CODECHELLA was a success!

CODECHELLA was a four-day event where young ladies from 2nd grade to 11th grade congregated and learned how to code. Eleven teachers and librarians, along with my staff, prepared three days of activities for the students and then had a challenge on the last day.  We were very pleased with what the girls were able to produce in such a short time.

Elementary girls were excited to use BuzzBott and MuttBott robots to learn block coding.  

The elementary girls also learned to code Dot and Dash robots.

They then had to write a story, then create a 3D story map.  Then they had to code their robot to go through the story map.

It was great to see them understand that their robot was only going to do what they programmed it to do and it took a lot of trial and error. 

Middle School girls built a customized robot before they learned to code it.

Here is a snippet of their coded robot.

The middle school girls learned how to create their own video games using Bloxels and an iPad.

Middle school girls learned how to use scratch to create a story that would later be embedded into their website.

High school girls learned to drop code drones and had to complete different tasks by troubleshooting the code to get everything correct.

After that, the high school girls tlearned to code Arduinos using the Python coding language to program and create wearables.  Below are two examples of wearables they created, then coded.

One participant created and coded the pixels on a headband.

Another participant created and coded the pixels on a scarf.

Overall, the feedback from students and parents was incredible.  Now we are planning CODEZILLA for our boys for next summer, it should be another great learning experience for our students!

Here is the MISDTV video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5x1AHzRRI4&feature=youtu.be

Boys vs. Girls - Gender Equality in the Stacks

Exhibition is next week.  It's always an exciting time as students demonstrate the deep thinking skills they have been developing throughout the PYP

This year we have a group focusing on Gender Equality, and they have used our Library Media Centre as part of their action.

After asking permission, this group was given one shelf in which they turned around the books lacking what they defined as a strong female character.

The criteria they used were the following three questions:

• Is there a female main character?
• Does she have a dream?

They created and hung posters explaining what they did and why.

Originally, participating in dialog was a requirement, but when the girls realized they would have to read EVERY book, they struck that requirement. How might it have changed the results?

I was surprised to see so many books turned around. It was over 80% of this particular shelf. I can't help but wonder if that would be the average for the rest of the shelves?

While I may not agree with every book they turned, it was a more thought provoking action than I expected.  I have always made an effort to purchase and maintain a balanced collection in every library I have worked in. A couple of years ago, I purchased every book available (that we didn't already own) from the Might Girl book lists. I was expecting a result closer to 50/50.

Most importantly, it has also made me examine the books I read with a more critical eye and realize what I have been accepting as "normal".

Anti-bullying book bashes Girl Scouts

I don't often write book reviews, and as a rule, I only share about books I like, but I just finished one that made me angry for Girl Scouts.

Save me a Seat by Sarah Weeks is about a boy, Ravi, who just arrived in America from India.  It is his story of trying to fit into a new culture, while overcoming obstacles and assumptions.  All in all a good story with a solid message.... until it included a little unchallenged Girl Scout bashing. 

I thought, toward the end, Sarah Weeks would redeem herself by having Dillon, the bully, apologize or having Selena, the Girl Scout, speak up for herself.  But no, it leaves the reader hearing Dillon shout that only dorks stay in Girl Scouts after 5th grade and seeing Selena blush when she admits she is a Girl Scout. No self-confidence, just blushing. 

I was never a Girl Scout, but I've been a Girl Scout mom for five years and a leader for two. I've learned through my daughters how much there is to this organization. And the girls who continue after 5th grade are rock stars! This is when the girls really develop as leaders, impact their communities, and share their skills with others.

I find it unbelievable that a book about assumptions usually being wrong and there being more to people than meets the eye would include a character like Selena and treat her so poorly. Why bother to identify her as a Girl Scout if only to bully her? 

Looking for a book that promotes empathy and discourages stereotypes? Choose something else.

The Book Bus

Statistics state that about 60% of the students at my school are English Language Learners. I would argue that 100% of students in primary grades are English Language Learners; they are all building vocabulary and learning grammar. And what better way to learn than by being read to?

To ensure our students are being exposed to as much literature as possible, I talked to my EL 3-4-5 teachers about bringing the library to their students on a daily basis. Surprisingly, I got a lot of pushback.

"We want the parents to bring their children up to the library." (Me, too! But not many do.)

"We can't spare any more time in the week." (I'm not asking for more time.)

"We want them to learn to use the library." (Me, too.  This is in addition to library visit, not instead of.)

My original idea was to bring a cart of books down either first thing in the morning or at morning recess so students could exchange their books. It has morphed into something different and perhaps even more beneficial.

Meet our Book Bus:

When I purchased this shiny red cart equipped with bins, I never dreamt my librarian partner would convert it to a double-decker bus. She even lined two of the upper bins with shiny gold paper to distinguish them as the "return" bins, and she designed coordinating London-Tube-style bus stop signs that hang in the primary hallway, indicating where students can trade in their library books. It even has headlights and a bell! We often hear excited calls of "Here comes the bookbus!" as we approach the Early Learning hallway.

Students each receive a book bag on which we write their name and patron number. (They can decorate the other side if they wish.) When students want new books, they simply hang their bag outside the classroom on a hook by their Bus Stop sign. Once a day a library staff member drives the Book Bus along its route. If students are not busy with direct instruction, they are excused from class (2 or 3 at a time) to change their books. They LOVE it. If they are busy, they receive what we call "Librarian Surprise" and the staff member selects the books. Using our ipads with the DestinyQuest app, we check out books right there in the hallway. (To expedite the process, we bring most returns back to the desktop computer in the library.)

It has proven to be a fun way to give students access to more books and a wider variety of genres. We have a number of preschool and kindergarten boys who regularly limit their selections to sharks, dinosaurs, Star Wars, and Superman.  When they are in the library, they are allowed to choose what they want - even if it is the same thing every week. But those books rarely make it on board the book bus.  In the hallway, those same students choose from Caldecott medal books, books that support classroom curriculum, and books from a wide variety of Dewey sections.  There was some whining in the first weeks until they realized that they can still come to the library and choose their favorites. Parents have thanked us for providing variety in their reading diets.

There have been other benefits as well. We run reports that tell us which books have had 0 circs; those books are put on board the bus and are taken for a spin. Our quick and dirty solution for drowning in books to re-shelve is to place a number of those books on the Book Bus. And, finally, circulation statistics jumped an additional average of 12 books per student per year. (Not as high as I'd like to see it but trending favorably.)

Most importantly, perhaps, students in the early grades are learning that if you don't have to wait a whole week for new books.... because Every Day is Library Day!

Oh, Tannenbuch... Or the Evolution of a Book Tree

Making a book tree is not a new thing.  We saw it on a twitter or scoop.it or instagram posting somewhere and decided to give it a try in 2012.  It has now become a tradition to which the students anticipate; they begin asking us about it in mid-November.

Here in Germany, the Christmas tree is called a Tannenbaum.  Since ours is made of books, it has affectionately become our Tannenbuch.  

The first year we built it on a pallet and added a helium balloon star.  It wasn't very tall, very stable, nor very pretty. But it was a hit. And those are actual library book gifts around the base.  (See this post for the details.)

After studying photos of other book trees online, we were more purposefully in our construction and decided to build a "green" tree the next year.  It was quite fun to pull all the green books - far more fun to pull than to reshelve them later.

Year three saw the addition of a little red and a base made of old encyclopedias.

This year we added a little blue for our school colors and built it a little taller.  We have begun housing unused textbooks in the library, and our anti-lumberjack (the name we have for the assistant who builds the tree each year) found that having a surplus of thick, uniform books made construction simpler and more stable. 

No one remembers why, but our tree has become an exercise in estimation.  Students of all grades, as well as staff, are each allowed one educated guess at the number of books used. Prizes have varied from books to movie cards to book fair vouchers. We have done this since year one - but that year we could not give the prizes until we returned from vacation, dismantled the tree, and counted the books.  The next year we grew wiser.  

We now have a patron named Christmas Tree, and every book used in construction is scanned out to Tree.  This method provides an accurate count of books (without actually counting, and marks all of Tree's books as unavailable so we no longer scour the room looking for a book that turns out to be the cornerstone.

Our tree started at one end of the library in 2012 and has moved its way, a little each year, across our space to its present location, right next to the front door.  

So I have to wonder, where will we put it next year?

Sailing into a New School Year

Back to school week for staff….  I have found that whether or not I address teachers during this first week has a dramatic impact on how the rest of my year goes.  The years I do not have the opportunity to introduce myself and speak about my role in supporting theirs, I have fewer teacher requests.

I recognize that the minutes in the work week are precious, and there are many requirements that directors and principals must pack into a limited amount of time.  When I am allotted time, it typically is the slot that follows several must-be-presented bits of information, and it is slowly whittled down as each speaker before me runs over his/her time limit.  And, I usually present just before a break or lunch.

This year was no different.  The library’s slice of the week came on Day Two, following the German lawyer who shared data protection laws and was asked numerous what-if scenario questions as well as the Operations Manager who shared the changes in our fire drill procedures. The library presentation was left with the final five minutes before mid-morning break.  Teachers had been sitting for over a day, absorbing information.  To be heard, we had to be different.  So we were. And we finished at the top of the hour, right on time for break!

The idea for this presentation started with a bit of a vent to my fellow librarian, followed with a comment that telling her my woes was like preaching to the choir.  She said she gets it.  She’s on the same page.  She’s in my boat. And that’s when the little lightbulb over my head began to glow.  This little skit began as some scribbled notes last spring that I ruminated on over the summer.  Last week my kids helped me build the boat, and then we recruited two teachers. It's not flawless. We had only one shot.  But people are still talking about it. Both my own kids and several staff have suggested we tailor an encore performance for the first student assembly.  I guess that means we'll just keep paddling until everyone's on board!

Tuesday Tech Tools - Digital Compass

Technology & Student Authors

What do you do with student-authored books?

The Problem

I used to cringe when students brought in their treasures to share.  It wasn't that I didn't enjoy reading their creations.  Students write wonderful stories.  I love them!  The problem was that I didn't have a good place to store their books or a system for circulation.

Student authored books are generally thin paperbacks, and they disappear into the stacks if shelved among hard cover editions.

Another problem was that I didn't know whether to actually let them circulate.  How would other students treat these books?  What if a little sibling tore or wrote on it?

At my current school, students LOVE to write.  Many students write books as part of their action for the PYP Exhibition, and our collection is growing.  When I first arrived there were a few titles on the shelves, and by the end of the first year we had nearly a dozen books written by students.  The collection continued to grow, but no one (beyond the author, his/her parents, and teacher) knew they existed.

Our Solution

Seeing the cover is critical for circulating student-authored books, so they now have their own acrylic display stand.  It is located in a prominent location, on a low shelf, just as you enter the Media Centre.  It is at eye level for most primary students.

The Procedure

When a student has a book they would like circulated through the library, they can either bring in a hard copy or email a soft-copy.  Hard copies are first scanned into a PDF version and then the pages are bound with a comb binding and clear cover (to show off the student's artwork); soft-copies are printed and bound. The cover is saved as a jpg.  Then the books are barcoded and added to our catalog.  After changing it several times, we settled on STUDENT AUTHORS as the call number.  This allows us to move the display around.

As part of our processing, most books are uploaded to our library's ISSUU account.

Within the record is a link to the ebook version:

Of the 13 titles on ISSUU, statistics show they have been read 87 times!  That beats the print copy stats fourfold.

One of the things I love best is how the students treat each other's work.  Reverent is the word that comes to mind. Students almost always ask if they may borrow them and take the books home - no assumptions are made - and they all seem to treat this as a special gift.  Thus far, all books have come back intact and on time.

Appy Friday - Hanx Writer

Webby Wednesday X-Mirage

EBOLA Infographic - Yikes

The EBOLA outbreak has been on my mind lately since a dear friend has her daughter in Africa working at a hospital.  She is a PreMed student at Brown University and was thrilled to work in Africa for a second time.  She is in the middle of infected areas. Infographics like this help break the information down for everyone.

by Raj Kamal.

Webby Wednesday - SnipMP3

Appy Friday - Plickers

Webby Wednesday - Instashare

Webby Wednesday - PEGGO

Change Your YouTube Videos into MP3 Files

Appy Friday - Pixel Press - Gaming and Coding Made Simple

Webby Wednesday - VIDEONOT.ES WITHIN GOOGLE DRIVE

Why Educators should have these Apps on Their iPADS

Take a minute and look at each app icon to see how you can benefit using that particular app as an educator.

Appy Friday - FLOWBOARD

Webby Wednesday - School in the Cloud by TEDxer SUGATA MITRA