Spin the Yarn

This is the fourth entry in a four part series, in which I have interviewed four librarians about ways in which they implement one of the six Shared Foundations (Inquire, Include, Collaborate, Curate, Explore, and Engage) of the AASL National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (American Association of School Librarians, 2018). Specifically, the focus was on the Shared Foundations as they relate to School Librarians. Each librarian was paired with a Shared Foundation, was allowed to review the associated Domains and Competencies beforehand, and then asked the same five questions. For my final interview, I spoke with Elisabeth Funderburk at Socastee Elementary School and the Shared Foundation that I selected for her was Inquire: Question 1:  What are some examples of the ways in which you are implementing these competencies in your library program? One example of a way in which Mrs. Funderburk implements the Inquire competencies is that, when

This is the third entry in a four part series, in which I have interviewed four librarians about ways in which they implement one of the six Shared Foundations (Inquire, Include, Collaborate, Curate, Explore, and Engage) of the AASL National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (American Association of School Librarians, 2018). Specifically, the focus was on the Shared Foundations as they relate to School Librarians. Each librarian was paired with a Shared Foundation, was allowed to review the associated Domains and Competencies beforehand, and then asked the same five questions. For my third interview, I spoke with Stella Carmody at Forestbrook Elementary School and the Shared Foundation that I selected for her was Collaborate: Question 1: What are some examples of the ways in which you are implementing these competencies in your library program? Ms. Carmody told me that the school, as a whole, has really gotten into using Kagan strategies.

This is the second entry in a four part series, in which I have interviewed four librarians about ways in which they implement one of the six Shared Foundations (Inquire, Include, Collaborate, Curate, Explore, and Engage) of the AASL National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (American Association of School Librarians, 2018). Specifically, the focus was on the Shared Foundations as they relate to School Librarians. Each librarian was paired with a Shared Foundation, was allowed to review the associated Domains and Competencies beforehand, and then asked the same five questions. For my second interview, I spoke with Mary Beth Williams at St. James Middle School and the Shared Foundation that I selected for her was Curate: Question 1:  What are some examples of the ways in which you are implementing these competencies in your library program? Mrs. Bennett believes that by genrefying the collection, she is fulfilling competency IV.A.1., wh

This is the first entry in a four part series, in which I have interviewed four librarians about ways in which they implement one of the six Shared Foundations (Inquire, Include, Collaborate, Curate, Explore, and Engage) of the AASL National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (American Association of School Librarians, 2018). Specifically, the focus was on the Shared Foundations as they relate to School Librarians. Each librarian was paired with a Shared Foundation, was allowed to review the associated Domains and Competencies beforehand, and then asked the same five questions. For my first interview, I spoke with Sonny Williams at St. James High School and the Shared Foundation that I selected for him was Engage : Question 1 : What are some examples of the ways in which you are implementing these competencies in your library program? Mr. Williams told me that one of the major projects that students use the library for is to do research for

One of my biggest takeaways from this semester is that technology is something to be excited about. Through this course, I have been able to research and play around with a lot of interesting tech and apps that I am genuinely excited about incorporating into lessons. The two that I am most excited about are VR and AR. I wrote about the Oculus Quest 2 in my fourth blog post, and I am probably going to pick one up in the next couple of weeks. With the price of VR becoming more realistic, I think that it is going to start becoming more attractive as a tool for learning. Just recently, Oculus (or Meta) updated their hand tracking software, so now the headsets can track more fine movements which I think will lead to more immersive experiences. In my ninth blog post, I was able to play around with the free augmented reality app Halo AR, and it gave me so many ideas for how you could tag digital content to real world objects in your library that can be viewed with just a phone. The cost of te

A couple of months ago, I wrote about virtual reality (VR), specifically the Oculus Quest 2, and its ability to take you places and provide virtual experiences without needing to leave the classroom. Today I want to talk about augmented reality (AR), which gives you the ability to alter and enhance the space around you, offering new ways to interact with everyday objects, all with just the use of a phone. While I was reading about AR and VR this week, I found myself getting really excited about the potential of the Aurasma app. I was disappointed to find out though, that it was now defunct. At some point it had been bought by HP, renamed HP Reveal, and then shutdown a few years later ( What Happened to Aurasma.com? , 2020). I think that I found a replacement Aurasma though called Halo AR. It is similar to Aurasma, which allowed you to affix "Auras" (AR visuals) to an object, only with Halo AR they are appropriately referred to as "Halos." Created by the company Ligh

When reading through the course content this week, I kept seeing Arduinos mentioned and it piqued my interest. I had heard the name before, usually in discussions about projects that use mini circuit boards, like the Raspberry Pi, so I thought that it was a type of single-board computer. Looking into it further thought, I discovered that while they can both be used for similar projects, they are actually two different types of circuit boards that work well in different ways. As outlined in the article, What are the Differences Between Raspberry Pi and Arduino?, “Arduino is a Microcontroller based development board, the Raspberry Pi is a Microprocessor (usually an ARM Cortex A Series) based board that acts as a computer” (Teja, 2021, para. 9). So, the Raspberry Pi is a small computer, and the Arduino is a small circuit board that can be programmed to control operations, like motors, sensors, and lights. While useful for automating robots, Arduinos can also utilize a lot of different sen