Library Media Tech Talk

About a month ago, one of my Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator colleagues, Mrs. Karey Killian, contacted me on Twitter. Karey is a teacher librarian at the Milton Area School District in Milton, Pennsylvania. We were trying to find a time to Mystery Skype before the semester ended. As we were brainstorming, we had the idea to alter the session  to have our high school students present Mystery Skype tips and tricks to her 5 th  grade students.   How We Planned and Held the Event   I visited with one of our social studies teachers, Mr. Brooks Lee, about his students participating in this event. He immediately wanted his first period class to be the presenters since they had had so much experience with Skype and Google Hangouts this year. After talking with Mrs. Killian, we discovered that she had a time available to connect that worked for Brooks' first period class. We had to prepare for a 30 minute session. We decided to have the students brains...

In February 2016, we had our first International Mystery Hangout with the island of Alderney. Alderney is one of the islands located in the English Channel. Following this connection, my partner teacher librarian, Misti Bell, had a brilliant idea. She suggested that we have our students choose items to send over to the island. She also suggested that Alderney students do the same for us. We could then connect over webcam at a later date to have a simultaneous show and tell session. Mr. Brooks Lee, the teacher of the participating 8th grade social studies class, immediately began planning this event. Brooks encouraged his students to begin thinking about selecting items that would reflect the unique characteristics of Hot Springs, the state of Arkansas, and our nation. Mrs. Angela Etheredge did the same thing with her students on the Channel Island school of St. Anne's. Brooks' students chose to send a football, t-shirts, and caps from Hot Springs. They also sent over some f...

In years past, we have used the old-fashioned clipboard with a paper sign-in/ sign-out sheet to help keep track of students coming in to the library during free flow periods. A few years ago, a mentor showed me how to set up a digital sign-in/ sign-out form using Google Forms. This has been a much better way to keep track of students that come and go during the regular school day. It has also been a nice addition to our end of year report statistics. Let's take a look at how we set this up. Google Forms The first step is to create a specific Google Form for your sign-in/ sign-out form. I do this by going to Google Drive and selecting the "Google Forms" option. See the screenshot below. From Google Drive, select "New" and then "Google Forms" Selecting "Google Forms" should open a new tab with a blank Google Form. See the screenshot below. From this page, you can build your form. I named ours LHS Library Sign In 2015-2016 ...

A Year of Connections in the Library: Reflecting on How Skype and Google Hangouts Changed Our Thinking Before this school year, we mainly used Google Hangouts to connect with our friends at Lakeside Junior High in Springdale, Arkansas. Brian Johnson, their teacher librarian, and I have had several different lunch programs for our students over the past two years. Then I discovered Mystery Skype while participating in various Twitter chats during the 2014-2015 school year. It didn't take long for a Twitter educator friend to invite us to try this fairly new educational activity. After we held our first Mystery Skype with a school in Maine during April of 2015 , everything changed. We began to see the power of making connections with other schools around the country and having our students be a part of these activities. As the 2015-2016 school year draws to a close, I would like to share some of our most memorable connections in the library using these tools. Skype Mystery Sk...