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#SummerBookBus

6/8/2018

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Books + Design Thinking = Awesome Summer Book Bus
Third time's the charm, right? I really want to share this incredible story, but it is not that easy because I want  everyone who reads this to understand and get the picture of how wonderful this experience has been for me. It combines what we have been working on for the last couple of months, Design Thinking with community collaboration through partnerships such as an Eagle Project - book donations, Durham Bus services - donating the bus and driver, Keller Public Library, Ace Hardware  and Keller ISD schools - locations, and of course librarians.

What we were able to do was to provide over 6000 books for over 1500 visits from the community for the month of June was not only amazing becasue we actually did something, but the very act of serving the community was a lot of fun.

Every teacher wants their students to read over the summer because they know that if a student reads over the summer they will not suffer from the dreaded summer slide. They also want students to develop a love for reading. However, many times students don’t have the opportunity to visit the library during the summer  for various reasons. So, the librarians used Design Thinking to create a Summer Book Bus. This small fact that we actually followed the Design Thinking also makes the success of this project even better. You can see from our other posts that we have been using it with our students, but now as librarians we used it to solve a much bigger problem. I will have to write another post about the actual method. 

Through Design Thinking, we created a bus that traveled to ten different locations each week and gave books to students, families, and community members.  The best part was that they did not need to return the books. They could keep the books to build their own library.

Most of the locations were elementary schools in our district. We chose schools that had students who might not get to visit libraries over the summer and who might not have books in their homes. We also had four evening events, two at a public library and two at a neighborhood hardware store. All of the books were either donated from an Eagle project or from a grant. The bus and driver were donated by Durham Bus Services. We used the Design Thinking steps to work through the challenges so that we could provide books for students.


Results: Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday mornings, we handed out books to people. Most of the patrons were students, but parents were welcome and there were books for all ages. We loved having families come and pick out books. One best surprises was the fact that some of the schools that we chose had summer school programs so there were a lot of students who were able to access the bus and the books. We did have four evening stops and these were busy with families. ot have many patrons.

As several librarians have said, “this has been a very fulfilling project, but it was also very tiring” because we were so busy.  The bus far exceeded our expectations. We are looking forward to using this year and Design Thinking to help this product evolve and make it bigger and better.

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Summer reading : Check it out

5/10/2018

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Diana went to a presentation at Service Center XI Lib2Tell Conference 2018 and brought this idea back. A special thank you to our Follett Rep. Naomi Bates for arranging for the bags for our students to place their summer books in. In two weeks, we will have 150+ students fill their bags with books. Some books they can add to their home libraries and others will be checked out from our library collection.  
Question:
Why do we let our library books just sit on our shelves all summer break?
Thought:
We know research shows that students need to read over summer break or their reading ability will decline. So why not let the books get checked out by students over the summer. We are calling the program "Beat the Heat" READ. Below are images of the flyers and bag tag we are using. I will post a follow up blog in September to let you know how it went.

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STEM BoxES TO GO

4/3/2018

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This program has caught fire on both campuses; as fast as we can restock them they are checked out. The boxes have meet a need of giving students the materials to engage, be creativity, use critical thinking, and connecting home and school in STEM challenges. Some of the students shared creations are published on our Weebly websites.
We are excited to share this at the TLA 2018 Innovation Lab.
Go to the "PRESENTATIONS" tab to see our TLA Innovation slides and don't forget to check out the "STEM BOXES" tab on this site. 


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Design thinking - Our Journey  (part 1)

3/21/2018

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, .Design thinking is one of the newest topics to hit the education market.  This topic was widely discussed at SXSWedu in 2017. So, how did two library/media technology specialist bring Design Thinking to the library for elementary students?  Here is our story.  
Joining the library field later in life, I am always looking for ways to connect student learning to real world experience especially in the library.  I want students to learn how to learn, not just learn where the books are, how to follow the rules or even find a good book to read.  I think it goes much deeper than this. Students need to learn how to take charge of their own learning.  Librarians do a great job of showing students a wide range of resources both print and digital.  However some of those ways are in reality quite boring.  I learned about the iSearch process first from Donna Duncan, Laura Lockhart and Lisa Ham in their The New iSearch, You Search, We All Learn to Research (2012) and then from my library certification class.  I converted this in to my research model for my third and fourth graders.  Shortly after, I started this process, Genius Hour became a hot topic.  This proved a great way to take the iSearch method and blend it into the Genius hour concept. It worked great for the one year that I had a teacher willing to collaborate with me. 

However something was still lacking.  These ideas were solely focused on what the student wanted to do with little regards to the world around them. I had begun to follow A. J. Juliani and John Spencer and discovered Design Thinking and their LAUNCH process.  This started the wheels spinning.  I decorated my library with rockets and mission control, but again I was stuck.  

This is where SXSWedu come in.  Suzanne and I attended and learned how a lot about design thinking, but the most important part was that we learned how to teach students how to use design thinking. Thanks to Sam Patterson and Echo Horizon School, we had a plan.  Now that we have your curiosity piqued, join us next time for part2 and see how we use the design thinking in our libraries.

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In like a lion...

3/3/2018

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March is here...

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March roared in with many fun experiences. We started with a week of celebrating Dr. Seuss. This year the activities involved FlipGrid, Seesaw, BreakoutEDU & a QR Scavenger Hunt. 
The second week of March, PGE had an Incognito Book Club secret meeting & PGE had the District Sphero Kit for the students to investigate. In addition, we announced  the Design Thinking Food Truck  winning design teams.
Then a week of Spring Break...which will be followed by 2 more weeks of engaging  activities. The month will end like a lamb as our Tech Ninjas will try to create a paper circuit card...stay tune---in April's blog post, I will share how it went.

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Augmented Reality pioneer program

2/1/2018

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I share a VR Google Kit with 2 other schools and it has taken many students on virtual experiences...but "WOW!"-the Google Expedition Augmented Reality Pioneer Program  takes it to another level. Our future ready learners were making connections with prior knowledge, were asking questions and enjoying this 21st Century technology. Definitely, "AWE & WONDER" was released when our students explored landforms, forces of nature, Space, counting and more.  They literately looked into the eye of a hurricane and down into a volcano.
The teachers learning curve to bring the awesome digital 3D images to their students was quick. Both VR & AR had our learners immediately engaged in  a subject. It assisted our students to express their learning and make connections. Check out the AR Expedition site : ​edu.google.com/expeditions/ar/#about
I am excited to know that it will only require me to add selfie sticks to my VR Google Kit.
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WELCOME TO icentre texas

1/2/2018

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Diana & I are excited to kick off our new improved website.  We love learning from others, being inspired by twitter, conferences, books and face-to-face interactions.  We know the "force is stronger" when we collaborate and it is okay to fail if you learn and grow from it.  We hope by sharing what we are doing we might inspire others, as well as, make some more connections. As one book title says, we do this because as educators our "KIDS DESERVE IT" plus if we stop trying new things we stop growing & if we are not growing we are not doing what we are asking our students to do (-Challenge yourself!-). So come join us in the our learning journey and try something new and share your experience. We refer to this journey as chasing "squirrels"....because it is fun, you can chase more than one at a time and others some times think you are a little nuts...but we are enjoying the adventure.

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Forward>>

    two authors:

    Diana Colby @DianaColby Mother of eight. Librarian, one busy momma. "Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you will live forever." Gandhi
    ​Suzanne Ross @pgelibrary TCEA 2017 Library / Media Technology Specialist...Mother...Wife...Grandmother...trying new things one 'byte' @ a time...too many 'squirrels'...but that makes learning and sharing fun.

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  • Home
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