School Libraries Lead Critical Thinking

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Permalink Reply by Connie Masson on September 3, 2008 at 2:15pm

St. Vrain's Educational Technology group utilized unused 07-08 non-instructional funds to enable a 08-09 Middle School Smart Cart Project. This project was a collaborative effort between Information Technology Services and Learning Services.

Each middle school library receives a cart after participating in district level training with one teacher from their school. Their assigment was to come to training with a sample student learning activity to utilize the technology and give back to their school through a train-the-trainer approach.

The carts included a Bretford Mobile Lecturn, Dell or Apple laptop, Epson projector, document camera, sound system and Promethean slate.

We advanced information technology literacy opportunities, jump-started the new year with a new technology offering at the middle school level, and demonstrated that the library is the center for supporting student achievement through this collaborative training.

Permalink Reply by Heidi Baker on September 10, 2008 at 5:14pm

Check out more ideas at http://casl.wordpress.com/

Permalink Reply by Connie Masson on September 13, 2008 at 11:38am

With bond and mill levy's coming up for a vote in our district, I've put together a plan, submitted it to the ITS Director and am sharing that plan with principals, HR, the teacher's union and the Deputy Superintendent of Learning Services. So far we are gaining support for our direction.

This plan is based on best practice nation-wide and state-wide. I am working with the teacher librarians to make sure the plan meets their needs, we've documented the current state and trends in our district. We are gaining support for the effort.

If the funding options pass, we are ready to implement this plan.

A key issues still remaining is seeing the actual mill levy document to find out how much of the actual proposed dollars made it into the levy in support of this effort directly.

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Hubbard on September 17, 2008 at 4:51pm

Several teachers at the Telluride Middle School have been using wikis to build vocabulary and encourage better homework habits. Students post and define required vocabulary words for social studies and language arts. Student must add at least one new word and definition, and update an existing one. Students who get to the wiki first have the easiest time. Students who wait until the last minute to get vocab. homework done often don't get a chance to post new words or update or refine older definitions. Students race to the library to be the first to get homework done, and often ask for librarian help defining and refining words. It's been a great opportunity to introduce students to a variety of print and online reference sources!

Love Web 2.0!

Permalink Reply by Nancy White on December 4, 2008 at 7:38pm

I am just wrapping up a class I led for 65 teachers in our district modeled after California State Library Association's 23 Things. We have teachers really jazzed about using blogs, wikis, podcasts, digital storytelling tools such as VoiceThread, and other great Web 2.0 tools to inspire students and help provide a learning environment that allows for more critical thinking. Our class is called Academy District 20/20 Things. Take a look at some of the great reflection our teachers have done - their blogs are all linked here. Several librarians joined in with the teachers, creating great opportunities for collaboration!