Bluesky

Bluesky

I think, at least for now, I’m all the way done with Twitter. I think it took me a while to come to terms with that decision. It’s been such a great tool for learning and connecting with other educators, but it is basically unusable at this point. Enough of that… I tried Bluesky about a year ago, but it was just one of a number of options that just weren’t living up to my expectations. Maybe it’s time, more folks joining, but right now it feels a lot like Twitter in 2012 or so. 😂 I so appreciate Dr....

SLJ Summit 2023

Messy sketch notes from the 2023 SLJ Summit in Atlanta

The School Library Journal Summit in Atlanta this past weekend was an incredible opportunity for inspiration, collaboration, and growth! Library leaders from across the country converged to soak in new ideas, effective strategies, and passion for our profession. Some of my favorites talks were from Cicely Lewis, Tom Bober, and Amanda Jones. There was no shortage of wisdom and motivation. My mind is still buzzing from 2 days immersed in the energy of school librarians driving change. I’m returning home armed with fresh knowledge and restored purpose, ready to serve our school library leaders and students. This summit was a...

School Library Infographic

School Library Infographic

I saw a great question on a Facebook school library group. This person was wanting a template for an infographic similar to this one from the Framingham Public Library. I decided to refresh my memory on a few design tools so I recreated it in Canva, Genially, Adobe Express, Google Slides, PowerPoint, and Adobe Illustrator.

AI Issues

light beams

Hey everyone! If you aren’t aware of AI (artificial intelligence) applications, now is a good time to give them at least a cursory look. As information, media, and technology specialists in our schools, we need to be aware of how powerful these tools are becoming. We also need to be able to support our teachers, students, and administrators with the implications. Here are just a few examples. You probably have friends sharing similar selfies. These were from the Facetune app (which on further reading have some troubling copyright implications as it’s likely many of the source images for the AI are from...

Primary Sources

a portion of the United States constitution

Tom Bober Tom Bober, school librarian in Missouri, is an expert on this topic. He has a podcast on this topic here. He also has written a book on it: Elementary Educator’s Guide to Primary Sources, Strategies for Teaching. He has a whole series of posts on this for AASL KnowledgeQuest: Picture Books and Primary Sources https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/author/tbober/ He also has a course on School Library Connection on audio/visual primary sources. (let me know if you need the username/password). He has a great presentation linked here too on the Library of Congress. Follow him on the Twitter, @CaptainLibrary. More Resources Article...

Reading & KAS for Library Media

books on a shelf photo

The question about how reading is an important part of the standards is one that I feel strongly about, and I’ve had many conversations with folks on this recently. Please remember that every single indicator in the standards can be wrapped in the practice of reading. The standards-writing team of 30 Kentucky school librarians chose to base them on the national standards from AASL with good reason and reflection. We all love reading and want kids to love reading, but our library programs must be more than that singular and limited focus. Media literacy/fluency, intellectual freedom, digital citizenship, technologies, and...

Library Media Updates

Library Media Updates

Good morning! I hope you are all doing well. Here are a few library media updates for you. #KyLChat Please join us TONIGHT for #KyLChat. We will be talking about ways to support nurture our readers. December 8, 7 PM Central, 8 PM Eastern. #KyLChat is super-easy to join. Here are some directions if you are brand new to Twitter chats. KyGoDigital KYGoDigital is a great resource for learning. I especially love the ones that feature school library leaders. This one is today! If you can’t catch the live version, please go back and visit their YouTube channel for this...

New year, new times…

New year, new times…

Greetings! I hope you have had a great summer (or at least as great as possible in these weird times) and had some time to rest and recharge for this new 2020/2021 school year. First… as it is happening tonight, we are having our first #KyLChat of the school year! This one was organized in collaboration with KASL, and the questions were ones that you all sent in. THE Sam Northern, current KASL president, will be moderating. Please try to make it if you can. Here are the questions ahead of time so you can prepare a few awesome things...

Friday

Friday

Greetings everyone! I hope you are hanging in there and taking care of your students, teachers, and yourself during this bizarre time. I don’t want to overwhelm anyone, but I wanted to share a few of my favorite finds from the listserv and Twitter in the last few days. Please reach out to me if you have any questions or need to talk through a project. This crazy time we are faced with is also an opportunity for us to embed ourselves as resources in our schools’ mindsets and our teachers’ classes. Regardless of the content area and format, consider...