This is the "Word Wall" poster of one of the Second Grade classes.   They drew the characters and listed the words to describe them.

We worked on a round table and had a lot of fun.  The giggling got stronger when we got to Ms. Viola Swamp.  :D

(Click on the photo for a closer look)

Thing 1: Blogging

Hello All!

I am so glad to be back to blogging.   I kind of missed it but never seem to have time to write.  The Cool Tools PD is a great "excuse" to get back to it.

Let's see, my name is Rosa and I have worked as a Children's Librarian in a public library, a reference librarian at a college and currently a school media specialist at Lincoln Park School 44 in Rochester.  I absolutely love reading to children.  It is so much fun to see their reactions when different things happen in the stories.  Today we made a "word wall" of Miss Nelson is Missing and the second graders drew pictures of the characters along with the words.  (Will put up a photo later).

I decided to take this PD because this is my first year as a librarian-teacher.  I want to be better equipped to teach fun technology to my students.  In the beginning I was focusing a lot on making copies and having the students work on worksheets.   (How they whined and protested).  However, I realized that the school library should be a fun place where you can check out books and learn how to be tech savvy.  With this in mind, I hope to incorporate all the fun things we will be working on in this program.

Podcasting at the Media Center

As a librarian it is exciting to find different ways of engaging students and making learning fun.  When I worked at the public library, we always had different themes for every month.  One of the themes celebrated during the month of March is Women's History.  And although we can use print and electronic resources to teach about women's history, using podcasts can really captivate the students' attention. 
This is one of the reasons I like NPR.  It has a variety of good podcasts and I particularly like the Tell Me More About Women's History collection.  This collection of podcasts tell about the lives of influential women in history and the significance of their accomplishments.
I would definitely use this collection of podcasts to enhance a month long celebration of women's accomplishments in history.  I would also have the students build on these podcasts by creating podcasts of their own, about other historical women.