DECEMBER 2013
HMS Library Media Center
A Month of Change and Experimentation
December was a month of change and experimentation for the adults at HMS Library Media Center. Mrs. Barbara Rix, the district's retired technology teacher, is working with me during quarter 2 to integrate technology into the library curriculum. She and I worked on finding the best keyboarding practice sites for students. We have introduced the keyboarding practice routine to all the classes at this point.
We tried rotating students through centers (and are re-thinking it after our experiement). We are trying out an app called Tellagami with the students to do book recommendations.
And best of all, we got our computer lab installed! Kids have been learning how to navigate the new desktop computers. We are working out the kinks. It's a very exciting time!
A USB Powered Tinsel Tree
A gift to spruce up the library for the holidays from Mrs. Rix
Taking Care of the Shelves
Keyboarding Practice
We found a much better program! *see featured resource below
What We've Been Learning
We have learned:
- Using one keyword is not the most efficient strategy
- Wikipedia is not a trustworthy, reliable site for research
- Companies pay search engines money to be one of the first websites that pop up on a keyword search so we need to sift through advertisements
- Citations are a way to give credit to someone for their hard work
- We keep our legs under the table when typing
- We sit up straight and bring the keyboard to us when typing
- We put our fingers on the home keys ASDF and JKL; and rest our thumbs on the space bar
Library Statistics
Between December 2 and December 19:
Total Books: 11,533
Total Circulations: 2,372
Total Holds Placed: 81
Featured Resource
Our new and improved keyboarding practice program is great because kids have the chance to practice proper formation and get immediate feedback. Students are encouraged to practice at home.
When you get to the site you click on the red LESSONS box on the left.
You click the arrows at the bottom of the page to adjust the number of letters.
You click the Lesson number in white to begin.
We are keeping track of WPM as well as errors and accuracy rate.
Have fun!
HMS Library Tweets!
If you don't have a Twitter account, you may want to join and consider following hms_library. We follow and are followed by countless authors. It's so exciting to "tweet" out a message to an author and get a response within a day.
- When we started to follow Dan Gutman, he sent a private message saying thanks for following him and to tell the kids of HMS hello.
- When we sent a message to Kimberly Newton Fusco saying that her book Beholding Bee is in high demand, she wrote back to ask for our address so she can mail us another copy.
- Sending fourth grader Natalie's Animoto book trailer for Rules to Cynthia Lord and getting a response back within a few hours.
That is the power of social media!