Earlier today, I was trying to remember that saying… …you know the one…  “Something or other is the mother of invention.” I spent a few minutes, okay, more than a few minutes trying to remember, then I broke down and went to the internet.  It’s NECESSITY!  “NECESSITY is the mother of invention.” Plato said that.  It must be right.

I brought it up because I want to illustrate that point.  I’ve spent the last four years in my library using a workstation TV to show presentations, videos, computer tutorials, etc.  All of the school’s projectors were being used in classrooms and I didn’t have the wall space (with all the library shelves/books and such) to hang a screen anyway.  I’m not proud that it’s taken me four years to break out of that rut, but I’m hoping that this post will help others break out of the rut sooner rather than later.

I decided this year that our “new” library (we moved last year) is just too spread out for students to see that relatively small workstation tv.  I asked for one of the projectors and got one (who knew it was that easy?).  Now, what to do for a screen…  I have one of those old stand-alone chalkboards that I use as a bulletin board.  I decided to temporarily throw a tablecloth over it and it worked so well, I made it permanent.  A white tablecloth is attached to the top of the chalkboard.  Strategically placed velcro allows me to fold the tablecloth up so it doesn’t hang below the board when it’s not being used as a screen.  Was this rocket science?  Certainly not, and that’s the point.  Sometimes you don’t have to wait for things to be purchased and installed.  The students are much more engaged when they can actually SEE what you’re trying to show them.  It was well worth the price of a white tablecloth!

Keep reading and keep learning.

I’m still reading… just not at the rate that I was before the school year started.  Here are a couple of books that I’ve read lately that I really liked.

The Angel Experiment (the first book in the Maximum Ride Series) – by James Patterson

Before I found this series for middle schoolers, I thought James Patterson only wrote adult thrillers (not my genre so I’ve never read his work before now).  The series was recommended so I ordered the first three Maximum Ride books last Spring.  The premise is alittle far-fetched (the main characters are 98% human and 2% avian (bird)) but I really like how the characters think.  For flying kids, they seem remarkably authentic and I got really attached to them.  I guess I’ll have to read the rest of the series now.  Interest level:  middle school.

A Lesson Before Dying – by Ernest J. Gaines

Okay, I should’ve read this one long before now… I know.  It was an OPRAH book, for pete’s sake!  Well, now you know.  I’m not a member of Oprah’s Book Club…  I read this because my daughter was required to read it for school.  (Thank goodness for school reading lists!)  I loved it.  It reads like an older classic even though it was written just 15 years ago.  I think the narrator, a school teacher named Grant Wiggins, is a wonderfully written, complex character.  I sympathized with his inner struggles and found him to be more compassionate than he gave himself credit for.  My daughter thought he was mean.  This is why we should re-read the books we read in high school.  We read things differently through older eyes.  Interest level:  We have this in our middle school collection but since it deals with mature issues (death penalty, adult relationships (but not graphic)), it might be more appropriate for high school students.

NOTE:  I also finished the fourth (and final?) book in the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer.  I wasn’t disappointed.  It wrapped up all the loose ends from the first three books very neatly.  Meyer has also started re-writing the first book in the series, but from Edward’s rather than Bella’s perspective.  The first 260+ pages of her rough draft got leaked so Meyer posted it on her website for all to see.  It’s interesting to read a story from two different characters’ perspectives.

Keep reading and keep learning!

We did it!  We held our first SSMS Jr. Tech Camp after school today.  We taught our jr. tech campers how to create themselves as cartoon characters in Bitstrips.  I thought it went well.  Granted, my expectations were somewhat limited.  There were a few “no shows”, but that ended up being a blessing when several of our computers froze.  Bottom line, though, each jr. tech camper was able to participate and all left happy and asking when the next Jr. Tech Camp session would be.  I call that a success!  Let me say, though, that it wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of our school’s technology savant, Ms. Thompson.  Thank you, Ms. Thompson, for your help and expertise!

Due to some initial concerns, teaching the students how to use Bitstrips to create their own characters ended up being alittle more time-consuming on the front end.  I wanted to control the bitstrips accounts used during camp and have access to the characters they created once camp was over.  For these reasons, I created 25 bitstrips accounts (for camp use) in advance.  To do this, I had to create 25 email addresses in advance.  (Bitstrips only allows one account per email address.)  Beyond that, I documented the main steps of character creation through a series of screen snapshots that I added to a PowerPoint of simple instructions.  PowerPoint handouts were printed.  I’m not sure the PowerPoint presentation was that necessary DURING the camp.  The students were too excited about creating their characters, changing their look, their expressions, and the color of their clothes, to pay much attention to the slide show at the front of the room.  They seemed to like the handouts, though, and that made the PowerPoint creation worthwhile.

I guess the only frustating aspect of this afternoon was that, despite my preparation, some of the computers didn’t cooperate.  I made a point of going into the lab well in advance, attempting to pull up the internet and log onto bitstrips on each of the computers.  Four of the 26 computers wouldn’t access the internet, which was okay because I had 22 students signed up.  I had each computer logged on to a different bitstrips account (which I’d created beforehand).  Everything was ready when the students arrived.  THEN, with the first keystroke to actually create a character, six or seven of the computers froze.  Some confusion ensued as those students who had functioning computers were restless to keep going and Ms. Thompson and I were trying to help the students with blank screens.  Once we admitted defeat with the frozen computers (fairly quickly), it didn’t take too long to rearrange students, have some double-up (with some grumbling, of course), and get going again.  Students who finished first gave up their computers to those students who hadn’t yet had a turn and everyone was able to participate.  The upside is that I was able to explain the computer problem to my principal and ask that the library have access to a laptop cart so the NEXT jr. tech camp can take place in the library with laptops.  He agreed.  Woo Hoo!

Check out our happy campers on the following Animoto video…

… It seemed like a good idea at the time…

Little mini techie sessions for students (and those teachers who want to sit in) to see some of the cool stuff I learned about at Tech Camp last summer.  …our very own Jr. Tech Camp, chunked into small after school sessions.  The first one is this Thursday afternoon.  I’ll be showing them how to use BITSTRIPS to create cartoon characters and comic strips.  I’m excited…. ….and nervous.  My first concern was that I wouldn’t be able to get students interested enough to stay after school for this.  Shortly after that, my second concern was that I might have too many students interested and not enough room in the computer lab.  A flyer went home today, asking for permission slips back by Wednesday.  I’m going to try to have students’ bitstrips accounts set up prior to the Thursday session.  I’ll keep you posted on how this goes…

Deciding on what to cover in this first session wasn’t too difficult.  Since I’ve posted a cartoon character of myself on my library door this year, created at www.bitstrips.com, I’ve had a number of students and teachers ask how I made it.  I thought this would be a good place to start our tech adventures, letting the students create themselves as a bitstrip character.  If time permits, they can create a comic strip as well.  In addition, this session fit well into our 1st six weeks school theme “Who Are We?”.  Like I said… …It seemed like a good idea at the time…

Wish me luck!

(I’m going to try this post one more time…  Originally I embedded a YouTube video, then remembered that it wouldn’t play on our school computers.  I then tried to embed a version of the same video from TeacherTube but couldn’t get it to play.  This time, I’ve downloaded the video from YouTube, translating it into a .mov file using www.vixy.net.)

Can you believe that RSS actually stands for “Really Simple Syndication” instead of something obnoxiously technical like “Replicated Streaming System”? I find that very refreshing…

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I use a free RSS feed reader called Bloglines to subscribe to a number of blogs and news websites. I’ve received a couple of questions about how exactly a RSS feed reader works. I’m going to include a video called RSS in Plain English at the bottom of this post. I think it’ll explain it better than I can here. As you start using Bloglines or Google Reader or whatever site you decide to use to subscribe to RSS feeds, remember it CAN get out of hand if you are not careful. In the past couple of years, I’ve had to delete almost as many of my subscriptions as I’ve added to ensure I’m not forever glued to my computer reading an ever-increasing number of posts. The whole point is to SAVE time, right?

See below for the RSS in Plain English video..

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