Panther Go - Freshman Library Orientation

2016 - 2017: It's a new year with new goals...and another year of new administrators, both on our campus and in the district.  To be honest, we didn't have time to worry about that situation at the beginning of the year.  Instead, we had about 1,400 Freshman students that needed to learn more about our school's library. So how did we do that this year?  We tapped into the ever popular Pokemon Go craze that happened at the end of the summer.

I sent a text before school started to my cohorts in crime, Blanca, Karen and Judy, expressing my interest in rearranging the Freshman Library Orientation around the Pokemon Go game, and they were ready. So ...how were we going to do this?  A few days into my research, I came across this article, Pokemon Scavenger Hunt in the Library. It was the information we needed to organize this part of the orientation.

In the article, the author is so organized and even has resources to download which was great. However, instead of using her information as is, we put our own spin on things by creating a Panther Go scavenger hunt. Our mascot is a panther, and our new principal, Ms. Simmons, was and still is focused on school spirit.  Our Panther Go game could promote school spirit while helping the students learn more about the library.

Instead of 8 Pokemon "hidden" around the library, we had 8 panthers.  Each panther also had a QR code the students scanned to learn more about that area of the library.  Either the kids could bring their own device and download a free QR Reader, or use one of the school's iPads.  We broke the students up into groups of 2, 3, or 4. (We let them decide.) Then the students explored the library, found the Panthers, scanned the QR codes, and then had to record where they found each panther on the Panther Pokedex sheet.

That was the  fun part of our library orientation, but it wasn't the only thing we did with them.  To give you the "big picture," our Freshman Orientation went something like this...

• students logged onto a computer and set their first password of the year (While they did this, we played the school's first ever "Lip Dub.")
• students logged into their Skyward Student Access account to see their grades, class schedule, and new district Google email addresses
• librarian gave a short explanation of the library brochure...including where to go to access our databases (see link below for a copy of the brochure - minus our usernames and passwords for the databases.  Those are only available to our students - sorry)
• librarians gave a short explanation about the Panther Go scavenger hunt and the expectations and boundaries needed (we have a really big space, and kids like to run...even 9th graders).
• librarian passed out iPads to the groups that weren't using their own devices and let them wander around the library to find the Panthers.
• student groups who completed their Pokedex were able to pick a prize from the basket.  We had pencils, stickers, tattoos, and blue or red beads...all Panther stuff since it was a Panther game.
• After the scavenger hunt, students were free to check out a book, play a game, do some homework, or access a computer until the period was over.  We called this their "free time."

 In order to cover all of the Freshman, we targeted the English classes.  Those teachers have been working with us for years.  We are always grateful they are willing to give us a day to cover our library routines.  We all know how precious time is.  So we ended up doing this class 48 different times, or 16 times each for the 3 of us.  It was a long 3 weeks, but we managed to see all of the classes.

       

 In addition to the 48 English classes, we also did the Panther Go scavenger hunt during our "Meet the Teacher" night.  Then it was open to all grade levels, not just the 9th graders.  Overall, I think the students had fun and were able to learn more about our library in a way that "speaks" to them....using tablets and games.

Thanks for stopping by!

For all of our Freshman Library Orientation links, handouts and brochures, go to http://duncanvillehs.libguides.com/Freshman2020

Highlights from TCEA 2016

Blanca, Karen, and I arrived in Austin (Texas) the evening of February 1st ready to learn all that TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) had to offer.  After 4 days, 17 sessions, one presentation, and multiple vendor visits, we were exhausted.

We were so ready to learn; we even had an 8am session on day 1 which led to a most interesting bus ride...

The session we almost didn't make that morning was on coding.  It is quite trendy to do in libraries these days, and we wanted to see what the hubbub was about.  It was a good session, by the way. Here is a link to that... Launching a Coding Club with Confidence.

Here are a few more highlights from our trip.

My favorite person to see while at TCEA is Tammy Worcester Tang.  She always has a session to introduce new technology tools.  I think my favorite apps she introduced were Photo Math and Google Translate.  Her website is a gold mine of technology ideas, tammyworcester.com.  The session I attended was Tammy's Favorite Tech Tips, Tricks, and Tools.  For all who love technology, you should check out these links.

My next favorite session came from a trio of ladies outside the Austin area.  They covered Marzano & GAFE (Google Apps for Education).  Here is the link to their PowerPoint. I enjoyed this one because of the McREL training I attended recently in our district.  McREL uses Marzano's 9 strategies in their program.  So this was a timely presentation for me.

In addition to these 2 presentations, I also enjoyed the Makerspace session that was organized by the librarians in Lancaster ISD.  I am always fascinated by this topic, and these ladies did a great job presenting what they have done.  Here is a link to their Makerspace presentation.  What I enjoyed most was that the librarian presenting was well into her 60s.  She understands that if libraries don't transform to what their users need, there will be no library.  Not as many librarians as you would think understand this.  It was refreshing to see a veteran librarian out there leading the cause.

Another session worth mentioning was the Google CS First website.  Google now has computer science clubs ready to go.  All the information and resources you need are organized on this site. Granted many of these clubs are targeting the K-8 audience, but we are going to take a look at these anyway.  What a great way to encourage computer science and get the support you need.  Looking for a computer science club?  You really need to check out this site.

Since I went to 17 different sessions, I am not going to annotate all of them.  Here are some of the other noteworthy presentations I attended.  Unfortunately not everyone's presentation was online.  So I was only able to link to a few.

• SAMR & Makerspaces
• The Flipped Library 
• Connecting the Dots: Library, Technology, STEM, and Literacy
• Google with Class
• What's Trending?
• Genreficiation Demystified

Of course I am going to mention our presentation as well.  I believe we did well.  There were probably 30-35 teachers there.  Our presentation was "eBooks: Check Us Out."  

I'm not sure how much new information we gave, but I think we gave comfort in the fact that we are struggling with this platform.  It is not as popular with the millennials as we have been led to believe. In our experience, the students don't mind having digital books when they are researching; it is easier to find the information they need.  However, when asked to read large chapters or whole books, they prefer print.  This would be text books and fiction books.  It is interesting that many librarians are experiencing that as well.

Back to the presentation...When we realized that we were going to throw some free advertising to some of our vendors, GALE, Follett, Barnes and Noble, and Capstone, Blanca contacted our reps to let them know what we had planned.  All 4 of our vendors donated enough SWAG for everyone in our audience.  So we felt pretty good about this....definitely an "Oprah" moment.

In addition to all of the tech sessions, we did carve out some time to go to the bottom floor and visit with the vendors.  We ended up with all kinds of SWAG.  My favorite freebie was a selfie stick.  We were all given one if we dressed up, used the selfie stick to take a picture, and then posted that picture using the scholastic hashtag.  It was my first time to use one.  How did I do?

Overall, we had a great time.  It was definitely an "information overload" experience, but we look forward to this great conference every year.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wintering in the Library

Well....Christmas has come and gone along with our whole first semester.  Where does the time go?

The librarians of Duncanville High School are wintering peacefully here among the students.  We have only be back for a few days, but we have been busy helping our students navigate our resources for their various projects.  Our AP Senior English teacher already has an assignment due, and it was refreshing to see his students in the library at the beginning of the week instead of at the end.

Our yearly book order just arrived this week, and now it is time to process 26 boxes of books.  Some of our regulars are excited seeing the titles they suggested.  Our student aides have been working to help us process the order, but we do catch them from time to time taking a break and reading one of the new books.  It is hard to be mad at a student for reading.

We will be presenting again at TCEA in February, and we are trying to gather our information and design our presentation.  We chose to target eBooks this past year, and we did learn a lot about them. Our book club went totally digital this year.  We bought the Barnes and Noble Nooks about 2 years ago, and we have an old Gen 1 set of ipads.  We also pushed the Follett eBooks with our Freshman classes this year, and we are always pushing our GALE ebooks for research.  We are still in the process of gathering information through our statistics and various surveys, but it should make for a pretty good presentation.  For those of you going to TCEA, we will be presenting as part of the Library Academy on Thursday, Feb. 4th, from 3-3:50pm.  It will be interesting to see if our findings are unique to our patrons, or if there is an eBook trend out there.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fall into the DHS Library

I know it has been awhile since my last post, but it has been a busy start to the year.  Blanca, Karen, and I have inherited a new position.  We are now the district lead librarians.  Our library director, Mendy, has moved to a different district.  We miss her terribly but know that she is in a better place for her and her family.  So now the 3 of us are not only running our library, but we are also supporting 15 other librarians.

To give you a glimpse of what has been happening at the DHS Library, here are our August/September 2015 and October 2015 library statistics.

I think our biggest fear is that with our new positions as "District Lead Librarians," we might neglect our own campus.  In looking at our statistics, I think that would almost be impossible.

In addition to sharing our stats, here are a few of our library decorations too.

Halloween 2015

Thanksgiving 2015

Fall 2015

Homecoming 2015

Veterans Day 2015

There is no denying that we struggle every day to balance what is on our plates, but doesn't everybody struggle with that? We still love what we do and really enjoy a library full of students. Now we have the added bonus of helping the other librarians in our district.


Thanks for stopping by!

Aurasma at the Art Show

I teamed up with the Art department a couple of weeks ago to learn more about Aurasma and augmented reality as they were preparing for the district art show. We had an amazing time, and I learned lots.

Here is where I need to give a big thank you to my husband, John Tahaney, for allowing me to take over his art classes to learn more about this web 2.0 tool.  He truly has the patience of a saint!

Why Aurasma?

Two years ago we debuted audio QR codes at the art show.  So anyone with the QR app on their smart device could hear students describe selected pieces of art.  Although the QR codes were successful and we could have done the same thing again, we decided it was time to learn something new and change things up.

After a discussion about augmented reality and its possibilities in one of our district library meetings, I decided to take the plunge.  I did a bit of research (OK, I Googled "augmented reality in the classroom"), and up popped one of my favorites, Kathy Schrock.  Her "Augmented Reality in the Classroom" page was amazing.  On the left side of her page under "Educational Ideas," the first 4 articles listed included Aurasma.  In addition, I follow a number of libraries on Instagram, and a couple of them have mentioned this particular app as well.  So I was sold.  After reading all that I could, I then turned to YouTube and searched Aurasma.  The best video I found was "Aurasma iPad tutorial app" by Steve Morgan.  It's over 5 minutes (which usually turns me off), but it was well worth it.

The Aurasma Project:

So the concept was to video the students explaining their art pieces. Then at the art show, anyone with the Aurasma app could open it, scan the selected art, and see/hear their videos.

Because Aurasma was relatively new for us, John Tahaney (the teacher of Art I, Pre-AP Art I, Art III, AP art, and yes, my husband) and I decided to narrow the project to just the AP Art students.

Set Up Before the Art Show:

Taking the videos, importing them into Aurasma, and then attaching them to the art work was the bulk of what we did before the art show.

• The first student I recorded was the main "guinea pig."  I went through the whole process of attaching the aura (video) to the trigger image (area of the art work that would illicit a response from the app), and viewed the finished work.  
• For a step by step process of creating an Aura for your poster, art piece, or selected work, I recommend Morgan's YouTube video, "Aurasma iPad tutorial app."
• I made the aura public which I thought would make it visible from any Aurasma app.  Come to find out, I have to create a "channel," dump all auras into that channel, and then ask all users to subscribe to that channel.  I missed that part in the video and had to Google it.  (Here is the article I read to help me...  How do people view my Auras? )

Setting up 2 generic Aurasma accounts: In order for Aurasma to work, the user has to establish an account and then make sure that he/she subscribes to the correct channel in order to see the Auras appear over the selected pieces of art.  To save time, I created two generic accounts and subscribed to the "Duncanville Art Show 2015" channel.  Then anyone using one of the generic usernames and passwords would already be set up.

Anticipating "tech" issues...  

• We trained 6 Art III students to help people who brought their own devices, and they ran the Tech Table during the Art Show. 
• We loaded the App onto a cart of iPads and checked them out to the AP students.
• We added the App to the bottom of the Art Show flyer so people could download it ahead of time.
• We printed labels with the Aurasma icon on them to identify which art pieces would work with the Aurasma App.  Then we attached those labels to the art.

        

Setting up a QR scavenger hunt: In addition to Aurasma, we did use the QR app.  We created a scavenger hunt where the participants had to scour the area for the 7 elements of design.  When they scanned all 7, they came back to the iPad station for a prize (which was candy).  The website I used for the QR codes was QR Code Generator.

During the Art Show:

At this point, it was mostly done.  We hung up the QR scavenger hunt right before the doors opened. I went around and checked out the iPads to the AP students.  Then everyone manned their stations, and the art show began.

Our Art III students ran the Tech table beautifully.  They didn't have too many customers though since all the AP students had their own iPad.  The AP students were able to show their audience the videos without having to download the app.

Things We Learned:

Start small and start early.  Although we narrowed down our pool of students, we still did not video everyone.  We forgot to schedule extra time for those students who were absent.  There were a few.

According to what I have seen and read, Aurasma does best when the student videos are 30 seconds or less...no problems there; I found that many of these art students were reluctant to stand in front of the camera anyway.  Therefore filming time took twice as long because I had to coax some of the students into doing the project.

There is no need for fancy equipment.  I used the camera on my iPad, and John used his camera on his iPhone.  The one thing I would have done differently is to shoot the video a little closer as many of the students were hard to hear.  Either that or I needed a microphone.

Make sure you have atleast 2 different Aurasma accounts.  One person to create the auras and make the channel, and one to subscribe to that channel to make sure the auras can be seen from a different device.

The Aurasma App is just not as well known as the QR App.  When we do this again, I would have additional "tech" students circulating the room with an iPad demonstrating the Aurasma app.  Then they would be able to help on the spot instead of directing people to a tech table.

Thanks for stopping by, and have an "Aurasma-tastic" day.

Why Are We So Tired?

Wow!  It's April!  All of the March testing (TAKS, TELPAS, & STAAR) didn't seem to slow us down much.  According to our March statistics, we still managed to see 205 classes, circulate 2000+ books, host 19 other meetings, see over 4000 students on passes, and solve 560 technology issues.  

Ok...now I know why I am tired!  I know why all 4 of us are tired!

In spite of our super busy schedule, we did manage to crank out a few new decorations...inspired by Pinterest, of course.

I did notice, however, that our grandiose plans to create our Makerspaces came to a screeching halt.  I guess we can't get it all done, even if there are 4 of us.  As we head to TLA next week, I am hoping to sit in on a few Makerspace sessions to renew my enthusiasm.  We always find something to inspire us at TLA.  Can't wait!

Thanks for stopping by!

Staff Development @ DHS

Ok..so we were a little behind in getting out our Staff Development schedule this semester, but it's ready now.

This year we sent out the staff survey at the beginning of the second semester, which begins for us after the MLK Holiday.  This is the 3rd year we sent out a survey (created in Google Forms), and we consistently try to keep it short...5 questions.

Our questions this year were

• What classes would you like to see the library offer your students?
• What classes would you like to see the library offer the staff?
• When can you attend training?
• I wish the library could help me with...
• Do you have any suggestions to make the library program stronger?

Only the first 3 were mandatory to answer.  The last two were optional.  Here were our results.  After we analyzed our results, here is the calendar we have created for Spring 2015.

At the TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) conference, we actually presented at the Library Academy about this very subject.  The name of our presentation was "Keep Calm and #learnanywhere." Here is a link to that presentation,  Enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by!