Summer Retreat for Educators: Primary Sources Summer Institute @ Mars Hill University

Now this is the best kept secret for educators in North Carolina... I know other states offer similar programs (courtesy of the Library of Congress) but why everybody isn't going I have no idea....

Last year I had so much fun at the Primary Sources Summer Institute at Mars Hill that I signed up this year for level II.

This week is like a summer camp for educators (and in this case, librarians but all educators are welcome).  The daily schedule runs from 9:00 - 3:30, ending at 1:00 on Friday.   There is no cost to the program (grant funded by the Library of Congress) and there is housing available on campus for a very minimal fee.  A light breakfast and full lunch courtesy of the Pittman Dining Hall is available, but dinner is on your own.  Downtown Asheville is about 20 minutes away with tons of restaurants, shopping and entertainment.  I lived large this week and still didn't break my wallet.  But back to the topic at hand....

The first year of the program, we dove deep into the digital resources that the LOC had to offer. We learned how to access and evaluate primary sources as well as integrate them into our lesson plans using common core standards.  By the end of the week, we had to submit our own lesson plan using primary sources that we could execute the following year.  I didn't use my full blown lesson plan on the Dust Bowl, but I did successfully use primary sources (mostly with 5th grade) and they LOVED it.  We used primary sources from Colonial America, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War to align with what they were studying in class.

The first year was great, very useful and fun.  So I signed up for year 2 without any hesitation.  This year's topic?  Appalachian Studies.  And not only did we use digital resources, but we were able to put our hand on the real thing in the Ramsey Center in Renfro Library.

Missy, pouring over a collection of Appalachian newspapers.  

On Tuesday, we were given a private concert by Joe Penland.  This was a real treat.  We learned about the history of English Ballads in Appalachia, the music of Sodom Laurel and the story of Cecil Sharp who saw the beauty and value in the music and worked to preserve it. 

Joe Penland

We also walked over to the revived Rural Life Museum  on campus and given a private tour by the museum's curator, Les Reker.  The current exhibition was "Interwoven:  Coverlets, Ballads and America's Discovery of Madison County Folklife".  

Rural Life Museum at Mars Hill University.

Les Rekker, Museum Curator

We were even able to go on a farm tour of Lori's place.  Lori raises sheep, goats and rabbits for their fur.  She spins and knits.  She also raises vegetables and sells at the local farmers markets.  Lori treated us to some homemade peach tea and zucchini bread.  

Lori (red shirt on left) fielding questions while we enjoy a homemade treat.  

Dr. Karen Paar, Director of the Ramsey Center and Archivist for the Southern Appalachian Archives

At the culmination of the week, we had to present our lesson plans that we had worked on all week.  There were so many interesting things to choose from that it was sometimes difficult to choose.  But all in all, everyone came away with some new tools and ideas to implement for next year.

Brenda presenting her project using oral histories.

And our fearless leader, Anne Marie Walter with Dr. Karen Paar looking on.  

Although the week was chock full of resources and ideas, it was not "all work and no play".  We did break away each evening to get a little dinner, do some shopping and some sightseeing.  It was so nice to relax and connect with other like minded educators.  

If you are in North Carolina and you are interested in attending one of Anne Marie's summer institutes next year, be sure to contact her:  http://www.mhu.edu/tps/workshops-and-summer-institutes.  If you aren't in North Carolina, and want to look for a TPS partner near you, check out http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/regional/contacts.html.  

Well, in closing I want to say thank you so much to our hosts, Anne Marie Walter and Karen Paar.  I also want to say thank you to Brenda, Missy, Jennifer and Marty for begin my in-house PLC.  I hope to see you next year at level III!

REWIND: NC Cultural Enrichment Day (March 5, 2014)

At our school, we have an enrichment team that serves students in rotation once a week.  On the scheduled day, students in grades 1-5 rotate through media, art, music and P.E.  We often ate lunch together and got talking one day about putting together something cool and different during our rotation.  Because 4th grade studies everything North Carolina, we thought it would be interesting to integrate this into our enrichment rotation.  Knowing that teachers and administration would be more likely to accept the idea if it didn't mess up everybody's schedule, we decided to come up with an all day event for 4th and 5th graders during our normal enrichment schedule.  We called this event the NC Cultural Enrichment Day.  see the flier HERE

With a little bit of planning (we started in September) we researched some potential guests, came up with a projected cost and asked PTO for help (they were delighted to help).

In Media, I was lucky enough to get  Nora Dial-Stanley, a member of the North Carolina Lumbee tribe and storyteller.  She was WONDERFUL!  She had such a melodious voice and charmed the children with her amazing stories.  Nora has a true gift.  She had no script; she just spoke from her heart.  And in each class she was able to convey in an age appropriate manner the injustices that her people have suffered.  She was highly engaging and the students LOVED her.

 

In P.E., Linda Zarick was grateful to have world class clogger Elliot Skeen and his daughter Megan.  Elliot has not only been clogging almost all of his life, he has been instructor and coach to multiple teams over the years.  He even met his beautiful wife, Cheryl, at a clogging event many years ago and they have danced together for more than 20 years since then.  Elliot talked with the kids about some traditional Appalachian dancing and even had the kids do some basic square dancing steps.

In music, Seth McKnight was delighted to be able to share the talents of Rebecca Branson Jones with his students.  Ms. Jones is an accomplished musician, photographer, and documentary filmmaker among other things.  Rebecca has most recently been teaching at ASU in Boone, completed an internship with world renowned producer Ken Burns, and travels with her music group The Buck Stops Here when time allows.   Rebecca demonstrated some traditional Appalachian musical instruments as well as leading the students in song.  

Finally, in art, Brandy Mulkey kicked off a month long unit on NC traditional crafts by teaching 4th grade the fine art of basket weaving and 5th grade the centuries old tradition of pottery by creating small face jugs.  Students loved begin able to get their hands dirty.  At the end of the unit, students were able to bring home their designs just in time for mother's day.

Because we had brought in special guests, we put on a luncheon in the media center for all those that participated.  We invited administrators, PTO and the local newspaper to join us.  We feasted on chicken pie, green beans, applesauce, banana pudding and sweet tea.  The event was such a success that we hope to make it an annual one.  We also spoke with Mrs. Dial-Stanley about doing a similar event in November for Native American History Month.

Read the article by Daneesha Edwards here:  www.the-dispatch.com 

A rolling stone gathers no moss...

School library is a K-12 certification, in the 8 years I've been teaching I've only ever worked with elementary school.  Well, beginning next school year that is going to change.  I've moving schools and will be the new media coordinator (teacher librarian...whatever you call it) at South Davidson Middle AND High School.

This is totally new territory for me but I am excited about the change and eager to flex my library muscles and see what I'm made of.  This new opportunity is 2 schools sharing one library, but there are only about 750 students total in both schools.  It's rural and high poverty, but there are not one but TWO full times staffs for the media center (1 tech and 1 media assistant for each school)....the largest media/tech staff in the county.

So...change is good.  But often bittersweet.  You see, I will be leaving my friends...

LOVE me some Penny and Karen!  

I had no intention of leaving after only 2 years, but the opportunity presented itself and I couldn't pass it up.  The outgoing MC is retiring after 29 years and decided I couldn't wait another 29.  PLUS it's only one mile from my house.  This is a community in which I've lived for 9 years, and after the tens of thousands of miles I've commuted to work since moving to NC, this will be a nice change.  

So, sad to leave elementary and the little ones but eager to spread my wings.  On that note, I leave you with this...

Skyping with author of "Stanley and Katrina", Felicia M., age 10

What a nice treat for our 2nd graders this week!  For Children's Book Week in May, we read Stanley and Katrina:  the Perpetual Pack of Papers, written by child author, Felicia, a.k.a. "Neighbor Girl".  Felicia's writing skills and wittiness are far beyond her peers.  Only 10 years old, Felicia fielded questions from more than 80 2nd graders that were beyond excited to Skype with her.

This is some of what we learned about Felicia:  

• She doesn't own a dog or a cat.
• She has no pets right now, but she used to have two hamsters.
• Her favorite color is blue.
• She likes crafts and karate.
• Her favorite author is Rick Riordan.
• Her book took about a month to write.
• She is finishing 6th grade.
• She was inspired to write a novel because of National Novel Writing Month.

If you would like to check out Felicia's book, you can download it on kindle or order a print copy from her website http://www.stanleyandkatrina.com. 

Also, be sure to check out Felicia as a guest on #nctlchat, Sunday, July 27 @ 7:30EST.  Sign in to twitter and search the hashtag #nctlchat.  

Creating lists with list.ly

Just found out about this super cool resource!  I was busy with #nctlchat last night and SO MANY cool resources were being shared that I opened a google doc to make a list.... well.... one of the resources listed was http://list.ly.  So I spent a little extra time to move those resources from my google doc to create a new list.ly.  It was so worth it!  Check out my list.ly and within some of the many great resources shared in last night's chat:

#nctlchat: Digital Resources

View more lists from Sedley Abercrombie

Twitter as PD

Why use twitter?  The simple answer, it's a way to develop your own PD and cultivate your personalized PLN.  Connect with people that are cutting edge and are changing the face of the library profession.  

My twitter (@sedley1) is strictly professional and I follow trendsetters and leading professionals in school library, ed tech and publishing.  Everything "cool" that I've done in the past year can lead back to twitter.  

Just a few cool things I have done:

• participated in the Global Read Aloud  and skyped with other classrooms nationwide and in Canada
• procured an author visit via Skype 
• attended #edcampelon and connected with over 100 leading professionals from around my state
• discovered new books, websites and apps
• participated in live video chats with leading professionals nationwide via Google Hangout
• learned about different professional opportunities 
• participated in twitter chats
• made friends - real ones (we've had dinner together)

Creating a twitter account is easy, but using learning to use it to your advantage can be a little bit tricky.  Here is an article with a video that helps demystify using twitter:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/

Another good way to get started is to catch some "twitter chats".  These are live chats at a specific time using a particular hashtag that you can search and follow the live tweets.  Often those on the chat are discussing a particular topic of the night and it's a great way to find new resources.  Here is a google doc that several educators collaborate on to keep a running list of the most current chats:

Google Doc: Ed Twitter Chats

I think the COOLEST thing that I have done is collaborate with three other teacher librarians from across North Carolina to create our own weekly twitter chat.  We've been at it a month now and we have really hit the ground running.  Hosting your own chats can be a lot of work but having four of us working together has really eased the burden and made it lots of fun.  Check out our website here:

http://www.nctlchat.com

A shoutout goes to Jen Baker - @caneslibrarian, Chris Tuttell - @tuttelltweets and Lisa Milstead - @LisaMilstead, without whom our twitter chat would not be possible.

And if you do tweet or plan to, follow me @sedley1.  And join in our twitter chat (#nctlchat) on Sundays at 7:30 EST.  

Conferences: Sharing the Love

This past Friday, I was fortunate to be able to go to East Carolina University to the 10th annual Library Paraprofessional Conference.  ECU is where I got my MLIS and I love any opportunity to visit Joyner Library.  Since it double as an "educational field trip" I let Emma skip school to keep me company on the 3 hour ride:

Although we were a bit late, we were able to catch the last half of Kathy Sprau for the keynote.  Her presentation?  "It is all about me... I can make a positive difference!"  Some great information and she had some fun team building exercises as well.

 

Emma enjoyed the break out sessions we attended.  First was the Union County Library presenting "Avengers Assemble!  Community partnerships to find the superheroes in your library".  The UCL collaborated with a comic book artist, a comic book company and a movie promoter to launch a superhero themed library card campaign:

 

The library had a number of events surrounding the campaign, including all library staff wearing capes!  I know, right?  Costumed patrons were offered a chance for free movie tickets but the movie promoter surprised everyone that attended with free premiere movie tickets for a screening of Captain America:  the Winter Soldier!  What a treat!  http://www.co.union.nc.us/Portals/0/PublicInformation/News/Marvel1.pdf

Next was an awesome presentation by Cumberland County Library System and their annual Interactive Murder Mystery Event.  I don't know how I would fit this into an elementary school setting, but I would LOVE to do one sometime.  So much fun!  

See photos of the Murder Mystery here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151725230897490.1073741832.178550667489&type=3

Emma and I split my lunch (it was huge) and then we walked over to the bookstore to get both girls a new t-shirt.  After lunch, I presented to 27 public librarians about our #bookninjas and #mightykids book clubs:

The attendees loved the awesome royalty-free photos in my #haikudeck presentation, and it was so easy to put together:  

Emma passed around my iPad and we had 17 libraries sign up via google doc to learn more about joining the #bookninjas and #mightykids!  So exciting!  Our book clubs have been so much fun this year, we just wanted to branch out and share the joy!

Finally, I was able to meet some awesome public librarian rock stars in person:  Kelly Brannock and Lori Special with the NC State Library!  Lori presented just after me with the new online summer reading program.

The new program will be optional this year but will be statewide for next summer.  What cool new features this program will offer and will streamline the data collection process for public librarians and their patrons.  School librarians will be able to sign up students at school... honestly, Lori had me at "widget"....

Long day in the car, but some quality time spent with my girl and met some great new people and learned new things!  Will definitely have to pencil in for next year!

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app