TL Blogging Challenge #11 Tech Tip Part 3 Google Your LMC

For this one I will redirect you to the presentation Google Your LMC.


I added a "basics" page because ... well, I always thought we had too much stuff on there for anyone who wasn't already pretty familiar with Google. If you were just starting out the whole thing seemed quite overwhelming.

Does it help?

Is there something specific about Google you'd like more info on?

Of the three presenters I probably know the least about Sites (and Hangouts because I can never get them to work at school even though they work at home! :X) but the rest of it I'm fairly confident in. Debating if I want to become a "Google Educator" this summer or if it's a waste of time or money. But IF I could get accepted to the Austin, TX Google Teacher Academy. THAT would be COOL. Just because. They are way competitive, though. So I might chicken out from applying. :P

See this quote.

TL Blogging Challenge #10 Displays

My love of silly clip art and 8X10 signs with terrible reading related puns on them is well known if you've been a reader of this blog for very long. If you're new? Check out the "Printable Stuff." Lots of freebies (and yes, some on TPT because of said addiction to clip art).

Pinterest. Seriously, what did we do before Pinterest? Though I would hate to think that we limit ourselves. Would we come up with even BETTER ideas if we didn't have that crutch to fall back upon? Here is my board
Follow Angie O's board Library Display Stuff on Pinterest.

but there are SO MANY. The easiest one ever that made the most visual impact? All the red covered books. For, you guessed it, Red Ribbon Week.

Of course I cannot find any pictures.

TL Blogging Challenge #9 Trends

Hmmm. I'm not even sure what this means. Trends in school libraries? So while I think here are two funny pins.







OK. Sort of thought this through.
MOBILITY. That is a work in progress as our guest wifi is absolute rubbish so teaching kids to access some things on the devices they own ... well. We do what we can but it needs to get better. The regular school device wifi isn't great out in the classrooms (luckily it's OK inside the library or we'd really be hurting) so some of the activities and skills don't get the regular practice they need.

BALANCE. Do I think we're headed completely digital? Anytime soon? No. I truly believe our kindergartners will still be using print books (in addition to electronic!) for some years to come. So ... I get frustrated by anyone promoting one over or in place of the other. "We have ebooks, you don't need all those print books." Well, if they kids can't access the ebooks (wired connections are only slightly better than the wireless) what good does an ebook do them? "We don't need to deal with all this in elementary. They'll learn it in middle school." NO WAY! That's not the direction we need to go, either. Our city made the news with trying the book-less library idea ... again after other cities gave it up and added books back. It's kind of ... well. I don't want to hope it fails. But I can't help but expect it. At least a little.

MAKING and a space for it. I totally want to implement this but since I've struggled with centers for years I'm not sure where the direction is headed on our campus. With very little storage space and no control whatsoever over who might wander through (currently no walls and even if that changes this summer no doors ... though even you all with doors deal with other people having keys!) it's hard to keep things organized and out when it needs to be out and put away when it needs to be put away and honestly, from walking away. So this is something I continue to work on and try to figure out.


If I think of anything else it will be a PS post later on. ;)

TL Blogging Challenge Day #8 Professional Reads

So ... confession here. I love to start professional reads. But I don't always finish them entirely. They take thought and reading and rereading and notetaking and ... well.


Here are some that I have read at least half of and if I ever finished or reread I'd probably be AWESOME. As it stands I'm very much still working on it.

And just to have an image on this post here is a pic of part of the shelf devoted to these sorts of books. Like my shadow? :P


A Place for Wonder (this one I did finish!) is really a great one for fostering questioning and wondering and HOW TO FIGURE OUT ANSWERS in the younger grades. I just found this book study blog from last summer. I love that these teachers did this together! The video shows some pretty amazing student work.


Writing to Explore (which I also finished!) was super cool. I've never been able to so fully integrate a research project but how awesome would it be if I did. Time. It's always about TIME. I know they managed to make it. One day I (and a teacher and his or her class) will.


Real Revision is a MUST for any writing teacher (just like Spilling Ink!). I have used it mostly as a way to talk about authors (and some of the techniques they mention).


I liked the idea of Making Thinking Visible but didn't get to finish it because I checked out an ecopy from the library and this is one that needed more time and space for post it notes and such. have NOT mastered notetaking on my Kindle yet. :P I know I first heard about it on a blog I was reading and loved the activities they talked about. But I can't remember which blog it was.


In Pictures and in Words I own but haven't finished yet. Which makes no sense at all because I love the idea. Teach kids to pay attention to details and setting and such in illustrations ... and eventually that will transfer over to writing.


Oh and here is where I am so embarrassed to admit I've never finished Notice and Note. #hangsheadinshame

TL Blogging Challenge #7 Library Management Tip

Back! And even a day early. Oh, goodness, though. This draft remained empty for quite some time. What tip could I possibly offer? You've probably figured out by now I blog just to figure things out. I don't HAVE THEM figured out already. Nope. Not by a long shot.


I wish!



So we'll go with very simple.

Create a Goodreads or Shelfari or ... there's another one I cannot remember the name of. Anyway. Even if you don't blog it will help you keep track of your reading and books you WANT to read. And bonus ... electronic! As long as you remember your login (HA!) you can get at it anywhere. I am forever leaving notebooks in NOT the place I need them at the time. Tags can help you keep it organized for personal reading and professional reading and what you read with which grade.

Learn how to create Google Forms. They are awesome for gathering data on any number of library related topics (check out Carolyn's Library Surveys packet for some ideas! Why I love TPT ... when other people create things I can spend my time elsewhere!) or for submitting book requests or for tracking student visits. All without ever having to add up tic marks from any piece of paper that you might have misplaced. Once you get good there are loads of other uses but that is a management start. ;)

This one is timely as our district is really pushing a BIG weed. Like ... thousands of books. Smaller and more relevant and to open up space in the library for more collaborative activities and fewer shelves. Last week I worked on the 700s through 900s. This is one way to think about it that helped.



Don't need nearly so many of the old "craft" books because hello. Internet. Though I still have questions about poetry. And I discarded some really old books on Native Americans that I should have gotten rid of years ago. They weren't terrible but they weren't great. Only ... how does one decide what to replace? No one's complained about them because no one's actually used them in years. Can we find enough age appropriate stuff online? Probably. But I still wondered a bit if I was doing the right thing.

TL Blogging Challenge Day #6 Another Tech Tip

Another Tech Tip ... easy image editing! Does that sound strange when I am so terrible at remembering to take pics? That I love to play with image editing?

I almost hate to send you there because it is in need of updating (Picnik went bye bye a long time ago and Aviary has followed suit). But check the Image Editing page at the top of my blog. If you have any questions comment and that will be a good motivator for me to work on it. Page is pretty text heavy as it is. Probably won't happen until summer. Unless I get some good questions before spring break is over. ;)

The Big Huge Labs stuff is still relevant. Here's a Snapguide I did for some 4th graders who were illustrating "I AM" poems. It took them longer than I thought it would ... but you know why? Because they were really thinking about the images they wanted to create. They weren't just snapping selfies. That's pretty awesome, actually.


PicMonkey used to be my new favorite. And I still use them a lot but I also use ribbet.com.

Here's a post I did last year on apps and image editing.


And I'll leave you with a pic taken from my back porch the other night.



And for laughs ... a recent Seuss-themed Pinterestfail.

TL Blogging Challenge Day #5 Book Talking

Not as often as I'd like in an organized sense. I do lots of on the spot booktalking. Lately, though, I've been wondering if I needed to ... plan them out better. Once in a while I'm like "This is such a good book!" but I can't remember enough details to really hook the kiddo. I'm terrible at rote memorization, though. Tried to get teachers to have kids write "shelf talker recommendations" (like at B&N) but that's not always a done deal.

I used to make my own genre-centered Animoto trailers with bookcovers and first lines. That took longer than it was really worth, though.

Now when I have classes come in 9 times out of 10 it's book trailers ... which is a bummer for the books that don't get trailers made.

These are faster to make. Sometimes embedding a Symbaloo makes opening the links WAY SLOW on our school network. But not always so I keep going and just cringe when it's a bad network day. This is an older collection but it's still a favorite.

TL Blogging Challenge #4 Has Tech Changed my Job?

Yes and No.

Yes because we've gone more mobile ... and that's mostly awesome. Thousands more reference sources available now in a device the size of my hand. Keyword searching instead of index searching and multivolume searching (or the ... what was it called ... Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature?). Love Pebble Go. Kids that can't necessarily read independently can still conduct basic research ... and if they can't write what they learned they draw it. World Book. BrainPop, Jr. Kids that struggle to read at their interest or "age" level can listen to an audiobook. Kids can download library books from home on a day when there's no school (yes, I do realize a lot of them don't have computer access ... but more and more even if there's no full on computer at home there's at least a smartphone!).



No because Oh My Word when tech doesn't work it makes things difficult. Things that should be SIMPLE are not because of ridiculous network or hardware issues. I'm an idealist, I'm sure. I feel like at school things should function and not always be a fight. If they don't work it should be fixed. I can be patient once or twice or even three times with issues. But "be patient" for the eighteenth time (by people who sit in an office and don't work with kids) over problems that make it harder for teachers? How can I ask them over and over "Try this! Try this!" when they are told "don't try to use apps that require wifi because you don't have it" or it takes 15 of their 30 minutes in the computer lab just to get kids logged in to the network (and it's not because the kiddos don't know their passwords)? At home it will work. Try it there. :/

Yes because I learn more. A lot of my PD is delivered via tech ... webinars or blogs or YouTube videos or digital library books. Most of the face to face I get is ... not always what my students or staff need me to offer.
No because though I own two digital e-readers ... given the choice I still choose a hard copy title. And that's still a major portion of our collection.
So there you go. Not super eloquent but it's Thursday night and the cedar count cannot go down fast enough. :P

TL Blogging Challenge #3 My Cannot Live Without Website

Used to be Google Reader but then Google took it away and neither Bloglovin nor Feedly are filling the gap. Which makes no sense because none of those sites actually created the useful content. You awesome blog writers did! The sites were just the way in which I accessed the info.

You know what I'm going to say now, don't you. YOU KNOW IT. How do I access a lot of it now?

Pinterest. It's a double-edged sword because it can get distracting with non-school library related fluff. But there's so much GREAT school library stuff to be found on there, too! And a much easier way to FIND said stuff than via Google. More focused and of course with the handy image preview.

I used to keep my boards pretty chunked together ... only had about 10 topics. Then they got a bit unwieldy. Pinterest REALLY helped things along when they introduced the ability to search within your own pins but hey, that only helps if I used good tagging/captioning! I go back and delete pins sometimes. I want to keep the number reasonable and only the best of the best ideas that I hope I get to use at some point!

TL Blogging Challenge Day #2 E-books and E-audio

Me again! Twice in one day!

I got a color Nook back when they were pretty new ... when the only other "tablet" was an iPad. It was super nice for traveling and at the time you couldn't get Overdrive books any other way. Never got my money's worth out of it, though. And the slow Internet speed drove me batty. So then what makes no sense was I was very naughty on Black Friday and bought myself a Kindle Fire HD. I love that E-ARCS from Netgalley and Edelweiss won't time out on me now. And it's easier cause I don't have to deal with a USB cord. And like over the holiday break ... I was tired of waiting for the library copy of the new Pendergast novel to come in so I downloaded it. And bonus it was on sale so it was only $6.50. Ebooks are not always cheaper than the hard copy book and buying for the library is different. But it was so nice to not have to leave my couch!

When I was exercising well I downloaded audiobooks to my phone all the time. Then Overdrive did some strange update where nothing worked and that got me off my groove. Also I got sick. Finally just completely reinstalled Overdrive and it's working again.

I need to promote our district collection more with our campus, though. I got a grant to get the classrooms mp3 players to download for Daily 5 time and then the vendor stopped carrying the kid friendly ones I wanted to order. So now I have to look for a new devices. Any suggestions? I don't really want to do the iPod route because if you don't own one it's not necessarily easy. I want something the least tech savvy teacher could use in their classroom (cause of licensing they have to do the downloading ... I can't do it for them and heavens, couldn't for all of them).

I made these to start some more active advertising. They're not perfect but they're a start for now. Print out the signs and put them in a frame then add color copies of book covers you own digitally to the blank area (that way you can change out the advertised books). Click here to get the easy peasy pdf file.

(The PDF lists all of the artists ... Graphics from the Pond, School Supply Addict, Creative Clips, and Kimberly Geswein.)

TL Blogging Challenge Day #1 Tech Tip

A Tech Tip Hmmm. Internet, what are things you do not know? Things that you could use ... simplified? There are so many tutorials out there on a bazillion topics. And what's hard for some is easy for others and vice versa.

I guess for today I'll start pretty easy because it's Saturday and I'm just not feeling something more complicated yet ... but if you've got a request please comment and I'll put it on the blog post list! I didn't know this for the longest time so maybe you didn't either?

If you are going to be adding anything besides text. And I mean ANYTHING besides text ... borders, frames, photos, clip art, etc. Or even just text but in a different layout than the standard five paragraph start at the top and fill in to the bottom of the page type text ... then for the love of all that is simplifying your life DO NOT try to make said document or flyer or what have you in Word. The formatting will drive you INSANE because you move an element 2 mm to the right and it messes everything up. And then you are sad and try to move it back and it moves something else on the page in an entirely different direction. Then you start pulling hair out.

Use Powerpoint. Or Keynote. Or even Google Presentations. You can move all elements around, layer them in front of or behind each other, and where you put stuff? It stays put! It's amazing. Mind blown?

You're welcome.

Need screenshots to help you visualize? This blogger has already done a great job so I am not going to reinvent the wheel today. Maybe I'm going to see Saving Mr. Banks instead of even finding an image to add to this post. Oh and grocery shopping for school lunches. Which is not as fun.


This challenge came from Cybrarian Jen at Where Books and Technology Meet. I won't be doing them all straight through but you'll see at least a couple pop up a week.