Lesser,+Charlotte

Deliverable #2 I created a blog, “Great Stone Face Books” [] that I plan on using with my 4-6th graders at the elementary school at which I am the librarian. The Great Stone Face Book Award is an annual award sponsored by CHILIS (Children’s Librarians of New Hampshire) [] and features a list of 25 recommended books that students in grades 4-6 are introduced to in September and vote for their favorite in May of each year. I have a set of lesson plans already in place that I use throughout the school year (introduce Sept, reinforce thru genre lessons in Jan, revisit in April, vote in May) This year the timeframe for using the blog will be considerably shortened as I won’t be able to implement it until mid March at the earliest. I may scale back and only choose 1 grade to work with to see how it goes! I can foresee in the future starting the school year with the (updated) blog in place all ready for students to use. To implement the blog I will need to do the following: - talk to the principal and get his ok (DONE!) - talk to the 4-6th grade teachers and explain/show what I’ll be doing - send permission slips home to parents to get approval for their children to use the blog - give each student a nickname/number/alias to use to “sign” their blogging - rework my Great Stone Face lesson plans to introduce the concept of blogging and the specific blog they will be using. We use lesson plan templates for library that are linked to national (Information Power), & district standards. Each lesson would be rewritten to include blogging and a new lesson plan would be created for the beginning of the year specifically dealing with what blogs are and how to blog. - check the filtering software to make sure the blog isn’t blocked (I have admin rights) - update the blog so that it’s ready to go! I have already: - created the blog - gotten the ok from the IT department to use Blogger (took some persuading but they ok’d it!) Basically I had to show them how the anonymous login protects the students, the fact that I have to approve each posting before it shows on the blog and the fact that I didn’t make the blog “public” - enough computers for students to use (the computer lab is in the library) - enough time to incorporate blogging into my classes - a vehicle by which students can comment on their Great Stone Face reading. Currently there are mini-review 3x5 cards in each book and available on a poster for them to write comments. The poster is where the students line up and I do see students grab a card and quickly write their opinion. So I don’t think it will be difficult to move that writing piece to blogging – in fact I think the students will love the concept.

The two big obstacles I see are: 1) that not all students read the books. I think I can work around that if I encourage those students to read other students’ comments and write their own comment - that would at least be a way to involve them in part of the writing process. 2) what to do if a parent says no to blogging – I suspect that I would encourage them to use the 3x5 card reviews that are already available. I am not sure whether it would be ethical for me to post their comments under my name???

I am honestly not sure about the assessment piece. There are currently no grades for library and I give no input to teachers on how their students are doing. It’s not that we don’t talk or even occasionally collaborate, it’s just that library is not part of the formal assessment in my district. Assessment for the first year will be for me to evaluate the blog, how students are using it, evaluation of my plans to teach how to use, and an evaluation of the type of writing students do on the blog. I would hope to work with classroom teachers the 2nd year to create some kind of formative assessment tool for the writing piece.


 * Deliverable #3.**

**Monadnock Regional School District ** //**East Swanzey, NH 03446** // **Telephone (603) 352-6955 FAX (603) 358-6708** **Charlotte Lesser PHONE (603) 352-6955 x384** **E. Swanzey, NH 03446 on the web:** [|**www.mrsd.org/~Library**] March 23, 2009
 * //600 Old Homestead Highway // **
 * Dr. Kenneth Dassau,Superintendent**
 * Director of Elementary Library Services  FAX (603) 358-6708**
 * 600 Old Homestead Hwy.** **   email: clesser@mrsd.org**

Dear (Elementary School Principal’s Name), I would like to bring to your attention a blogging pilot program that I have started in The Northern Schools focusing on our New Hampshire State children’s book award for 4-6th graders: The Great Stone Face Award. As you are aware your library aide (NAME) currently promotes this award a variety of ways during the year. (LIBRARY AIDE NAME) purchases all 25 titles and booktalks them at the beginning of the school year, using materials and resources that I have created as well as materials that they have created (USE EXAMPLE FROM SPECIFIC SCHOOL). We all encourage our 4th-6th graders to read the books over the school year and then vote for their favorite title in late April. I know that in all our elementary schools that serve 4-6th graders this is a popular reading program.

In the spring of 2009 I created a blog to give students an opportunity to share their reflections, comments, reviews and opinions on the Great Stone Face Books which they have been reading all year. greatstonefacebooks.blogspot.com A “blog” (short for weblog) is an Internet based technology that is free, can be accessed on any Internet connected computer (home or school) and is very easy to use. A blog can be created very quickly on any topic and allows the moderator (creator) of the blog to pose questions/comments/reflections to which others can answer/comment. A blog can be set up to protect the identity of students and to prevent any unapproved or inappropriate material from being posted to the blog. Students in the Northern Schools have aliases that they use to post and all posts get emailed to me for approval before being put on the blog. The classroom teacher, school librarian, other school staff, parents, as well as other students have the ability to read (and comment if they wish) on their comments which broadens the audience for their writing and reflection.

I believe that this blogging project is a remarkable addition to the ways that students can reflect on reading, practice their writing skills, share opinions with each other, and learn 21st century literacy and technology skills. The Internet has truly changed from a read-only format into a read/write format which is often referred to as Web 2.0. This read/write function is changing the ways that students learn and share information. Web 2.0 tools have created an online environment in which contributors are both learners and teachers at the same time because of the non-linear flow of information. The National Council of Teachers of English released a document in February 2009 called “Writing in the 21st century” [] which makes three recommendations. These are 1) developing new models of composing (including Web 2.0 applications) 2) designing a new curriculum supporting those models, and 3) creating new pedagogies enacting that curriculum. One of their main points is that, “ it’s time for us to join the future and support all forms of 21st century literacies inside school and outside school.” It refers to students who contribute in the Web 2.0 world as “citizen composers” which acknowledges the global impact composing on the Internet, for the world to see, has had.  One of the most remarkable and successful educators using blogs is Will Richardson who has written a book called __Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: and other powerful webtools for the classroom__. The book is both a how-to handbook and also a remarkable wake up call to educators to help them understand how our students are very different learners because they have grown up in a digital world. A former classroom teacher for 20 years, he comments that “learning in this environment is about being able to construct, develop, sustain, and participate in global networks that render time and place less and less relevant. In fact, in a world where our students will hold between 12-14 jobs by the time they reach 38, it’s imperative we develop in them a kind of network literacy to guide them in this process.” (Richardson pg 8) I own this book and would be very happy to loan it to you.

The March 2009 edition of __Educational Leadership__ magazine’s theme is “Literacy 2.0” and is “dedicated to looking at what this new 2.0 literacy entails: how it differs from, yet relies on, the skills of traditional literacy; which new possibilities and challenges it raises… and finally, where and how literacy 2.0 should fit in K-12 curriculum”. (pg 7 v.66 #6) It has numerous articles that cover the multitude of ways Web 2.0 applications are now being used in schools all over the country. There are many elementary schools across the United States involved in blogging projects. Two to take a look at are: The Electronic Pencil: epencil.edublogs.org/ This is a 6th grade class writing blog from Southampton, Massachusetts. Students are active contributors and their writing teacher frequently posts projects, guidelines to assignments and ways for students to improve their writing. KinderKids Blog: classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=51141 is a kindergarten class from Deerfield NH. The teacher has created a remarkable online place to share what has been happening in the classroom, show photos, student work, and to provide each student their own blog page to have their writing commented on by a wider world than that of the classroom.

In addition, another excellent blog to take a look at is the Vermont State Dorothy Canfield Fisher (DCF) Book Award Blog: [|dcfbooks.edublogs.org/] This award is a children’s book award comparable to the Great Stone Face Award. The DCF blog is for students, teachers and the community to comment on the award.

Ultimately I can envision a time when students across our district could contribute to district level blogs on a variety of educational topics, designed by staff, which would give our students a much broader audience for their writing. For now I would love to start with a small step which would be to establish a blog at your school this fall for the Great Stone Face Books. This would be a blog created specifically for your school, designed by me in conjunction with the library aide. Once the blog is set up there is almost no maintenance except to approve posts. Since this is all done through email, it is simple and not time consuming to review and post students’ comments. I would train the library staff and be available for concerns or troubleshooting if something came up. I would recommend using Blogspot ([|www.blogspot.com]) because it is free, very easy to use and customize, and offers a way for our students to be anonymous when using it. It is the resource I am using in the Northern Schools. Another possibility is Classblogmeister [] which was specifically designed by educators for educators and has similar features.

I look forward to talking with you about this project. Please feel free to contact me with concerns or to set up a time to discuss this exciting writing project.

Sincerely,

Charlotte Lesser Director of Elementary Library Services

Final Project

I have created a set of seven library based lessons that promote our New Hampshire state book award for 4-6th graders: [|The Great Stone Face Award]. Both the reading of and responding to the 25 books on the list will be encouraged through this unit that is designed to be spaced out over a period of eight months, September to April. After each skill is taught, time will be given in each subsequent library periods for students to post a comment to the [|Great Stone Face Book blog]or schedule a time with me to create a podcast. Students will also be vodcasting book reviews ([|The BookTube]), which is something that is already done in the school collaboratively between the classroom teachers and the librarian, but not during library instruction time. This unit culminates in voting in mid April and the student votes are sent to the state to be included in the statewide voting tally. Right before the voting I will be updating the blog with podcasts and information about voting. The goal is to have students reading the Great Stone Face Books all year, talking and writing about them, and also creating, listening to and viewing podcasts and vodcasts. I want the 4-6th graders to be as informed as possible about the 25 titles while understanding that very few students will actually read all 25. The broader goal is the concept that when voting (on anything) it is in your best interest to be as informed as possible!

The school library also houses the school computer lab, so there are 12 computers for student use during library. This allows students to post to a blog during their book selection/free time at the end of each library lesson. Students will also be given a handout of instructions so that they can post to the blog from other school computers or from home as well.

A wide variety of Web 2.0 tools are integrated into these lessons including blogging, podcasting, vodcasting, screencasting, and using free web applications such as widgets, Audacity, Gcast, Voki, and Flickr. Students will be taught specifically how to use a blog, make a podcast and a vodcast. I will be using other Web 2.0 tools for instructional purposes and these are explained in the preparation piece on the second page of each lesson plan. The lessons are written to the [|Information Literacy National Standards (Information Power]) created by the American Library Association’s School Librarians Section (AASL). Information Power is divided into three categories, each category has 3 standards, and each standard has indicators. Only the relevant standards and indicators are included. In addition my school district has a [|continuum of library skills]that are to be taught in library and relevant curriculum threads to be reinforced in library lessons. I have created a master document with these standards and skills, and each lesson plan includes these as well.
 * Web 2.0 Tools**
 * Standards**



In addition to the lesson plans and standards, here are other files that will be used:
 * Additional Documentation**

What is Blogging - PowerPoint Fiction Genres - PowerPoint Blogging permission letter Handout on how to post to a blog

I vary my lessons to include oral instruction, oral/visual (using a powerpoint, podcast/vodcast/computer based application with print, but also reading aloud) and hands-on activities including writing. For students who aren’t allowed to blog, they may write their comments on a 3x5 card which is left on a poster display in the library. For students whose parents don’t allow them to post podcasts/vodcasts on the blog, we can post them on our internal network. Students may either do a podcast or be videoed as some students are very uncomfortable in front of a camera. Students will be allowed to pod/vodcast by themselves or with another students.
 * Differentiated instruction and adaptation options**

In my school district library is taught by paraprofessionals in almost every school. Library is contractually teacher prep time so there is little or no collaboration between library aides and classroom teachers. There is no formal assessment in library and no grade for library classes. That being said, I will be assessing the success of each lesson and the entire unit on several factors: 1) circulation/reading of GSF books Our automated library system, Follett, can track number of checkouts and which students have borrowed GSF books. It is my goal to have each book read at least twice during the 8 months. I will booktalk/display/promote the books that aren’t being read. 2) podcasts and vodcasts My goal is to have a podcast or vodcast for each title by the end of the unit. I will track which books don’t have one and use the circulation system to find students who have read the books and encourage them to make a pod/vodcast for those books. We currently have a book review vodcasting program called BookTube in place in the school. Students are trained to use all the equipment and do the filming. My goal is to do the same with the podcasting; train the students and then have them run the equipment themselves. I will just post their project to either the blog or our school network. 3) comments on the blog I will be posting on the blog at least 4 different sets of questions over the eight month about the books. My goal is to have each student comment at least twice during the school year. I will track comments through their aliases. Since all comments need my approval before posting, I will be able to work with students on editing comments that lack substance and don’t meet the guidelines that we have established in class. 4) student participation In the “discussion” part of any lesson I call on both students who raise their hands, and those who don’t in order to engage as many students as possible. About midway through the year, I will check each student’s circulation records and work with students who haven’t read a GSF book to try and find one that suits their interests and reading level.
 * Assessment**