Librarians as Leaders in Interactive Educational Apps

One of the weekly Twitter chats I enjoy participating in when time permits is the #storyappchat on Sundays This chat has given me the chance to connect with app developers, authors and illustrators, and talented librarians. It's also provided me with the opportunity to learn about identifying quality educational apps for children and finding ways to use them as a supplemental tool in school libraries and classrooms.

In the most recent #storyappchat, hosted by Heather Shugar from the Diapered Daze and Knights blog (@DiaperedKnights on Twitter), we discussed how to bring more attention to interactive educational apps. If you go back through the entire chat archive which was curated by Brooks Jones (@brooks_jones), you will see that both authors/content creators and librarians are concerned with separating the "fluff" apps from those that truly provide an interactive learning experience while promoting literacy. Another concern is finding ways to reach out to educators and assisting them in using interactive educational apps to enhance the learning experience.

Tellagami Tutorial

Piggybacking on Dr. Subramaniam's presentation at TLA, which I shared in my previous blog post, I'm sharing an introductory tutorial that I created for the Tellagami app. My hope is that librarians will be more confident in experimenting with Tellagami and share it with teachers.

Dr. Mega Subramaniam's Presentation at 2014 TLA Conference

Dr. Mega Subramaniam (@mmsubram) from the University of Maryland presented to librarians at the TLA conference in San Antonio. Her session, titled "Shifting Sands of School Librarianship: Math Phobic to Math Enthusiast," provided a list of suggestions for school librarians who want to assist teachers in helping students improve in mathematics. As a person who is math challenged, I chose to attend this session in order to be able to better support my teachers.

My 2013 in Review

I don't normally reflect on the end of the year, but this year has been different for me. So I guess, in a way, taking a different approach to the end of the year by reflecting on it seems fitting.

During the course of 2013, I became more and more involved in social media for professional purposes. I threw myself into actively participating in Twitter chats with other librarians, teachers and ed tech specialists. These chats showed me how far behind I was regarding trends in education and technology. These conversations also allowed me to I develop more professional connections, with a few of them turning into friendships. In return, the new connections opened many doors for me, and I tried as much as possible to "pay it forward" by sharing with others when possible.

Reflecting on the Hour of Code

Now that book fair is over (and it was a very successful book fair!), it's time to reflect on library activities over the past couple of weeks, which included the Hour of Code (#HourofCode) and Brad Gustafson's (@GustafsonBrad) World Book Talk (#WorldBookTalk). This blog post will focus on the Hour of Code, while a separate blog post will be dedicated to the World Book Talk.

Informal Assessment and Creative Student Work with Apps

Inspired by some innovative librarians and technology specialists across Texas and the United States, I took advantage of some cool tools and let students get creative in the library this past week. I'd like to share which tools the students and I used, and how we incorporated them into library curriculum.

Thankful for my PLN

I experienced something wonderful earlier this week, and it happened because of my Professional Learning Network (PLN). 

Some tips for beginning Flippers

This weekend I'm wrapping up a presentation about flipping the school library that I'll give to librarians in my school district next week. The presentation begins with the message shown here on the left. I chose to add this slide because, as a recently "flipped" convert, the memory of being overwhelmed and confused by all the options that technology offers is still pretty fresh in my mind. 

Poverty vs. Technology

Web 2.0 technologies have been around for a while. Business and bloggers, for example, have been reaping the benefits of interactive platforms on the Internet for a few years now. Savvy educators are taking advantage of unique learning opportunities provided by Web 2.0 to help their students develop critical thinking skills, and the Flipped Classroom approach to instruction is revolutionizing traditional learning methods. Some schools are lucky enough to have a mobile device for each student in a classroom.