For the final sandbox I chose to explore coding. I have no previous experience with coding and honestly have a hard time wrapping my head around how it works. Having been a middle school history teacher and currently being a high school history teacher, coding is not something that is pushed or even mentioned in my content area. As the article by Moen mentions, “coding is a trending topic these days…in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education” (Moen, 2016)

Despite this, I taught summer school at an elementary school while I was in undergrad and my students participated in a coding class everyday and they all seemed to really enjoy it. Additionally, as I make my transition to becoming a librarian, coding is definitely something that I both need and want to make myself familiar with. As Moen says, literacy is about more than just reading and writing and librarians can absolutely help with that (Moen, 2016). An Article by Snelling suggests that teaching coding is important as it will prepare students for their future as the world becomes more computer literate and digitized (Snelling, 2018). In fact, if I were to become an elementary school or middle school librarian I would aim to have a coding club for students to participate in after school. 

I think that the code.org website is fantastic, there are so many options for each grade level and stage of coding that one might be at. I also really, really appreciate that you don’t have to login to start coding, that is always such a help in a classroom setting! 

References: 

Moen, M. (2016, September 30). Computer Coding and Literacy: Librarians Lead the Connection. International Literacy Association. https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2016/09/30/computer-coding-and-literacy-librarians-lead-the-connection

Snelling, J. (2018, April 3). Don’t Stress About Coding: Focus Shifts to Teaching Problem Solving Not Computer Skills. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=dont-stress-coding-focus-shifts-teaching-problem-solving-not-computer-skills

I was VERY excited to create my own QR code this week. As mentioned in this week’s lecture, I know that they have been around for quite some time, but I never really got around to using them in my everyday life until the pandemic. Not only in education, but restaurants and businesses started using them too. I like that they are easy to use and I think that even more so than in the classroom they could have a lot of purpose in library settings. At my school library, the librarian uses them for ebooks. Wherever the library also has an ebook copy of whatever print book might be on the shelf she will display a QR code for students to scan with their phones. I absolutely plan to implement these in the future!

Here’s the QR I created which links to my Digital Learning Assignment that is very much still a work in progress! 

For my virtual field trip I did the 7 New Wonders of the World and the history teacher in me thought about World History and Geography classes right away! The partial Google virtual field trip that I took was very user friendly and I think that it could also be used in lower grades. My school does have a class set of VR goggles, but when those are in use I think this would be a great way to engage more visual learners. Rather than a more traditional ‘webquest’ assignment, students can use virtual field trips to find out more about the places and things that they are learning about in class.

I chose to explore Genially, Haiku Deck and emzae for this week’s blog. 

Genially: Before being able to explore what the site has to offer one must sign up/create an account. I signed up as an educator and decided to explore the gamify category first, but quickly realized that a paid subscription was needed to use this feature of the website. After this, I went back to the ‘regular’ presentation category. I like the templates that are provided and the website seems user friendly enough. As a big Canva fan, this website’s format reminds me of it a lot. Although it was not free I would be interested in learning more about the gamify feature, that is something that I really like to use with my students and it would be cool to create my own games. I ended up using this to create my short presentation and liked the site more and more as I went. Teachers can add passwords and other interactivity which would be cool for creating things like escape rooms. Here is the link to my creation: https://view.genial.ly/60eb9eb7add8d70d2f23fe9a/presentation-history-presentation-iii

Haiku Deck: This website is a little tricker to find the basic or free version. Once you do however, you can create three ‘decks’ for free and after that you would need to upgrade your membership. Nothing about this site was particularly amazing and I would not recommend it to other educators for the price. 

Emaze: After exploring the other two websites I was expecting more of the same thing. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find something different on this site. Despite this the format is not as clean and crisp as what I’m used to on sites like Canva, Google Slides, Keynote and Microsoft PowerPoint. However the templates are fun, I just think that the format would take some getting used to. Also, many of the templates that I did like were premium so I was not able to use the. 

Since it seems that so many advanced presentations sites require subscriptions, I would encourage other educators to find their favorite and stick with it. Many of them do the same things with different formats and subscription costs would add up quickly if someone subscribed to all of them.

Due to being a hybrid teacher last school year I do have a bit of experience with creating video lessons. I used Canvas Studio to do such as it was the LMS my school chose to use last school year. However, I did not do anything fancy due to lack of time, just a powerpoint or Google slides presentation that I turned into a video with a voice over. For this assignment I chose to explore Prezi, Kapwing, and Animoto. 

Prezi: I chose to use Prezi for my video because it seemed to be the most user friendly. I liked the simplicity of it and that users can either upload powerpoint slides or create their own as they go. I also liked the multiple options for recording: only you, you and your slides, or just your slides. As a teacher I prefer to record myself as a tiny little bubble in the corner or just my voice while I read and flip through the slides. I did not like that inorder to download the presentation/video that I created I had to have a subscription. Three dollars a month is not ridiculously expensive, but as a teacher/librarian little subscriptions like these add up over time. 

Kapwing: I really like all the features that Kapwing offered, the workspace reminded me a lot of Canva. I attempted to make my video on this site, so that I could add cool transitions and music to the background of my video. However, the learning curve was a bit steep and I wanted to budget my time a little more wisely. Teachers/librarians who are techy and fast learners would really enjoy this site as it has so many great things to offer. On the downside, this site also has pricing plans which is not ideal for educators who depend on this site for classroom or library continent.

Animoto: This site reminded me a lot of Kapwing at first, but I think that I liked this site the most and the many templates it offered. This site could produce some really nice presentations and short videos that educators could use in their classrooms/libraries. 

I think some of these sites, especially the last two, have rather steep learning curves. Also, they do not offer everything for free so student usage may be a problem. However, if teachers/librarians make a lot of presentations like these they may be worth the subscription fee.

I really enjoyed learning about all of the audio tools this week. I had a little bit of prior knowledge regarding audio tools from this school year. Starting out the year virtual presented a bit of a challenge for me to accommodate my students who needed a read aloud accommodation or just students who do better when they hear things read out loud to them. However, I stumbled across a TikTok post where the creator suggested a chrome extension that could be embedded and linked into various assignments. I appreciated the Edutopia article that listed other suggestions for audio tools aside from teacher use. Using the refining voice seems like an excellent way to have students respond to various things without writing or typing (King & LeVan, 2016). I think that students would appreciate being able to make voice notes on occasion too depending on what they are trying to complete.

Vocaroo, Speakpipe, and Cylp all seem straightforward and very easy to use, which is always appreciated by both teachers and students. Vocaroo and Speakpipe would definitely be my favorite as they did not ask me to sign up or create an account to use them. This is always appreciated when working with students, especially younger ones who have a hard time with creating accounts and remembering usernames and passwords. 

Additionally, I think podcasts are great. I listen to podcasts daily and have been wanting to incorporate them into my classroom for some time now. I am all about variety as an educator and the more variety I can have in the classroom/library the better. I listened to Hey Black Child, a black history podcast by the Ausmer family/siblings which sparked an idea for me. Either in a classroom or in a library setting students could create their own podcast using some of the audio tools aforementioned. I really liked that the podcast was short and sweet. I think that students would do well with this and a teacher/librarian could possibly create an activity for peer sharing or listening. 

Click here to listen to my blog post.

References: 

Ausmer, A., & Ausumer, A. (Host). (2020-present). Hey Black Child [Audio podcast]. Listen Notes. https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/hey-black-child/poetry-floetry-pilot-episode-cmtkPE4pUlz/

King, M., & LeVan, K. S. (2016, July 18). 4 Ways Audio Recording Can Boost Classroom Learning. Edutopia. Retrieved June 13, 2021, from https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/4-ways-audio-recording-can-boost-classroom-learning 

For this assignment, I decided to use Canva because it is what I am most familiar with. However, I still have a lot to learn with Canva as its capabilities exceed my knowledge. Despite this, I think Canva is a wonderful site with great free tools to create things like infographics. The templates are a great place to start for newbies. Next school year I plan to freshen up some of the current posters in my room using Canva. It’s an excellent resource for librarians and educators to be able to utilize wether they need something printed out or if they just need to present something digitally.

I don’t know that I would have my middle schoolers, sixth graders specifically use Canva. Sometimes they struggle to use Google apps that they frequent several times a week. I would however let high schoolers give it a try if they’d like to use it as a resource.

I struggled a bit with what to put on my infographic, but ultimately came up with one that would help me with baking.

I found my first image of Gettysburg, PA on Pixabay, which I am familiar with because I often use it to find pictures for various things in my classroom. For instance the past few weeks we’ve been learning about The American Civil War in Class so I have been searching for images to help give my students better visuals. However, correctly learning how to cite pictures and fully understanding all of the licenses has proven to be a challenge for me this week.

Despite this, I enjoyed learning and exploring the various tools that can be used to edit a picture. These tools and other websites that have a large variety of pictures can be used in the Library and the Classroom in many different ways. Teachers and librarians can edit the images to help fit whatever lesson or topic is being taught that day, and write directly overtop if necessary. Pixlr was especially helpful in editing my Abraham Lincoln picture. I loved that with both Pixabay and Pixlr I was not asked to enter an email or sign up for anything!

According to the article Financial Management by Velasquez, money is needed to keep libraries up and running (2019). Specifically in an academic library, “a librarian may be responsible for just the business section, purchasing the materials and making suggestions regarding the serials to support that section” (Velasquz, 2019, p. 135). Budgeting is a large part of managing finances in a library and the less there is to work with, the harder it can be to stay on budget and acquire everything needed, let alone wanted. Whoever is in charge of balancing numbers and allocating for the library to be very precise with what they do with the budget. 

It seems as though even before the COVID-19 pandemic funding and budgets for libraries were rather slim. In talking to the librarian at my school in a conversation last school year, she told me that it is important to advocate as much as one can for the budget because at my school it is usually rather small. I can only imagine that during COVID-19 schools might have to cut funding from the library and use it elsewhere. According to an article by Maughn, some of the budget cuts from the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year seem to be blamed on the pandemic, rather than caused by the pandemic and some teachers have even lost their positions due to lack of funding (2020).

Websites like SaveSchoolLibrarians.org, a website funded by Follet, are advocating for school libraries to stay funded during the pandemic and beyond. There is an option on the website to send an email to a state representative asking them to fund school libraries after COVID-19 and mentioning the importance of school libraries (Fund School Libraries after COVID-19, n.d.). Websites like this are necessary because funding for libraries seems to slip through the cracks. Now with a global pandemic, there is even more of a reason that libraries can go underfunded or even worse, be defunded. 

On the bright side, school librarians are doing all they can do to keep their libraries running despite so many restrictions and looming budget cuts. An article by Bamberger et al., highlights some of the ways school librarians have been going above and beyond during the pandemic (2020). Some examples include librarians sending books out to students and setting up YouTube channels to read to students (Bamberger et al., 2020). 

References

Bamberger, C., Bryan, C., Campbell, J., & Schultz, A. (2020, July 01). As COVID-19 Budget Cuts Loom, Relevance of School Librarians Put to the Test. Education Week. Retrieved February 25, 2020, from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/as-covid-19-budget-cuts-loom-relevance-of-school-librarians-put-to-the-test/2020/07

Fund School Libraries after COVID-19. (n.d.). every library. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://www.saveschoollibrarians.org/fund_school_libs_after_covid

Maughan, S. (2020, August 14). Supporting School Librarians Through Covid-19 and Beyond. Publishers Weekly. Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/84105-supporting-school-librarians-through-covid-19-and-beyond.htmlVelasquez, D. L. (2019). Financial management. In L. K. Hussey & D. L. Velasquez (Eds.), Library Management 101: A Practical Guide (2nd ed.) (pp. 135–147). Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

Library Mission/Vision: “Each school shall maintain an organized library media center as the resource center of the school and provide a unified program of media services and activities for students and teachers before, during and after school. The library media center shall contain hard copy, electronic technological resources, materials, and equipment that are sufficient to meet research, inquiry, and reading requirements of the instructional program and general student interest. Each school provides a variety of materials, resources and equipment to support the instructional program.” (Dinwiddie County Public Schools, 2018).  

School Mission: “The mission of Dinwiddie County Public Schools is to provide each student the opportunity to become a productive citizen, engaging the entire community in the educational needs of our children. By believing in a set of core values, we strive to bring excellence to our academics and everything we do. We believe in being fair and impartial by providing equity of treatment to our students. Last, by modeling and expecting integrity, our students will be learning life skills of being honest, trustworthy, and having a strong ethical belief. Giving our students opportunities and core values of Excellence, Equity, and Integrity will help them become productive citizens while they aspire to reach their goals and dreams for the future.” (Dinwiddie County Public Schools, n.d.)

For this assignment I chose the library at my school, Dinwiddie Middle School. I was not able to find anything regarding the library mission statement or vision on my own, so I asked the school librarian. She directed me to the Dinwiddie County school board website, where there is a section titled “School Libraries/Media Center” with the above information listed under that page. This information was buried deeply on the school board website and it took several emails back and forth with my librarian for me to locate it. The first statement (titled library mission above) does not explicitly state that it is the mission  or vision statement of the library, but the school librarian told me that it was and that this was all the county had. I was able to find the explicit school mission statement on the school website. 

Even prior to reading articles about school library VMOSAs I knew that the one provided for not only Dinwiddie Middle School library, but all of the Dinwiddie County Public Schools libraries was inadequate. The statement was vague and in my opinion states the obvious. Moran and Morner (2018) suggest that “thinking strategically means focusing upon a vision for the organization as it attempts to create distinctive value” (p. 80). While strategic planning is the result of the prior thinking process (Moran & Morner, 2018, p. 81). The statement provided about the library does state why the library exists and what its role is at the schools. Despite this, it does not give hope for the future or mention any objectives for the future. It seems as if the statement is only covering the “who are we?” and “where are we now” as mentioned by Moran and Morner in the planning process (2018, p. 81). 

I do appreciate that there are not a lot of fancy or complicated words used and even students would be able to read and understand the statement as it is now. As a potential stakeholder and even potential future librarian at this school, I would like for the statement to be revised to mention the future of the library and its values and culture. As it stands the statement only covers the purpose of the library rather than an overall vision for the library. The school mission statement makes mention of values and culture, but not the library mission statement. As Moran and Morner mention, a discussion of an organization’s values and the shared values of all employees and other stakeholders is important” (2018, p. 86). 

Overall, the statement should be rewritten to mention several other things aside from just the purpose of the library. Lastly, this revised statement should be much more accessible, while I know that  librarians are always happy to help others find information, I do not see why it could not be posted in the library as well as on the library website for the school. 

References: 

Dinwiddie County Public Schools. (n.d.). Our Approach. Dinwiddie County Public Schools. Retrieved February 10, 2021, from https://www.dinwiddie.k12.va.us/discover-dcps/our-approach/

Dinwiddie County Public Schools. (2018, February). SCHOOL LIBRARIES/MEDIA CENTERS. DINWIDDIE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD. Retrieved February 9, 2021, from https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/dinwiddie/Board.nsf/Public#

Moran, B. B., & Morner, C. J. (2018). Library and information center management (9th ed.). Libraries Unlimited.