I loved playing around on the various apps and websites in this week’s module. I found a lot that will be fun and engaging to implement with both virtual and in-person learning this fall! Here are my two favorite tools:

Tool #1: Book Creator: This site is named perfectly! The site’s purpose is for students to create books! The books are digital and the possibilities are endless. This tool could be used in the library during Makerspace, for research projects or also genre studies! I can see the same uses in the classroom, but would also add using it in gifts for parents, for unit completion activities and so much more! A positive is that there is no limit to how many students you can have in your “library”. There is also a free trial where you can create 40 books in one library for free. However, after that, the packages can be a bit expensive with the cheapest one being $60 to create up to 180 books. I think asking for a grant or even using book fair profits would be a great way for librarians to pay the membership.

Tool #2: CK12: This site was awesome! I could have stayed on it for hours and the best part? It’s FREE! This site offers an abundance of resources to help children understand and explore math, science, and social studies topics. It definitely fits every learning style because it includes books, study guides, practice modules, plix, and many other multimedia components. Librarians can use this tool for research projects and teachers can use it for remediation or challenges for their lower and higher-level learners. It makes a great addition to any curriculum and is easy to use since it is organized by grade levels and subjects.

Favorite Blog: VanMeter Library Voice:This blog is amazing! Just in the first 3 blog posts, I found a “How-To” creating stickers for students, a choice board that contained all kinds of resources for the topic “Things That Fly” and a list of the 2020 AASL Best Digital Tools by Destiny. This site will definitely inspire me and be useful at keeping me up to date with the latest technology, books, librarian news and more! I love that she stays relevant on social media, her blog and also by speaking to future and current librarians. Her blog is frequently updated which tells me I will always find something new to learn and explore by visiting her site, as well as, stay current on the latest librarian news and ideas. In fact, I have already bookmarked the site and am ready to visiti it at least once a week!

Hour of Code is something my school has implemented for several years and something my students have really enjoyed.

After reading the articles and playing around on Hour of Code, I could immediately see how the coding games met many of the criteria of computational thinking, a skill we know is crucial in the success of our students. As stated in the article by Eli Sheldon, decomposition and pattern recognition are 2 of the 4 essential skills to computational thinking (Sheldon, E. (2017, March 30). Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/computational-thinking-across-the-curriculum-eli-sheldon). These skills are exactly what coding entails! In order to get things, or people, to move in your coding game, you have to constantly repeat patterns (such as move forward) and also break down steps (decomposition) in order to move around. An example is in order to move a “person” to destroy a wall in Minecraft coding, you need to break down the steps and have them “move forward” several times and then “destroy block”.

I fully understand how coding helps students with computational thinking but after reading Mary Moen’s article, I also see lots of ways coding can aid in literacy skills as well. Problem-solving isn’t just about math, authors also need to problem solve when writing. The problems a character faces and how they solve it are essential parts of gaining reader interests and completing a story. Moen states, “When you code, you set the scene, build tension, create climax, include falling action, and come to a resolution” (Moen, M. (2016, September 30). Computer Coding and Literacy: Librarians Lead The Connection. Literacy Now. https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2016/09/30/computer-coding-and-literacy-librarians-lead-the-connection). Moen referenced a coding with Scratch workshop and how the librarians used Scratch to incorporate coding with a language arts activity and language arts skills. I thought this was an excellent example but I can also see other ways to incorporate coding in language arts. One idea is having students complete the coding activity “Make A Flappy Game”. After creating the game, they can write a sequence paragraph or create a fictional story based on how they chose their game to conclude. The possibilities really are endless and I’m excited to try many ideas in the fall with my class.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend any live zoom meetings but was extremely grateful to have the recordings and google docs to view at my convenience. I also enjoyed participating in the flipgrid with 2 truths and a dream!

My favorite zoom session was the resume presentation. Since I’ve been employeed for a number of years, I am “out of date” with current resume practices. I loved the tips and recommendations and really appreciated the google docs available to use in the future.

I also enjoyed the library director’s panel. Everyone speaking was very down to earth and I loved their truthfulness (the “no-no’s” of things they look for while interviewing were terrific!). The tips given were very helpful, such as, including participating in a mentorship because that means you are “teachable” and also having some volunteer hours and professional development other than college courses in your experience.

Given current situations and having to have a virtual summer institute instead of “in person”, I feel it was done well and was still effective at helping all of us in the program!

I really enjoyed exploring the different libraries presented in this week’s module for class. I have listed my “Top 3” below and included what features I liked and plan to use for my own library website.

1. Makalapa Elementary School Library
   This site has several features that I have already planned to include in my library website. The first is “Grade Ebook Trailers”. In my district, we call these “Book In A Minute” and the students adore both creating them and listening to them! It’s a terrific way to engage students and introduce them to different genres and books. The second feature I liked on this website is the “Resources for Learning”. It links to research options which I definitely plan to also include on my website. I feel this is a crucial component of any library site. Lastly, I loved the “See What Our Favorite Authors Are Up To”. This is a great resource for our current pandemic status. It links to famous and popular children’s authors and their sites. I know students would really enjoy this.

2. Exeter Township Junior High Library
This site was pretty awesome and had so much to view and explore! I loved the virtual scene the librarian created but plan to include links in my scene on my website. The “Digital Resources” link/page was definitely a one stop shop that included directions on how to research, great places to research and also how and why students should cite their resources. The third feature I liked was the link to order Scholastic via the librarian’s account. Some teachers do not participate in Scholastic so I thought this was a clever addition that could help the librarian earn rewards to buy things for the library.

3. Newberry Elementary School Library Media Center
This site had some nice features but was my least favorite of the three I’m discussing (but I still liked it better than others in the module). I really loved the summer Padlet feature. It’s a great idea for student interaction. I plan on including something similar but instead am using the platform of Flipgrids. I also liked the division of resources by grade levels at the top of the page. However, when clicking on each section, the icons included are tiny and a bit overwhelming. I thought the “Summer Reading Fun” was an important feature and the librarian did a wonderful job of including many choices so that students could choose the tracking tool they most felt comfortable using.

In the above QR code, I have linked my own ODU blog.

I have used QR codes in the past for students to access read alouds for books during reading stations. We have also created videos as a school staff and linked the videos to QR codes that we displayed outside our classroom doors so that others could learn more about us. As a teacher, I think this would be a great way for students to connect and get to know each other at the beginning of the year. For librarians, I think it would be awesome to have QR codes around the library where students have created short “Book In A Minute” videos and others could scan the QR code to see if it would be a book they would be interested in reading. Another use in the library could be to use QR codes to link to tutorial videos at various places in the library such as Maker Space and the checkout counter. Librarians could have instructions and expectations recorded and students would know exactly what to do.

The Norfolk Botanical Gardens has several virtual tours on their website. The first one is a general overview of the gardens including some history and their most popular exhibits. The site also includes a tour of the Japenese Gardens, the Azalea area, and finally the Green House Tour. The GreenHouse Tour is narrated by the director of the greenhouse and it’s very informative, but still short in length like the others.

The uses of virtual tours are perfect for both virtual and in-person learning. As a teacher, I can send links to tours and have students do a variety of work such as reflections and summaries. For librarian uses, virtual tours can be an excellent way to start students in research projects. For example, I could use the above Botanical Gardens virtual tour as the “grabber” for students to start a research project on plants native to Virginia (this would also cover several science standards of learning). The technology of virtual tours could also be used in library settings while studying different career paths. The students could watch the tour about Alice Austen and then research other authors using library resources.

With the recent COVID crisis, most field trips are being cancelled for the foreseeable future. I feel because of this, virtual field tours and trips are going to be the new way of life for educators to help students experience other places.

Using video during the COVID pandemic has truly been a lifesaver for me as a teacher. It enabled me to provide asynchronous learning to my second grade students, which in turn, helped them to continue to progress in their learning despite being home in quarantine.

One of our teacher trainings was all about different video recording tools where we explored different programs like Loom, Screencastify, and Powtoon. I loved Powtoon for introducing concepts and reviewing expectations such as Zoom meeting behaviors. However, when it came to instructional videos, I started using Loom for my recordings but quickly switched to Screencastify. I found the editing tools to be easier to use as well as the program as a whole was just more user friendly. I really liked the uncomplicated snipping tool is more simple than other editing tools I have seen. An added bonus is that Screencastify automatically saves your video immediately into your Google Drive. I like this because I don’t need to remember to do it myself. Often while virtual teaching you are pulled into many directions and can easily be distracted by a parent, coworker, or admin email, and you can forget to do the all-important “hit save” button. The autosave on Google Drive is helpful for me as a Virginia Beach teacher because of the fact the district uses Google Drive as our main platform. I can easily create folders of my videos and share the entire folder with coworkers.

My only complaint with Screencastify is that it does take a bit to get the video downloaded into Google Drive. You can share the link to the video as soon as you are done recording and editing, but many times if you do that it will say “Video still processing”. If you are wanting to make a video and have it immediately available (like within seconds), this is not the tool to use. In my experience, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours for the video to be uploaded and viewable.

As a teacher with VBCPS, I am very familiar with Google Slides and Powerpoint as presentation tools. I was pleasantly pleased to find that most of the tools given to explore this week were just as easy to use as Google Slides. Here are my thoughts on four of the presentation tools in the module folder.

Haiku Deck: I did not play with this one very much because it wanted me to give my payment info to access the free trial. I clicked on teacher and student fees, hoping it would be free, but it also incurred a small fee after the free trial.

Prezi: This program looked exciting at first, but again, when I clicked on the free trial, it wanted my payment information for when the trial ended. Prezi did have a student or educator free account which was promising, but it was only the basic plan. With the basic plan you do not have access to privacy control, advanced image editing and other features. For those reasons, I didn’t choose to use this program for my presentation slides.

Genial.ly: This tool had a ton of different options besides presentations, which I found to be something I may introduce my own children to, but not really something I need at this time. These include social and personal branding and gamification. I did like that there were many different types of presentation templates, however, they weren’t organized in categories like Emaze.

Emaze: I chose to use Emaze for my presentation slides for a couple of reasons. First, it didn’t make me jump through hoops to check it out for free. It had an easy sign-in method of using Google Sign In or Facebook Sign In, which is awesome because you don’t have another password to worry about remembering. Second, I chose Emaze because it was simple to navigate. It has a lot of different templates for presentations that are organized in categories such as education, business,etc. It was a bit challenging to get familiar with the tool bars and find certain text features I needed, but after a bit of playing around, I was able to figure it out and move on to create my slides. You can click on the image at the top of this post to check out my presentation Literacy Activities For A Rainy Day.

So I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never listened to a podcast before this assignment. With that being said, I’ve now listened to 5 different ones with widely diverse topics this week. The one I think I will most love professionally is 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Vicki Davis. This podcast is not only relevant to my teaching, but also has many other positive aspects.

Each podcast with Vicki begins with the topic and episode number clearly stated. Then the purpose of the entire podcast is stated with a little background music (“Everyday learn powerful and practical ways to become a remarkable teacher today”) and then she gets right into the meat of the message. I like how direct and to the point this is. With some of the other podcasts I’ve explored this week, there seemed to be a lot of time that was wasted. One of my favorite things about Vicki’s podcast is that it is short-I can listen while doing the dishes, while riding to the store, or taking the dogs on a quick walk.

The podcast episodes are also organized in an easy to follow format. Often, they even have numbers in them and are presented in lists. This makes the messages clear and infoormation easy to remember and retain.

Another aspect of The 10 Minute Teacher Podcast that I really like is the themes. Each day she focuses on something different. Some examples are “Motivational Monday” or “EdTech Tuesdays”. Providing listeners with this weekly format really enables them to pick and choose what they need most. With that being said, Vicki took a turn with things when schools became virtual. She made sure to stay relevant and focus her information podcasts on virtual classrooms and helping teachers navigate these tricky waters. I love how relevant she is with her topics and that she’s not giving out the same old same old info we often get in PDs. Another example of this is her episode called “How To Use Fortnite For Education in the Classroom”. You can’t get more relevant than that!

I really enjoyed exploring these tools and wish I had been enrolled in this class at the start of virtual learning. Some of the audio tools would have been perfect for the virtual teaching I’ve been doing for the last few months. That being said, since we are unclear about what school will look like in the fall, I’m grateful I know have these tools to share with coworkers in September!

Above I have shared a clip from my favorite audio tool from the Sandbox, Vocaroo. I liked that you didn’t have to sign up for a free trial and there are no sign-ins, you simply record and share. The sharing options were easy to use and included many options.

The second audio tool that I plan on using in the classroom next year is Voki. I know my second graders will flip out with the animation and the program will help engage them in their learning. I also liked the hangout feature because I can utilize that for small group discussions or to hear my students’ independent reading. A big negative to this tool is that it is only free for up to 5 students, so using it whole class will incur a fee on my part.

Podcasts are the third audio tool I’d like to try to start using in the classroom in the fall. I think the students could again use this tool in small group discussions and to respond to stories read. I also strongly agree with the Mindshift article’s stance that podcasts can improve student reading. I’ve witnessed this not only in my home with my youngest son, but also in the classroom. Students love having the text in front of them while I read and do, in fact, gain confidence with this method.

reference:
MindShift. “Why Listening to Podcasts Helps Kids Improve Reading Skills.” KQED, 18 Mar. 2016, www.kqed.org/mindshift/44389/why-listening-to-podcasts-helps-kids-improve-reading-skills.