High School Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 50.0 hours
Total hours 96.0

Well, today (actually yesterday) I finished up my practicum hours. I started the day just by chatting with the librarian for some time. We over the practicum schedule of things to do and found out that I accomplished most things. We talked about periodicals and how she does them. I also tried to link the EBSCO articles to my RSS reader so that I could read articles from professional periodicals from MPS on my reader. It works to an extent. I

I did my normal thing and almost finished up with the weeding that she had me doing in the AV room.

Today during the art class's time I sat and worked with a special ed student who was having trouble with his project. I enjoyed this because I felt like I was really being helpful.

That was about it for this day. I guess 4 hours goes pretty quick sometimes!

High School Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 46.0 hours
Total hours 92.0

Yesterday was slightly different from the big projects I've been working on. When I got there I helped the art class for the first 45 minutes. I helped them find information online as well as finding and organizing their powerpoint presentations. I did the same thing for the last 45 minutes. In between, I weeded the AV section as usual, but I also helped out with overdue notices and fines. Ellen showed me how you run reports in Destiny and showed me that there is no good way to do it so that you get it to print exactly what you want. So we ended up printing 400 fee notices, then going through the one that were actually library materials. Then we also separated out the ones that were for materials from other schools, as well as textbooks, because we don't handle that in the library. We also went through and took out the fines that were less than $2.00 because it doesn't make any sense to mail something for over 40 cents only to collect a small fine. We also discussed how she handles periodicals and how many periodicals are going full text on Ebsco, so we don't need to pay for anything twice.

High school Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 42.0 hours
Total hours 88.0

Today was much the same as days past. Today I came in a bit earlier and got to work closer with one of the classes. I actually felt helpful with them because I got to show them some of the links and helpful ways to make their PowerPoint on art movements. So it was a better day than days past with that.

I kept weeding the AV section and I surpassed the goal in mind that I had when I started doing it so that I could be helpful for the librarian there. That made me happy.

Finally, we kind of talked through the list of things that are expected for the practicum hours and went through and checked off the majority of the list because they just sort of happened naturally as we went through the day.

High School Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 38.0 hours
Total hours 84.0

On Friday I again worked with the the first art class when I got there. I helped them learn about how to cite their sources using the website www.bibme.org. In this school, a lot of students do not show up on Fridays so the class was pretty small. This was the same for the afternoon class that I have been working with. Normally they have about 8 students in the afternoon class, but today there were only three. Due to the small numbers I just went back to weeding the AV section. I have a goal that I have set for myself to get through before I finish up my hours on Thursday.

High School Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 34.0 hours
Total hours 80.0

Today was at least a little different than the past 2 days. I came in slightly early and started out by getting involved and showing my example art presentations to one of the classes that I am working with. I then helped them set up their PowerPoints and save them and get started on them for the remainder of the class period.

Ellen then told me that she had to make an instruction podcast for how to use a website. She said that she had done 3 already but would show me how to do it if I wanted to. I wanted to. She introduced me to Camstudio. I then used Camstudio to record a podcast about how to use a site called Bibme.org for bibliographies. After making it, I uploaded it to the website that I have created through the district for my classes.

I also did a small amount of weeding back in the AV history department, then finished up the day doing the same thing as I had done earlier with another class.

High School Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 30.0 hours
Total hours 76.0

Today I did pretty much the same thing I did yesterday. I started out by weeding in the AV section, this time the history section for about the first hour to an hour and a half. Then the art teacher came in, gave me some more of the things that he would like to see in the student's PowerPoints, and then I went back and fixed my templates and examples. I then went on to my Moodle so that I could upload these presentations to my Moodle so that others could have access to them, and that was pretty much my day. Not a whole lot to do in 4 hours I guess.

High School Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 26.0 hours
Total hours 72.0

Today I both started and ended my day the same way. Ellen is trying to weed the AV sedtion. One of the largest sections in the AV is the History section. Since my background is in history Ellen thought that it would be a good idea to have me weed the entire History section. So I spent about the first hour and last half hour of the day watching videos and going through the history section of the AV to weed out anything that is really old, outdated, or irrelevant.

In between, I worked on the project that I am doing with Ellen and the art teacher. I created an example of what we would like to see out of the students so that they know what is expected of them. I found some more books that they could use on art movements, and that pretty much took up my whole 4 hours. It goes by fast.

High School Hours (South)

Today's High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 22.0 hours
Total hours 68.0

I spent the afternoon today at my high school assignment - Milwaukee South High School. I started out by doing some cataloging. Ellen had given me a DVD/CD-ROM that she could not find cataloged anywhere by anybody. As part of my final project for my cataloging class I cataloged this item. When I came in today Ellen showed me how to actually enter the information into Destiny. I proceded to catalog this item, as well as looking up cataloging information for about 15 other items that had been donated. I went through the whole process of findind a proper MARC record for the item, copying it, barcoding it, and putting it into the South catalog. I finished later by printing off spine labels and putting those on.

In between doing that, I met with and art teacher who is assigning his classes a research project on art periods, movements, and artists. I had previously created a PowerPoint template for him to look over, as well as found sites that would be helpful for his students to use. We discussed how the project is going, what he would like to see more of, and how we're going to teach this to the class. I then went and searched for books that students could use while doing the project, in addition to the website that they will use.

High School Hours (Reagan)

Today's High School Hours: 3.5 hours
Total High School Hours: 18.0 hours
Total hours 64.0

Today is the last day of my official practicum hours at Reagan, my place of employment. I will continue to work here because it is my job. I have actually lumped together about 3 days of hours because I have been doing the same things for pretty much all of them. I have continued to rebuild the AV section. After weeding out all of the old and unnecessary VHS tapes, I began to rebuild and replace them with updated versions on Titlewave. Something that surprises me is that there is not as much of a selection of DVDs that I would think there would be on many subjects. Somebody obviously purchased these topics on VHS tapes, I can't imagine why they wouldn't put similar things onto DVD by now. It has been much harder than I thought to find a lot of replacements. I am going to continue on this process though the end of the school year and probably into the summer.

High School Hours (South Division)

Friday, April 23, 2010

Today's High School Hours: 8.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 14.5 hours
Total Hours: 60.5 hours

Today I spent the day where I will be completing the majority of my secondary practicum hours. A large part of the morning was taken up by touring the library and meeting the staff. Compared to the high school library that I work in this library is massive. Sizewize the main library is almost 4 times larger than my high school's. All of the non-fiction is housed in this main section of the library. There is also a computer lab, a college interest section, and a developing writing workshop. The library also consists of a family section that holds all of the fiction books. This is about as big as a very large classroom. They have playaways, listening sections, a space to eat, couches and comfy chairs, and a very large Spanish language section. In the background there is music playing to settle the students down and encourage them to relax. This room blew my mind. It seems like its main purpose is simply to encourage students to read for fun. The library also contains a massive back room that allows for ample storage.

Next I sat in on a professional development meeting. The LMS here is working with another staff member to get teachers to start writing better research questions and projects for their students. They are trying to get teachers to learn how to write more open-ended research questions and also provide students and teachers with a framework on how to go about creating and doing the research. They were kind of working on the first steps of this and on showing teachers why it is necessary to do this. They have a half-hour presentation to try to get teachers on board and they were trying to sort out their thoughts on how to make this work in an extremely short period of time. This was something that I really didn't know that LMSs did - tyring to teach the teachers about how to write good research projects and help them in their professional development.

In the afternoon I met with an art teacher that I will be working on a project with. He has a project that he has done with students in the past and now wants to upgrade it. I will be helping him upgrade the technological parts of the presentation, as well as a template for how he would like the students to complete it, and coming up with a resource list that students can find online. The LMS has already done this project with him, so she is showing me what to expect and what will be needed. I spent some time after this making a list of the books that could be used for this and then looking for them in the library.

I observed a class that was using the WISCareers site. They were getting ready for the ACTs and learning test taking strategies for the math portion of the test.

I thought that I did more, but a lot of these things took a lot of time, and small things kept coming up that kept us running around, but had no real bearing on the day.

High School Hours (Reagan)

Today's High School Hours: .5 hours
Total High School Hours: 6.5 hours
Total Hours: 52.5 hours

Today I kept working on revamping the A/V section. I started listing all of the old VHS movies that we have that are worth updating. I only got about a quarter done, but once I finish I will go ahead and start to create a list on Titlewave of all of the updated DVDs I can find on these VHS subjects.

Elementary/Middle School Hours (MJSD)

Friday, April 9, 2010

Today's Elementary/Middle Hours: 7.0 hours
Total Elementary/Middle Hours: 46.0 hours
Total Hours: 52.0 hours

Today I spent all day getting ready for the Scholastic Book Fair that is coming up at MJSD April 26-30. There is a large bulletin board outside of the library. I was pretty much given free reign on how to decorate using this year's theme of "Book Fair Diner." I used several of the ideas that Scholastic provided in the accompanying magazine and I brought them to life. I created an oversized check stub that advertised the dates and theme. I created a fake sandwhich chalk board that advertised a special of the day, which was a special promotion that they would be running for one day after school when you purchase 4 books you get a 5th free. I also created a large menu that had children's books as appetizers with pictures of the books, as well as the main courses which were young adult books with pictures as well. Finally, I just used the posters that they sent and wrote/printed the dates and times on them. To decorate some of the small spaces in the board I printed some premade props from the Scholastic website.

I also shelved books.

Elementary Hours (MJDS)

Today's Elementary/Middle Hours: 8.0 hours
Total Elementary/Middle Hours: 39.0 hours
Total Hours: 45.0 hours

Today I read to 2 more classes. The first was a kindergarten class that I read Mo Willems' books to. For this class, one of the librarians actually brought in a hand puppet of one of the main characters in the books. The kids had actually had heard the book that I had chosen before , but I read it anyway because I used the hand puppet to act out what was going on in the book. They really liked it. The librarian told me that the teacher said afterward that I got a laugh out of a girl that doesn't usually laugh very much. I read 2 different Willems books to the first grade class. Most of them had heard the first book that I read but again they still enjoyed it. The class enjoyed it so much that I showed them where they could find more Willems books and several of them checked out new books, as well as the ones that I read to them.

Another part of my day was spent going through our collection electronically to see if we had any books on a booklist from a Jewish book store in another state. Apparently the LMS uses this bookstore a lot to get a lot of tips on what is currently popular in certain categories.

I also spent a good part of my day shelving a lot of books that had built up, as well as another stack that a class had been using for several weeks but that they were now done with.

I opened up the front desk and I checked in and out a lot of books for a lot of classes. The library has also been having some troubles with vandalism on the laptops in the mobile lab. So the assistant and I set up kind of hardline check-in procedure where I thoroughly inspected computers as I checked them in to hopefully threaten the vandals, then the assistant checked them again as the students put them back into the cart.

Elementary Hours (MJDS)

Today's Elementary/Middle Hours: 8.0 hours
Total Elementary/Middle Hours: 31.0 hours
Total Hours: 37.0 hours

Today, the day started off simply enough - I tore apart "Wimpy Kid" bookmarks that came as a perforated set. This was simple and fun and a good way to start a day that is still technically my spring break for my high school.

Next, the actual LMS called to check up to see how things were going. She was not here, but had a substitute fill in who normally works in the library, only for a different school. I had a list of things to do and she just wanted to make sure I was clear on what I was supposed to do. She suggested that she was going to read to the Kindergarteners tomorrow, but that I could take up the task if I wanted. I agreed to for 2 reasons: 1 - I really like reading to the younglings because it's such a big difference from reading to my high school students, and 2 - she wanted me to read Mo Willems books, which she introduced me to last time and I absolutely loved (I'm going to buy some for my nephews). So I spent a little while reading a bunch of Mo Willems books and picking out a few that I would like to read tomorrow.

I also read to the two second grade classes today. I read "Fire Up With Reading" by Toni Buzzeo. It was a fairly long book to read out loud but I tried to lighten it up for the kids by asking questions as we went through it, for instance, "Have any of you ever heard a gong?" After that, each class picked up their "shelf elves" and went to explore and check out books. I ran the counter and either checked out their books or put them on hold. I also checked out books to 6th graders that were in the library, as well as laptop computers to classes that needed them to do research.

At one point, the kindergarten teacher came in looking for books about spring time or birds that students might be able to read and enjoy as well as get some facts from. Between the substitute and I we found a few books that might suit her needs.

I also spent time weeding some old books in the science section of the non-fiction part of the library.

Finally, I spent a considerable part of my day online looking up books. First, I had a list of picture books and videos about Passover. I merely went down the list looking up the books to see if we had them in the library. Second, I looked up books on another list from a Jewish library, but I wasn't really sure exactly what I should be doing with it so I put it on hold until tomorrow. Third, I attempted to make a list of modern fairy tale books. I started making a list that included books for K-2 and Grades 3-6.

And that pretty much sums up my day!

High School Hours (Reagan)

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Today's High School Hours: 1.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 6.0 hours
Total Hours: 29.0 hours

Today I finished weeding the audio/visual section of our library. I have removed all of the VHS tapes that I believe are completely useless, both visually and informationally. I left all of the VHS that I think might be worth replacing with the same thing or something similar on the shelves. The next day that I am in here I will go onto Titlewave and start making a list of all of the new DVDs I can find that will replace those VHS tapes still on the shelves.

High School Hours (Reagan)

Today's High School Hours: 0.5 hours
Total High School Hours: 5.0 hours
Total Hours: 28.0 hours

Today Pam received an order from Follett. This order contained a good number of AV/DVD selections. These selections were not labeled according to how we have selected to have them labeled from Follett. Pam showed me who to contact and how to contact them at Follett and the correction was made so that it will not happen on the next DVD order. Then I changed the headings in the system so that they showed up correctly in the system, and I manually changed the labels to match the correct system identification.

Elementary Hours (MJDS)

Today's Elementary/Middle Hours: 8 hours
Total Elementary/Middle Hours: 23 hours
Total Hours: 27.5 hours

Today I spent the day at the Milwaukee Jewish Day School again. Once again, I really enjoyed my time here. I knew going into the day that I would get the chance to teach 2 classes. The first class at the beginning of the day was the senior kindergarten class. I knew that I would be reading them Pickles to Pittsburgh, the sequel to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Before they came in I set out their "shelf elves," which are laminated cards that serve 2 purposes - they allow students to stick something into the bookshelf when they pull out a book that they are not sure if they are going to check out, then put it back in the correct spot if they do not want it, and they also have the student barcodes on them so they can check out with it when they are ready. Then I picked out some books that have to do with traveling (like Pickles to Pittsburgh) in case they wanted to read something on a similar topic (they didn't but I didn't take offense). Then when they came in, I sat in the rocker and they sat on the carpet and I read the book to them. I first asked them what they remembered about the first book and they came back with a lot. It was fun reading a kids book and showing the pictures. They're so chatty and fidgetty and wanted to point out every little thing they noticed about the book. Like I told the librarians after, "It's kind of like playing with my nephews, it was fun for a few minutes but I wouldn't want to take them home with me just yet."

After the senior-k class I covered a few books. Not much else to tell here.

The last time I was here I weeded a bunch of books from the 300 section. This time, the LMS printed out the list that they ended up getting rid of from the ones that I picked out and I got to go through the list and create a new list on Titlewave that will eventually become the replacements for the books that I weeded. In the middle of this I took a break to observe the LMS read to the 3rd graders. I noticed that this was a different experience than reading to the senior-k class because she read a short novel (or chapter) book to them.

Next, I stamped book for a bit and put "Date Due" stickers in them.

Finally, the big show of the day...I got to give a presentation to the 4th graders on what type of sites we can trust for information on the internet. I gave a kid-friendly presentation about who we can trust in real life, then compared it to who/what we can trust online. When I asked them questions, they always had a bunch of great answers, which made this really fun and not stressful or awkward at all (for the most part). My big mistake was telling them that there are liars out there on the internet and then giving them some examples of that. My main example was the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. After I showed this fake website, that was all they could talk about. At first I thought that they actually understood what types of websites were good to get good information from, then I realized that all that they would remember would be the Tree Octopus website. Oh well! I tried!

Then I covered books again to wrap up the day.

Fun day!

High School Hours (Reagan)

Today's High School Hours: .5 hours
Total High School Hours: 4.5 hours
Total Hours: 19.5 hours

Today I spent a half hour covering books. We don't normally do this because we normally have Follett do it when we order them. I had learned previously how to do this at my elementary placement, but it has been some time so I was a bit out of practice. We received some new books that were donated to us, so after cataloging them and putting them in the system last visit, I got to cover them today. They could look better, but I'm sure that I'll improve with practice.

High School Hours (Reagan)

Today's High School Hours: 1.0 hours
Total High School Hours: 4.0 hours
Total Hours: 19.0 hours

I spent today doing two things: practicing my cataloging and discussing the things that I have discussed or done on the Library Media Practicum Checklist with my cooperating librarian. I started out by cataloging some books. Pam had some new books donated to the library and needed to figure out where they should go in our library. They were already in the system, we just had to figure out where the best place would be for our students to find them. I used a combination of the Sears catalog and some other MARC records (LoC) to determine where best to put them. It was interesting because it was a bit ahead of where we are in the cataloging course so I kind of feel like I got a small preview of how to use these sources before we even got to learning about them.

In addition, we spent some time going over all of the things that we have already covered from the list that Dennis provided. I realized that in the short time that I have been working with Pam this school year, she has already covered many topics and information that are necessary to know about our library.

High School Hours (Reagan)

Today's High School Hours: .5 hours
Total High School Hours: 3.0 hours
Total Hours: 18.0 hours

As with many businesses and government institutions, our school district has not been able to escape the budget crunch. LMSs across the board in MPS have been getting their jobs cut left and right for next year. I spent about half my time today talking to the head of my library about this. It greatly concerns me because I do not have my certificate yet, but I am the one on staff scheduled to staff the library. Because I have or am working towards 2 certificates (teaching and LMS) I shouldn't be too worried, but you never know how things are going to shake out. So we discussed what's gone on in the past and the way things might play out this year.

Then I finally finished shelving my books that I took out for my class to use.