September 18, 2012 by plemmonsa

LL8 Virtual Comic Workshop with Jarrett Krosoczka

I have long been a fan of Jarrett Krosoczka’s illustrations and writing. His Lunch Lady comics are among the most popular comics in our library. I was thrilled to learn that he was doing a virtual comic workshop today via Ustream for free! I advertised this to teachers a few weeks ago so that they could watch in their classroom or in the media center.

Today a small group of 3 students and their teacher came for the 10:00 session.

My largest group came for the 12:00 session. In this group, I had 2nd grade Spectrum students who will be studying graphic novels very soon. Last week, I did an exploration lesson with their class to identify some of the elements of graphic novels. They began constructing some of their questions for Jarrett. Later, they will read multiple graphic novels before constructing their own. Another group that came at 12:00 came by choice. One of Jarrett’s biggest fans, Marquavious, is a 5th grader at our school. Marquavious re-read all of the Lunch Lady books to gear up for today’s webcast. His teacher gave him permission to leave class to come, but he did some detective work and found several other 5th graders who wanted to participate in the workshop, too. All of these students brought their lunch to the library and ate while they watched. I also put drawing materials out on tables for them to draw their own comics along with Jarrett.

All of this setup really helped us when Jarrett had technical difficulties at the 12:00 session. Since the session was delayed until 12:30PM, I had time to have the students eat lunch, create mini-comics, and read some of Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta. Even though the food ended up all over the tables and carpet, it just seemed appropriate to have lunchroom food during our virtual comic workshop.

Jarrett showed the kids some pages from his newest book, a sneak peak of the cover of his book coming out in April, and ended by creating a comic using ideas from all of the viewers tuning in. The kids had a great time, and they were thrilled when they heard their suggestions read aloud by Jarrett and were even more over-the-top with excitement when he used one of their ideas in his comic. Thanks for a great FREE event, Jarrett Krosoczka!

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April 6, 2012 by plemmonsa

Poem In Your Pocket Day 2012 LIVE!

On Thursday April 12^th & Friday April 13^th, we invite you and your family members to tune in to our live poetry broadcast from the Barrow Media Center. Every class will visit the media center to read original and favorite poetry into our open microphone. You can view these readings via Adobe Connect online where you will see and hear the students and also type comments for the students. To access the webcast, follow these instructions:

Visit http://clarkecounty.adobeconnect.com/barrowmediacenter
Select “Enter as Guest”, type your name, and click “Enter Room”.
Mr. Plemmons will approve you and you should be able to immediately see and hear the broadcast.
In the event that the image or sound suddenly disappear, just stay in the room and Mr. Plemmons will work to get everything reconnected.
If you have technical difficulties at your computer, you can type comments to Mr. Plemmons in the chat and he will do his best to assist you.
All poetry readings will be recorded and published on the Barrow Media Center blog soon after the event. https://barrowmediacenter.wordpress.com

We hope to “see” many of you (and your family members) at our live webcast. It means so much to the students to know there is an audience listening and commenting on their work. Mr. Plemmons will share any comments you leave with the students.

Schedule for Thursday April 12^th

Time	Class
8:20	Sheppard-2^nd
8:40	Hart-1^st
9:00	Wyatt-1^st
9:20	Em-K
9:40	Li-K
10:00	Watson-1^st
10:20	Stuckey-1^st
10:40	Shealey-3^rd
12:20	Brink-2^nd
12:40	Brewer-2^nd
1:00	Yawn-2^nd
1:20	O’Prey 5^th
1:40	Boyle-K
2:00	Vertus-K

Schedule for Friday April 13

Time	Class
8:00	Slongo-5^th
8:20	Cross-5^th
8:40	Carney-K
9:00	Hocking-Prek
9:20	Spurgeon-3^rd
9:40	McCannon-3^rd
10:00	Griffith-3^rd
10:20	Clarke-PreK
10:40	Olin-4^th
11:00	Freeman-4^th
11:20	Selleck-4^th

April 15, 2011 by plemmonsa

Poem In Your Pocket Day 2011

Amazing! Global! Collaborative! Snap! I’m overjoyed by how today’s Poem In Your Pocket Day went. For the past 3 years, we’ve been observing national poem in your pocket day by carrying poems in our pockets, wearing stickers to promote the day, and holding a day of poetry reading in the media center where every child (and adult) has a chance to read poems into our open microphone. This year, we tried something new: a live webcast. Using Clarke County’s new purchase of Adobe Connect, Joel Frey setup a room for the Barrow Media Center. The link was sent directly to the PTA listserve and an online registration was setup via Google Forms for anyone else interested. Registrants on Google Forms were emailed the room link.

Today, 18 classes came to the media center for 20 minute poetry reading sessions. Students came up one at a time and read their poems. We all celebrated with snaps. At the same time via Adobe Connect, parents, media specialists, classrooms within our school, classrooms across the district, and family members in other parts of the United States and the world were watching, listening, and making comments about the student poetry. As online participants made comments, I shared the comments with the students in between poets walking to the microphone. Amazing things started to happen. Students started huddling around the computer waiting for the next comment to come in. They got excited when they saw that someone was typing. They wondered why someone didn’t make a comment about their poem. They kept asking, “You mean people can really see us? They’re watching us right now?” It was electric.

Online, participants made comments about how much they appreciated being able to connect with their child, nephew, cousin, etc. People joined us from multiple locations: Mrs. Marsha West, Barrow’s former media specialist, joined us from Lincoln, Nebraska. One student had family members join us from Chicago, Illinois, Cohutta, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Another student had an uncle tune in from Afghanistan. Parents explored a technology that many had never tried, and they appreciated this opportunity to think about learning and connecting globally in a new way.

At the same time, every teacher in the school got to see a new technology in action, and now the ideas are beginning to spark about how this can be used in the future. At least two teachers have already approached me with ideas for future events or lessons.

This afternoon, as I walked down the halls, a student stopped me and said, “Mr. Plemmons, did anyone else make a comment about my poem?” Kids want authentic audiences beyond their classroom walls. Thank you, Clarke County for giving us this tool. Now, our task is to keep using it, seeking out authentic audiences, connecting with experts around the globe, and collaborating with classrooms in our own district and beyond.

You can listen to every class recording on Adobe Connect below. At each link, you will hear and see the students reading poetry. You will also see the chat comments that took place during the webcast and hear my announcements to the students each time a comment came in. I hope you will take some time to see what an important day this was for us in the media center.

You are also invited to tune in on Monday April 18th, where several PreK, Kindergarten, and 1st grade classes will read their poems between 8:00AM-12:20PM EST.

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