Our first chat of 2016 centered around digital tools and resources that aid students in reading and research. Granite teachers also shared books that inspire them professionally and inspire their students as readers and learners. Thank you to everyone who participated! We will be compiling all of the resources and books you shared in the chat and sharing them on this blog next week. Read on for a complete archive of the chat. [Read more…] about #GSDEdTech Chat Archive – Reading and Research Tools (1/28/2016)
Literacy Resources
Summer Reading 2015
Teachers and parents: are you looking for great resources for summer reading for your students? In this post we round up programs from Granite School District, our friends at the Salt Lake City Public Library and Salt Lake County Library systems, and a few more resources from the web in general. [Read more…] about Summer Reading 2015
Featured Resource: TumbleBooks
TumbleBooks is an easy-to-use online database with hundreds of media-rich electronic books for children. Their selections include story books, nonfiction, graphic novels, chapter books, and foreign language books. TumbleBooks is provided to Salt Lake County residents for home use (including all students and parents in Granite School District) thanks to the Salt Lake County Public Library System. [Read more…] about Featured Resource: TumbleBooks
Featured Resources: National Poetry Month + Poetry Foundation
As April is National Poetry Month, we are featuring two great digital resources for bringing poetry into the classroom. [Read more…] about Featured Resources: National Poetry Month + Poetry Foundation
Featured Resource: Goodreads
Goodreads is a social network focused purely on books and reading. It is ideal for anyone who wants to keep a digital record of their reading life, including teachers and students.
Featured Resource: Newsela
Want to get up-to-date news articles on high-interest and diverse topics for students, customized to their reading levels? Newsela will do this for you!
OverDrive: Granite School District’s Digital Library
Granite’s OverDrive Digital Library provides students and teachers with access to a large collection of popular ebooks and audiobooks for independent, recreational, or teacher-assigned reading. These books can be read on a computer web browser or checked out and downloaded to a wide array of mobile devices via the OverDrive App. [Read more…] about OverDrive: Granite School District’s Digital Library
Library Spotlight: Michelle Asay, Granger High School
Michelle Asay is the Library Media Educational Technology Specialist for Granger High School. Mrs. Asay has one of the highest digital and print circulations in the district. She is very creative and offers a different library promotion each month to promote school wide literacy. She is an avid reader herself and keeps up on all the current YA literature trends.
Take a Reading Roadtrip Across the USA!
The Granger High Media Center theme for the 2014-2015 school year is Take a Reading Roadtrip Across the USA!
Mrs. Asay is featuring books that take place in various geographic regions of the United States via book talks and book displays throughout the year. Students have punch cards where they can keep track of which regions and states they have covered, and they must read at least one book from each region to beat the yearlong challenge. Students also have access to lists of YA Books by state and region online via G-House Center, the Granger High Media Center web site, on which are curated several state book lists from Destiny, Goodreads, the collaborative Google Doc YA Novels by State, and The United States of YA.
Library Orientation with QR Code Scavenger Hunt
This year students used QR Codes and iPads to participate in Mrs. Asay’s library orientations. Students explored the library searching for QR codes that introduced them to the “Take a Reading Roadtrip Across the USA” school literacy promotion, Destiny Library Catalog, OverDrive Digital Library, how to locate different genres and sections in the library, how to place a hold on a book, and more.
Granger High Media Center QR Code Library Orientation Activity
This is just a sample of the displays and activities in the Granger High Media Center. You can see more examples of Michelle’s displays and promotions, as well as displays from our other schools, on our Granite Media Library Displays Pinterest Board.
Spotlight Author: Cindy Moyle, Granite District Secondary Library Media Specialist
Library Spotlight: Beehive Book Awards
Beehive Book Awards
The Beehive Book Award is an annual award sponsored by the Children’s Literature Association of Utah (CLAU), given to one book in each of these five categories: Children’s Fiction, Informational, Picture Book, Poetry, and Young Adult. Committees of teacher, librarian, and parent volunteer readers create annual short lists of 10-12 books in each category. These short lists are announced in March and then school and public libraries work to get students to vote on their favorites for the following school year. The winner in each category is announced the following year in April.
Granite School District Elementary School Libraries work hard to promote the Beehive Book Award program and encourage students to vote for their favorite books. They do this through displays, community engagement, and library promotions.
Displays
At Hillsdale Elementary School, Angela Pratt has a display for the 2015 Beehive Book Awards and highlights each category on a different shelf. She uses this display when doing story time and encourage her students to check-out the books nominated. Truman, Woodstock, and Rolling Meadows have also set up displays to draw attention to the books.
Community Engagement
At Rosecrest Elementary, Vala’dee Tanner, the media assistant, collaborated with the librarian at the Holladay library to come do a book talk for all students 4th-6th grade. Each grade came to the library and the public librarian spoke to them about the Beehive award nominees and encouraged them to participate in the voting process. Many schools rely on their PTA to help them buy copies of the Beehive nominees and to help track voting. At Driggs Elementary School, the PTA buys copies of each Beehive Book Award nominee and create a plan to read them in the classroom.
Promotion
Many media assistants have set up ballot boxes to help keep track of votes. Dian Morrison and Kim Liston, the media assistants at Woodstock Elementary, have a glass ballot box set up by their Beehive Book Award display. Students enjoy voting because they like to submit them in the special box, and like to see the votes build up over the school year.
Spotlight Author: Nikki Gregerson, Granite District Elementary Media Supervisor
OverDrive Digital Library
(http://granite.lib.overdrive.com)
Granite’s OverDrive Digital Library provides students and teachers with access to a large library of popular ebooks and audiobooks for independent, recreational, or teacher-assigned reading. These books can be read on a computer or checked out and downloaded to a wide array of mobile devices via the OverDrive Media Console apps. OverDrive is currently available to all students and teachers grades 7-12, and is also being piloted at several elementary schools for the 2014-15 school year. Students log in to OverDrive by choosing their school name and using their student number. Teachers and staff members log in by choosing “Teachers” as their school name and entering their district computer username and password.
You must be logged in to post a comment.