My Tool of Choice

The year 2020 brought many unexpected experiences. The year 2021 will be shaped by what I learned in 2020 along with an extra dose of bravery (my word for 2020) and purposeful time to pause (my word for 2021).

To recap, in 2020, I birthed a book, The School Librarian's Technology Playbook: Innovative Strategies to Inspire Teachers and Learners, published by ABC-CLIO. I supported teachers in the transition to virtual learning. I authored distance learning guidelines for faculty and for families. I became a student again participating in an online course entitled Reimagining School. I rediscovered downtime and all the great things that can come from that: creativity, freedom, daydreaming, exploring, whimsy, to name a few. I read more books than I could have ever imagined, many of which helped me process and navigate all the tumult happening around me. I learned how to be more compassionate with less judgment and more acceptance. 

I also discovered and rediscovered amazing tech tools. If I were to present an MVT award, it would have to go to Canva. It was my go-to tool for personal and professional creative expression. A list of some of my favorite creations in Canva (in no particular order):

• Information Ninja Copyright Workshop for 5th Graders

• I voted at The Davis Academy election stickers

• Instagram quotes from my recent book

• Digital posters to serve as Zoom etiquette reminders

• Digital flyers to brag on our school library

• Promotional materials for upcoming author visits

• Advertisements for professional development

• Fun banners to add to leadership applications created in Google Forms

If you have not discovered the power of Canva yet, it is worth the time. In fact, just today I realized that using Canva has allowed me to be more proficient in other design applications and has inspired me to give new tools a try. I am committed to becoming savvier with Adobe Photoshop and this morning, I learned how to design fun mailing labels via Avery.com's design platform. Canva has been a winning tool to tap into creative endeavors while also inspiring me to have the confidence to explore other professional tools. 

While we are still early into 2021, so far I have discovered how to take bigger and bolder risks because of the momentum for being brave for which 2020 allowed me to lay the foundation. I have taken on a role as a guest lecturer at the University of Washington's School of Information, which has allowed me to design an engaging virtual course for MLIS students. In doing so, I have expanded my professional network, gained new skills, and built meaningful relationships with a new group of students. I am continuing to facilitate online learning opportunities throughout spring and into the summer while also learning from other library technology leaders. I continue to learn from my amazing team at The Davis Academy, all of which challenge and inspire me to grow and learn. 

While very little has been easy, most has been worth it. When I reflect back on the big things (living through a pandemic and supporting distance learning), and the little things (dabbling in new tech tools), I can appreciate the journey. I am optimistic about the impending warmer weather, the expansion of the vaccine rollout, and the opportunities to lean into technology use in new and different ways, and exploring the myriad of tools that will come with that process. What tool would you award MVT? Comment below!

A Committed Maker

I heard my colleague say she was a committed maker when asked if she had taken a break for lunch. Being a maker IS all about commitment because it is all about seeking success after multiple iterations. While I don't encourage missing a meal for making, I do love it when you are so in the zone that the pull of the world around you dissolves into the background. Without commitment, we graze from project to project without fulfilling the completion of a task or a goal. Where is the satisfaction in that? Recently we were attempting to make heat-activated slime. When the heat from little hands kneads the dough, it changes colors. We did this in small groups and while some groups were successful on the first or second go, other groups required more stirring, more specific ingredients, or just more time. 

What's the lesson in this? Well, resilience can be built in the unlikeliest of places, one of which is in a slime making laboratory. While watching some peers succeed early on, others are trained to not give up despite the lack of success on the initial try. Resilience breeds commitment. When plans don't go as anticipated, we learn to hang in there. It may ultimately work out. I love the lesson in this. It teaches us when to have a stronger understanding of when to alter course and when to remain on the same path. If third graders don't start building up their well of resilience to see something through until the end, when will they learn the power of patience? 

The Innovator's Mindset and How We Were Inspired to Blog

I read The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros from cover to cover. It was excellent! There were a few points that really resonated with me. But, before I get into all of that, I want to share what I was thinking as I started the book. First,  I was thinking about how as a faculty, many of us chose this book for our PD this year and I was questioning how it would be received. I was looking over the list of faculty that selected to read The Innovator's Mindset and felt a twinge of surprise. I was surprised because the educators who signed up to read the book are all individuals that I would consider change agents. They are all open-minded, willing to learn and grow with and from one another, and many are already considered "connected educators". I was feeling a bit surprised that they would be inspired to read about innovation. While I recognize that while everyone can learn something from anything or anyone, this group is already pretty open to innovation and introspective about their teaching and learning practices. And then I had a mind shift that made me view it all very different. I got to the end of the book where George mentions that in learning we should nurture what we already do well and the rest will fall into place. For example, if your passion is tinkering with technology, learning to write within the field of technology remains important but you can learn how to write with the emphasis being on the topic of technology. Sharing the process for a technology project via a blog requires a written component that we may feel inspired to disseminate to a wider audience. This made me rethink the way that I had thought about the educators that chose to read this particular book. They are already considered innovators and yet are focused on continuing to nurture a skillset and a mindset. Ultimately, George made me see the power in their book choices.
     In The Innovator's Mindset, George also explores the power of blogging. There is power in blogging. Blogging creates the platform to share one's work with a larger audience. Blogging forces us to pause and reflect on our work and to discover our own voice. Blogging is another way for an introvert to express themselves. Blogging is a convenient way for others to learn and benefit from what you are doing and thinking.  With all that in mind, I decided to launch the 7th grade technology exploratory class this morning with a blogging activity. Instead of sharing our morning reflections verbally, we shared digitally. It was not easy to get used to writing in this fashion and I often got the question, "Does this have to be in MLA format?". We continue to learn how to tailor our writing to our intended audiences and understand how to toggle between formal and informal types of writing. With all of this in mind, it is with great pleasure that I share these student blog posts with the world. Lately, we have been asking them to write more about their project work and their processes but today we were writing for the purpose of being introspective about ourselves, in general. Below are the topics from which they chose to write:

I own my phone, my clothes, and my health, and I value all these items. I value them because I need my phone for communication. I need my clothes so I’m not cold. Finally, I value my health so I can live a happy life.

  - Avi

This week I did something that made me feel good. I was sad and mad after I found out that I got a bad grade. I dragged myself out of my bed and I told my mom that I going to swim. She said are you sure, you look a little tired and sad. I went to swim, swam, and I calmed myself down. I was happy and proud that I went to swim for the rest of the night.

- Adam

Recently, I was selected to be on B Team Basketball at the Davis Academy. Since I’m a 7th grader I am playing on my level but I know it will be a fun season. We had our first practice on Monday, but I missed that practice due to football. Anyways, my first practice was Tuesday of this week (October 29). It was a normal practice like any practice but then we had to get on the BaseLine and run suicides (That is a running drill). Everyone got two free throws to shoot. If you missed the first one it was a suicide, 1 out of 2 baseline to other baseline, and 2 out of 2 we didn’t have to run. Most of us missed our free throws so we had to run suicides. When I got up to the free throw line I made both of my free throws so we didn’t have to run. My coach said, “ If Jake makes this free throw we don’t have to run anymore but if he misses we have to run double.” Next thing you know I made the shot and we didn’t have to run anymore. That was an experience that I felt good about myself.

-  Jake

I have three objects that I cannot live without because they are so close to me that I am attached to them. The first one is my phone because when I need to call someone I can, and when I am bored I will play games to scare away being bored. The second most important thing to me is my dog because he always snuggles me when I need it and he plays with me when I want to be active. The last thing that is close to me is my Xbox because I always play it when I am bored and usually my friends are on so I can play with them.

- Zach

My 3 most valued objects are my computer because it is great to use when on the go and I take care of it well. Also, it is great to use when I am bored. Next, I love my dog. I go on walks with her. I feed her sometimes and she is really fun to play with. Lastly, board games and video games. They are great to use when really bored and I am at home or with a friend.

- Micah

An amazing experience I had was when I scored the winning goal in a soccer tournament. The score was 0-0 and there were 2 minutes left in the game. Our defender dribbled down the sideline and crossed the soccer ball to me. I got the ball took a touch and shot. The soccer ball went straight into the top corner and the goalie had no chance. That is how I scored the winning goal in my soccer tournament.

- Adam

There are definitely times that I feel I am wearing a mask, even when I am not. Some days we are more fatigued than others and as a result, I put on my mask when I have a professional or parental obligation so that I can rally for my people. Internally, I may feel different than I appear but on the outside, I am smiling, or supportive, or engaged. Halloween is a holiday that allows people to hide behind a mask, or show up more clearly to be who they really are without a mask...depending on how you look at it.

- Stacy
While it may have felt unusual to blog about the topics that we normally share out loud, we hope to create an environment where all students feel that their voices can be heard, no matter the platform. Blogging provides another outlet for these young innovators to share their genius.

Celeb Researchers

Technology is a critical component to learning for the simple fact that it is everywhere. Educators have a responsibility to demonstrate the positive use of technology throughout a child's growth and development. This is where research with a creative twist comes into play. In addition to print resources, exposing the littlest learners to credible online resources helps them discover the value of technology to fill in knowledge gaps.

One of my favorite projects of the year is the mechina community helper project. Mechina translates to mean "preparation" in English. In mechina, we are preparing our four and five year olds for a successful next year in Kindergarten. The mechina class is a special group. It consists of small classes that have unique opportunities. Among these opportunities is experiential learning on a grand scale. 

Their community helper unit is one of my favorite experiential learning opportunities. It involves weeks of planning resulting in a trip to "Hollywood". The project starts by learning about a variety of community helpers and how they positively impact a community. Then, each student selects their own community helper whose identity they wish to assume. Upon selecting their community helper, the librarians ensure we have plenty of resources that support learning more about their chosen community helper. Over the years we have had some creative community helper choices, such as cherry picker. 

Print books to support the learning

In those cases, we special order additional resources. In addition to print books, we also turn to the PebbleGo database to fill in some of the research needs. Mechina students come to the library and browse for books that describe the role of their community helper. They engage in a note-taking process using a template from the book Library Research with Emergent Readers by Christa Harker and Dorette Putonti. 

Pairing them with fifth grade mentors allows the fifth graders to assist with the note-taking while the mechina students add illustrations to represent the meanings within the notes. 

5th Grade research mentors

Then, the teachers bring in community helpers to visit the school and talk to the young researchers about their roles in the community. 

A visit from the bomb squad to learn how heroes protect our community

Next, students create a storyboard and script for their upcoming film debut. In the film, they share facts about their community helpers and demonstrate what it means to be a part of a kehilah, which translates into community in Hebrew. 

Storyboards for their Film

After weeks of shooting their film, they are ready for their movie star debut. They dress in fancy clothes to walk the red carpet. They show off their talent in front of their parents and the student body receiving accolades for their hard work. 

Media Center= Home of the Prelude to a Star Studded Event

Clips from the Community Helper Film

Grab a program!

Star struck as she gets ready to accept her Oscar for her role in playing a chef.

After the film screening, each star receives an Oscar for their grand performance. It is an affair to remember and one that they do not soon forget.

KinderPod Podcast Series

Kindergarten students at The Davis Academy went app-smashing this month to create their very own podcast series, which they voted to name KinderPod. The goal of the podcasts is to share tips and tricks on how to be successful in Kindergarten. These students have learned a lot in their first half of the year and thought it only fair to share with the world. After all, future Kindergartners can benefit from their words of wisdom. Former Kindergartners can benefit by reflecting on the good old days in Kindergarten. The podcast creation process was exciting.

We started by me bribing the Kindergarten teachers to join me in this project. Not really but I was prepared to do that. Luckily, I have built an escrow account of trust with these brave teachers who are willing to work with me and try something different and innovative as a collaborative partnership. Innovation happens every day in Kindergarten but sometimes joining forces can create magic. After ensuring teacher buy-in, we met as a class and I provided an overview of what we would be doing together in the coming weeks. I had a fifth-grade Network Sherpa, who is a Technology student leader, create a sample so that the Kindergarten students would be able to visualize the end product. Here is her sample: 

She did a great job, right?! The Kindergartners were inspired after watching her podcast. We walked through the entire process, which you can view here. I created a Teacher Cheat Sheet to make it easy when we broke out into small groups to accomplish our daily goal. The process started by voting on a podcast series name and then learning about all of the different applications that we would be using to create our end product. During this visit, we also worked on the tactile part of the process to ease us into the idea of podcasting. Students were able to create original artwork with their faces on it to use as their podcast visual. We spent one class period learning how to create a storyboard. Students could choose if they wanted to write text, draw illustrations, or do a combination of both to outline what they would say during their audio recording. Once our storyboards were complete and our ideas were freshly organized in our minds, we spread out to start recording. Some students went into our professional audiovisual production studio, some recorded in our innovation and design studio and others used the atrium to our theatre as a cozy recording spot. We spent another class period learning how to create our own music in Garageband and upload it to our audio recordings within the Book Creator app. We also spent time designing our podcast logos, typing the text for our podcast name, and selecting our fonts. The design process allowed us to be very creative. Through the process of app smashing, we put all of our work together and had a complete KinderPod podcast channel filled with expert advice on how to rock it in Kindergarten. To listen to our complete podcast series via Padlet, click here. In addition to being our own content creators, we learned how to use multiple applications: the camera app, the Garageband app, the Book Creator app, not to mention how to storyboard and organize our ideas. 

Podcasting rocks and so does being in Kindergarten. To discover one of the reasons that Kindergarten rocks, listen for yourself:

Water, Water, Everywhere...Well, Not Exactly

Each year, our first grade students learn about the value of water. They explore the water cycle, scarcity, and do interesting experiments to understand how water impacts our world. Last year, we had the good fortune of Skyping with Splash.org, a devoted group of individuals based in Seattle, Washington but with a team all over the world, working together to bring clean water to children. They really brought to light the efforts that are occurring to ensure that access to clean water is an obtainable goal around the world. We learned about girls who are at a disadvantage having to walk to clean water sources to supply water to their family. We learned about children the same age as our first graders who are so much like us but are suffering for lack of access to clean water. We discovered a variety of different water filtration systems that have been invented to help in these efforts. 

We were so inspired by these stories, very different from our own, that we created our own prototypes of water filtration systems. One of my favorite prototypes involved an apparatus that took condensation from clouds to create access to clean water. Each of the groups shared valuable ideas and worked together toward this common goal. 

This week, we launched our 2018-2019, water initiative by creating a lesson for the first graders to understand water scarcity through an experiential activity. We signed on to join the Junior Water Walkers, which inspires children to learn about water scarcity, adopt a body of water, protect the water, and finally to walk the water. In an effort to learn more about water scarcity, we shared Joanne Robertson's book, The Water Walker, which tells the original story of Nokomis Josephine Mandamin's Native American culture and the valuable role that waters plays and how her culture works to respect water. The last line of the book ends with "What are you going to do about it?". The hope is that it will inspire students to social action. 

Following the telling of Josephine's powerful story, students were put into seven groups and given a "home base". Each individual within the home received a bucket and were assigned a body of water (a section of blue butcher paper laid out on the floor) that they had to journey toward. It was a long walk to their assigned body of water! After all, they had to get to a clean water source, one that was not littered with trash. After reaching their water source, there was so much water in it but their bucket was only so big so they could only fit four drops of water in the bucket. Each water drop represented something different. For example, they could choose a water drop that specified water for brushing teeth, watering a garden, taking a bath, cooking food, drinking water for pets, and more. However, they could only choose four uses for their water as that is all they could contain in their bucket. The decision making was not easy. After they filled their buckets, they journeyed back to their home base. In small groups within their "family", they shared their water selection choices and discussed why they chose what they did, how they prioritized, and what was difficult to leave behind. After having our family meetings, as a larger group, we discussed what we would do tonight to help preserve water. The suggestions were fantastic: turn off the water while brushing our teeth, don't flush the toilet every time when it isn't necessary, and only fill our water glasses with the amount water that we know we will drink because we can always come back for more. 

To conclude the water launch, we watched a clip from the short film When A Town Runs Dry produced by Joris Debeij and shared by the Global Oneness Project. The film is told from the perspective of a farmer, a high school football coach, and a grocery store owner, each of which share their story of how their central California town is impacted by a water shortage. We recognized that water shortages are not just an issue in third world countries but can impact us right here in the United States, again begging us to ask the question, "What are you going to do about it?".

Just as water is part of a natural cycle, we will circle back to water again. Our eighth graders this year will participate in a One Book, One Read program reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. We strive to inspire our community to take social action and hope that the exposure to these stories will move our students to do something about it. 

It's Surreal: Virtual Reality Meets Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes create fascinating worlds for us to explore. In what other reality can a giant egg-shaped figure and a black sheep talk or a wolf blow down a house? Combine virtual reality with the world of nursery rhymes and you have brought a surreal experience to life for young learners, reminiscent of a Salvador Dali painting.  

Humpty Dumpty Sits on a Wall, with All the King's Men Nearby

We had a powerful learning opportunity today. Kindergarten students, who have learned a multitude of nursery rhymes in their current literacy unit, were able to generate their own interpretations of nursery rhymes. Using the virtual reality application CoSpaces Edu, I was able to set up a class, assign students a project to create a virtual version of a world inspired by a nursery rhyme, and "push" the assignment out to the class. In order for the students to grasp the concept of virtual reality, I shared some common examples of virtual reality games, like Pokemon Go. I contrasted the concept of virtual reality with that of going to the movies. At the movies, you are an audience member watching a story unfold but you are not necessarily a part of the story. In virtual reality, the students have the opportunity to become a part of their newly created environment and as a result, their role in the story is one of active participation. They immerse themselves in a new experience. 

With Google Cardboard, an iPod, and access to 1st Playable Production's YouTube creation of The Three Little Pigs in virtual reality, students were able to experience the story of The Three Little Pigs. Once students experienced virtual reality in a world that was created by someone else, they were motivated and inspired to create their own. Their creations were unique and symbolic. A lot of thought went into their final products.

Being able to display their projects on the Promethean board in play mode was an amazing opportunity too. Students were able to narrate their virtual reality nursery rhyme in front of a larger audience by mirroring their work from the iPad using Air Server. Essentially, they became the "tour guide" of their own story for a wider audience. 

The teachers and the students loved hearing what went into each child's creation process. It's fascinating to discover the story behind the story. They shared how they decided to include specific structures, characters, and what inspired their environmental choices, such as weather and scenery.

Need an escape from your own reality? Take your students on a trip to their own Neverland with Co Spaces Edu. It is a journey you won't soon forget.