Blogs to Better Your Budding Readers
This week our assignment was to find a library related blog to share. This was a fun assignment because there are so many informative blogs right at our fingertips sharing useful information. One way to become a better librarian is to take part in collaboration and continuous learning. Educators are always learning new ways to do things better and more effectively to reach our students. I found so many great blogs that it really is hard to share just one, so I am going to share two that I found very beneficial to me as a librarian.
The Library Voice
The first blog I am going to share is The Library Voice Blog. This blog is created by a librarian, Shannon McClintock Miller. She is a district librarian and shares many useful tips for librarians to use in their libraries. She shares a variety of resources from technology and apps to use with your students in the library to monthly calendars for choice boards centered around thematic books, writing, research, virtual bookshelves, BreakoutEDU, to practical ideas like setting up Destiny self checkout in your library and using Canva to create signs for your library. Her blog is a plethora of helpful hints, tool, and resources.
One particular post that caught my attention as a new librarian is Picture Books For Digital Citizenship and Media Literacy Conversations and Learning. I am coming from the classroom, so my experience is teaching reading--from how to become a better reader (skills and strategies) to how to help students find books they love and generate a desire to read more! We used our chromebooks and technology a good bit in the classroom, but we always depended on our school librarian's expertise to teach digital citizenship. This is a topic that I do not know a great deal about, not necessarily what it is, but how to teach the importance to our students in grades K-5th. This week begins Digital Citizenship Week, so I want to use this chance to talk to my students about the importance of being a good digital citizen while using technology. Our students are involved in technology related activities more now than ever before, so it is crucial to bring awareness to this important topic. Ms. Miller shares four picture books to use when teaching digital citizenship and media literacy. She also shares a link to a padlet page with additional books where anyone can share ideas centered around this topic. Two books she shared that I want to add to my collection are Selfie by Sandy Horsley and Me, Myselfie and I...A Cautionary Tale by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell.
If you'd like more information about Digital Citizenship, here are a few more resources:
https://mydigitallife.discoveryeducation.com/
https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship-week
https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/how-to-celebrate-digital-citizenship-week
https://nearpod.com/blog/digital-citizenship-week-free-lessons/
https://www.twinkl.com/event/digital-citizenship-week-usa-2023
https://brittanywashburn.com/2021/08/digital-citizenship-week-activities-for/
https://blog.tcea.org/digital-citizenship-week-2022/
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Blog
This blog is a collection of posts from over 4,000 librarians, literacy experts, publishers, educators, and others with one common focus-- to create and provide an exemplary library service. This blog has so. much. information. Luckily, there is a search bar so you can search for specific topics and information. There is also a "categories" drop down menu including topics like: audio books, author spotlight, book clubs, children and technology, collaboration, collection development, digital world, diversity, grants, information literacy, intellectual freedom, podcasts, programming ideas, research, school library media specialists, stem, storytime, summer reading, technology, tweens, and an interesting category "what I wasn't taught in library school". This blog literally has a little bit of everything!
I focused on the category "storytime" for the purpose of this blog share. The blog posts under this specific category include posts explaining and highlighting topics like using felt boards and early literacy, puppets, book selection, storytime: handling the adults, singing, using board books, storytime crafts, movement and mindfulness storytimes. There are so many useful ideas for librarians to use when planning storytimes in the library!
I also was curious how the "searchbar" feature would work. Since my first blog above centered around digital citizenship, I decided to search their blog to see what was available on this topic. There were many blog posts dedicated to digital citizenship so it would be a great place to go-to for more information. This blog post caught my attention because it mentioned how important it is to teach students to navigate information online geared towards children in grades 3-6. The blog mentions that, "Google furnishes presentations to use on categories like “Share with Care,” “Don’t Fall for Fake,” and “It’s Cool to be Kind-” providing the opportunity to learn how to keep personal information safe, how to treat others in a digital world, and how to discern true from false information." (ALSC Children and Technology Committee, 2020) The blog also mentions that Google has a game called Interland that has different levels addressing topics like password choice, interacting online with kindness, and securing information.
I really enjoyed searching for blogs this week that would be beneficial to myself as a school librarian as well as my classmates to add to their professional toolbox. I hope you are able to take something away this week and use it in your libraries to come!
6 Tall Tales
Johnny Appleseed Graphic Novel version
The Spider and the Waterberry Tree
The Tall Tale of the Giants Causeway
How Dachshunds Came to Be
Hunter's Tall Tales
The Legend of Lightning Larry: A Cowboy Tall Tale
Citations:
ALSC Children and Technology Committee. https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2020/04/be-internet-awesome-a-path-to-digital-citizenship. April 11, 2020.
No comments:
Post a Comment