Connect Beyond BVSD!
“For so many of us, books opened our minds to a world of possibility...millions of children in America don’t have that chance because they don’t have adequate access to the books they need to learn and dream…”
First Lady Michelle Obama, introducing the new Open Ebooks Project
Open eBooks is an app containing thousands of popular and award-winning titles that are free for children from in-need households. Children from in-need families can access these eBooks, which include some of the most popular works of the present and past, using the Open eBooks app and read as many as they like without incurring any costs. The goal of Open eBooks is to encourage a love of reading and serve as a gateway to children reading even more often, whether in school, at libraries, or through other eBook reading apps.
Insignia Info
- Insignia is converting their ILS platform from Silverlight to HTML5 this summer. This means you can do all of your librarian work from a Chromebook--good to know as you talk with your schools about Tech Tools. Training on Insignia will be scheduled for late summer, before school starts next year.
Your Insignia Search page can be customized to act almost as a home page. See the Insignia sample below. You can add online resources, projects, announcements, photos and videos of your students at your library. I have a great idea for a student driven mapping project for elementary level that can be linked with your catalog so students can find the exact shelf the book should be on! If you are interested in exploring with me, email Rae and let’s get something scheduled!
Learning for You!
- As BVSD continues to explore what innovative spaces look like for our students, check out this article that provides insight on emerging trends in library design.
- State Library Webinar: The Irresistible Library: Renovate and Rejuvenate
Comment on this blog post about the trends you are most excited for and how you see these impacting your current and future library space! Your name will be entered into a drawing at our end of year celebration to win some great prizes!
- The 2016 Highly Effective School Library Program Rubric is posted and ready for use as you begin planning for next year and your work as a teacher librarian. More information will be available from the state and we will have a specialized blog post in the near future about this revised program!
Grant Opportunities!
Did you know that there is a grant website curated by the BVSD Ed Tech Team and geared towards teachers and teacher librarians? Check it out! Included in this is information about a Google Community Grant--read on to see all that is available to you!What to Know @BVSD this Month!
- Our March Teacher Librarian Meeting Tuesday, March 8th from 4:00-5:30pm @Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer Elementary
- Host: David Smith
- Snacks: Arlene Gregersen, David Smith, Becky Vancura *Remember to have your book talks ready for the group!
- Workshops!
- Secondary Research Roundtable facilitated by Jon Georgitis & Regina Hoskins: How are you embedding in research instruction in your school? What are activities, programs, lessons, etc, that you use as a secondary librarian? Come chat and share your ideas with fellow secondary teacher librarians.
- An Evolution of Digital Citizenship Workshop with Kim Butler: Come learn about how the DigiCiti project continues to evolve and how to implement digital citizenship lessons and ideas in your own libraries
I love that the library's role is shifting from just reading and researching to reading, researching, producing, and sharing. Because of this, our innovation funds are being used to add multimedia production rooms in place of a computer lab that rarely ever gets used anymore.
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