WHHS Library Media Center News
September 2015
Beginning of the School Year
Whew!!! I don't know about anyone else, but the beginning of the school year seems like it has flown by. The library media center and the library media specialist have been busy, busy, busy. There have been some technology glitches with the new wifi networks which were installed over the summer. Students and teachers had to learn which network to use and how to properly log on to that network. In August at least 22 classes checked out books from the library, and Mrs. Bell taught 17 classes.
Here are some of the teachers and classes who visited the library media center and the activities and lessons which took place in the month of August.
Heather Penn's Biology classes
Instead of bringing her Biology classes to the library Heather Penn invited the library media specialist to come to her classroom. I had the privilege of teaching Mrs. Penn's 4 Biology classes about "Identifying Appropriate Sources and Citations." This collaborative lesson addressed the Next Generation Science Standard which states: "I can use a variety of appropriate sources to retrieve relevant information and cite references properly." I enjoyed showing her classes the Youtube video entitled, "Determining Website Credibility" by Mike Slowinski. I shared with them a rubric to use when they are trying to determine if a website is credible. I pointed out the citation generators which are linked to the Western Hills High School Library Media Center webpage. Since most of Mrs. Penn's students had previously used KYVL, the Kentucky Virtual Library, I reminded them briefly of its usefulness and showed them how to cite articles they choose from this collection of databases.
It was great to be teaching in Mrs. Penn's classroom. Too often people think the library media specialist only supports reading books and therefore English and Social Studies teachers and classes. I'm glad Mrs. Penn felt that the library media specialist was the best person to teach the skills from this Next Generation Science Standard to her classes.
Stephanie Wooldridge's first hour Geometry class
Ken Hockensmith's Introduction to Social Studies classes
Mr. Hockensmith and I have team taught a lesson to his freshmen Introduction to Social Studies classes for the past two years, and this year was no exception. We started with the basics which included what we thought all WHHS students need to know how to do:
-log on to the school network and webmail
-use One Drive
-create Word documents and PowerPoint presentations
-search and save images from Google for photo essays
We worked with his first, fourth and fifth hour classes for about 3 days on these skills.
Kaylee Chesser's Honors English I classes
Whitney Terry's English classes
Jess Day's 4th hour English 2 class
Jess Day's fourth hour block class visited the library media center one day to get their library barcodes and check out
A Separate Peace by John Knowles.