Librarian Roundtable
Minutes of Meeting for October 18, 2011
Held at: Oxford Center School, Oxford, CT
Hosted by: Jan Redfern
Attendees: Mary Tichey-Staack, Joyce Torres, Terri Kirkland, Lorinda DeSantis, Louise Beecher, Pat Smith, Krista Bush, Amy Coupe, Marie Girolamo, Jan Redfern
Introductions:
Terri ‘s district (Seymour) is combining two schools into 1; they are part way into the project. She has no aides and is with students from K-5.
Amy (Greenwich) has 470 students in K-5 and is also at the beginning of a redesign project. She is leading the committee in charge of that. She has a Smartboard on a card; two 5th grade classrooms also have Smartboards. Each grade level has at least 11 strong technology person. Her schedule is fixed for K-3 and flex for 4-5.
Pat (Pomperaug) has difficulties with her technology department; they insist on powering down all computers at 5 p.m . whether someone is on them or not (a definite problem when she is doing a webinar). She is in her 12th year as an educator; she was a 3rd grade teacher and then worked in a public library. She got her LMS degree in 14 months and now works at Pomperaug Elementary. She has volunteers to help her, but doesn’t allow parents to help when their child’s class is in the library.
Krista works in Shelton in a K-4 school with 29 classes a week. She has no para but does have lots of volunteers and a new technology center. She’s anxious to talk to others with similar situations.
Mary works in Ridgefield, one of 6 elementary schools there (hers is the largest school). She has a fixed schedule with 24 classes per week. She had been working on writing curriculum but that project was put on hold as they switched to Destiny. She recently did a One Book/One school program and will be presenting her work at the CASL/CECA conference next week.
Louise is with New Fairfield Middle School which is physically joined with the high school. They are sharing a library which is located in the high school, but will be getting her own library soon. She teaches 2 classes/day plus is a rotation for the 6th grade classes.
Lorinda is working part-time in a K-5 school on a fixed schedule at a private school in Bridgewater. Her student population has been declining; they went from 130 students to 84 currently.
Joyce (Wilton) not only has lots of volunteers, she has a volunteer coordinator too! She has a fixed schedule for Pre-K-4. Grades 5-8 have a technology center with a green screen. She wrote her own curriculum – and the library wasn’t automated when she started.
Marie works at Ridgefield Academy, a preK-8 school with 300+ students. She is the computer teacher too. She got a Smartboard this year and loves to make the connection between library and lab. She has some parent volunteers, but not all of them are helpful.
Jan (Oxford) has 520 students in grades 3-5. She has a fixed schedule of 23 classes/week and oversees both the library and the computer lab with the help of a “tutor”.
We discussed many websites/subscriptions that our schools had; the following are of particular interest:
- ICON
- Facts4mme.com – small database, good for younger K-2
- Culturegrams
- Pebblego – good for grades 1-2
- Tumblebooks – doesn’t have an extensive nonfiction selection but does have audiobooks and lesson plans; Joyce saw an article in SLJ that was positive
- Scholastic Booklfix – it was unclear whether the book was read out loud to students
- Kindles – Pat got 6 and uses Overdrive with the public library. They had 82 high school books on it; they tried to use them with special ed; may work with SRBI
- Ebooks - several people utilized these; we questioned whether we truly own them (Jan thought so)
- Worldbook Online Encyclopedia
- Discovery Education
- Brainpop and Brainpop Jr. – Marie uses it with K-4, but cost is unknown
- Teacher Tube – you need to register, but it is free; sometimes blocked at school
- Infoplease, Fact Monster –uses Columbia Encyclopedia; has dictionary; timeline; features
- Kidsclick.org – a search engine that is kid-friendly
- Spelling City – another free site that helps with spelling/vocabulary
Some books that were mentioned:
- Genius Files (Dan Gutman) – story about a brother and sister’s trip across the country; Jan is planning on using it with GoogleEarth to tie in library and computers
- Skeleton Creek (Patrick Carman) – this unusual book features a journal (the book itself) and videos taken by one of the characters which readers can access with the passwords supplied in the book; Jan recommends it for older elementary grades since it is pretty creepy
- Floors (Patrick Carmen) – described as similar to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but in a hotel instead of candy factory.
- The new high school level of Nutmeg Nominees was discussed
- Spoon (Alison Crouse Rosenthal) – Mary’s principal read t to the whole school and PTA bought a copy for each classroom. This was part of their summer reading challenge (if more than 90% of kids read over the summer, the principal agreed to go into each classroom).
- Rise & Read – program outlined by Marie which was completely run by parents. Kids would come in before school with their parents and read together. Doughnuts provided by PTA; held about 2 times per year.
- Joyce showed us several pamphlets she had for her parents regarding parents as reading partners. It utilized info from Jim Trelease. Parents were encouraged to come into classrooms to read and/or have students read to them.
- Book swap – both Joyce and Pat have run these.
- Book drive – Mary did this instead of a book swap and collected 15 boxes of books
- Main Street Books was mentioned by Joyce; she has stopped using Scholastic.
- Vendors mentioned: Baker & Taylor give 40% (but 40% of a potentially higher price?); Follett (their sewn product is better than most and can get replaced, but someone noticed that their Follettbound books have yellowing pages); Davidson
Attendee information
Name | School | Email |
Joyce Torres | Miller-Driscoll, Wilton | |
Terri Kirland | Chatfield/LoPresti, Seymour | |
Lorinda DeSantis | Burnham School, Bridgewater | |
Louise Beecher | New Fairfield Middle School | |
Pat Smith | Pomperaug Elementary | |
Krista Bush | Elizabeth Shelton School, Shelton | |
Amy Coupe | North Mianus Riverside, Greenwich | |
Marie Girolamo | Ridgefield Academy | |
Jan Redfern | Oxford Center School | |
Mary Tichey-Staack | Branchville Elementary | |
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