Reading Incentive Program for 2010

This year, Justin F. Kimball will once again participate in the Million Word Challenge. We will promote it through the book club, and the members will participate in promotion throughout the year with, I'm sure, creative and innovative ways to increase participation in this event.

Source: North Dallas HS webpage //northdallaslibrary.weebly.com/million-word-challenge.html

I'm hoping to use the same guidelines posted on North Dallas High School Library's webpage. Every book read between August and May will be logged in a notebook at the front desk. Students may have the ability to submit their information through the library's website. In a date before seniors have their last day, we will have a celebratory pizza party for everyone who read over a million words! Million Word participants will also be recognized in front of their classmates at their Awards Assemblies in May. All million word readers will receive a certificate of achievement and will have their names announced. The top two readers will receive prizes. The top teacher and the top staff member will receive an award. All students, teachers, and staff members will be encouraged to participate. The goal will be to challenge Kimball Knights to increase their reading skills, including vocabulary and comprehension. And have fun!

Thank you, Courtney Flynt, for the ideas. I especially like the way the students can fill in their Million Word book information on their library's webpage.

Molina High School also has a fantastic Million Word challenge every year, unfortunately, I wasn't able to find anything on the web about their great work. Hopefully, they will post a comment on where to find their information.

Book Review: "We Were Here" by Matt de la Pena

Sentenced to a year in juvenile detention, Miguel is ordered by the judge to keep a journal. At a group home, he meets unpredictably dangerous Mong and his mentally-challenged roommate Rondell, who possesses a surprising talent. When Mong decides to escape, Miguel  plots and steals $750 from the home's petty-cash box. Rondell also decides to leave the home along with them.Their misadventures take them along the California coast to unexpected destinations, events, and revelations of self-discovery. Secrets are kept and revealed; funny, shocking, and tragic, in a book which will appeal to many teens. A 2010 ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, a 2010 ALA-YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers.








This was started by a class as part of a Grant for Innovative Teaching project; replaced by the participating teacher because of the language the characters use. However, much of the class looked captivated, and it was requested many times by class members for check out.

What I Will Do to Advocate for My Library This Year

Week 2 Assignment is to create a Voki describing personalized plans for advocating for your library. I hope students like using it.

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=4162961&height=400&width=300

Seven Things - Web 2.0 What does it mean to advocate for your library?

We've been asked to blog about what advocating for our school library means. After reading a few articles, my answer would have to be to develop awareness of the great services school librarians provide, or, can, should, will, must provide to students, faculty, staff, and community members at our schools. We need to become more vocal at the local, state and federal level, before we are leveled!

According to an article by the School Library Journal staff, some of the common questions heard are: "Why do school libraries need money for books when everything is online? Why do we need a library when students can do their research online? Why do we need librarians if all they do all day is check out books?" Karl Harvey, an elementary school librarian in Indiana, believes in involving the entire school, including parents and central office, through  e-mails, web page, blog, Facebook page, and newsletter to inform and connect everything to his program, whether it's an author visit or a special schoolwide event. He collaborates with his teaching colleagues, using web 2.0 tools for professional development lessons. He emphasizes developing a good relationship with his administrator, who can "determine the library's success or failure."

Connie Williams, a high school librarian from California adds, "...everyone needs to see and participate in what you do," from the book carts you supply to classrooms to the vast resources you provide, "The invisibility factor for libraries is high," she warns. "So you need to remind people that you are here. It needs to be continual because they will forget you." The article adds, "...Williams likes to send what she calls a "Wow Letter" to her teaching colleagues, which includes all the wonderful instruction and resources her library provides, including tips on cyber safety. "They'll come up to me and say, 'Wow, I didn't know you did that.'"
Williams also stresses it's important to, "...make your presence known. That means sitting on committees, attending district and county office meetings, and showing up for school board and PTA gatherings. When you do, never go empty handed; show them how you make a difference...Be active participants."

Emily Ford's article defined advocacy as follows:“'Public support for a course of action or way of doing things.' (Longman Dictionary)." Following this defintion, she states, "Library advocacy is therefore interpreted and practiced in a variety of ways. Numerous initiatives in the library would use the word advocacy to describe what they are doing and trying to accomplish. At our recently convened ALA Annual Conference, I saw a poster session by Emerging Leader groups that focused on teen services advocacy with local communities and Libraries Build Communities. Another example includes ALA President Molly Raphael’s advocacy initiative focused on empowering communities, and the list goes on. Legislative advocacy demonstrates our library/librarian values to lawmakers. This kind of advocacy usually includes communicating with elected officials via phone calls, in person visits, e-mails, and online action forms."

A useful PDF file, "Speaking Up for Library Services for Teens: A Guide for Advocacy," can help you determine what course to take. Staistics for school libraries are shown on pp. 26-27, "Advocacy Resouces," on pp. 29-33, and an "Action Plan," on pp. 20-25. Find it at:  http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/advocacy_final.pdf.  The YALSA wiki "Advocating for Teen Services in Libraries," also useful, can be found at: http://wikis.ala.org/yalsa/index.php/Advocating_for_Teen_Services_in_Libraries
 
None of this information should be new to us. We should all be aware of the things that need to be done, not only at this time, but all the time. Your choices are only limited by your creativity and desire. Some pretty great things have been accomplished by DISD librarians. Post and tell everyone the great ideas you have done so far.

Sources: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/890038-312/webcast_advocating_for_your_library.html.csp
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/advocacy_final.pdf
http://wikis.ala.org/yalsa/index.php/Advocating_for_Teen_Services_in_Libraries

Seven Things - Web 2.0

Here is my first entry for Seven Things - Web 2.0. This class can be taken as part of staff development requirements. When enrolled in the fall, there just didn't seem to be enough hours in the school calendar weekend to do it and also my part-time job as a working violinist, so it was dropped. 

I get so caught up during the year it's really difficult to tear myself away from school daily; I was starting to leave later and later. After school is also the only time I can get things done without being interrupted dozens of times. Which I do not mind at all and for which I am grateful, because I have a job. However,it also takes days to do something that used to take hours with a second librarian at Kimball HS. As a book rep told me, there are schools in California that do the same job without a second librarian or a media assistant with triple the enrollment!

So hopefully, I'll have some more time to do what is required as well as play around more with the Web 2.0 Tools since I've had time to look at them more.
I do have a question for everyone, though: has anyone in this class monetized their blog, and has it been beneficial?
                                                  
I tried to have red background and a blue text but it only came out as red lines. So this is red text with a blue background.  Also the first paragraph is Georgia, the second is Verdana and the third is  Trebuche.  The first paragraph is Normal text size, the second large, and the third largest.

This is my Avatar

This is how I looked
when I first got to DISD
(Five years ago)

7 Things Online Class

Wow! What a busy year, so busy I haven't had time to add to the blog. Creating a school newspaper from scratch is not easy, I found out, but managed to teach myself InDesign and publish fall, winter and spring issues. I administered a Innovative Teaching Grant from Junior League this past year, and I may be adding some video or photos about that. I also taught Kimball's STEM Summer Camp which was held the first two weeks following the end of school. For the summer camp, I taught students Web 2.0 Tools which may be useful (and fun) to use for school, including Glogster, Blabberize, Study Blue, Evernote, and Museum Box, as well as some speed reading strategies, and reading part of a book my principal intern got at the Reading Conference in San Francisco last April. The STEM camp teachers were also part of a committee which will present at staff development this August on the book the district has chosen for study, "Teaching With Poverty in Mind," so each teacher was assigned a chapter to create PowerPoint slides on the key points. I think I created 16 slides.

I'm hoping to practice more on the Web 2.0 Tools which were presented at the TCEA conferences the two years I got to go (2011 and 2007) as well as the 21st Century Teacher Conferences for the past two years.

I'm also sorry to report there hasn't been a second librarian at Kimball since Linda York retired in October 2009. We had  subs the rest of that school year, but administration did not fill the position with a librarian.This past year has been very busy without Linda's help. It was also a blow to hear of her passing this April. I've missed her kindness and support.

Knight Life Returning - Any Volunteers Accepted

Are you a student at Kimball HS or an alum or other individual with high school newspaper experience? We need your assistance in getting our newspaper started. Librarian with no newspaper experience recruited, but still motivated! Send an e-mail to kimballhslibrary@gmail.com or leave a post.

While on vacation...

Between summer school and fall school year beginning, I spied this article in the New York Times, which surprised me. The copy and paste problem is EVERYWHERE. It will be a goal to help reduce this problem among Kimball HS students. See this article in its entirety at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html
It's one of a series on "...cheating in education and efforts to stop it."

More Summer 2010

Summer school classes also received database instruction utilizing those which would be most relevant to the assignments they were completing in the library. The most frequently used were World Book, Brittanica, Culture Grams, EBSCO (Health and Literary Reference Center), History Study Center, and Gale Virtual Reference Library. Posted is the DISD databases accessible to students, faculty and staff.
The library was visited by social studies, health and English classes. Since most of the students were from Carter High School, I hope the librarians there will see a few more students who will be using the databases. They're a great resource, and I hope to encourage students to become more comfortable using them this school year.

Summer 2010

In April, it was determined a librarian was needed to fill the summer school librarian position, preferably one the librarians on staff. Since my co-librarian had submitted her resignation about this time, I agreed to fill the position. We were asked to create a page to submit to teachers about services our library provides. I will be including that page, with layout borrowed from the head of the summer school training. KHS additions included equipment available for checkout and web sites for more information. Teachers checked out carts, overheads, and some KHS math teachers utilized document cameras which had been assigned to them in the spring. Additionally, I was able to show a few teachers how to access videos electronically using the Power Videos available through Dallas County Schools (http://www.powervideos.org/)

Wonderful Things I've Discovered and Want to Use

List of widgets from Amazon. I'm fascinated! Carousel widget! We need a website to post it on! https://widgets.amazon.com/
"Will I be charged anything for using these Widgets?

No! Amazon Widgets are not only free to use, but can actually earn you money. Check the Associates Join pages for more information on the Amazon.com Associates program and how you can actually earn money from using Amazon Widgets."   Ok, they've been out a while, but it's still new to me.


Library Thing
I'm posting the books KHS students love.

"What does it cost?

A free account allows you to catalog up to 200 books. A paid account allows you to catalog any number of books. Paid personal accounts cost $10 for a year or $25 for a lifetime. (See here for organizational accounts.) I conservatively predict the revenue will enable me to recline all day on an enormous pile of gold."

Oh no! Google Wave!
In the process of finding pictures, I'm finding even more things of interest:

http://www.hhcc.com/blog/?p=584

"What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People
can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time."

I need more time to figure out how these can be used at Kimball HS!

Learning Tools for Library Which Caught My Attention

I've had a few articles on my desk which have really caught my attention for potential educational use. I'm posting them here for my own future reference, and hope someone else will also find them useful.

Adams, Heidi and Laura Howard. "Clever Clickers: Using Audience Response Systems in the Classroom." LMC Library Media Connection, October 2009. Print.
Quinn, Mary Ellen. "Learning with Blogs: Selected blogs that will enlighten and inform every library professional," American Libraries, August/September 2009. Print.
Rice, John. "Are You Smarter Than a Whiteboard? 10 tips for IWBs in the classroom." Tech Edge, Spring 2009. Print.

(MLA Citation Style from: http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citmla.htm)

The technology mentioned in the articles are available for check out at Kimball HS Library, and I'd love to find or create lessons that would assist teachers here.

Meanwhile, I've been playing catch up between scheduled classes - where questions usually involve Microsoft Word and Powerpoint problems (easy things like: how do I change the margins or line spacing) but lately, things I find not-so-easy, like: why can't I open and use my .mov on Windows Movie Maker, why won't my .tmp file print or give me the message there isn't enough memory to print or why only the text prints. I figured out the why of the problems, but not yet the how-to-solve those problems. Are these easy? Other things I've been working on are: LAN connectivity problems in one area of the library, inventory of books, equipment, and multimedia, trying to input items which seemed to have been kicked out of the system (finding out they will check in now when two months ago we got the message: Not in system), cataloging of new items purchased...oh wait, the district equipment repair technician just dropped in...and many other tasks...school library really is interesting and fun. It's great to be a part of this time in history when there are so many new things to learn...and organize.

Just found another thing I'd like to use on my webpage: carousel widgets! See them at:
https://widgets.amazon.com/Amazon-Carousel-Widget/?id=V20070822/US/bookfizz-20/8010/e423148b-4afe-42b4-b8af-abe987c7efaf&ref=assoc_wdgt_us

One more thing for me to learn: what's a "mashup"?

Dewey keep Dewey?

I came across an article in libraryjournal.com which discusses Rangeview (CO) Library ousting Dewey in favor of BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications). I know I have enjoyed browsing bookstores and been happier with their organization than with Dewey, and wonder if this may be something that catches on.

Yarra Plenty Library asks this very question and discusses results of how patrons reacted at: yarraplentylibrary.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile, while trying to upload the photo (libraryjournal.com via Google Images), I also meandered upon Library Thing, which I had heard about from a Princeton Library friend. "What is LibraryThing?! LibraryThing helps you list your books, get reading recommendations and connect with other book lovers." (http://www.librarything.com/about) I was thinking it would be a great spot to make a list of the new books purchased that students really seem to enjoy.

Web 2.0...giving us fascinating and wonderful things to do and utilize in education...what to do first?

My, How Time Flies

Since my last post, my co-librarian has been on extended leave, starting in late October. Then, in December, the media assistant also took a short (most of December) leave, which I hope explains the lack of posts! For a while, there was no sub, then subs which I had to train on a daily, bi-weekly, or weekly basis.

This morning, at 5 am, it came to me. Ideas for new posts!

Since then, I have since researched the first idea, and came up with minimal information to share. I'll keep looking for information to present this idea in a future post.

Next topic of discussion: Book Club.
Book Club has always had a small membership, partially due to my personally purchasing copies of books selected for each member (as well as weekly snacks). This wasn't so bad when they were available at http://www.betterworldbooks.com, Half-Price Books, or even in paperback. It just got pricy when they wanted to continue a series up to the latest (available in hardcover only) title. I realize there are sources of funding for HS book clubs; some which have strict guidelines and/or specific titles to be read. I wanted the students to have the option of reading the titles they want to read, and they want to see in the library. So far, the selections of the book club members have been very popular with the rest of the school (and some of the other schools in the district, as evidenced in ILLs (Inter-library Loans) of these books.
Titles read since KHS Book Club's inception in April, 2009, have been: "Frostbite" by Richelle Mead, "Vampire Kisses" 1-3 by Ellen Schreiber, "City of Bones," "City of Ashes," and "City of Glass," by Cassandra Clare. Unfortunately, our membership is dwindling. We currently have three regular members, down from our typical seven, from our all-time record of nine. The main reason given was students being unable to pass from the cafeteria to the library for our 7:45 am meeting. New administrators were brought in this past January who are doing a great job, and the hallways are free of wandering students. Unfortunately, many of them were wandering into the library. Our morning traffic is also way, way down. I discussed book club attendance with the assistant principal, and created passes for book club members (see image). However, this hasn't increased numbers so far. We then changed the meeting day and time from Wednesday at 7:45, to Monday at 3:45. This led to a more lively discussion from the remaining members, (who have woken up by that time) but fewer members! The members who couldn't make it into the morning halls have not returned for the afternoon meeting.
I have posted a picture of the pass. I use Avery labels to attach them to the back of the student's ID badge. The clipart is from Microsoft Office downloads.

Latest Activities

Events in the Kimball HS library are numerous. DVDs and other audio-visual items were research, asked about with teachers, found, reviewed, and ordered. Which reminds me...I need to answer an e-mail about some DVD orders...Anyway, our City of Bones books arrived, and everyone is crazy about it. The assignment this week, since I was having trouble imagining it, is to draw a picture of the Ravener. The book didn't seem to describe it in a way I could image it. So I asked the students to draw their perception of how the ravener would look. As you can see, they also had differing perceptions of the creature! Keep in mind, these are drawings which were created in about 20 minutes.
Other tasks on the horizon...looking for books and items for display in honor of Native American Heritage month. Ordering supplies for this year. Completing Equipment Removal Request forms, completing inventory, organizing the magazines in the back room to make room for the new subscriptions arriving in January, doing a complete inventory of items in the library before January....

Getting Things In Order

This week has been filled with conferring with teachers and students to provide the most requested periodicals and journals in the Kimball HS library. Suggestions were taken from the English, Science, Math, Business, Music, Technology, Social Studies, PE and ROTC departments, as well as student input and current preferences, and some research of lists found on the subscriber site, and School Library Journal.

We are gearing up for ALA's "Teen Read Week" October 18 - 24. The theme is "Read Beyond Reality @ your library®."

Still waiting on Book Club books to arrive...I'll have to make some calls to find out why it is taking so long!

Thanks for the additional Book Reports for Banned Books week!

The Future is Here

Apparently, as indicated by the lack of posts, things have been very, very busy in the Kimball HS Library. Classes have been scheduled for research or writing assignments almost every day. In addition, cataloging of equipment, some old, some not-quite-as-old, has taken a bit of time, especially in the case of donated equipment, where certain information had to be tracked down through multiple e-mails and trips to class rooms to view the equipment personally.

For research assignments, I have been presenting a basic overview of the databases which may be beneficial for their papers, that is: Encyclopedia Brittanica Online and World Book Online, History Study Center, EBSCO, and Gale Databases for the social studies assignments; EB and WB Online, and the General Reference area of the DISD's OPAC, Dallink for a paper on outstanding hispanics in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month; and for the ELA and Reading Classes, an overview of EB and WB, Dallink, especially noting the Dictionary and Thesaurus available online (I love the Merriam-Webster site because it pronounces the word for you!), and information which can be found using the Novelist database.

Book Club was enthusiastically restarted on August 26th. We have the addition of a few new members. My first activity/idea asked the members to create a summary and "script" of the Vampire Kisses first three books, in order to create a video of this "book summary-skit." This task was partially completed by the group, with an outline contributed by Armando - thank you for your effort!! We spent a portion of two meetings trying to sketch out this script, but unfortunately, Ms. Anderson didn't force this into completion! This idea didn't have a strong reception...perhaps I could have explained it better. We continued discussing and outlining summaries of the three books, and we concluded that Shanise is very good with the details, large and small, of the books she reads, while Armando is very good with organizing these ideas. Kitty and Ashlee are good with providing strong opinions of the action and characterizations. We also discussed that several members need to contribute more and make more of an effort to keep up with the reading. Two weeks ago, we started a video of discussion and book talk of "Vampire Kisses." I will be posting that as soon as I get all the video we created, and organize it into a video using Windows Movie Maker. I'm really looking forward to posting this, so members who have video, you know who you are, please let me have a copy of it as soon as you can. We are leaving the Vampire Kisses series with our next title: City of Bones.

We also celebrated "Banned Book Week" with a bulletin board of a description of what it is, some promotion posters, and the opportunity to sport an ALA-created pin "I Read Banned Books," by filling out a one-page book report sheet which asked for the following: Title, Author, Characters, 1-2 sentences (each section) about the beginning, middle and ending, "my personal connection," prediction to what happened after the story ended, and personal opinion of the book, and recommendation to read or not to read. Congratulations to Kitty on being the first to return her sheet and get a "I Read Banned Books" pin!

Looking at the past...into the future

Just want to report, I finished the last three titles on the KHS English Department's summer reading list: Bless Me, Ultima, The Pearl, and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and I must comment: they were all depressing. Well, at least Mr. Douglass escaped from slavery, but the others...I've learned many more ways you could possibly die.

Now I'm looking forward to some book club input on which title we will start with, so I can start purchasing books. Also, start thinking about how to recruit more members, what time we want the meetings, and other facets of our book club organization.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all!

More Summer Reading

I haven't heard from any of my followers!

What? You don't want to comment on your summer reading book? I didn't create the list, your English teachers did! However, I am enjoying them, immensely...I'm not kidding! They're really interesting.

I have continued through the list with Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. I could not figure out why this book would be on their list until I read it. Read it, and let me know the reason it was added to the reading list. It's not hard to read, AT ALL. Yes, there's all sorts of Martian names and characters, and you'll find out how people thought in the 50s...terrifying.

Also, I read The Miracle Worker and it's not hard either, especially since I've seen the movie about seven times. It was wonderful, however, to read all the dialogue you can't quite hear when you see the film.

I also want to thank SK for sending a wonderful Power Point of titles she would like placed in the Kimball HS Library. I was hoping to post it here, but I think it's too big. I may just list all the titles on a future post. Most of the titles were put on the book order, and hopefully, most of them will be on the shelves this year. If anyone from Kimball HS wants to do something similar, it would be welcomed.

What are you reading?

I finished "Poisonwood Bible." The fiction portions of it are fairly easy to read, the number of characters, well, it's a village, so there's alot of people. The historical detail - plentiful, and as most history is, tragic, anyway you look at it. Still, a very good read, and it's a easy way to get your history and philosphy lessons in. No takers?