Library Media Tech Talk

Last week, I received a message from Iro Stefopoulou (@iro_st) asking if I could connect with her via Skype. Iro is a Skype Master Teacher and she lives in the United Kingdom. After a few quick exchanges via email and Skype messaging, we finally met using our webcams. What happened next totally opened up a number of possibilities for us to connect our school using programs that Skype and Microsoft are providing to educators! I want to share some of the highlights that you might want to check out. Microsoft Educator Community The links and resources that Iro shared with me are located on the Microsoft Educator Community website . If you haven't visited this site before, you are missing out on some great opportunities. I'm so glad Iro reminded me of this resource in our Skype session. I get so busy in my job that I forget to check it for the latest offerings. For this article, I will focus on activities that feature Skype in the Classroom. It has been so powerful to hel...

Check Out This Blog's Table of Contents Here I remember Anna from the 2013-2014 school year. She would frequently come in the library during lunch free flow times. I recall that we were required to have students stay in the library during lunch until the bell rang to cut down on unsupervised traffic in the halls. One particular day, Anna expressed her feelings about this rule in a very rude way to two of our library staff. (That year, it was Mrs. Misti Bell and Mrs. Peggy Schaeffer). For some reason, I wasn't there at that particular time. (I had been called to a classroom to help with a tech issue most likely.) When I returned, both of them let me know about Anna's outburst. It would have been very easy to ignore Anna from this point on. Instead, I thought I would just be honest with her when the opportunity presented itself. One day, I caught her in the hall between classes, and I called her over. Instead of reprimanding her in a forceful way, I decided to tell her ...

We are always looking for ways to connect with new friends using Skype and Google Hangouts. It is great to model practices for connecting and sharing ideas by using these two tools (in addition to social media!) Recently, my friend Lynn Kleinmeyer, a teacher librarian at Titan Hill Intermediate in Council Bluffs, Iowa, had asked us to connect with her classes for the Read Across America event. We planned the event over a webcam conference the week prior. We were excited to have an opportunity to do this! Anna had previously  read The Dot during World Read Aloud Day A Student Led Opportunity Lynn had asked for one of our senior high school assistants, Anna, to read to her students during two separate sessions. Anna had previously read to a class in Texas via webcam as part of World Read Aloud Day, and we were excited to provide the opportunity for her to do this again! Anytime we can get out of the way and allow students to lead, everyone wins! Lynn had requested Anna to rea...