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Friday, December 4, 2015

December Newsletter!

“One of the magical things about reading to me is it helps me imagine life outside of myself”

~John Green, We Need Diverse Books

Think!

If this all seems too intimidating, gather a few of your adventurous students and let them lead you. I know kids at our school will practically demand it, not only because they understand that these skills are important, but because they’re excited to tinker around with these ideas to see how and why they all work.”
~Phil Goerner, Tips for Celebrating Hour of Code at your Library


Phil Goerner, teacher librarian at St Vrain Valley School District’s Silver Creek High School, recently posted an article to School Library Journal about how he celebrates Hour of Code--check it out!


Why read this article?
Phil shares practical ideas for how to celebrate hour of code in your library and with your students! Join him on Twitter (@pgoerner )  and share how your school is celebrating hour of code!

What to Know @BVSD this Month!

  • Special Announcement: Collection Development Mini-Grants Available to you!
    • Through collaboration with the Library Advisory Council, we are excited to announce that this year, the CDE State Grants to Libraries funding, is available for you to write a mini-collection grant!
  • Screen Shot 2015-12-03 at 2.32.19 PM.pngHour of Code & CSED (Computer Science Education Week) begins Saturday! See this valuable info from Jackie Weber and the CSED team!!! Share in the comments section below how YOU are celebrating hour of code and be entered to win a prize!
  • Boulder Book Store is giving away THOUSANDS of books to educators!! Read more about it and share with your teachers!

Insignia Info

  • Who do you contact for Insignia questions?
  • Discovery Layer is coming! See email from Rae and blog posts from October for information. We appreciate your patience as we’ve been testing and making sure our environment was ready for this change.

Learning for You!

  • Salary Credit --if you have not told Nannette that you would like to earn salary credit for this year’s TL workshops and LIBinars, please let her know. Look for a blog post soon about what is required to earn this credit.
  • Upcoming BVSD LIBinar: Increasing Student Library Engagement & Circulation with Colleen Jiron, Teacher Librarian @Community Montessori Wednesday, December 9th 2:45pm
  • Upcoming CDE Library Webinar: The Irresistible Library: Renovate and Rejuvenate! Wednesday December 9th from 3:30 -4:30 pm. Access the webinar here!
  • January Professional Development Day for ALL Elementary Teacher Librarians: January 4th from 8:00am-12:00pm @IT Copper Room. Please park at Arapahoe Campus and then enter through IT!We will have coffee provided for you this morning!

  • Look forward to these amazing guest speakers!
    • Becky Russell, CDE School Library/Digital Literacy Instructional Specialist: The Future of Libraries
    • Casey Veatch, CDE Digital Literacy Instructional Specialist: Integrating Technology in the Elementary Library--an experience from planning to implementation!

2 comments:

  1. We're in trenches enjoying coding month at Whittier. We began with code.org courses (course 1 for K-1st, course 2 for 2nd-5th) and I'm introducing a new language or coding tool each week (bitsbox, scratch jr, Dash and Dot robots, and sphero) Each week, students can choose any of the tools that have been presented. The best part isthat classrooms are taking it and running - with Genius Hour time, earned time for filling marble jars, typing centers (Bitsbox)...

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  2. I'm so thrilled to report that CME has joined the Hour of Code activities in a big way! Last night we hosted a parent-led Code activity for all who wanted to participate (about 150 students) using our new Library chromebooks cart along with the testing cart. The past two years in Library we have created Binary Bookmarks, and classes have worked mostly unplugged. This year even our younger students are doing Bitsbox, Scratch, and Khan Academy, along with the Hour of Code games. In Library we are using the new Minecraft game for starters. SO exciting for Montessori to be integrating digital learning into our existing programs!

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