 For the past week, my theater students have been filming the scenes they've rehearsed in our green screen studio. Students selected backgrounds and collected props for their scenes, and have had some "aha" moments about scale and prop placement when using a static picture as a backdrop. Collaboration is a big part of this class, so I've paired up groups, with one directing/filming while the other performs. The groups and group pairs were randomly selected, so we've got some interesting combinations working together.
Filming each scene takes a while, so students have other assignments to work on when they're not filming. I've allowed them to group themselves for these assignments, which takes more monitoring on my part, but has resulted in an increase in productivity and collaboration. Last Friday, I was buzzing about the media center, monitoring the students in the studio and the groups working on the other assignments. As I looked in the production studio I noticed on the iPad monitor that the two students performing the scene appeared to be on opposite sides of a counter. Knowing their background to be a photograph, I wondered aloud, "How are they doing that?" When the students came out of the studio, I asked them to explain how they had managed to get a static picture to be 3D. One of them responded, "It wasn't our idea. She (student in the directing/filming group) told me to wrap one of the green screen cloths around my waist. It made my legs disappear and then they said it made me look like I was behind the counter." I exclaimed, "What? That's brilliant! What an awesome, creative solution! It came out fabulously!" This apparently came out louder than I thought, as it stopped action in the entire media center. The reaction from the students in those two groups was priceless. Their smiles were a mile wide and they appeared to stand taller as their classmates ran over to see what I was talking about and pepper them with questions. These students are not the ones typically singled out as exemplars, and I could almost hear them thinking, "Yeah, I'm brilliant." It was awesome. As teachers, so much of the time we filter ourselves - our words, our facial expressions, and our body language. But it is through our authenticity, not our filters, that we build the relationships that allow us to truly reach our students.
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Some days in the classroom are hard. The students are bringing in invisible backpacks that make it difficult for them too concentrate/collaborate/behave, curricular expectations seem impossible to achieve, there are administrative tasks that tax our time, or perhaps we're not feeling well ourselves. No matter where or what age level you teach, we've all had difficult days.
This year, I'm setting the goal for myself to find joy in each day. I read a lot. As a child, my favorite Saturdays were spent at the public library, selecting piles of books to cart home and read. The librarians knew me and would often suggest books they thought I might enjoy. Thanks to them, I broadened my horizons, trying genres that I’d probably not have selected without their guidance.
Fast forward to adult life and after several years in elementary and middle school classrooms, I am now the librarian trying to match readers with books. {I suppose I should have seen that one coming.} One of the perks of my job is that I get to read and call it work. I’ve tried to remember those librarians who guided me, and read widely in order to best support all of my readers. During my years in the library, I’ve struggled with how to best share book recommendations to the widest audience. Book talks and one-on-one conferencing with students have been successful over the years. But timing can be everything and I’ve puzzled over how to make this information readily available to students when they need a book, not just when their class comes to the library. I thought that if I wrote reviews and linked them to the media center web page, students would have access at their discretion. At the time of year I came up with this idea, I was almost 50 books deep into my 2018 reading challenge and the thought of writing 50 reviews was a bit daunting, and that is how #HaikuReviews were born. Summing up a book in 17 syllables seemed as though it would be a quick and easy way to share books with students and I was able to compose haiku for each of the books in a little over a week. Once I started posting the #HaikuReviews, just the words on the page appeared plain and uninviting, so I logged into Canva.com and created images for each haiku. This grabbed my intended audience’s attention, but slowed the process of posting as I looked for just the right copyright free/Creative Commons image to pair with the words. At this point I’ve posted close to 30 of my #HaikuReviews and some of them have even garnered a few likes. You can check them out here on the blog under the #HaikuReviews tab or on Twitter at http://tiny.cc/haikureviewsmoment. In addition to writing more #HaikuReviews, I’m looking forward to using this as a springboard to have students create their own to share on our school webpage. Do you have ideas on how to share student and teacher book reviews? Please share them in the comments!  New Year's resolutions are not something I’ve excelled at in the past. I’m a champ at setting them, abiding by them for 12 months is where I seem to fall short. For the past three years I’ve set a reading resolution and shared it with my students. I thought a public declaration and 880 middle schoolers might motivate me to be more disciplined. I was wrong.
This year I thought about not sharing my resolution, even contemplating whether or not I wanted to set a goal for myself. I thought, “What type of role model am I as a librarian if I don’t stick to my reading resolution?” The answer, when I thought deeply about it, is real. In life, we fail. Some of us more than others. Yet as teachers we often feel that we have to be perfect, do things correctly, make no mistakes… What message are we sending if we never allow students to see how we handle failure? Shouldn’t we let them see that we too struggle, even fail, and that is how we learn? Some of the best moments I’ve had with students this year have been while we were grappling with a problem and getting extremely frustrated. It surprised me that in situations when a student wanted to quit and I said, “OK, but I’m going to try and figure it out because it’s still bothering me” the student would dive back in. It brought home the point that modeling productive struggle is something I need to do more often. So in sharing my resolution, I will also remember to share when keeping it is hard, how losing my footing will not mean giving up the race, how the failure is not in missing the goal - but in not attempting to try again. 2017 was quite a year. Though there are memories I'll treasure, it was a year filled with both great joy and deep sorrow, sometimes occurring in the space of one day. A roller coaster ride of emotions that I will remember, but not necessarily want to revisit. So as 2017 draws to a close, I find myself looking forward rather than back and this perspective has helped me choose my One Word for 2018 - Possibility. A quote from Sir Ken Robinson, "The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility" started my thought process as to how possibility is actionable. As a teacher, it is my role to create a climate of possibility for my students each day. My role is not to spoon feed them information or give them the answers, but provide a classroom where they are free to explore, discover, and learn unfettered by the limits of my imagination. Possibility means that I will not limit my students based on expectations. By providing a range of ways for them to express their learning, I will hopefully allow all students the opportunity to be successful in meeting the standards for which they're held accountable. Acting on this word means that I will help my students see possibility within themselves and teach them to not allow the preconceived opinions of others to constrain them. Here's to 2018 and all the possibility it holds.   A few years ago I read a blog post by media specialist extraordinaire Diana Rendina about how she had built a LEGO wall for the makerspace in her media center. I was, of course, completely taken with the idea and wanted one for my students. Just one problem, no walls. Our media center is the last vestige of the 1970s open space renovation. Two sides of it are defined by hallways, the other two sides are actual walls, but are lined with bookcases and doors. No room for LEGOs. Over time, I toyed several ideas - a LEGO easel, LEGO spaces on the endcaps of the low bookcases, gluing LEGO baseplates to the top of an old cafeteria table, but none of them had the same type of “come hither” appeal of the LEGO wall. Then one day last Spring, as I picked up yet another piece of laminate that had chipped off of my circulation desk, the brainstorm hit - why not turn my circ desk into a LEGO wall? I measured, calculated, and researched cost and availability of materials. The next time my supervisor walked in I hit her with the idea, a copy of Diana Rendina’s LEGO Wall How-to, a list of materials, amounts, and prices, and a not-so-subtle request for funding. A few weeks later, the purchase orders were being prepared and the materials I’d requested were waiting for me when I returned to school in August. There was one hiccup, I got a call from the Board of Education over the summer telling me that I would have to call LEGO directly if I wanted the baseplates. Apparently the powers-that-be at LEGO like to speak personally with anyone ordering 56 baseplates at a time. Once I explained how they were being used, they approved the purchase order. Not only did I learn several new skills while building the LEGO wall, the media center's open space allowed the process of transformation to become a team effort. I had begun painting the shelves, as they would not be covered by LEGO plates, when one of our cafeteria workers walked by and asked me why I was painting in a nice outfit. She took off up the hall and returned a few minutes later with plastic aprons to protect my clothes. She also reminded me to take some 'before' pictures to compare with the finished product. When the painting was complete, I was ready to glue the tiles to my desk. First I had to unwrap them all and documented the process by filming my first time lapse video: The next new skill was mastering the caulking gun. One of our history teachers gave me a quick lesson and I managed to wield it without covering too much of the floor in Liquid Nails®.  Throughout the process, as students and teachers walked by, they would comment or ask questions. I was able to finish everything in one long day and honestly, the hardest part was keeping the students away from the wall until the glue set. I gave our LEGO Robotics team the first chance to decorate our wall. They swarmed in, taking over the entire desk. It was fabulous! Since then the creations on the LEGO wall have been added to by students and teachers alike.  Thank you Diana Rendina for the inspiration. Thank you Mrs. McCandless and Mr. Sutton for funding and your support of my “I have an idea” projects in the media center. If you are interested in creating a LEGO Wall for your space, your first stop should be the How to Build an Epic LEGO Wall on the Renovated Learning blog for inspiration and directions.   As my colleagues and administrators can attest, I skew a bit on the enthusiastic side. When I learn something new, am asked for help, or am excited about a lesson I tend to come in full speed, guns a-blazing. But as I’ve learned, when you’re trying to get folks to come along with you, sometimes a gentle nudge works better than a giant push. Case in point: Last March, I was fortunate enough to have been selected with 51 other teachers to attend the PBS Digital Summit which took place last weekend. A quick summary of my two days there:
And this was before the day that we spent at ISTE. Needless to say that with introduction to new tech tools, dozens of ideas I’d heard, and connections I’d made with other like-minded teachers - I was completely amped up. I had a million and one thoughts about how all of this could benefit our students back home. Look out LMS teachers, Marcia has been at a conference and she’s coming for you! Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  My husband had flown to Denver with me, and as our oldest child is in graduate school about an hour from Denver, we chose to spend several days visiting her after I’d finished up at the Digital Summit and ISTE. It was the best thing I could have done.
Sitting around a fire pit in the back yard talking and catching up, walking the new puppy to the dog park, and spending two days hiking in the mountains was the absolute perfect way to follow my weekend of techno-fabulousness. Unplugging myself from the digital world, focusing my attention on those whom I hold precious, and spending hours wondering in awe at the majesty of Rocky Mountain National Park (thank you Theodore Roosevelt) helped me slow my roll and calm down from the frenzy of learning in which I’d been immersed. I am now able to look at my notes, pictures, and conference materials with fresh eyes. Fully rested, I am better able to make the connections from presentation to practice.
Just as excited, but less frenzied I can plan how to integrate my learning into my classroom. I can share with others in a way that is a little more thoughtful and a little less “you need to try this now!” Perhaps I’ll even persuade them to come along on the journey.  According to Grammarist: “To drink the Kool-Aid is to become a firm believer in something or a passionate follower of a philosophy or movement.”
As a teacher, one of the most gratifying things in my day is watching a student take something I’ve taught them and run with it; taking whatever I’ve offered up and carrying it to another level. It never ceases to thrill me. Many times, the student will come back to me and teach me something they’ve discovered while playing with that knowledge. With colleagues, it’s a bit different. It takes persuasion and some sleight of hand at times to get them to get on board with something new. I’ve learned over the years that when getting folks to try something new, less is more if I want them to “drink the Kool-Aid”, but sometimes my enthusiasm gets the better of me and I overload them. Last year, I was working with a colleague on piloting Google Apps for Education for our school. I chose this particular teacher to work with for several reasons: we work well together, she had a unit that was a curricular fit with what we were to pilot, and she was NOT usually one of the first people to try new technology. That may sound counter to conventional wisdom, but think about it… Early adopters are going to try it because it’s new, technophobes are not going to try it because their chalk works just fine thank you, which leaves those in the middle. I figured that this teacher would have many questions, a little trepidation, and would give me a sense of how the majority of our staff would approach this new technology. In our debriefing after the first student lesson, I showed the teacher all kinds of tricks for organization because I was excited. Oops. I went home and thought, “I’ve blown it. I’ve overloaded her, I did too much at once and she’ll feel overwhelmed and not want to continue.” The next morning, as soon as I arrived I saw my colleague coming toward me, laptop in hand. “LOOK! Look what I did last night! I love this! It’s so easy and now the kids are going to be better writers because I can help them right away! I already told the principal how awesome this is!” At that moment, I honestly think I felt more excited than she did. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, folks won’t drink the Kool-Aid. The reason to not give up: sometimes they drink it all, go home and make more. For two days last week, while I was teaching in-text citations to 7th graders, my classroom looked like this:  Oh. My. Goodness. Where are the computers? Where are the tablets? The SMART board is off? Why am I not integrating technology in my “21st century” classroom?
As a teacher, it is my charge to:
As I plan my lessons, I consider how students will best acquire knowledge and demonstrate their learning. Thoughtfully. According to Merriam-Webster, technology is “a manner of accomplishing a task.” Technology can be a computer, a white board, a camera, or a pencil and paper. In this particular lesson, my aims were for students to understand what an in-text citation is, why they are used, and how to correctly create and insert an in-text citation using MLA format. At the point in the lesson pictured, where they were independently creating citations and writing sentences with in-text attribution, students needed support materials: MLA citation rules, exemplars, and a piece of text. Having all of these materials visible at the same time was paramount to their success, and opening up 3 or 4 separate windows on a 13” laptop screen would have been cumbersome and confusing. I knew this was a task that most of them would grapple with intellectually, why muddle it even further by forcing them to grapple with technology as well? I’ve been grappling with the term “21st Century Skills” for the past several months. I was attending Brian Miller’s session online at Global EdCamp this past summer and he said that instead of “21st Century Skills”, we should refer to what our children must know as “Essential Skills.” I agree as I feel the term “21st century” connotes utilizing electronic tools. It is essential for children to utilize computers, apps, tablets, and the like; but it is also essential for them to know that in some cases a piece of paper and a pencil are the correct choice. Our job is to give our students the complete toolbox, as well as demonstrate when to use which tool. As my students worked through the activity, their English teacher and I circulated - looking over shoulders, providing feedback, asking questions, and answering others so that they didn’t stray too far in the wrong direction. Anyone walking into the media center during these lessons would have seen the students utilizing the support materials not only for themselves, but to help one another: comparing their work with the exemplars, consulting the MLA format rules, talking with their neighbors about the different ways to reference a source. They were thinking about what they were writing and internalizing it, not worrying about locating letters and symbols on a keyboard or rearranging tabs and windows. Their focus was on the task not the tool. No matter what the century, that is an essential skill.   In the Neverland areas of my mind, a brand new box of crayons is a magical thing. One whiff from an open box of Crayolas® and I am transported. There is something so hopeful in the bright colors and crisp sharpness of new crayons standing at attention in their neatly tucked rows of eight. The coloring trend over the past year is no mystery to me. Coloring is soothing and calming, a release of sorts from the bonds of work and worries.
Our Makerspace has an array of crayons and coloring supplies, so this past Thursday – in celebration of National Crayon day - I offered passes to 20 6th graders, on a first-come first-served basis, to come eat lunch and color in the media center. After announcements only two students stopped by to secure passes and I thought that perhaps I’d had a misfire with this idea; but later, as 300 6th graders streamed past the library on their way to lunch, I was mobbed. Much like our 7th grade jigsaw puzzle lunches, crayon day was a noisy affair. There was much laughter and jumping up to go find exactly the right color or admire someone else’s work. As students left, I was handed a few completed works to display and many of them asked if they could have a few extra pages to take home. Throughout the afternoon several small groups of students stopped by to see me. They hadn’t been able to procure a pass for lunch, but heard I had “lots of coloring pages”, could they possibly have some? According to my students, being a 6th grader can be stressful and coloring is a great way to “just have fun like a little kid.” I guess we all have a bit of Neverland in us. |
About MeAs a teacher librarian in a 6-8 middle school, when I'm not dreaming up all sorts of tactics to get books into my students' hands, I am seeking new ways to harness technology to help them learn. 
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