two regular teacher participants. We librarians also end up doing a lot of networking on all sorts of school library topics as a result of our meetings.

In the past, we have tried different software for our meeting platform. We settled on Google Hangouts a couple of years ago since it allows us to easily see each other while people are talking, and is a practical tool to introduce our students to with the possibility that they will use it on their own for other activities in which they want to connect. We wanted to empower them to be able to “run the show” themselves. I have been especially proud when I’ve been away at conferences a couple of times and my students still were able to get together and login to the hangout.

One of the potential drawbacks of Google Hangouts is that there are only 10 participation spots. (GAFE accounts allow for more, but haven’t worked for us since we are not in the same domain.) We have sometimes thought we would exceed the 10 available spots, but that has never actually happened. If we should, our “backup” plan is having the extra people watch via the live stream link and submit questions to the Q & A.

The club also has experimented with various social media. Here are some of our connections:

• Our Twitter hashtag: #swvbc
• YouTube Channel. Visit this for recordings of many of our discussions.
• Google +
• Goodreads
• Facebook

There’s always more to do than time in which to do it, and all these social media platforms could use some more attention. Perhaps next year!

The Somewhat Virtual Book Club welcomes new members. If you are a high school librarian, consider having your school join the group!

I write this with some nostalgia, since I will be retiring next month, and will thus become a group “alum.” I will really miss this network of students and librarians. Feel free, though to contact me with questions. You can also contact Shoshannah Turgel, who has volunteered to coordinate the group next year, and Michelle Luhtala from New Canaan High School in Connecticut, and Cathy Jo Nelson from Dorman High School in South Carolina, two regular participants who have been with the group since we began in 2011.

Projecting your iPhone Through Your Mac

Just recently, I needed to do a demo for a class on how to use several apps on an iPhone. While there are some other ways to display your iPhone screen on a projector, here's a really easy solution that worked for me. It does require that you have a Mac with the Yosemite, or version 10.10, operating system or later.

Here's what you do:

1. Attach your Mac to a projector. 


2. Attach your iPhone to your computer with your lightning-to-USB cable.


3. Open QuickTime Player. You can find it through Finder in your Applications Folder.


4. If Photos or other applications open that want to sync your iPhone with your computer, just close them.


5. With QuickTime Player open, select File -> New Movie Recording.





6. From the QuickTime Player Movie display that opens, click the small down arrow to the right of the red recording button. You will see your iPhone listed as an option. Select it. 





7. Your iPhone will now display on your Mac screen so it can be displayed on your projector screen:

And, of course, if you want to actually record what is displayed, just press the red record button.

You can use this same method to display any iOS device with a Lightning port and iOS 8 or later.

Free Summer Audiobooks from SYNC

One of the things I love about summer is Sync's free program of audiobooks for teens. And, summer starts early at Sync: this week. From now through August 17, you and your teens can download two free audiobooks per week. For example, until May 11, you can download Vivian Apple at the End of the World by Katie Coyle (Dreamscape Media) and L.A. Theatre Works productions of The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial by Peter Goodchild. Each of the weekly selections pair a YA (young adult) title with a classic title on a related theme.

You can download the titles either to your computer or to a mobile device. There are instructions on how to do both on the site. The important thing to note is that you must download and install the titles during the designated week or you will miss the opportunity for those titles. You don't need to listen to them right away - they are yours forever once you install them. Here's a link to the complete list. I take advantage of the site's text service to be reminded of the weekly titles available and try to download them right away for later listening. I prefer the listening interface when I download directly to my phone, but the computer download option is best if you want to keep the books long-term. Just know that if you download to your computer and then transfer to a mobile device, it will come through as a music file, so won't have chapter bookmarks for easy navigation. 

I'm afraid I'm posting this late for Week one, so go to the site TODAY to get the first two books. They will be available until 4am PT on May 12. Then, the selection will switch to Week 2 books, which are The Sin Eater's Daughter  by Melinda Salisbury (Scholastic Audio) and Divine Collision: An African Boy, an American Lawyer, and Their Remarkable Battle for Freedom  by Jim Gash (Oasis Audio).

Please note that your downloads cannot be shared or added to your collection. I download copies for myself because, of course, I frequently decide to purchase the books (if I don't already have them) and promote them at my library, but they are intended for individual listening by teens. The site includes a whole toolkit of promotional materials to share at your library with your students. 

Happy listening!

Let's work together to solve the California Teacher Librarian shortage!

This posting has been simmering in my head for a long time (years, perhaps!), and, as I read the recent discussion on California School Library Association's (CSLA's) CALIBK12 listserv with the incredibly depressing subject line of "Are Credentialed School Librarians a thing of the past?" I knew I had to get on with it. So ... here goes ...

For those of you not on the CALIBK12 listserv, here's how the topic started. One of our list members, Liza Wardell, stated that her district was replacing a teacher librarian position with a paraprofessional technician position. She noted that this appears to be a trend. The reasoning she surmised, was not enough candidates to pull from. That's actually an interesting take, since, until very recently, it would have been a district's strategy for cutting funds, not a lack of candidates.

California school libraries have been in crisis for many years now. When I entered the field in 2002, we saw one position cut after another. When the recession hit in 2008, the cuts, of course, got worse. And, this was in the state that was already dead last in the nation in the ratio of credentialed librarians to students. Some of our schools don't even have a proper library, many that do are run by volunteers, and most of our school libraries are run by paraprofessionals. Having a credentialed librarian on staff is, sadly, the exception, not the norm. Check the sobering statistics on the California Department of Education website and at the end of "Does Your School Have a Teacher Librarian?: A CSLA Film" produced by the talented Karen Morgenstern for CSLA in 2014:



(If you haven't seen this film before, please share it widely! Add it to your blog, your website, and send it to parents, administrators, board members, and legislators. Here's an easy link: bit.ly/cslafilm)

Indeed, most of our California administrators have never experienced a strong school library program with a trained librarian and support staff, so they don't know what that looks like or why they should want it. They have no idea what amazing programs trained librarians run to prepare students to be college and career ready, to connect them with the world, and to empower them to pursue their personal passions and make a difference.

So the situation has been pretty dire in California for a long time. There is a bit of good news, though. With the recovery of the economy and lots of advocacy efforts by CSLA and many others, there actually are some districts restoring positions. Some districts are actually taking advantage of California's new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) requirements for funding. For those of us who went through the recession, things seem to be looking up a bit. Yes, we have a long way to go, but it feels like we are heading in the right direction.

Yet .... I have a bad feeling that we have a new and probably at least as serious crisis - or, that the old one has morphed: When there are positions, there aren't available candidates to fill them. All the advocacy in the world to create and restore librarian positions won't help if districts can't find good people to hire. There's been so little incentive to pursue a teacher librarian credential in recent years, so even for the limited jobs, there are even less qualified candidates. And, I'm going to guess that once a district can't fill a position, its administrators aren't going to feel very motivated to persevere in continuing to look.

So, what's to be done?

As Connie Williams and some others noted in the CALIBK12 listserv discussion, we all need to help administrators find librarians and also encourage those administrators to nurture their own by getting the exemplary teachers in the district to earn their teacher librarian credentials, advocate for positions and for library (librarian + support staff) teams, and maintain our memberships in CSLA and support all its advocacy efforts. I couldn't agree more with these ideas. What I keep fretting about, though, is what we can do to get more people credentialed as teacher librarians and ready to fill openings. I think there are three types of people we need to look to to build a credentialed librarian pool, and we need to find ways to encourage, support, and nurture all three groups.

• There are the classroom teachers. We all need to be looking for those super teachers with strong leadership, tech, cross-curricular, and collaboration skills and recruit them to get their teacher librarian credentials. Districts need to support them financially while they do this, and allow them the option - already provided within our credentialing regulations - to work in the library while their credentialing is in progress. A key issue here is financing the tuition for this additional education. I recently tried to woo one of the teachers at my school into considering enrolling in a teacher librarian program. Her response was simple: she'd do it if she didn't have to pay for it. We need to get districts willing to pay and also find other sources of financial aid. Could we make this a priority for the state to pay for?

• Then, there are the librarians with MLIS's but no teaching credential. California makes it way too hard for those people already qualified to work in any kind of library except a public school to become eligible for public school library jobs. I say that from personal experience. I came in "the back door," hired with my MLS degree because there was no "qualified" candidate. To this day, I think I was more than a little crazy to go through the grueling process of getting my credentials while working. The most challenging part was completing the student teaching. A fellow classroom teacher earning her credential while already working at the same time as me was able to apply her work in lieu of student teaching. For me, though, my work teaching in my own library didn't "count" in lieu of that requirement. I needed the credential to keep my job, but it was extremely difficult getting the student teaching done without quitting my job to do it! I accomplished it only by driving a long distance to a year round school two different summers. Yes, we teacher librarians are proud to be "teachers first," but there is always more than one way to acquire needed skills. Failing to credit any of a professional librarian's experience and expertise towards teaching credential requirements drives away a lot of good people we ought to be inviting and welcoming to our ranks. 

• And, last but absolutely not least, are our school library paraprofessionals. We have many amazing, dedicated college degreed people running our school libraries. In most fields, people who do well in their jobs have the opportunity to get promoted to a higher rank and are supported in earning any needed education requirements. Not so with our library paraprofessionals. Expecting them to go through the entire cycle of, first, earning a teaching credential, and next, a teacher librarian credential, is not realistic for most people. And, even if they did, their districts probably would not want to pay to convert their positions to credentialed ones; they'd probably have to find a new job in a new district. We have to find a way to fast track the best ones to getting the training they need to become teacher librarians, while we simultaneously advocate with districts to make this transition. This, in my mind, is probably the group we need to work on first and most. Why? They are the people who are already running so many of our libraries. A lot of them are already members of CSLA. A lot more, though, aren't, often, I think, because they don't feel valued by those of us who are credentialed. We need to change that.

At the risk of offending some of my friends and colleagues, I think we need to get a bit more flexible on the "teachers first," philosophy which is a huge road block for both the MLIS librarians and the paraprofessionals. Otherwise, we will sabotage our own advocacy efforts to restore and create certificated librarian positions. To be honest, the teacher credential program I attended was pretty disappointing and uninspiring, and the content of most the classes was extremely redundant. (Please note that I am not referring to the teacher librarian program courses, which were valuable.)  Neither the courses nor the student teaching experiences really prepared me to become a good teacher. Instead, I believe that I learned the skills I needed on the job, by active participation in California School Library Association and the American Association of School Librarians and their many professional development opportunities, and through networking with other teacher librarians. I am a teacher first, but it wasn't my teaching credential program that made me one.

I would like to ask all my fellow California teacher librarians and CSLA to support prioritizing, brainstorming, and advocating for ways to make it as easy, affordable, and streamlined as possible to transition the exemplary members of all three of the above groups to becoming credentialed teacher librarians in California. Let's explore together how we can make this happen. Let's have our very best paraprofessionals going to their administrators and asking to have their positions converted to credentialed positions - because they are already on the road to those qualifications. Let's have our best classroom teachers eager to become teacher librarians. Let's welcome MLS librarians to our ranks. Together, we can find a way to do it!

And, while this posting focuses on California, we, of course, share a lot in common with other states. If you are from another state, please do share any insight on how your state may have addressed these challenges.

Please note that my opinions are entirely my own. While I am a Past President of CSLA and an active, dedicated member, I am no longer on the Board of Directors and not speaking as a representative of the Board. I am hoping that members of the Board will hear this and take on this cause. Let's not sabotage our advocacy efforts on behalf of adequate staff positions in school libraries by failing to find solutions for the other crisis, the lack of qualified candidates.

The #CUE16 Conference

Last week I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the CUE Conference in Palm Springs. It is a huge conference, with approximately 7,000 enthusiastic educator attendees this year. As always, I came away charged with a wealth of new ideas, new information, new friends, and motivation to try new ways to make my library program better. We were also so lucky to have Joyce Valenza as a spotlight speaker this year. She is a top leader in the school library field, my #1 role model for my work, and has so much to offer all the educators at CUE.

To quickly share my CUE highlights and take-aways I'll be taking advantage of in my library, I have assembled a "Storify" story using my tweets and those of others at the conference. I'll also share my presentation slides below the story:

Here are the slides from Gail Desler's and my "Can I Use That?" session (link):

Here are the slides from my "Students Are Makers" session (link):