I earned a badge! I love badges and micro-credentials. They’re so much fun to earn and a great way to show off your professional learning. But, why should you even earn them, and what do you do with all of… Read More ›
Technology Integration
Summarizing with Dash: A Collaborative Project in First Grade
Recently, a first-grade teacher wanted to have her students use coding to create a summary. Her goal was to have students share a story and include how the main character developed as well as how the setting changed. She sought… Read More ›
Popcorn and the Power of a Great Book Trailer
There’s nothing like seeing a great movie in a theater. First of all, there’s the popcorn. Movie-theater popcorn is unlike anything you can microwave or cook on the stove. There’s the anticipation of a great film and spending 2 hours… Read More ›
Stuck on Standards? The School Librarian’s Role
In last month’s post “Stuck on Standards?” I highlighted two examples of how to implement the AASL Standard Framework for Learners. In both examples, I utilized the same lesson and standard frameworks, scaffolding each for different grade levels. Scaffolding is… Read More ›
On a Mission: Students with Exceptional Abilities Coding Music
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 ›
The Ready to Code (RtC) Collection
There are 450,000+ open computing jobs across the United States, but only 35% of high schools teach computer programming (code.org, 2019). The American Library Association (ALA) wanted to understand and support libraries with information and resources related to computer science…. Read More ›
Personalized Book Talks with YouTube
In an educational climate where English teachers are feeling overwhelmed by the mounting expectations from state and district administration, reading for enjoyment can be one of the first things to get the curriculum ax. Research time and again has shown… Read More ›
The Blended Learning-Ready School Librarian
Districts across the country are beginning to focus on personalized learning for students and staff. As we look for ways to meet students where they are on the educational playing field, blended learning’s flexible style is a natural fit…. Read More ›
Digital Solutions to Book Club Issues
Book Clubs Are Great! Except… I think we can all agree that book clubs are great. They encourage a sense of community and collaboration as the group reads and discusses their reactions to the texts. They foster students’ sense of… Read More ›
Code to Move: Mixing Coding with Brain Breaks
To Start: Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the CS Fundamentals Introduction Workshop sponsored by Code.org. This workshop explored why computer science should be taught to all students. The presenter was Vinos Kassab (@kassabv). She shared how students’ computational… Read More ›