Smart Board Lessons

Well, I have attempted to upload SMART Board lessons directly to the blog, but was unable to. So instead, I am going to keep a running list of the lessons I have created in the Side Bar. If you are a media teacher and are interested in using any of these lessons, based on their titles, you can contact me and I will happily share.

SMART Board Lessons and the Media Center

Well, I am torn about this new piece of technology I have been working to learn and use this school year. On the one hand, the bells and whistles makes certain things really so much easier. I love using the lab's board to show on-line videos to a class, to demonstrate how to use a new website or kind of software, or to have students present their own research to classmates. But I also find frustrating the effort involved in putting out those gadgets and gizmos when simple classroom instruction might suffice.

That said, I have completed my lesson on "Ben's Dream" by Chris Van Allsburg that includes links to Google maps. I am sure that there are ways I could have made it more fun (a colleague suggested adding the views from the tops of the landmarks), but it works pretty well as it is.

It can be found at http://www.legacyheritage.org/SJED/?file=find_lesson under "Ben's Dream."

I welcome feedback and comments.

What is a Librarian's Job?

Okay, this is NOT a complaint. What it is, however, is a description of the various things I spent my day on. Some of them clearly fall under my other job--Special Programs--but I find that my days are not what many outside the field would envision.


Today I:

• worked on creating a template in Davkah (which supports Hebrew and English) for a booklet that will contain text and artwork by our 5th grade students when they read Torah for the first time.
• designed a Publisher template for an invitation to an event celebrating the learning of our 1st and 2nd graders--the illustration on the invitation will be created by the students using KidPix
• added a new category and link to our staff wiki to help teachers work with special needs students
  
• worked with a teacher and afternoon school principal on creating and finding materials to use on the SMART board--included teaching how to do a screenshot
• helped 5th graders use their personal log on for one of the first times
• worked with a teacher to create a few shelves of "good books" for 7th and 8th graders
• worked on a SMART board lesson on "Ben's Dream," a Chris Van Allsburg picture book
• planned my lessons for the week, which includes having 3rd and 4th graders begin to do basic research on some popular children's authors
• took down a display case on the Bubble festival which we did about 6 weeks ago

Gee, I'm tired just looking at the list! No wonder I come home and want to take a nap. I confess, if someone had told me 10 to 15 years ago that my job would involve so much time on the computer, I would have laughed. But I find myself energized by the interaction between reading and using technology--I enjoy the daily complexity I encounter. Now if only someone could invent a book that puts itself away....

Too Many Balls in the Air

I had forgotten how much attention everything at school can take. While the bubble festival went quite well, I still had classes to plan and teach, a SMART board to learn how to use, a back-to-school night for parents to prepare for, and also a new special project to plan, organize, and shop for. I am, quite simply, exhausted. And we've only finished two weeks of school. Sigh.

On top of all that, I had wanted to keep up my so-called professional development, with writing here and at my book review site, Book Frontiers. I managed to get two reviews posted this weekend, but it is hard to have time to read and write if you are lurching from special project to special project. I need to get organized again. And, not surprisingly, I haven't written any poetry lately, since contemplation seems to have evaporated from my life.

But even given all that, I wouldn't trade working in education for anything else. It is what I am meant to do.

SMART boards and the Library Lady

My school got its first SMART board, and yesterday was my first day in training. At first I wasn't sure if installing it in our media center was the best choice, in part because our upper school science teacher wanted to use it a great deal.

But now that I have had enough training to become dangerous :-D , I think our principal made the right choice. While I like the potential that I see in the board, and think that I would love to play with it, I also think it is good that it is in the Lab instead of in a particular classroom. Not only will a greater variety of teachers get to play with using it, but it also prevents a teacher from using it when a different sort of lesson would be better. As Richard Byrne says in his blog, Free Technology for Teachers, if a teacher simply uses technology to present the same notes in a different way, it really isn't integration.

Plus, the librarian in me wants to make sure that we don't become so hooked on bells and whistles that we forget the fundamentals of teaching. We need to draw on as many different ways and platforms to present material as we possibly can, so that we can reach as many students as we possibly can.

At least that is my opinion for today. We'll see what my attitude is after I have played more with it. Maybe it's just that I am reluctant to share....