Remember the sad feeling when Today’s Meet shut down? Today’s Meet was the first backchannel tool I utilized with students. It enabled students to participate in synchronous or asynchronous discussions in virtual classrooms. It was fabulous–it was free and easy to… Read More ›
One of the most frustrating aspects of being a high school librarian is failing to increase the level of leisure reading among the teenagers who frequent my library. There are a handful of dedicated readers who are as enthusiastic as… Read More ›
Creating a culture for reading is a major part of what it means to be a school librarian. It is also an ongoing effort. There will never come a time when we stop encouraging students to read. One of the… Read More ›
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word ultracrepidarian as “Expressing opinions on matters outside the scope of one’s knowledge or expertise.” While this phenomenon is nothing new, it has become a recent concern of mine when students are determining the… Read More ›
My two-year-old son knows his colors. He loves to point to objects in books and outside and shout out the color. He enjoys showing what he knows! He likes to learn new things. Somewhere along the way to adulthood, that… Read More ›
A couple of blog posts ago I wrote that I was evaluating my stance on school library fines. Since then my co-librarian has warmed up to the idea, and we’ve been planning how we are going to phase out fines…. Read More ›
There are times when I read a historically based picture book and hope that I can find great primary sources to accompany it. I felt this way when I read The Boo-Boos That Changed the World written by Barry Wittenstein… Read More ›
Media literacy is the ability to read, question, synthesize, and produce mass communication. Where do you get your news? How do you know it’s valid? What is your process for checking relevancy? Everyone should consider these questions as they consume… Read More ›
My book fair is coming in a few weeks. I may be in the minority, but it is not my favorite week of the year. Not even close. This is not a reflection at all on the vendor I use… Read More ›
Libraries Ready to Code (RtC) is an initiative of ALA that is sponsored by Google. This initiative focuses on the role of school and public libraries in providing opportunities for youth to develop computational thinking skills through coding activities and… Read More ›