Day 3 - Valuable Website

What is a website you can’t live without?

www.pebblego.com

It’s actually an online database for K-3 students. There are 4 databases that you can purchase Animals, Biography, Social Studies, and Earth and Space. The text is perfect for my young readers and the computer can even read it aloud to students. They can click on a highlighted word and the computer will define it for them. There are also printables, short videos, range maps, timelines and learning games.

The first two years I paid for it with grant money and library funds. By then the teachers were hooked and I was out of grant options. Since they had spoken so highly of it this year my principal funded it. My teachers have grown to LOVE it and it’s important that you get it on your side by showing thme how fabulous it really is. Also tell your ESL teacher and other teachers about it. If they have a student who has a low reading level then those students would find PebbleGo beneficial.

Day 2 - eBooks and Audiobooks

Your library and eBooks and Audiobooks:

I haven’t jumped on board with as many audiobooks. One year I bought a bunch of paperback books with CD’s through Scholastic Book Club. I focused on buying books that had to do with the holidays each month. SBC usually does a bundle and I would buy that with my funds or with scholastic points. I put them in hanging bags from Demco and teachers can check them out. They tend to use them in their listening stations. I have used them for class lessons and when I am not feeling well or for a sub. I like that they have questions on the second track too.

I like to think I have a healthy eBook collection for a Primary school. We do have a Follett Shelf and I won a grant in Fall 2013 to buy a bunch of Interactive eBooks  with Digital Content Creation Tools through Gareth Stevens and Rosen Publishing. They are all science based and require a student to create a report on what they learned.

Rosen Publishing Information

If you would like to take a peek at our Follett Shelf here is the link MNP Follett Shelf

I love how the books give students a choice of the type of project they want to create and then walk the students through the process. There are also royalty free images there for students to choose from and drop in their report. The end project can be printed out.

We also have 6 Nooks. I leave those out during check-out time. Once a student has their books checked out they may take one of the shelf and read 1 book. Then they have to put it back. Before putting them out I did a mini-lesson on how to use one.

Last year I held an eBook in-service and the reception was fantastic. I had 22 teachers come. I haven’t had a chance to really walk them through the new Interactive eBooks with Digital Content Creation tools but I need to do that soon. I do think that teachers do tend to forget about them so whenever a teacher comes to me asking to pull materials on a topic I let them know what we have available digitally too.

I also sent a letter home to parents telling them about what we had available. I also gave them the usernames and passwords so they could access them from home.

January 2014 - What happened to it?

I am proud of myself for weekly blogging towards the end of 2013 but now that 2014 has rolled around I'm wondering what just happened to January! Is it just me or has this month flown by?

In the back of my mind I have been reminding myself to get back to blogging so maybe it's a good thing that I ran into this today "20 Day Blogging Challenge - Librarian Version over at the Risking Failure Blog.
http://www.risking-failure.com/2014/01/technology-changes.html

I have now printed the challenge off so here I go...can I actually blog 20 days straight? We'll see!

Day One
Share a tech tip
This year the librarian across the street and I started "M&M's Media Minute" on Monday's  (The M&M stands for our last names, Minner and McFarland). Our principal sends out a Morning Memo each school day that keeps us up-to-date and aware of things coming up in the immediate future. We take turns submitting something for the Media Minute which could be a website, tech tip, or new book synopsis. We try to keep it short. We e-mail it to our principal and she puts it in the Morning Memo and it goes out to everyone.