So Far In September 2016...

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/ Artifact Walk Through

4. Chow Tent
(Potato Casserole, Apple Dumpling Dessert, and Water)

Our students always enjoy this library collaboration. Be sure to read this full length blog article about the program. 

Arthur Miller's The Crucible

11th grade English students read The Crucible in class each year. This is the third year teachers have brought students to the library for a culminating courtroom event. The first day, students come in to create pilgrim style costumes from the era using bulletin board paper and patterns. Females created a bonnet and collar. Males created a vest with the paper. Before coming to the library, students received instruction about best courtroom practices from local lawyers. Each class learned to write appropriate opening and closing statements. After this preparation, classes actually held court in the library (based on The Crucible). For more information, read this previous blog post.

Makerspace During Lunch in the Library

We have had makerspace days in the library for over a year now. We had not held a makerspace program since moving into the renovated library facility this year. To introduce it to our learners this year, we decided to put all our makerspace items in a designated area of the library. We weren't sure how all the students would respond, so it was decided to put the various makerspace activities on tables in the library for lunch. The students loved it! There will be additional makerspace items purchased soon for this part of our library program! Currently, we have a 3D Printer station with Sketch Up Make & Makerbot Thingiverse/ Desktop, Jenga, Legos, coloring pages, 2 Spheros, and a deconstruction station (with old computers that students can disassemble).

Be sure to look at the other links embedded within this post for more information. I will be sharing resources for makerspace ideas and library collaborations in my upcoming newsletters. There are always library adventures to tell about and new things to learn together!

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The power of meeting my PLN!

Our student-led 3D Printing session in the library!

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Our Top 5 Blog Posts of 2015

This was the second year for the Library Media Tech Talk Blog. The blog was created in March 2014. We hope that our posts have been both interesting and helpful to all educators! As 2015 comes to a close, I want to share our most read articles of the year.

Top 5 most read blog posts of 2015

1825 pageviews: Our First Mysteryskype!

1535 pageviews: Our First Makerspace Day In The Library

1154 pageviews: How My Wife Became Super Librarian

926 pageviews: Tweet Us Some #Inspiration

819 pageviews: Students "Teach The Teachers" Prezi At Lunch In The Library

Thank you for reading this blog! Happy New Year, friends!

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Presenting and Learning About Makerspaces at ArASL 2015

My librarian co-worker (Mrs. Misti Bell) and I had the privilege of attending the Arkansas Association of School Librarians (ArASL) conference in Little Rock, Arkansas on July 27th. This was a special occasion for a few reasons. The first being that the ArASL Chair-Elect, Mrs. Sloan Powell, extended an invitation for us to present at the conference back in May when she read the blog post on our "Makerspace Day" in the library. (The link to this page is at the bottom of this article.) The second reason is that the keynote presenter was Mrs. Leslie Preddy, the current President of the American Association of School Librarians. Leslie did a wonderful job sharing about the many resources that AASL offers!

It was also great to hear her talk about the Makerspaces she has established in her own middle school library. I came away with five important points that Leslie shared about starting a Makerspace:

1. Begin with what you know

2. Start small

3. Think hands on creativity

4. Let failure be an option

5. Make something old new again

Another important point she made was that "failure is an option". Students will learn from failures and so will we! All of us should "think, create, share, and grow" in the library makerspace. After Leslie presented, it was our turn to share our makerspace experiences. 

Manga art during "Show Your Talent" Day

Misti and I discussed how we accidentally started our library makerspace back in 2013-2014 with "Share Your Talent" day. We invited students to share skills we had observed them using in the library during lunch. These talents included Magic Cards, Rubik's Cube, Manga Art, and Jewelry Making. We had these students at different tables so library lunch visitors could come learn and/ or watch during the entire period. It was a great success! Everyone at our conference session seemed interested in these ideas.

Misti presents the Sphero to attendees

The Rubik's Cube table was a hit

We also shared that in 2014 we were provided a Makerbot Replicator 3D Printer and two Spheros. Students enjoyed learning on these gadgets all year during lunch and after school.  After our students successfully presented 3D Printing to the library patrons during multiple lunch sessions, we finally decided to bring in additional makerspace lunchtime activities (which we called "makerspace day"). We set up tables for 3D Printing, Spheros, Jenga, Legos, and a "Deconstruction Station"  We reflected on the successes of this event to our approximately 50 ArASL conference session attendees. After this, we talked about potential future goals for the makerspace program (mainly items we hope to add like Makey Makey and Duct Tape projects).

I demonstrate the 3D Printer

We then invited everyone to try the same makerspace stations! We had brought each of the items for librarians to try out. The most popular two gadgets were the 3D Printer and the Sphero. It was inspiring to see everyone's interest in Makerspaces! We are grateful for the opportunity to share and learn at this state conference. It was so good to meet librarians from distant parts of the state and network face to face. It was also great to meet and learn from Leslie Preddy. Misti and I returned to Lakeside High School inspired and motivated to make the coming year better than ever for our learning community!

Check out our Makerspace Day here!

Two of our students helped present 3D Printing at a state technology conference. Go here to view!

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Students Taking The Lead: Two Students Help Me Present A 3D Printing Session At A State Conference

Through the magic of social media and this blog, others in our state have found out about our 3D printing antics in the library media center. About two months ago, our technology director (Mrs. Melinda Dodd) and Hot Springs Technology Institute (HSTI) director (Mr. Don Benton) approached me about teaching 3D printing basics at the upcoming HSTI pre-conference in June 2015. I was very excited about this opportunity, especially for our students. One of the items I have worked on this year is student led presentations. I saw this as a great opportunity to include a few of our EAST students that have become knowledgeable about 3D printing this year!

Melinda and Don were both very supportive of including the students in the presentation! I decided to use two upcoming sophomores for this project. They had spent the most time working with our MakerBot Replicator and they had also presented successfully many times during our library lunch programs. They both agreed to join the presentation team! We immediately began brainstorming what our 6 hour session should look like. After many weeks of planning, we finally decided on the following schedule:

9:00-10:00           Introductions And Set up

10:00-11:00         MakerBot Desktop Basics/ Print Your First Object

11:00-12:00         Lunch

12:00-1:00           Troubleshooting/ MakerBot Desktop/ Thingiverse

1:00-2:00             Lesson Integration Activity

2:00-3:00             Sketchup Make/ Extension Warehouse

3:00-4:00             Work On Your Own/ Set Up Remaining Printers

We decided to meet on the Saturday prior to the actual event to do a complete run through. This was a good idea, especially since the students had been away from school on summer vacation for nearly two weeks. 

Practicing our session.

On the day of the actual event, we were confident that we had a good lineup of material and skills to share with the attendees. A few days prior to the session, I had emailed all 19 attendees to briefly tell them about the session. I also asked them to bring a laptop if possible. I sent links for them to download and install both the MakerBot Desktop software and SketchUp Make.

There are few things that are more exciting than walking into a room full of 3D printers that are still boxed up! We set the printers out on the tables for the attendees to pick up. We counted 19 printers still in the boxes. The cost of all this equipment comes to over $30,000!

MakerBot Replicator Minis Still In The Box

We decided to start the session by breaking the attendees into groups of 4-5 and having them assemble one MakerBot printer. This made the session much more manageable for us to assist everyone. It didn't take long for us to get the printers all set up and ready to print. Everyone was very excited, including the presenters.

When every group's printer was ready to go, I turned the session over to the students. Skylar took the lead and shared about MakerBot Desktop. He and Austin showed the basics of finding files, saving them, and preparing them to print. After half an hour had passed, everyone had selected an item and started the printing process!

Skylar presents MakerBot Desktop to our attendees.

Austin and Skylar answer questions about 3D Printing

This entire process took a few hours, but by lunch every group had printed successfully! After lunch we came back and shared some resources for 3D Printing. I created a Wiki to share URLs of video clips and interesting websites including some of our own blog entries. That Wiki is located here. After viewing some of the video links to show ways 3D Printing is used, we gave the groups an hour to find an object in the MakerBot Thingiverse, print the object, and discuss how it could be used in the classroom. With 19 educators and technology specialists in one place, we knew there would be some creative ideas! This activity turned out great with many practical applications for science, art, and career exploration.

After this exercise, Skylar presented SketchUp Make software. He showed attendees how to create 3D objects using the free version of this software. He then showed them how to export those files to MakerBot Desktop, so they can be printed. Following this, we allowed attendees to assemble their remaining printers and/ or experiment while we were there to help them.

It was a truly wonderful activity for all involved. I was especially proud of our students. They performed like professionals. It reminded me that I need to seek additional opportunities for students to present and teach. What impact would an activity like this have had on me as a 15 year old student? I know it would have made a great difference in my self-confidence and presentation skills. I look forward to the next opportunity to see our students shine in front of educators from around the state! I challenge you to do the same.

Go here to see how we shared the stage with students at a different state conference this year!

A popular article about our student led 3D printing library session is here!

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How We Used Twitter And Skype To Connect With A Student Featured On The CBS Evening News

This past Sunday, a friend from school messaged me on Facebook. In the message, she had sent a link to a wonderful story on the CBS Evening News (go here for the link). The feature was about 14 year old Daelyn James from Tennessee. She had invented a dryer for her nebulizer breathing apparatus while using a Mobile Makerspace 3D Printer. She used this Makerspace while she was a patient at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. While I watched the video of her interview, I was very inspired by her excitement for creating.

I decided to show the video clip during lunch in the library the very next day. Most of the fifty students that attended were very interested in this very innovative application of 3D Printing. Our students enjoy our library 3D Printer, but they haven't invented anything with it in the nine months we have had it. They have mainly created common objects or recreated models with the printer. I knew this was an opportunity to inspire them to invent something!

I suggested that it would be really interesting if we could Skype with Daelyn during a library lunch program. Several students immediately encouraged me to contact her! I found her on Twitter and shared my business card/ school website information (so her parents could contact me). I was so excited to receive an email from Daelyn's mother that very night! She said we could Skype with Daelyn on Wednesday!

The students were so surprised when I announced this during lunch in the library on Tuesday. I took the opportunity to tell them how I used social media to reach out to Daelyn, share my professional contact info, and then exchange emails with her mother to arrange the session. I am always looking for opportunities to model digital citizenship, and this was a great example!

I had the students write the questions that they wanted to ask Daelyn in the session. We had eleven students submit great questions. I sent all the questions to Daelyn's mother, so she could relay them to her daughter.

The big day rolled around, and we connected with Daelyn on Skype without issue. The students lined up and asked their questions on the webcam. Daelyn answered like a pro. Her personality came through, and you could feel the inspiration in the room. It was so great for our students to connect with a person that had just been featured on the national news just a few days before. The session lasted for about 20 minutes, and it was truly one of the highlights this school year. I hope we can stay in touch with Daelyn, so she can continue to impact our students' with her next inventions! This is a wonderful reality of the 21st century connected classroom. Anything is possible!

As an added bonus, our local paper (The Sentinel Record) ran a photo and description from the session on the front page the very next day. Thank you, Daelyn James for making a difference at the Lakeside High School Library Media Center.

Go here to read about our first Makerspace Day in the library.

Go here to read about our student led 3D Printer session in the library.

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Our First Makerspace Day In The Library

I was greatly inspired by a TL Virtual Cafe session I attended online a few weeks ago (thanks to the Twitter PD community at #tlchat). After hearing so many great ideas from library media specialists/ teacher librarians from all over the country, I decided to give it a try in our own school library. We have been slowly assembling all the needed pieces to start a Makerspace this year! We had planned to have this program during our two lunch sessions (1st lunch- grades 10-12 and 2nd lunch grades 8 and 9). A last minute schedule change kept us from having the program for grades 10-12 this time.

We decided to have 5 Makerspace stations in the library. They were all very successful, and the students that participated were very engaged.

We had a 3D printer station led by two of our students from EAST. They had designed a replica of the Willis Tower (formally the Sears Tower) using Google Sketch Up Make and Netfabb. We decided to print several of these, and we gave them away at the end of the session in a drawing. The student leaders explained how the printer worked to those that visited them.

Willis Tower Replica

We had a student that brought his Lego collection to share. Several students visited the Lego station and had fun building quick projects.

We set up a table with Jenga for another fun Makerspace station. Several students enjoyed playing this building game.

We also have a Sphero in the library. We had that available for students experimentation. It was a very popular station.

The most popular station was the "deconstruction" station. Our technology department donated some non-functional computer and networking components for our students to take apart. The kids loved taking the computer apart most of all.

It was a great first Makerspace program for our students! We cannot wait to try this during our grade 10-12 lunch period! I encourage you to try a Makerspace in your school library. It's a great place for students to connect, hack, and create in the library!

Before you go, check out our student led 3D printing lunch library program here.

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Student Led 3D Printing Presentation

Our school provided us with a new 3D Printer during the summer of 2014. It has been a fascinating tool for our learning community. Since school started in the fall, we have made it available to students. We have a makerspace on Thursdays after school for students that want to try the printer. Our most successful students have been in our EAST program. Several of these student teams have designed and printed projects. Three particular students have worked with the device so much, I asked them to present about the printer during a library lunch program.

The students quickly agreed! They brought me an outline proposal for what they intended to present. They decided to give a description of the printer, a discussion of the 3D software they have used, and actually print items to give away at the end of the session. Since it was close to the holidays, they decided to print two snowflake ornaments.

I have noticed that student led programs have been among the most successful in my time as a library media specialist. We on the library team are always looking for opportunities to have students present their knowledge and skills.

In the future I will write more about our progress with 3D printing. I will also share more about other successful student led programs.

Check out our 3D printed Valentine's Day themed figures we gave away during a lunch program here!

OR

Go here for an article about our student led summer book club from 2014.

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