1/22/2017
I’m very excited to start my last semester at Georgia Southern for my Masters in Instructional Technology. This semester I will complete my practicum experience in elementary, middle, and high school libraries. I’ve spent a lot of time reading class materials to fully understand the requirements for the practicum. Our first assignment was evaluating three different portfolios. I really enjoyed exploring other students’ web pages and hyperlinks to their class projects and experiences. There was a wealth of information provided in each portfolio.
On Monday I participated in a live webinar presented by edWeb.net titled, Teaching Students with Autism about Digital Citizenship. Even though it was MLK Day, there were many teachers participating from all over the United States and other parts of the world. The online format made it very easy to view the speaker, see a slide show presentation, and submit questions on the chat feature directly to the presenter. Jennifer Liang was presenting from Cumberland Academy of Georgia, a small school in metro Atlanta.
Huntley Hills Elementary will be my primary library assignment and last week I spent about thirty minutes talking on the phone with the librarian about her library and school. I went online read about the school which is a STEM and Montessori certified school. On Friday this week, I visited with Diann and learned how she’s a pro at juggling her many responsibilities. She had a busy week organizing a celebration for 125 Accelerated Reader participants, hosting a professional development meeting for other elementary school librarians in her region in the county school district as well as the usual day-to-day tasks which make up her work week. The PTA provided resources to the library for a Maker Space area utilizing a Lego theme and Diann set up an area for it this week. She had also organized the library when she lost her Media Assistant so her elementary students could be self-sufficient. She has a computer set up so students could check in their books as they enter the library. Two carts are organized so students can sort these books by section in the library such as Fiction or Biography. Each teacher has a small storage box with student library cards and students are trained to bring their library card to the circulation desk for check out by the librarian. I will be returning on Monday for an observation day and am looking forward to seeing this check in system in operation.
I talked with Buddy from Stone Mountain Middle School for about thirty minutes last week. Since he was having a District Librarians meeting Wednesday at his school, he invited me to come Wednesday to spend time with him in the Media Center. It was very informative to hear the librarians present information about their library situations. Then we went on a tour of the library, the Maker Space area in the library, and STEM classrooms in the school. The STEM coordinator had set up a 3-D printer in the media center with project ideas so any student in the school could benefit from the equipment. I was very impressed that both schools had Maker Spaces in their libraries. It was great to go from reading about Maker Spaces in my Georgia Southern classes to actually seeing them implemented!
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