March 7, 2014 by plemmonsa

World Read Aloud Day 2014 (Day 5): Final Thoughts

Our final day of Read Across America and World Read Aloud Day was once again filled with special memories.

We read Crankee Doodle with Meghan Nels and her students.

Matthew Winner and I got creative about how to read Open This Little Book with our students.

Cathy Potter and I had fun reading I’m Bored and letting our students show the many ways you can say “boring”.

Shawna Ford, Shannon Hyman, and I all found students to read parts of a reader’s theater of One Cool Friend. We loved hearing voices in 3 states reading the story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obgJE25jgy0

Stacy Ford and I had a great time being Elephant and Piggie with our students as we read I’m a Frog.

Randie Groden and I had some impromptu skyping as I had a class cancel! Several 5th graders who were checking out books gathered around the projection area to meet her first graders and read Same, Same but Different. Sometimes the unexpected is fun!

We ended our WRAD week with a connections between Shannon Miller and Barbara Terracciano along with author, Tom Angleberger. He read aloud the part of Crankee in Crankee Doodle, and it was the perfect ending to our week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8THyuqTDj9o

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t read aloud. Every day is read aloud day.

When I think of World Read Aloud Day, I think of connections.

Kate DiCamillo, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and 2-time Newbery winner, says “Stories Connect Us”. In Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen, all of the characters are connected to one another through strands of yarn as the main character knits sweaters for everything and everyone in sight. In Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, we learn that we really are all connected in the world by common strands of life even if those strands might look a bit different based on our cultures, locations, and beliefs.

World Read Aloud Day is about all of these things. Even though we should read aloud every day, World Read Aloud Day raises our awareness of the importance of reading aloud. It reminds us that when we read aloud, we connect. When we read aloud, we expand our world. When we read aloud, we learn that the world really isn’t as big as it seems. We are all united through power of story and spoken word.

This year, our planning for World Read Aloud Day/Week began in December. My wonderful friend and collaborator, Shannon Miller, created a Google Doc for educators around the world to use as a space to share their schedules and ideas. The two of us shared the doc through blog posts, twitter, facebook, and conversations. Over 3 months later, the doc is filled with conversations that each tell a story of a connection between multiple groups of students. When you look at this single document, you know that students, teachers, teacher librarians, and families around the world are being impacted by powerful experiences of hearing stories read aloud, participating in conversations about books, and building connections to new friends around the world.

Our school:

engaged in 36 skype sessions
made 50 connections in these sessions
met new friends in 22 states and 2 other countries

Along the way, we built a Google Earth Tour using Google’s tour builder. This tool allowed us to quickly add pins to a world map, add photographs and videos, and write a summary of each skype session and what we loved and learned. I love how at the end of the week, we instantly have documentation that allows us to remember, reflect, and celebrate the fun that we have had during this week.

View our Google Tour Here!

Today, I received several thank you letters from students. Organizing this many Skype sessions is exhausting. I won’t lie about that, but the rewards that come from the hard work make up for all of the time I spent organizing this week. Receiving these letters reminded me why I advocate for World Read Aloud Day and why I believe in the power of connecting with one another through story. Thank you Litworld for creating such an amazing world-wide event.

February 11, 2014 by plemmonsa

Connecting Libraries: Using Tinkercad with Students in Van Meter, IA

Hanging out in Iowa from my kitchen!

I had so much fun today spending some time in Van Meter, IA from my kitchen. Shannon Miller and her students just received their Makerbot 3D Printer from Donors Choose. Her students are starting an Olympic project where they will be designing new symbols for the Olympics. Students will eventually use Tinkercad for their designs. Since this is a new tool for her students, Shannon thought it would be a good idea for us to connect and share what we’ve learned. I had a group of 5th graders eager to share their expertise, but the GA ice and snow caused us to be out of school today. Rather than keep her students waiting, I went ahead and shared my own learning about Tinkercad. We plan to reconnect when we are back in school so that students can share. I’m sure that her students will have just as much to share with mine by the time we reconnect next week.

Here’s our Google Hangout from today:

After the Hangout, I realized that I forgot to tell them an important step, so I made a quick screencast to fill in the hole I missed. I also share with them the steps that wouldn’t screen share through hangouts.

http://youtu.be/YgQ_fN7WQwY

It was wonderful to be a part of another library. We all have expertise to share, so why not share beyond our walls. Happy making, friends!

December 30, 2013 by plemmonsa

Let’s Connect For LitWorld’s World Read Aloud Day During The Week Of March 5th

On March 5th, we will celebrate World Read Aloud Day with LitWorld again.

We will actually celebrate all week long….March 3rd through the 7th.

One of my favorite connected educator friends, Shannon Miller, and I have been planning our collaboration and teaching plans for 2014 so of course World Read Aloud Day was a very important part of this. We decided to write this post and start planning, connecting, and sharing the excitement for this day.

This is always such a special day for celebrating the power of literacy….and one of the best for our libraries, schools, and students too.

You can read about all of our connections at Barrow at the post from last year, World Read Aloud Day 2013. Also check out Shannon’s post at Van Meter, Our World Read Aloud Day Celebration Connected Us 21 Times During The Week That Made A Difference.

This year we are excited for even more of these special connections.

If you are interested in connecting with others on this day, please add your name, schedule, and ideas to the information in the Google Doc that we started. This will begin to fill up with others around the world as they want to connect their students and schools too.

We plan to celebrate throughout that entire week….March 3-7th.

On March 3, it is also NEA’s Read Across America Day so we will tie this together with World Read Aloud Day too.

Also, check out all the wonderful activity ideas and resources that LitWorld has included on their website here.

The classroom kit is great! We love how it contains suggestions for read-aloud, suggestions for group activities, and a fundraising guide to support LitWorld and their programs.

Let us know if you have any questions on how this works. One of the fun parts is collaborating and throwing around ideas with each other.

Have fun and get connected for World Read Aloud Day this year too.

Many thanks to Shannon Miller for creating this post for us to share.

December 13, 2013 by plemmonsa

Hour of Code Days 3-5

This week has just been incredible. It’s hard to believe that just a couple of weeks ago the planning for this week began.

Even with lots of benchmark tests and wrapping up the end of the quarter, our Barrow teachers found time to bring students to the library to participate in Hour of Code.

No matter which class came, I saw similar results: engaged students, problem solving, collaboration, suspension of time, perseverance. Exposing students to coding has opened up a new world for them. I loved having a conversation with students during every session about the importance of coding knowledge in their future. Who knows what jobs will be out there when these students join the workforce, but coding is very likely going to be a part of it.

During the week, our internet has been extremely slow, which has given us lots of problems. It hasn’t stopped us though. We did have to abandon some of the computer programs like Tynker because they just wouldn’t load on our machines.

Kindergarten and 1st grade continued to explore Kodable. Second grade started exploring Light-bot on the iPad instead of Tynker. An interesting thing started to happen with these students because they got up out of their seats and acted out the moves that their robot needed to make in order to visualize the code they needed to put in. I loved watching the strategies that students developed to figure out the code they needed.

Students have recorded some of their thinking using a Fligrid this week, which was yet another new tool to many students. They loved making these short videos about their learning.

A group of third graders along with the whole 4th and 5th grade explored Scratch to make an interactive holiday card. The 4th and 5th grade groups were huge because the entire grade level came together. I kept our whole group time very short. I stressed the importance of not giving up, messing around to see how things work, using tutorials, and collaborating. It was amazing to watch a group of 75+ students disperse, find their own work spaces, and get to work. When they figured things out, they shared. For the 4th grade group, we did a Google Hangout on Air with Sherry Gick (@LibraryFanatic) and her students who were using Blockly. During the hangout, we each setup a computer and headset and students were able to talk to one another about what they were doing. I picked up our laptop and walked around our library to show her students what my students were doing. Sherry got on the microphone several times and helped some of my students with their questions too. It was a great experiment that I definitely want to try again because it opened up our walls to student-to-student collaboration across states. I wanted to try the idea of coders on call, and this was a step toward that for the future. You can see how the conversations turned out in this video:

Next week, we hope to connect students again with Sherry Gick’s students in Indiana and Shannon Miller’s students in Iowa to share some of their learning and creations. This week has sparked interest in coding, and I’m sure that coding will make its way into many of the collaborative projects during the year. Thank you Code.org and Computer Science Education Week for putting together such a great program, inspiring videos, and helpful tutorials. The word is out that coding is a critical skill needed by our students.

Here’s a glimpse of what happened at Barrow this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9t5MVRz0I4

November 21, 2013 by plemmonsa

Picture Book Smackdown: Celebrating and Learning

Before the hangout started, over 200 people had viewed our Smore page.

Today was our Picture Book Smackdown Google Hangout On Air. We had an amazing lineup of schools and authors to share their favorite picture books and talk about why picture books matter in our world. This event grew from a seed of an idea on a Google Doc into a collaborative event. Each participant and school brought their own talents, expertise, and connections to the table to make this event successful. This was my first leap into Google Hangouts to do an event such as this. I always tell students, teachers, and families that we have to be willing to take risks. If we don’t put ourselves in a place of risk, then we’ll never learn. We don’t do our best learning in places of comfort. I certainly learned a lot today by taking that risk. I want to thank each of these schools for preparing their students and taking time out of their day to connect and share with the world a love of reading and picture books.

Jenny Lussier, school librarian in Durham, Connecticut
Cathy Potter, school librarian in Falmouth, Maine
Kathy Kaldenberg, school librarian in Solon, Iowa
Shawna Ford, school librarian in Weatherford, Texas

I also want to thank authors Laurel Snyder and Ame Dyckman for joining us and sharing their own favorite picture books and why picture books matter. They both have busy schedules and it meant so much to have them take the time to join us. My adrenaline is finally coming down from the morning and I’m pausing to reflect on the experience.

What I loved:

Student voices from 5 different states were united.
Students were passionate about the picture books they were talking about.
Students had an opportunity to take a stance on talking about something that mattered to them.
Students were able to create an archived video that can be referenced for many purposes like inspiring readers of picture books or even showing a district’s technology department the power of Google Hangouts.
Authors and students had the chance to speak together on a level playing field discussing a common interest.
Students from multiple grade levels, backgrounds, and experiences made a connection to one another.
Students were engaged. Each student had a role and purpose and were so eager to share even when technical difficulties happened. My students stayed for a whole hour and were happy to wait and watch.
Even though only 10 people can participate in the hangout, we knew that many others were tuning in live or watching later, which connected us all with a very large authentic audience.

What I learned as the host:

Using a Smore page to advertise the event was a great choice. We could all advertise the Smore, and then the actual hangout could be embedded right before we went live. The page also gave analytics after a certain amount of views which allowed us to see where people were viewing the Smore and how they were sharing it.
In advance, communicate with all participants about what is expected during the hangout: order of speaking, microphone rules, etc. Make sure that all participants are added to your circles in Google Plus.
Prepare students in advance and practice. As the host, there was no time to check-in with students today to see how they were. They had to be ready to walk in the door and go live.
Have someone available to either facilitate students sharing or running the keyboard. It was hard to do both. Someone needs to click on each person in the hangout when it is their turn to speak if you are the host.
If you are broadcasting your hangout over speakers, then you should mute your microphone when you aren’t speaking. If people are unmuted, there is feedback.
I’m considering having my control center be in a separate space so that I can click on who is next in the hangout and have students speak in a less noisy environment. Then, I can have viewing of the hangout in another space.
If you have multiple modes of communication with your participants: twitter, email, hangout chat, etc., it is difficult to manage and host. Perhaps over time I might be able to juggle all of those roles, but I just ignored email and twitter during the hangout today.

What stressed me out!:

Feeling like everything had to be perfect and forgetting my own mantra that we have to be willing to fail in order to learn.
Having moments of panic when the connection was slow, the microphone wouldn’t mute, the main video wouldn’t switch to the right person, or when the audio had a lot of feedback.
Trying to host the event on air by verbally calling on each school. Sometimes my microphone wouldn’t mute/unmute in time. It was great when we got in a rhythm of our order and self-facilitated our speakers.

Take a look at how our event turned out, and please share your own learning about using Google Hangouts On Air in the comments below.

November 19, 2013 by plemmonsa

A Picture Book Smackdown is Coming!

I am so excited about a Picture Book Month event that I have planned on Thursday. From 10-11:00AM EST, 6 schools in 5 different states and 2 authors in 2 different states will come together in a Google Hangout on Air to share favorite picture books as well as why picture books are for everyone. The hangout will broadcast live on Youtube, but it will also be recorded.

How did this come about?

November is National Picture Book Month. It’s a month where I ask students, teachers, and families to read as many picture books as possible and to think about the importance of picture books in our world. It’s also a month where a lot of educators make connections with one another to celebrate and explore together. At the beginning of the month, Laura D’Elia, school librarian in Massachusetts, organized a Google Doc for librarians across the country to make connections with one another by having access to one another’s schedules. The Doc also became a space for brainstorming other ways to celebrate.

I suggested that we hold a picture book Google Hangout and share favorite picture books among schools. This immediately started some focused brainstorming on Thursday’s event. Several schools were on board and we pledged to meet together in Hartford, CT face to face at the American Association of School Librarians Conference. Even before we arrived there, we had started our plan of how to advertise the event, how to structure it, how to involve students, and how to bring in authors. Our Smore page began to populate with our ideas as they came together. Each one of us had additional connections with other schools and authors, so we each invited others to join our hangout. Cathy Potter invited Ame Dyckman, author, to join us. I invited Laurel Snyder, author, to join us. We are so excited that they will both be able to attend.

In advance, students at each of our schools are preparing in different ways for the event. My students filled out a short script to help them remember what to say. They basically had to remember things like the title, what the book was about, why they liked it, and why picture books are for everyone. They also practiced sitting in front of the camera and reading their script. Their books are waiting in a stack for our hangout.

We’ve read. We’ve recruited. We’ve prepared. We’ve organized. Now, we are ready to connect and have a full hour of sharing as many picture books as we can. It’s a smackdown! We hope that you will join us by visiting the Smore page at 10:00AM EST on Thursday November 21st. Just click on the video feed that will appear on the page at that time and enjoy. You can also tweet about our smackdown using #pbsmkdwn as the hashtag. If you can’t watch live, consider visiting the page and watching the archive of our hangout. You’ll also find a post on my blog later this week detailing how much fun we had during our connection.

This was so much fun to organize, and it really wasn’t extremely difficult. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Visit Our Smore Page for More Information!

October 10, 2013 by plemmonsa

Georgia COMO 2013 Keynote

Today I had the opportunity to be the keynote speaker at the Georgia Council of Media Organizations Conference in Macon, GA. My hope was to open the conference by inviting conference members to give themselves permission to imagine and dream possibilities for their programs. I hope that today’s keynote sparked some conversations that will carry people through the 2 days of the conference and beyond. Putting together these slides and presentation allowed me to spend a lot of time reflecting on my library program and the many participatory opportunities for the members of our library. Thank you to Diane Grffin, COMO chair, for the invitation to speak.

Many thanks to CCSD librarians Shannon Thompson and Shawn Hinger who sat at the front table and cheered me on.

October 3, 2013 by plemmonsa

Read for the Record 2013

What fun! Today we participated in Jumpstart’s Read for the Record. Since 2006, Jumpstart has been encouraging people around the world to break the record for the most people reading aloud the same book. This year, the book was Otis by Loren Long. We Give Books provided free access to this book for anyone who wanted to read it online. At the same time you were reading for the record, you were also supporting book donations around the world.

Today, 4 classes at Barrow participated in the media center, while some others read the book in their own classrooms. Each class was a bit different in what we did with the book.

Mrs. Clarke’s PreK class is studying cooperation. We used Capstone’s PebbleGo Social Studies database to learn about the word cooperation. Then, we gave examples from our own lives and classroom of how to cooperate. As we read Otis aloud, we talked about how cooperation was shown in the book. We also talked about how we were cooperating with people all around the world to read for the record.

Read for the Record through the years.

In Mrs. Watson’s 1st grade, we looked at the data from Read for the Record through the years. We also read about tornadoes on PebbleGo and made connections to Otis and the Tornado. 1st grade is studying weather along with their study of The Wizard of Oz so Otis and Otis and the Tornado were a perfect fit.

In Mrs. Wright’s 2nd grade class, we Skyped with Mrs. Lussier in Connecticut. We had also connected with her 4th grade students during Talk Like a Pirate Day, so it was fun to reconnect. We took turns reading pages in the book and then added to a friendship padlet. Since October is bullying awareness month, we used Otis to talk about being kind and showing friendship rather than bullying.

Showing pictures to Mrs. Techman’s students.

In Mrs. Ramseyer’s 2nd grade class, we Skyped with Mrs. Techman in Charlottesville, VA. I read the entire book to both classes and shared the pictures on the camera. Our students stopped along the way and made predictions for one another. We also took some time to tell about our own communities. We looked at a map of how far away VA is and how long it would take to walk or drive. Students wanted to know how long it would take to fly, so we pulled up a travel website and searched for a flight. We also took time to add to the Padlet in this class, and Mrs. Techman’s class will add to it tomorrow.

While all of this was going on, I also tweeted the link to the padlet. It was retweeted numerous times, so hopefully others will add to it. Shawn Hinger and her students at Clarke Middle in Athens took time to add their own thoughts on friendship. It was nice to have a middle school voice among the elementary ideas.

Once again, I was amazed by the power of connecting and how many standards can be woven into an event such as this. I can’t wait to see what the record was set at today!

Showing pictures to Mrs. Techman’s students.

September 19, 2013 by plemmonsa

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2013

Ahoy thar maties! Today be national “talk like a pirate” day. What better way to celebrate than dressing up like a pirate, reading some stories with classes around the country, writing some fun pirate sentences to practice saying, and creating some pirate stories.

That’s exactly what we did in the Barrow library. The planning started last weekend, when I started looking for classes in the school who wanted to participate. As class signed up, I used twitter to locate some special library friends around the country to connect with.

Over a couple of days, the schedule took shape for us to connect with:

Shannon Thompson at Stroud Elementary in Athens, GA
Jenny Lussier in Durham, CT
Okle Miller in Tampa, FL
Edie Crook in Gastonia, NC
Shannon Miller in Van Meter, IA

The plan during each connection was to:

look at a google map of where we were connecting and talk about distance
say hello with a few pirate words like “Arrrrrrrrrgh!”
take turns reading pages of a pirate story so that voices in each location were heard. Sometimes it would be the librarian and other times it would be the students reading.
Say goodbye
At tables, write pirate sentences using a pirate vocabulary sheet. Students could stretch out an -ar word or they could use actual pirate vocab.
Students moved to do projection areas to have an adult type their sentence onto a padlet. Throughout the day, any school could add to the padlet as they had time.

Our pirate padlet

We started our day with Mrs. Boyle’s Kindergarten class. They have been learning how to tell stories from pictures. Today was the launch of our storybird project, so I decided to focus our storybird on pirates. After warming up with some “Tell Me a Story” cards, we searched for pirate pictures on Storybird. We made a simple story with a beginning, middle, and end. It was a challenge to link our story together between pictures, but the students did a great job working together. Be sure to read their story here.

Our Storybird cover

Next, we skyped with Shannon Thompson at Stroud Elementary in Athens. Shannon and I took turn reading A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade by James Preller. We both read in our best pirate voices. Following our skype, we disconnected and students added sentences to the padlet. We reconnected on skype and students shared their sentences with one another in their best pirate voices. We had a few sound issues, which led me to switch the webcam I was using.

At 10 & 10:30, Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Ramseyer’s 2nd grade classes connected with Jenny Lussier’s 4th graders in CT. During one session, we read Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett Krosoczka and during the other session we read How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. It was fun to hear our different pirate voices and share the many costumes that both of our groups of students were wearing.

At 11:45, Mrs. Yawn’s 2nd grade class had a special triple skype. We connected with Okle Miller in FL and Edie Crook in NC at the same time.

Okle and I read How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long and Edie Crook read A is for Arrr! by Laura Salas. Okle had on a great pirate costume, and Edie’s students had made great pirate hats to share, too. It was fun to know our voices were connecting from 3 different southeastern states.

A is for Arrr! with Mrs. Crook

At 1:15, Shannon Miller’s students connected with Mrs. Em’s 1st grade students. We read How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. Our students also took time to share what was going on at our schools today. In addition to pirate day, our students had a walking field trip and Shannon’s students had dot day, Homecoming, and a color challenge. Shannon’s students took time to add to the padlet after our connection, while Mrs. Em’s students added sentences that focused on words that used sounds they were working on in class.

Finally, at 1:45 Mrs. Choate’s Kindergarten class connected with Edie Crook in NC. I read Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett Krosoczka and Pirates vs. Cowboys by Aaron Reynolds. It was a challenge to switch from pirate to cowboy while reading the book. It would be a fun book to read over skype if both schools have a copy because you would only have to keep up with one accent. I loved hearing Edie’s students make connections between the two books.

It was a fun-filled day. We made connections. We read text and had great discussions. We practiced reading fluently and with expression. We practiced our sentence writing. I’m exhausted. Now off to Krispy Kreme for some free donuts. They are giving away a full dozen of donuts if you are dressed like a pirate!

September 13, 2013 by plemmonsa

International Dot Day 2013 @ Barrow

Ms. Kelly Hocking’s class mural inspired by Chuck Close

International Dot Day has become a special day at our school and it seems to grow a bit each year. This day was created by author/illustrator Peter Reynolds. Each of Peter’s books focus in some way on creativity, expressing your individuality, and making your mark on the world. It’s so much more than a day to create dots. It’s a day to embrace your own uniqueness and express the things that you truly love. It’s a day to establish an environment of innovation and encourage students to express their ideas through multiple formats.

This year at Barrow many classes came to the library to read The Dot by Peter Reynolds and Press Here by Herve Tullet. Students made digital dots using Drawcast and Glow Coloring on the iPads. They made coffee filter dots with markers and water. They used the super cool app colAR Mix to create augmented reality dots. The media center windows have filled with dots throughout the past week to the point that you can barely see in. Our principal even let us have a Dot Dress-up Day today. It was so much fun to look down the halls and see dots everywhere.

Mr. Plemmons with pumpkin dots, converse dot, and Scaredy Squirrel dot.

A unique project that emerged was Ms. Kelly Hocking’s Kindergarten class. Kelly always listens carefully to her students’ interests and this year she has heard their interest in art. They are looking carefully at multiple artists and recently started looking at Chuck Close. His artwork had a direct connection to dot day with its many dots to make a larger image. This spark took us on a great journey. We read Sky Color by Peter Reynolds where students were introduced to murals. We spent time learning about Diego Rivera’s murals. I shared my own mural that is in my son’s room and how it was designed and painted. Students started looking in the community for murals. Some even began to report back about the murals that they saw while in Atlanta. Ms. Hocking facilitated her students in deciding what kind of mural they could make and over several class periods they penciled in their mural onto a large piece of paper and began filling it with dots just like they had seen in Chuck Close’s art. Today, their dot mural was displayed on the large window of our media center. The sunlight gave the mural a stained glass effect. It was breathtaking and so many people were in awe as they saw it. When I posted the picture of the mural on our media center facebook page, it immediately was showered with likes. The mural was surrounded by window cling dots that a Barrow parent discovered and collaborated with other parents to purchase some for the library.

Today was also a day for students to come and tour the dot gallery on the media center windows. I had all of our iPads available for classes to come and interact with the colAR dots on the inside and outside of the windows. Ms. Li’s Kindergarten class was here bright and early to look at the dots. Look at how much fun they had!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ga4bNA65AE

Reading The Dot with Van Meter

At the end of the day, Mrs. Wyatt’s 1st grade class skyped with Shannon Miller’s students in Van Meter Iowa. We read the dot together. Then, Mrs. Wyatt’s class used Google Earth to go on a virtual tour of a walking field trip that they will soon take in 5 Points. Each stop on the tour was of course a dot on the map!