My Week

April 27 - May 1

Monday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Fog on the Daniels Road." Followed up on responses. Composed email letter to faculty to introduce SWANK video streaming resource. Practiced logins, links, and FAQs. Watched the SYNC/SORA webinar in preparation for launching this 13-week free audio book program to students.

Tuesday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Rainy Day Poem." Followed up on responses. Emailed MSHS teachers overview, login info, and student access information for SWANK video streaming service; now one of our DCMO 24/7 resources. Emailed students an overview to SYNC with instructions on how to participate in the 13-week free audio book program. Office hours 12:00 - 2:00. Participated in 2:00 SLS PLC meeting: discussed online vehicles for storytelling, and new curations on Sora: multuple copies. Filmed Walt Whitman video.

Wednesday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Song of Myself, Verse 44." Office hours 12:00-2:00. Read in PD ebook, Reading in the Wild. Will collaborate with colleague on Spring Poetry Contest.

Thursday

Emailed final post to 7-12 students and staff with link to all the video-poems from the NPM. Shared math puzzle with ACS math teachers; Kate S. forwarded it as extra credit to her students. Participated in 2:00 SLS PLC meeting. Overview of Common Sense Media, Epic, Nearpod. Discussion of Windows 10 video capability within Photos - pretty cool. Registered for copyright webinar with ESLN for may 14th.

Friday

Read online teaching overviews at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Read in PD ebook, Reading in the Wild.

My Week

My Week: April 20-24

Monday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Followed up on responses. Read the NYT Book Review. Filmed and edited a video poem for NPM project. Added viseo project links info to SLS storytelling page for upcoming PD session. Sent an email to regular attendees to our library Coffee House, which would be tomorrow, linking them to my page of NPM poems.

Tuesday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM):" The Children's Hour". Followed up on responses. Posted my Office Hours (and added them to my email signature). Watched and practiced the new OPALS "search" tutorial. Participated in 2:00 SLS PLC; discussed Sora orders and CCD. Answered a student email with a login question to Sora.

Wednesday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): a David Budbill poem. Read furtther in my PD book, The Knowledge Gap. Practiced logging into SWANK a simultaneous-use video-streaming service we will share with faculty next week. Prepared a faculty email list for logins to send to SLS. Read in the Chronicle of Higher Ed how colleges are preparing for fall openings in the wake of the COVID virus; more counselors, for one.

Thursday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Charter Oak". Participated in Faculty Mtg at 1:30, and SLS PLC at 2:00; where I shared my Poetry Month video project as part of our online storytelling PD. Finished reading my Sora PD ebook, The Knowledge Gap.Started a new one, Reading in the Wild, by Donalyn Miller.

Friday

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Casey at the Bat", solo version. Filmed and edited two video poems for next week. Read and prepared to share this NYC SLS document on the finer points of Fair-Use during the pandemic.

My Week

April 13-17

Monday, April 13

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Gunga Din." Followed up with respondents. Read the NYT Book Review; downloaded and read "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" ebook from SORA based on a full page review for adult and student readers. Read up to Part III in The Knowledge Gap.

Tuesday, April 14

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Cleaning the Spring." Participated in 2:00 SLS PLC meeting; discussing Sweet Reads book program (SORA) launching tomorrow, SWANK simultaneous video streaming resource for students, and HyperDocs invitation for a webinar. Followed up on a request from SLS to develop a list of suggested poetry & novels in verse selection for SORA ebook site.

Wednesday, April 15

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): a Mary Oliver "Owl" poem.  Followed up with respondents. Sent 7-12 students and staff a separate email invitation to the Sora Sweet Reads program. Submitted poetry list to SLS, as assigned. Corresponded with Leslie M. about SYNC; an audiobook distribution opportunity for students that launches at the end of April. I registered for the program. Studied on Sweet Reads promotional materials.

Thursday, April 16

 Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Each Spring." Followed up with respondents. Spent time reading attachments in email, etc. Participated in Faculty Mtg. at 1:30 and SLS PLC at 2:00. Created video clip for Senior Class video. Spent some time practicing with Google Meet, Google Slides, etc. Kinda wish we had been a Google school. Watched the HyperDocs webinar for PD background.

Friday, April 17

Emailed 7-12 students and staff original video poem for National Poetry Month (NPM): "Coventryville Supper." Included an invitation to request poems...got three responses! Outside today to film to poem videos for next week. Edited  two of them. Reviewed email throughout day.

My Day

Emailed a video-poem to students and staff in the morning: Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening. followed up on some nice responses from some new folks.

Formatted some photos then posted Valedictorian/Salutatorian article to the school site, as assigned.

Explored the Teaching Books site and tried making and sharing some book resource lists (see previous post). The site is really up on current titles as well as backlist and classics.

Starting a list of Candlewick sale books at Overdive Markertplace.

My Day

Emailed video-poem to students and staff for National Poetry Month; one I wrote about playing baseball. Also included an update on SORA ebooks (38 borrowed in the last month) and login information, once again.

Fielded a request from an ACS staffer on how to search for all PD books on SORA. Sent her a direct link, which worked.

Shared a Chronicle article with the principal about evaluating teaching and teachers during the crisis.

Participated in the 2:00 SLS PLC meeting; watching and discussing our roles in regards to the Prioritizing Standards document that was shared.

Assigned a posting for the school website: valedictorian & salutatorian notice. Waiting on photo update.

My Day

Checked morning emails. Clarification from SLS on teacher logins for Teaching Books site that I recommended to staff on Monday. Also asked for and received login info for Overdrive Marketplace. A quick look at my SORA ebook summary, I see 38 total books opened in the last month; up from zero during January and February!

Responded to a request to share a document with elementary librarian for distribution.

Emailed poetry video to 7-12 students and staff: Oranges by Gary Soto, as well as an audio of Mary Oliver's The World.

Visited the Chronicle of Higher Education site and made two PDFs of articles to share tomorrow; Zoom tips and one on what to evaluate as a school from this crisis.

Best sentences I read in the Chronicle, "Students are grieving, one participant said. They're experiencing the dissolution of everything familiar."and it is time to “respond with flexibility, hospitality, and care.”

My Day

Shared two video poems with 7-12 students and MS/HS staff: Mending Wall and a Mary Oliver excerpt done by a friend of the ACS Library. Averaging 3 or 4 email responses per video. Enjoying corresponding with Mrs. Gridley.

Sent an email to ELA faculty outlining services from SORA and Teaching Books in regards to class-set ebooks and instruction opportunities.

Attended the 2:00 SLS Zoom  meeting. Information about the Summer Read program at SORA; again simultaneous-use titles. Update on SORA Marketplace sale titles. Around the table to hear what innovations, obstacles, and solutions librarians are experiencing at this time.

My Day

Monday, April 6 ,2020

Watched a new tutorial from OPALS on how to add videos to the library home page. I may post some of these National Poetry Month videos there.

Send poem-of-the-day to students and staff; one from our archive of dozens of ACS students and staff  each doing a line of "Casey at the Bat". Followed up on some of the responses.

Drafted a resource suggestion to send to  ELA teachers: class-set ebooks from SORA and book support resources from Teaching Books.

Read the NYT Book Review.

Reading in Part II of The Knowledge Gap. She makes the point that many schools have misinterpreted Bloom's Taxonomy in as much as the base of the pyramid - remembering and understanding are not inferior to the "higher level" analyzing, evaluating, creating; rather they are the foundation that enables those other skills. Her point being that as much as we tantalize students with those "peak" skills, they cannot connect the dots without content; which she says we have forsaken; especially at the elementary level when learning to read. 

My Day

Emailed 3rd video poem to students and staff as part of ACSLIB annual celebration of National Poetry Month. Today's poem was "The Writer," by Richard Wilbur. Followed up on responses to my posting; the fun part.

Corresponded with SLS Director.

Gained fluency with Teaching Books site and with SORA flexibility.

Read articles at School Library Journal site and at Chronicle of Higher Education.

Reviewed and added titles to current Follett book order.

Scripted, filmed, and voiced over poetry video for this month's celebration: "Mending Wall."

My Day

Emailed the second of my  poetry videos to students and staff for National Poetry Month. This time it was "Springtime," a poem and video I made for an ACS staff member. I emphasized in the text how there are amazing people in our lives and that poetry is way to speak from the heart about them. I followed up on with students and staff that responded. Added a paragraph about unlimited simultaneous access to "The Sorcerer's Stone" ebook during April at our SORA site.

I was late getting a "Hello" video to the composite video the principla was getting together to send to students. So filmed mine, added some helpful text and sent it off in time.

Participated in the 1:30 Skype faculty meeting.

Then tuned into the 2:00 SLS Zoom meeting with an instructional session hosted by our ebook & audiobook rep from Overdrive. She demonstrated how easy it is to add additional participating libraries like the 4CLS and the NYPL.

Investigated and practiced how SORA site and Teaching Books site might compliment each other and provide viable teaching assistance.

My Day

Fired off my first poem/video to 7-12 students and staff for National Poetry Month. Tried to make the tone of the email more of a celebration than any expectation. Enjoyed following up with respondents.
The first poem I sent was ,"If."


Read for and hour or so in The Knowledge Gap in the morning. Broke at 10:00 to participate in a instructional Zoom session through SLS with the World Book rep. She demonstrated many of the traditional functions as well as a teacher interface for instructional support called 'Wizard'.

In the afternoon I scripted, shot the scenes, and edited a poem/video to share later in the month.

My Day

This morning I participated in SLS instructional Zoom meeting with a representative of Teaching Books (TB); one of our SLS 24/7 online resources. They provide author interviews, vocabulary, and teaching support for over 100,000 titles. As an example, I hope to use a poem from Out of the Dust during National Poetry Month.

TB allows unregistered access to all of their resources, so that I can create links, like the following, for students learn vocabulary or to the entire resouce page:
Book Recording | Out of the Dust on TeachingBooks
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse on TeachingBooks
Very cool. I look forward to experimenting with more applications for it during the week.

In the afternoon I attended the SLS regular Zoom meeting. We discussed the morning PD, brainstormed uses and asked questions.

Logged in to an offer for free crisis-access to School Library Journal and all their resources.

I prepared my first mailing to students and staff for National Poetry Month: a poem video for each weekday of the month. Wish me luck.

My Day

I read several articles at The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning. So many of their remote teaching & learning hurdles are similar to ours. Some of their words of wisdom:

- Focus on what you can control; like how to teach online, not the fact that it must be done.
- This is an opportunity to teach about being a compassionate. participating citizen; offering compassionate, not challenging courses.
- Now more than ever, abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. It takes time. This is a marathon, if you sprint at the start you will vomit all over your shoes in a month! (This from an instructor who has lived through famine, disease and war.)

After sending my ebook-access email to students earlier, I responded to those who wrote back; sharing what they were reading (Nancy Drew, Book 32!), and what they were making (learning to knit, planting a garden). It was inspiring to read. Also, hooked up a staff member looking for PD audio books to our SORA site.

Rounded up a dozen poetry videos I have made of various poets (me, included) and nested them on one page of the school site (so students will not have to go yo TouTube). My plan is to email students in grades 7-12 a direct link to one poetry video each weekday of April for National Poetry Month. I hope to include a link to the text of the poem as well as encouragement to perhaps memorize one, write one, or make a similar video of their favorite work. I will share it with staff also, asking them to encourage students to check their mail.

Created this video to use during the April poetry campaign.



And, in between raindrops, I hiked to the river to gather a bunch of red osier stems. They are amazingly pliant at this time of the year. I fashioned them into a half-dozen circles that I will use to frame shoulders and elbows for my Crimson Knight maker-project!

My Day

Kept up with my reading of The Knowledge Gap with another 100 pages in the morning. I'll admit that it is very handy being able to highlight text and annotate that as you read.

In the afternoon, I followed through on an idea from yesterday's SLS, sort of. Our MakerSpace has been a large part of our library the past few years and the most inspired builds have been the ones where students transform materials meant to be one thing into something entirely new. So as an attempt to model, inspire, and create dialogue, I started to build a large Crimson Knight sculpture from around-the-yard materials; just like a student might. I hope to keep students posted on my progress, my failures, my work-arounds, and my triumphs!

Don't laugh. Someday these will be the broad front shoulders.

I'm using maple boughs and baling twine.

I'm thinking he'd look pretty cool near this sign!

And lastly I composed and send an email to MS/HS students with ebook access information (and encouragement), a video/poetry challenge, and an introduction to tune into my sculpture updates

My Day

Read 90 minutes this morning in The Knowledge Gap.

Reviewed latest something-to-do-while-stuck-at-home-ebooks that Cindy placed on SORA after yesterday's SLS meeting. She did a great job; drawing, crafting, fashion, sewing, LEGOs, duct-taping projects!

Participated in principal's 1:30 Skype meeting. Thought that the 3rd Quarter grading proposal aligned pretty well with what some colleges are proposing: continuing to establish course benchmarks, whether establishing grades or not.

Listened and contributed during the 2:00 SLS Zoom meeting. Some concerns over the security safeguards with FlipGrid which we discussed yesterday. Introduced to "Translation of Practice for School Librarians;" a rubric prepared by the NYC School Library System that offers side-by-side In School Practices and Remote Practices for librarians. It is a very timely document; nice to see we are hitting many of the practices already. Also we updated about an SLS Google Classroom (more good exposure for me) where we can locate and share resources during this interval. I was also interested in one possible initiative by a colleague to offer a STEM or Maker challenge to students...might be something there.

Preparing an update on SORA access and other news to email to students, probably over the weekend
as they crest their full week of challenges.

My Day

Read two hours in The Knowledge Gap this morning; my SORA ebook. Wexler's arguments for content being inextricably bound to reading comprehension beginning to seem overwhelming. she points out that even teacher PD, when it is specifically targeted to content rather than presented as a free-standing skill "to practice", is much more effective.

Studied on the OPALS tutorial for taking inventory.

After yesterday's SLS meeting, I investigated FlipGrid as a student contact/interaction tool. Watched several instructional tutorials and downloaded it to my device for experimentation. My first reaction is that it seems a little lean for discourse, but probably useful as a check-in tool.

Did my weekly read of the Chronicle of Higher Education (online, this time) to identify and farm out appropriate articles; sent one of early survey findings on freshman decision-making for colleges to our Guidance Office. another article about how college faculty are making the crossover to online teaching (sooo much like our own!) offered various suggestions: pair up students, post benchmarks but don't assess, assess as pass/fail, science students proposing research experiments rather than conducting labs.

And emails,emails,emails.

My Day

I read two hours in The Knowledge Gap. In these chapters,Wexler reviews the up and down trends, beliefs, science, and mess that education has made of learning to read. It has been a lumpy road. Her mantra is that content learning has been the under-estimated, neglected and, and necessary tissue needed to bridge the gap between  the skills we teach and the comprehension we seek. I'm learning alot.

I formatted my pilot video for a possible Poetry Month initiative: illustrating favorite poems with what is at hand while sheltered-in-place:


Also spent some time this morning finally watching some of the Opals Mediaflex tutorials that I never made time for at ACS. Got up to speed on Location Authorities, Establishing Barcode Ranges, and Batch Deletes.

Spoke with the principal on a check-in call in the morning.

Had my first Zoom meeting in the afternoon organized by our SLS Director. Good opportunity to compare notes on how colleagues are sharing information, respecting the learning-curve as students adjust to online challenges, and suggesting training needs for upcoming sessions. I was heartened to learn that several elemntary librarians have already recorded read-alouds to share with their kids!

Not exactly Bell and Watson, but a first foray making contact (multiple) with Zoom.

And ...I wrote this follow-up poem.

Stopping in My Woods of a Snowy Afternoon

I could never match
Frost’s quatrain scheme,
but neither could he
remake the depth and rhythm
of these dark trunks and ghosting tops
as they step away
into snowfall’s sifted distance.

I watch and I listen
as the flakes change over
to peppering taps
on beech leaf snares;
their curled brown selves
desperate but stubborn
to hold out for Spring.