August 2016 TL Announcements

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.

--Clay P. Bedford

Think!

The Purpose-Based Library: Finding your path to survival, success, and growth --American Libraries

“The purpose-based library is not just about circulation, gate counts, and computer hours. It is about how you and your library affect people’s lives and therefore the community as a whole. This is your most significant competitive advantage over Amazon, Google, and Netflix.”

Consider the following questions as you read this article and post reflections to Comments:

• What is your library’s purpose?
• What are your library program’s competitive advantages?

Beginning-of-Year@BVSD

• Remember to run through the Beginning of Year list for Insignia.  

• To learn more about District licenced software including WeVideo, BrainPop, NoodleTools, and others, visit the Ed Tech Software page (bookmark it).

Welcome Aboard!

• Shauna Polson has joined the EdTech team as our newest Educational Technology Specialist. Read Shauna’s bio here.

• Please welcome Jessica West to our BVSD TL community. Jessica will be job sharing with Sarah Kirby at Heatherwood.

What to Know @BVSD this Month!

OverDrive Consortium Participation Deadline Extension - It’s not too late to join the BVSD OverDrive Consortium. Complete this form by EOD Sept. 15 and join the 14 BVSD schools that are building a shared ebook collection that will be available to all participating schools. If you have any questions or need clarification about this opportunity please email Zoe or Rae.


OverDrive Content Specialists will be on-site Sept. 7, 4 PM @ IT Copper, to provide an overview of the OverDrive platform, discuss content selection best practices, and take questions. This session is open to both current BVSD OverDrive Consortium members and those considering joining and want to learn more.

NoodleTools (NT) Single Sign On (SSO) is now operational. Please review ​How to access NoodleTools through Google Apps tutorial ​for detailed ​NT via Google Apps ​instructions​. Note the NT direct URL has changed so, please update any links you have to NT on library webpages or other documents with this address, https://my.noodletools.com/logon/gapps/landing/bvsd.org.

WeVideo is now available for grades 2-12. To learn more about WeVideo and how to access via SSO visit the WeVideo EdTech page.

In mid October Insignia will be providing us with a demonstration of their latest upgrade that will include HMTL5 support (allowing TLs to access Insignia’s Admin functions via Chrome/Chromebooks). Once we conclude that the upgrade is stable and seamlessly delivers HTML5 support we will release it to the TL community. Stay tuned...

• Customizing your OPAC - create a more relevant and branded search experience for your patrons.

• Map Editor and Locate It! - allows your patrons to see a map of your library, indicating where a certain book can be found.

• Projects in ILS and OPAC - allows you to create a collection of materials of all media types for patrons to use for projects.

Bi-Monthly Workshops

Thanks to all the TLs that have offered to host our Bi-Monthly Workshops. Hugely excited to tour these spaces which have all undergone extensive renovations and exemplify innovative learning spaces.

If you have already signed up to lead a workshop, thank you! If you want to lead a workshop but haven’t signed up please complete this form (still have open workshop slots). Bi-monthly workshops are just that, an opportunity to workshop an idea, project or lesson plan, goals, etc., with your peers, and tap the collective expertise and experience to think-out-loud and resolve an issue or bring an idea to fruition.

• September 13, Boulder High-- Parking at BHS can be very challenging so, please carpool to this meeting (seriously, carpool if at all possible)
• November 9, Whittier Elementary (yes, this is a Wednesday)
• January 10, Southern Hills Middle
• March 14, Sanchez Elementary
• May 9, Ed Center (End-of-Year Celebration)

Notes/Events/Resources:

• Dynamic Duo of Colleen and Aaron Graves, K-12 Media Specialists/Librarians are presenting a FREE webinar on, Makerspace Projects for School, Public and Academic Libraries September 15, 2016, 2:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM CT.
• Coming Soon -- The Return of LIBinars! As soon as we have topic details and dates confirmed we will pass the schedule along to you. If you have an idea for a LIBinar please let us know by completing this form. Don’t forget you have on-demand access to previous LIBinars via the BVSD Ed Tech YouTube channel.  
• Digital Shift 2016 virtual conference, October 19, 2016, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM EDT
• If you are supporting teachers involved with National History Day be sure to tell them about Boulder Public Library’s (BPL) Research Rendezvous on Saturday Dec. 3 --click here for details.

"We Have Always Been Makers"

Makerspaces: An Innovation Renaissance

Based on the amount of conversation and discussion surrounding the maker movement you would think that creating spaces in our schools for students to tinker, experiment, build, create, and collaborate is something new in K-12 education. It isn't. 

I remember shop classes where my brothers built napkin holders, a ceramics/pottery class where I made an ashtray (yes, we made ashtrays for our parents whether they smoked or not), and Home Economics where I learned to sew and make Rice Krispie Treats. The maker movement and makerspaces is not a fad but an innovation renaissance; The rediscovery and reapplication of the once popular "learning by doing" process. 

Embedding makerspaces into our learning environments ensures students have equitable access to the tools, technology, and resources required to experience hands-on problem solving and is the actualization of the BVSD Success Effect: "create challenging, meaningful and engaging learning opportunities so that all children thrive and are prepared for successful, civically engaged lives." 

"We Have Always Been Makers"

Teacher-Librarians are uniquely positioned to lead this innovation renaissance:

"We have always been makers. Libraries have always been maker spaces. The tools change, but the core of who we are and what we do is the same.We are educators, enablers, equippers. We are a space to try new things, learn new things, and do new things. We are open doors and new opportunities. We are makers. We always have been. We always will be. Even when the terminology changes.  

--SLJ, 2015

We have put together a collection of K-12 aligned resources on the who, what, why, and where of the maker movement and how educators are integrating innovative spaces into their learning communities and library spaces.

Click here to jump start your maker movement research and learn how teacher-librarians and library spaces are leading this innovation renaissance.

Expanding Your Digital Collections - OverDrive

Based on the success of the OverDrive (OD) ebook pilot program (2014-2016) we want to expand adoption of the OD platform for ebook content delivery to all BVSD schools.

We know that many of you are actively building and or expanding your digital collections and partnering with a variety of ebook vendors including Follett and Mackin. OD is yet another ebook vendor to consider partnering with to accelerate your digital collection development efforts.

Working with OD, we have developed a participation matrix where schools contribute a dollar amount based on student population and commit to spending that minimum dollar amount during the 2016-17 school year. Each school will make their own content selections and share their content thus creating a combined ebook collection that can be accessed by all participating schools.

Participation is 100% OPTIONAL and will only be offered once a year. 

If you want to participate you must complete the OD Participation Form and submit it by this Friday, May 20 at 4 PM.

Important Participation Deadlines:

May 20 by 4 PM -- Complete and submit the OverDrive Participation Form

Week of May 23 -- Complete and submit OverDrive’s Participation Agreement (will be sent to you directly from OD)

Early to mid August -- look for invoice for full contribution amount from OverDrive

Participation Benefits

• Continue to access the strong ebook collection created as part of the pilot (maintain access to these resources).
• The more schools that participate, the larger and more diverse and appealing the collection which benefits students across all schools, large and small.
• Participating schools will make their own OD content selections and can continue to maintain other ebook platforms (e.g., MackinVIA or Follett Shelf).
• The collection is dynamic and titles can easily be swapped in and out to improve relevancy, applicability, and quality of OD collection.
• Schools that currently maintain OD ebook collections (non OD pilot schools) can continue to do so and will not be required to participate in this program and their OD content will not be included in the shared collection (if they so desire).
• *Participating schools can add content for just their student population over and above their participation minimum amount.
• Online collection is a catalyst for students to use their devices in a purposeful and meaningful way.

* Minimum $300 order is required to create an Advantage account. School will need to decide if Advantage content will be shared with all consortium members or be exclusive to that school.