Evidence Based Practice- Getting Started

With a lot of recent changes in our administration and school board we are working on a clear school mission and goals.  This is something that I am so excited to see take shape for Lake George, and hope to see create a cohesive K-12 focus.
For the library program, I am very fortunate to have Bridget, my wonderful elementary counterpart, because we have spent much time together in the last years planning and reflecting together on what is most important to focus on and build into our library curriculum.  We have fully embraced the fact that "Reflection makes us better", and taken every opportunity to do that.  Through that reflection with both Bridget, my administration, and my curriculum team, I have focused in on the goals of my library program, and boiled it down to the following mantra:

"Growing Innovators, Building Community, Connecting Globally"

All of these stem from goals for instruction, programing and professional development, and I would like to use them as the base for gathering evidence to speak to the success of the high school library program.  These are big ideas and goals, and I am continuing to work through specific, concrete methods for identifying and gathering evidence.  I have started by breaking each of these big ideas into concrete goals for this school year:

Growing Innovators:

• Continue to develop inquiry skills in our students.
• Identify and gather meaningful data in our library program.
• Implement a badging system in the MakerSpace.

Building Community:

• Move forward on the redesign of our library learning commons.
• Create and work with a library advisory club
• Increase promotion of literacy

Connecting Globally:

• Begin to infuse lessons with design thinking concepts.
• Build authentic audiences
• Invite in real world voices

Next, I need to develop a plan to identify successes and failures in each area. Some thoughts I have brainstormed to this end are below:

Growing Innovators:

• Identifying benchmark lessons/ inquiry skills at different grade levels to identify "holes" in the implementation of our WISER inquiry curriculum.
• Participation numbers in the MakerSpace

Building Community:

• Literacy Promotion ---- Book Checkout (Do the books I promote/ display/ booktalk get checked out at a higher rate than other titles?)
• Numbers participating in library programs... though I also want to capture quality participation and not only quantitative data on this topic.  

Connecting Globally:

• Opportunities to implement Design Thinking 
• Participation from community members (both local and global) in library programs and/ or instruction.  

News Literacy

I was so excited when I saw this as one of the options this year, as it has been heavily on my mind.  In fact, my elementary colleague and I have talked about making this a focus of our curriculum development in this coming season.
The post by Joyce Valenzuela had so much food for thought and practical application that I have spent a lot of time just unpacking what she has there.
During this time I have been in the middle of a lengthy research project with seniors on "Public Policy".  It was an ideal opportunity to introduce these skills and critical thinking conversations.  I used the "How to Choose Your News" TEDEd video to introduce the idea.  Students responded to the question, "With freedom comes responsibility":  What does this mean in the context of news literacy and research?" Independently via Google Classroom, and then we had a discussion about how they have seen this in their own lives.  It will be interesting to see how this transfers to the sources they are gathering over this vacation week.  I find that students easily recognize that there is false news and questionable information all over the place, but are then resistant to the evaluation of their sources when it comes to the application of those skills.  A natural tendency to look for the path of least resistance.
I am looking forward to continuing to explore all of the resources and ideas in this "Thing" as we develop our curriculum with news literacy as a focus.

Thing 30: Reflection

So much great learning this year!!  I so appreciate the motivation and exposure to new tools that Cool Tools provides each year.  Once again I feel like taking this course has really impacted my library program as it prompted me to explore new things and not overthink them, but instead just dive in and try them.
I feel like my social media presence and website have definitely been impacted- I especially love having discovered Tint to embed a large Facebook widget to streamline my process of keeping everything up to date.  In addition I made the commitment to purchase Smore, so that I will be motivated to create and share regular updates for faculty and staff.
As I worked through the "Emerging Tech" thing I looked forward to next year, and used that to help inform my goal setting for next year.  I know that I will continue to utilize the tools and skills that I developed this year as I implement many of these things.  I will also use these goals to make my upcoming ISTE conference experience meaningful.  I even committed to sharing at the Librarian's Playground on day one of ISTE because of my goal to share more of what I do with my PLN.  I get so much from other people and feel like I am ready to start sharing some of what I do- I feel a little responsibility to give back... and that is another great reflection opportunity.
Many of the things I tried this year were first steps in larger projects and I look forward to continuing to move forward with the library MakerSpace, Learning Commons redesign, "Read the World" projects, etc...
Thanks so much for the inspiration!

Thing 29: Student Response

Flipgrid is one of those tools that I keep hearing about, and have put on my list of things to check out #IfYouLearnedHere.  I love how this created an easy platform for students all over the world to see and hear from each other as they built their understanding of a globally relevant topic.  I would love to see our students connect with students in other countries for a project like this.  I am working on connecting one of our Spanish teachers here with an English language teacher in Colombia to have ongoing Skype communication, and this could be a nice addition to that project.

several times, but haven't actually seen in action or had the opportunity to use yet.  Having it here, with some example links, has put it back on my radar.  Because one of my goals for next year is to focus on Global Literacy throughout my program I was particularly inspired by the example I found of

I would also like to use Flipgrid locally as students come back to school in the fall to follow up on their "Super Summer Reading".  My promotion for this summer has been themed around superheroes, and I would love to ask students to "Introduce us to a hero from your summer reading" on a Flipgrid and then share that on our social media and website to build that communication.  My struggle is with ordering it before testing it out, so I am delaying signing up for the trial until students are coming back, so I can try it in a meaningful way before paying for it.  

Padlet is one of my favorite tools to use and share!  It is so easy to use and quick to create that it is a no brainer for sharing with teachers and using when I work with students.  One of the ways I used it this year was in generating "Need to Know" questions with students after sharing an essential question.  I have also used it in professional development to build the conversation,  I am excited to explore the new Padlet Backpack version, specifically the "Student Reports and Portfolios" and the "Analytics" sections, neither of which are released yet, but are both coming soon.

Another tool that I have recently learned about, and am particularly excited to share with The King's School, a small Christian school that I work with on PD, is Plickers.  One of our teachers here at Lake George has used it and really enjoyed the student engagement and ability to access analytics this provides.  This seems particularly ideal for classrooms where there are limited devices, but teachers still want to connect and collaborate with students through technology.  The feedback in particular makes this a great tool.  I think that I will use this next year with my 8th grade book projects instead of the more traditional "ticket out the door" questions.  I will then have more usable data that I can use to build on what they know or what they haven't understood.
I tried this tool out with our incoming 7th graders for their 15 minute library visit today, and it was very easy to use and made the short time meaningful.  I asked students four questions about their reading interests and habits, and I will use the information to develop meaningful book talks and book groups in the fall.  This also gave several teachers an opportunity to witness this tool in action, and I look forward to sharing the feedback with them.  Lots of great possibilities to explore!

Thing 28: Emerging Tech

I really enjoyed reading many of these articles, but the one that resonated with me the most was Joyce Valenza's "My Top 10 Tech Trends".  Below I will outline some of my goals for the 2015- 2016 school year, based on some of these tech trends.

1. Social media IS the new media.
I have started this year to shift from being a passive observer on Twitter to an active participant.  I want to continue to increase my activity there, as well as increase my presence in Google+ Communities.  I have joined the Global TL Community and am not considering starting a Community for more local PD as well.
This year my library Facebook page has taken off, although students are not the biggest users, but parents instead.  Next year I think that I will explore a library Instagram.


2.  Transparency is the new platform
This year we became huge fans of Google Classroom, and I have both used it myself with classes and trained other teachers on how to use it.  I love the new feature to have multiple teachers in a course- makes it so much more useful for me. I look forward to watching the growth of this great tool to stay connected with students.
I would like to implement the use of a Process Portfolio when I am working through research projects next year.  This would give students, teachers, and myself a tool to guide us through the process and then be able to reflect on the steps as well.

3. Global is the new literacy
I am super excited about this one!!  This year I co-taught a PD course at our school on the New Literacies from Heidi Hayes Jacobs, and Global Literacy in particular resonated with me.  One of the things that I am doing from this is "Reading Around the World in 80 Books", and creating a Google Map with book reviews embedded in the map.  I am hoping to do a smaller version with students in book club next year, having them read one book from each continent and creating Google Maps with book reviews.
In addition I would like to expand our opportunities to connect with classes and educators from around the world, and look forward to getting more ideas and connecting with others on this topic at ISTE 2015!

5.  1:1/ mobile is the new computer lab
This year was the first in our three year roll out of a weLearn Initiative, our version of 1:1 computing.  At the high school 7th and 10th graders all have computers this year, and next year 8th and 11th grades will receive the computers.  I have worked hand in hand with our Instructional Technologist to deliver meaningful professional development to prepare teachers for this rollout.  We will have another round of that this summer and will continue to work with teachers and students to embed inquiry throughout instruction and technology use.


8.  Making is the new learning
This has been a major theme for us this year, and I have written about it in a previous blog.  Next year I hope to work in depth at redesigning our space into a Learning Commons to reflect the shift in roles here in our library.

Thing 27: DIY: Social Reading

For my DIY exploration it was perfect for me to do the social reading "Thing", because I have recently taken on a challenge to become a more globally minded educator and expand my reading choices.  I am going to "Read Around the World in 80 Books".  This was an idea that I got while leading a PD class on the New Literacies, including Global Literacy.  I got the idea from another blogger who did a similar challenge, and loved it!
My goal is to blog about the books as I read in my personal blog.  In addition I have created a Google Map of my reads, so that I can embed the reviews right into the map as well, and track and share my progress there.  I have only just begun, but I'm excited about this challenge, both personally and then the opportunity to share it with both students and teachers.
Through this "Thing" I have spent some time exploring the site goodreads, and I'm excited to use this in tracking my reading progress as well as using shared lists and connecting with friends.  After I feel more comfortable with the site and have filled out my "Shelves" more fully I may add a widget to the library page as well.  In the past I have used Shelfari, but it seems that has fallen from popularity, and since this is a social tool, I want to use the tool which will feel most natural for connecting with both teachers and students.

Through my explorations of social reading I have also discovered Epic Reads, which I have subscribed to through my Feedly account.  This site has lots of great YA book lists, quizzes, and display ideas.  A good place for connecting with teens and books.  I am hoping to connect my Book Club students with this fun resource as well.
Another site, which has given me ideas for connecting my Book Club and MakerSpace for next year is the site Book to Art Club, with ideas for how to lead book discussion while making things relevant to different titles- what a cool idea!  I am excited about the possibilities there, and look forward to promoting that in the fall- I think this year we are too close to the end, but next year I will jump on this idea.

Thing 26: Taking the Lead

What an amazing webinar!!  I came away with several practical ideas that I will spend the next couple of weeks implementing.  These ideas all strengthened concepts and projects that I have been contemplating already.  It was very useful to breakdown the stakeholder groups and think about what is important to each group specifically.  I have recently written a mission statement for the library, and this helped me work through strategies for sharing that message with different stakeholders.  Last year I began a library Facebook page, which has given me an opportunity to reach more stakeholders, although I still struggle to "get the message out".  This weeks topic has allowed me to identify a variety of ways to do that purposefully.
We are working on doing some structural redesigning of the library space, and I just finished a survey to ask students what they would like to see in their learning commons- now I just need to find the right venue for sharing it with students.  I want the library to reflect a learning commons, where students are encouraged to think critically, work collaboratively, experience creativity, and be engaged in lifelong learning- this is my elevator speech!
Some of the practical ideas that I got from the webinar, and the articles, are listed below:

• Create shelf dividers using old VHS cases- I will do this primarily to break up the Nonfiction section.
• Use shelf markers with pictures on them to indicate where popular series are on the shelves.
• Embed a Symbaloo on our Destiny Homepage with additional resources and tools.
• Reinstate my teacher newsletter on a regular basis- my goal is to send one out every 2 weeks, and our district instructional technologist is going to send one out on the opposite weeks.
• Institute "Power Lunch" times for informal PD with teachers.
• Create a 1 Book- 1 School graphic for our "School Wide Read" program (which is in it's 2nd year).  I would like to get this done this week, as we are having our end of year program next week, so it would be nice to incorporate the graphic there.  I would love to have this be student created, but I don't know if there is time for that!
• Communicate with parents on a more regular basis- 7th grade orientation, newsletter updates, information sent with report cards.
• I would especially like to get information out to parents about summer reading and also invite them to follow the Lake George Library Facebook page to stay in touch with what students are doing here.