Back to the Beginning

Here we go again! It's been a great summer, but that is but a distant memory now that school has started. This year, as every year, we begin with Freshman Orientation.  No pirate theme this year, but if you are curious as to how last year's Freshman Orientation went, follow this link.

We redesigned our Orientation to fit the needs of our school initiative to delve into Problem Based Learning (PBL).  We have 8 Freshman teachers who are piloting a PBL program.  So keeping that in mind along with the fact that everyone is super busy, we designed a 45 minute class and a 1.5 hour class.  Then we gave the teachers a choice.  They could bring their students for the 45 minute lesson with the option to stay for the additional 45 minutes, or take their students back to class.  Only 2 teachers out of 8 wanted the 45 minute lesson.  Everyone else stayed for the full hour and a half.

So for the first 45 minutes of the lesson, we took the students to 3 different sections of the library for 3 different lessons.  The first area was set up as a mini movie theater, and Karen made a 5 minute introductory video showing the kids some of the things they can do while in the library.  After that, we let them read over our brochure and encouraged them to ask questions.  We are also decorating for Homecoming; so we had construction paper panthers out for the students to decorate with their names and graduation dates.  Then we hang them in the windows.

The second area we set out our iPads to show the students our subscription databases.  With all of the projects coming this year, we felt that showing the databases we have was a must.  Using the iPads was definitely a hit.  It is amazing what students will attend to with an iPad in their hands.

In the third area, we went over laptop care, checking grades in the Home Access Center, saving work to their district drive (called the Z drive), and other things they need to know when their teacher checks out a set of laptops to use in the classroom.

For those teachers who opted for the additional 45 minute lesson, we showed them our new pages that has 12 different web tools that the students could use for presentation purposes.  Follow this link to our web tools page.  We highlighted 2 of those tools, Prezi and Voki, and then gave the students a chance to use one of these tools to create a mini presentation on a book they have enjoyed in the past.  What we plan to do is use the best of the presentations and build a website of book recommendations.  Then we have a place to show the students who are interested in what other students are reading.

One of the teachers took it a step further and decided to award extra credit to any student who created a Voki to define one of the literary terms they had been discussing in class.  Another teacher wanted her class to create a Voki to discuss the novel they were reading.  We are always excited when a teacher can find a use for the tool we introduce.

Here is an example of a Voki discussing a favorite book...




If you can't see the Voki above, here is a link you can follow instead.  Voki

Thanks for stopping by!  See you soon.