No Bridge/Hangout too Far

     In the aftermath of this year's United States presidential election, my students have come across a great learning opportunity.   When I opened my email the morning after the election, I was pleasantly surprised to see a message from Lorena's class in Mexico inquiring as to when we could visit about the United States election results on Hangout.
 
     That same morning, I also had a message from my colleague Pernilla and her students in Sweden.  They recorded a video message filled with questions about how my students in Arkansas thought the election would change things in America.  It contained questions such as "will the wall really be built between Mexico and the United States?" , "what will happen to relations between the US and Russia?"

     In the past, our ability to connect with classes around the world has been limited to those classrooms that are about 6 time zones ahead or behind where we are located in Arkansas (our school is located in the GMT-6 zone).  We are limited to the hours where our school day(s) intersect, unless a class is from a boarding school, or willing to come back after their school day is over.

    The election results have opened up a new frontier in our Hangouts.  I am excited to partner with Jamie Stallings our Human Geography teacher on this.  We have worked together in the past to connect with our peers in South America, Europe and the Caribbean through Hangouts. to show students how to respond to their peers' in Sweden's video message using the Let's Recap app, and YouTube connect.   We look forward to hearing/visiting with Pernilla's class again soon!

    By moving into this new frontier for connecting with our international peers, we have expanded our students options to truly connect on a global scale.  No longer are we limited to a few time zones ahead or behind of where our school is physically located.  No longer are we limited by different school/bell schedules. Through exploring these video options, our students can take advantage of the time differences to connect with their peers literally around the world!

    In effect, no class is too far.... no Hangout is too far away.  I am excited to see where this new option takes our students!

    Are you interested in connecting with our classes at Lakeside Junior High School through these apps, or Google Hangouts/Skype?  Contact me at bjohnson3@sdale.org

On Twittter:  @goldeneagleLMC
                    @brian_librarian

On Instagram: GoldenEagleLMC

8 Keys to Having a Successful Teen Tech Week Celebration

     It has been one of my goals this year to hold more themed events based on the ALA Library calendar.  To be honest, at times I have let these events sneak up on me.  This has made me a little bit more dedicated to pulling some celebrations off.

    This year's Teen Tech Week has been a great celebration.  Here is a top 8 list of ways to have a successful Teen Tech and probably the suggestions here would apply to any library event.

1. Collaborate outside of your physical building.

     For a couple of years now, I have had the privilege of staging Google Hangouts with my friend and colleague, Stony Evans at Lakeside Hot Springs High School.  We have had "Lakeside Squared" Hangouts based on books, Banned Book Week, and dramatic as well as musical performances.  For this year's Teen Tech Week, we decided to hold a Maker show and tell Hangout. Our students took turns sharing their maker creations including robots, coding, creature makeup and a windmill.

2. Seek out different demographics.

     Our libraries need to be safe places for all of our patrons and our programming should reflect that.  The Squishy Circuits session we held on Friday during lunch was a big hit with some of our male students who are typically "too cool" for library programs.  I am not sure if it was the electricity, or the play dough, or the combination of both that drew them in for this event.

3.  Hold a prize giveaway.

     Maybe this is a given at this point, but part of drawing in a larger crowd to library events is to give away candy and prizes.  For the Squishy Circuits event, we gave away a couple pairs of headphones, some candy and fancy pens.  They were a hit!

4.  Invite your staff to events.

     Since most of our students ride a bus to school, staying after school is not an option. As a result, most of the programming I present is either before school or at lunchtime.    This year, I have made it a point to invite both staff and students to events that traditionally have targeted students.  For the Squishy Circuits maker challenge on Friday, I had some teachers attend and build the circuits right along with students.  (Thanks to Mr. Scott and Mr. Stallings for participating!) It provides a great opportunity for teachers and students to interact outside of the classroom.

5. Collaborate with your teaching peers to present programming-look for ways to get them involved.

     One reason why Teen Tech week was so successful was the help and support I received from my faculty to develop the event.  Our Family and Consumer Science teacher, Mrs. Coston, also let me borrow her kitchen to mix up the non conductive Playdough that was needed for the Squishy Circuits.One of our instructional assistants Mr. Lara took pictures of the Maker Hangout and Squishy Circuits events.  He also kept participants well supplied with materials during  the Squishy circuits event on Friday.

6. Collaborate with student aides as coaches/tech mentors

     Before each Maker Challenge, I employ my student aides to test/troubleshoot the activities.  Not only does this get their buy in to attend the event, but they also recruit a few of their friends to attend which improves out turn out.   Trying out the maker activities ahead of time also gave them the confidence to go and teach others.   Since they have played the roll of activity testers before, several of them have made it a norm to not only attend the event, but also to jump right in and teach their peers at the event.

7. Subtly embed learning in the event.

     Aside from the fun of completing a Maker Challenge, I also look for ways to embed teachable moments.  For the Squishy Circuits challenge, students had lots of fun building circuits of out Playdough, but they also were learning some basic skills about how electricity flows. One of the concepts was the idea that they could build a short circuit-that electricity flows through the path of least resistance if the conductive dough pieces were touching instead of flowing through the wires.

     Students also had opportunities to try out a motor, different battery sizes as well as both alligator clips and wires.  Having a variety of materials on hand encouraged students to experiment and innovate.  This only added to the fun as students searched for the best combinations of batteries and cabling.  The students were so engaged in the fun of building the circuits that they did not realize that they were learning!

8. Reflect on the event and seek improvements

     Overall, the two Teen Tech week events were a success, but there are still areas that could be improved. For the Squishy Circuits, it would have been more effective to have sections of wire precut before students arrived for first lunch.  This would have given students more chances to innovate their designs.  For second lunch, we were able to have enough wire precut for students to start right away. This gave students more time and they developed some pretty innovative designs-they made a snake, an ugly snowman, and a fish!

     It also would have given students more confidence if there were some prototypes laid out to help them start thinking about their designs.  Next time, I would like to employ my student aides to help develop more prototypes and have their work laid out on the tables for event participants to see.   This would also help to prepare student aides to have more confidence to teach once they had already developed some working prototypes.

Follow me on Twitter:@brian_librarian

Follow the Golden Eagle Library

On Twitter: @GoldenEagleLMC

On Instagram: @Goldeneaglelmc

Contact me by email: bjohnson3@sdale.org

Reverse Modeling: Teaching with Nonexamples

     I have a confession to make, I love Google Hangouts.   In past years, I have held Hangouts with authors and about books (both banned and not), in both English and Spanish, with experts in their field and some performance based Hangouts.

     Last year, I held some Mystery Hangouts with classes in the Caribbean, Sweden, Canada and South America for students in the Advanced Placement Geography course at my school.  (These Hangouts were also open to all students at Lakeside JHS).  They were so popular, that the AP Geography teacher approached me about holding them on a more regular basis this year.

     To teach our students Google Hangout etiquette, we decided to try start with a mock Mystery Hangout.  I called the class on Hangout from the library while they stayed in their classroom down the hall using my alter ego, Mr. Bond.  We employed one of my favorite instructional strategies teaching with nonexamples;  in the case of this Mystery Hangout etiquette lesson, what not to do on a Google Hangout.

    For this Hangout, I sketched out a fake class on the whiteboard behind me complete with distracted students.  We set it up in the Professional Library area of the library with an American Flag in the background so as not to disguise my location for a Mystery Hangout.

     Throughout the Hangout, I pretended that I could not sit still to reinforce how distracting such behavior is for participants on the other end of the webcam.  I also made sure to eat potato chips and drink water while attempting to answer students' questions about my location.

     Looking back on the year of Hangouts, the visit with Mr. Bond produced great dividends evidenced by students' participation in our later Hangouts.   This was quite a successful year for Mystery Hangouts.  We met with classes in South American, Europe (South London), British Columbia and Ontario Canada as well as Transylvania, Romania).

     Since students became comfortable in what not to do, they were better prepared to successfully participate.  Students were able to apply their learning to speak up, hold still, and ask the right kinds of questions during Hangouts.  They were able to develop deeper questions for those who participated in Hangouts with them which in turn, produced higher quality discussions.  Being that this is an election year, we had some fascinating discussions after the Mystery portion of the Hangouts with our peers on other continents about their views of American political candidates.

     Beyond deeper discussion, it also changed students' view of themselves and their roles in the world.  By holding a Hangout once a month with this class throughout the year, Hangouts became a norm of their education, and as a result, students started to view themselves as a part of the global community.

     We often hear that as educators we are preparing students for a world with jobs that have not yet been created.  Since we know our world is only becoming more connected, it makes sense to build in Hangouts as a norm of our instructional program.   Why not use regular Hangouts to prepare our students for their even more connected futures?

Follow me on Twitter: @brian_librarian

Follow the Golden Eagle Library!

On Twitter: @GoldenEagleLMC
On Instagram: Goldeneaglelmc

Contact me by email: bjohnson3@sdale.org

Telenovellas Hangout

    My adminstrator asked the teacher leaders in a meeting the other day what was going on in our classrooms as the school year comes to a close.  I responded that as media specialist, I was working to "tiptoe around the testing schedule", and fit as much library programming in as possible for my students before the school year ends.

    One of my favorite (and unfortunately last) programming events of the 2014-15 year was our latest Lakeside Squared Hangout with students from 4 Spanish classes, 2 from Lakeside JHS Springdale where I work, and 2 from Lakeside High School in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  This Hangout was kind of a one year anniversary Hangout from when Stony Evans, media specialist at Lakeside Hot Springs, and I began the Lakeside Squared Hangouts tradition last May with a book club Hangout about Veronica Roth's popular novel Divergent.

   Not only was this the first time we had held a Squared Hangout with 4 classes at once, but it was also one with a number of other "firsts".  This Hangout was our first working with our foreign language departments, and also the first one that was conducted almost completely in a language other than English. This Squared Hangout was also our first one where students presented dramatic works they had created themselves. Student groups from both schools presented the telenovelas-short and often violent Mexican soap operas for each other through Hangout.  Students also had the opportunity to practice their Spanish skills by asking and responding to questions posed by their peers after the telenovela presentations.

   I am excited about the new ground that has been broken with this Squared Hangout.  Expanding into a new academic department, Spanish will give our students new possibilities.  Getting the Spanish department to participate gives us opportunities for ongoing Spanish language skill practice between classes/schools and has potential to be expanded to include more native Spanish speaking classes/schools from around the world to join future Hangouts through the Google Arkansas Network Group, (G.A.N.G.)

   

   If you are interested in having your students participate in the Google Arkansas Network Group Hangout Community, click here to sign up and join the Google Arkansas Networking Group (G.A.N.G.) today!

@Brian_librarian
@GoldenEagleLMC
@Stony1220