Library Media Tech Talk

Twitter never ceases to amaze me. In August, my wife and I were enjoying a Saturday clothes shopping trip. I remember we were in JCPenney picking out our new school clothes. (This is an annual pilgrimage for us every August.) At some point during that shopping session, I received a Tweet from Leigh Morris. As I recall, she was asking me about Breakout EDU. When I looked at her Twitter profile and realized she was a teacher in Cape Town, South Africa, I immediately followed her and told her I would love to connect our learning communities together this year. It was a delightful visit via my iPhone Twitter app as I followed my wife around the store. It was easy to tell that Leigh was a passionate teacher, and I was so glad she reached out to me! These are the motivated educators I consistently encounter on Twitter. Skype Antics If you have been watching this blog and my social media, you know I love connecting our students and teachers via Skype. Recently, we have been experimen...

The first of the school year is always a wild experience full of change and excitement! August went by extremely fast, and now I'm trying to figure out where the first half of September has gone. I thought I would take this opportunity to reflect on a few of the library events over the past few weeks. Each of these are programs we have hosted in previous years, but it is the first time we have attempted them in our new library spaces. I will also provide links to detailed blog articles we have written about the events in the past. The Dust Bowl ( Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse) This is a collaboration we have done with 8th grade English classes since 2012. The program is designed to introduce students to the 1930s (and Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse) by immersing them in a variety of media from the era. This year we featured four learning centers: 1. FDR Dust Bowl Speech (Audio File) 2. Woody Guthrie Dust Bowl Blues (Music Video) 3. Book Check Out/ Artifac...

Introduction This school year, we have already had four different Breakout EDU sessions for our learning community. The most recent was created for 8th grade library orientation. We also held a Breakout EDU session for our entire high school faculty. Prior to these sessions, we had a student led Breakout EDU session for our history department meeting. I haven't written about it because I wanted the student who created the Breakout EDU session to share this story through his own voice. I'm very excited to be joined in this article by an 11th grade student at Lakeside High School, Mr. Nathan Evans. Nathan and I are not related (in case you notice we share the same last name). He has been a regular in the LHS library since his 8th grade year. I should also mention that he has led book clubs in the library for the past two years. I am grateful that he continues to take leadership roles through library programming. I remember sharing with him that I had been charged wit...