February 26, 2013 by plemmonsa

2nd Grade Bloggers

Two 2nd grade classes have embarked on a blogging project with Shannon Miller’s students in Van Meter, Iowa. We’ve connected with one another via skype and read the book Same Same but Different. Our students have been working on writing their first blog posts on KidBlog to introduce themselves. My students did this on paper, but Shannon’s students did their work in Google Docs.

For the past 2 days, my students have been busy typing their first “About Me” blog post. While they typed, the teachers and I conferenced with students on their posts to check for details, spelling, and punctuation. Then, we gave them the thumbs up to publish their post. After publishing, students could personalize their blog with one of the KidBlog themes. Both days, the teachers and I were amazed by the students’ focus. They worked diligently for 45 minutes each day and were very willing to go back and check spelling and edit their punctuation. Again, I think that the idea of having an authentic audience is very motivating to the students.

Our next step will be to mail our rough drafts to Iowa where Shannon will have her students practice commenting on post-it notes before commenting online. Her students will mail paper copies of their posts as well so that we can practice too. From there, we will continue to post a variety of posts and comment on one another’s writing.

The students and teachers are fully of energy for this project, and we are excited to see the work that they are eager to produce.

Their blogs are located at Barrow Media Center 2nd Grade KidBlog. We invite you to read and comment on their posts.

Our very first blogger posted his “About Me” post

February 25, 2013 by plemmonsa

Angry Birds Action Research (Part 2)

Mrs. Shealey’s 3rd grade class is still investigating our bird problem at Barrow. They have made observations, developed questions, tracked suggestions and research findings, and made hypotheses about what they might try to stop the birds from flying into the window while still making our campus a bird-friendly place. Last week, Ms. Hicks and I reached out to several people through email, Facebook, and Twitter to try to find people to connect with our students through Skype.

Expert 1: Claire Wislar, Middle School Student

Expert 2: Jennifer Fee, Cornell University

Today, Mrs. Shealey’s class came to hear from 2 experts. Expert 1 was Claire Wislar, a former Barrow student. She is a middle school student and aspires to be an ornithologist. Over the weekend, she did some research on the topic for us as well as thought about her own knowledge and experiences with birds and windows. Shawn Hinger, Clarke Middle Media Specialist, setup a computer in her office for Claire to use. During her short Skype session, Claire let the students ask questions as well as shared to things that the students might try: wind chimes to scare the birds,electrical tape in lines on the window, and putting Saran wrap on the windows. It was so much fun to have a connection to a student who used to go to our school who was able to share her expertise with students.

As info was learned, students wrote notes and Mrs. Shealey captured ideas on chart paper.

Expert 2 was Jennifer Fee with Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Cornell has an impressive program in Ornithology and a great website resource that we have already been using. It was really interesting because Jennifer has experience with this same problem at her building at Cornell. She and her colleagues did an action research project, too, and tried several solutions and collected data. She explained this process to the students. She also made some suggestions about what students might try: shiny decals, hang CDs by windows, bird feeders that stick to windows or bird feeders that aren’t right by the windows, and bird shape cutouts. She also encouraged the students to keep trying the things that they are trying and to constantly collect data on what was happening. We were so excited that at the end of our time together she told us that she would be sending a window bird feeder for us to try!

Expert 3 did not connect with us in real-time but sent us an email instead. Richard Hall is the president of the local Audubon Society. He suggested that student visit this website and also try cross-hatching the window with a yellow hi lighter. He also invited the students to write about their experience in the local Audubon Society newsletter! They are so excited about this opportunity.

This is such an exciting project. It is full of higher order thinking, student ownership, multiple standards, and authenticity. I was sure to be transparent with students about how we connected with so many fantastic people. The power of social media and technology “for good” is incredible.

February 21, 2013 by plemmonsa

“Same, Same but Different”: Making Connections through Blogging with 2nd Grade

983 miles to Van Meter

I’m so excited about the project that two 2nd grade classes are working on right now. Mrs. Ramseyer and Mrs. Wright’s classes are connecting with Shannon Miller’s 2nd grade students in Van Meter, Iowa. Right now, our 2nd graders are working on opinion writing. The idea for this project started there, but it has grown into so much more through email and face-to-face conversations with the teachers and tweets, emails, and Google Docs with Shannon Miller.

Yesterday, the 2 second grade classes came to the library to kickoff the project. We looked at Google Earth and mapped the distance from our school to Van Meter Elementary in Van Meter, Iowa. It is 983 miles and would take over 15 hours to drive there. Students were also curious about how long it would take to walk there, so Google Earth showed us it would take about 304 hours! With the approaching snow storm, I’m not sure I want to try that one!

Next we talked about what it means to blog. I showed them the library blog and how it is read by people all around the world. We even looked at the Clustr map showing where our blog readers come from. I was trying to build their understanding of how large your audience is when you publish your writing online.

The students will use Kid Blog to create their blogs. This tool allows you to quickly create multiple accounts through an Excel spreadsheet upload. No email addresses are required. Then, all students have to do is go to the blog, select their name, and type in their password to type their posts. We took a look at this, and you should have heard the excitement when they saw that their names were already on the screen.

Writing our paper blogs

Finally, we had the kids brainstorm with a partner what they might write about in a first post. We wanted the focus to be “About Me”. Before we sent them to tables to write, I reminded them of the importance of not including personal information such as full names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. At tables, each student wrote a paper blog post about themselves. Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Ramseyer, and I all walked around and conferenced with students on their posts. We were impressed with how much students were willing to write. I was reminded of the importance of kids having an authentic audience for their work and how motivating that audience can be to even the most reluctant of writers.

Same, Same but Different will be a theme for our conversations

Today, we connected via Skype with Shannon and her students. We read the book Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw. It was such a perfect book because it pushes the notion that all over the world we do things that are the same but they might look a little different. During our Skype, we paused and let the kids talk about Iowa and Georgia. They stepped up to the camera and asked questions about one another about the weather, activities, and school population. They made several connections to the story. For example, in Iowa it is about to snow a lot. It takes a major snow for them to get out of school. We get snow here in GA, too, but we get out of school if there is just a dusting. Same, same but different! As we blog with one anther, it is our hope to share our favorite books and opinions as well as continue to explore the idea of how connected we are in the world even though things might look and sound a little different. I have a feeling students will continue to say “Same, same but different”.

On Monday and Tuesday, our 2nd graders will type and post their blogs. We will mail our paper versions of our writing to Iowa so that Shannon’s students can practice commenting on them before they actually comment online. She will do the same with her students’ writing so that we can practice commenting, too.

From there, we hope to connect some more through Skype and through the continued writing of our blogs.

This is going to be a very rich experience for these students, teachers, and librarians!

Students stepped up to ask one another about living in Iowa and Georgia

February 20, 2013 by plemmonsa

Connecting Libraries with Extra Yarn (Part 2)

Today, Ms. Seeling’s students had the chance to connect with another Kindergarten class in Van Meter, Iowa. Librarian Shannon Miller and I read the book Extra Yarn once again and students made bookmarks to send to one another. It was another magical time.

I made some fun observations this time:

Students wondered if Shannon’s students could read the same letters that they do.
Students wondered if they would get their bookmarks in the mail by this afternoon.
Students wondered if Shannon’s students were in another country.
Students had personal stories for each of their bookmarks.

Any of these wonderings would have been great next steps of investigation in the library or in the classroom. The personal stories really made me curious, so I grabbed my phone and tried to capture a few of the stories. Each student had a reason they were using particular color and shapes. Many were trying to tell the Van Meter students something about themselves through their artwork. It really made me wonder how many stories we miss from students about the work that they create when we don’t stop to listen. I want to do better capturing these kinds of stories.

Bookmarks are almost ready to mail to Iowa.

Since Shannon and I connected our 2 classes, I’ve had some brainstorming going on with teachers and other librarians about other activities to do with the book Extra Yarn. Today, Ms. Seeling talked about doing a compliment web using yarn. A student gives another student a compliment and then tosses the yarn to that student. This continues until students have made a big web of yarn. Kathy Schmidt in Gwinnett County brainstormed with me on twitter. Now I really want to read the book again and try some of these new activities. There’s always next year. Who wants to connect? It’s not too early to start planning 🙂

Kathy and I brainstormed on Twitter.

After our brainstorm, Kathy extended the lesson Shannon and I did and shared on Twitter.

February 12, 2013 by plemmonsa

Connecting Libraries through some “Extra Yarn”

Shannon and I took turns reading pages of Extra Yarn.

What a fun day! After lots of tweeting, collaborating via a Google Doc, and emailing, Ms. Hocking’s Kindergarten Class connected today with Shannon Miller’s Kindergarten students in Van Meter, Iowa. In the spirit of World Read Aloud Day #WRAD13, we read a book that connected with the theme of “Reading it Forward” and used the book Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen. This book was just honored with the Caldecott Honor Award at the ALA Youth Media Awards. So far, I’ve read the book to all 1st grade classes and every class falls in love with this text and the illustrations. It also generates some great discussion about the mysterious yarn box.

In today’s session, Ms. Hocking’s Class gathered in the library. We talked about etiquette during the Skype session and looked at a map of where Van Meter Iowa is located. We also did a quick intro of what we would be doing together. Then, we made the call via Skype. Shannon Miller introduced her students and we enjoyed waving at one another and saying hello. Then, Shannon and I launched into reading the book. We each read a 2-page spread of the book, and it was so much fun to hear 2 different voices reading the text. The kids enjoyed joining in by saying “extra yarn” every time that appeared in the text. It was great to hear voices in 2 different states shouting “extra yarn”. We stopped a little bit along the way to look at how the illustrations were changing and to make some predictions. Our last step was to make yarn bookmarks to send to one another. Shannon’s students had already made their bookmarks before the call, so they were able to show us their work. This really inspired my students to do their best work and to make connections to what Shannon’s students had already started. We said goodbye and got to work on our bookmarks. Each student had a card stock bookmark with yarn attached at the end. They put their name on the bookmark and decorated both sides. Now we will mail our bookmarks to Iowa and eagerly await bookmarks to arrive from Iowa. We plan to continue to connect these 2 classes through a follow-up project in book making.

You can read Shannon’s post about the experience on her Van Meter Library Voice Blog!

Student bookmarks had yarn attached to the end in honor of the book.

Our students are read to send their bookmarks to Iowa

Our students are ready to send their bookmarks to Iowa

This was such a fun time. It meant a lot to the students, and it was really super easy to do through so many virtual tools. I look forward to many more collaborations with Shannon and other librarians across the country (and world)!