Potty PD

Whether you call it Potty PD, Librarian in the Loo, Toilet Talks, etc. it’s a great way to share quick information while teachers and educators have 3 minutes to themselves a day in the faculty bathroom. I think it was Zinnia Bayardo who first introduced me to the idea and Deb Zeman (Z_Brarian), myself and Karina Quilantan Garza (@cuethelibrarian) ran with it. Each month we share ideas for potential #edtech tips to include in the slide we print and tape up in the faculty bathrooms around campus. See examples below.

My template copy here.

@Z_Brarian template copy here.

It’s a great quick and easy way to highlight new #edtech tools, apps, websites, etc. that teachers may not have the time to explore. I like to always include a QR code that they can scan and save when they have time to really look at it later. This isn’t anything new or particularly cutting edge, but it can start a conversation between you and a teacher you don’t normally collaborate with. It can also inspire some teachers to dive into an app they normally wouldn’t have. Here are some apps/websites I have highlighted over the last two years of me doing this with my staff:

• Loom

• Kami

• Wakelet

• EdPuzzle

• Mote

• Mentimeter

• Lumio

• Edulastic

• YouTube videos with no ads

• ChatGPT

• StickTogether

• The Achievery

• Quizizz

• Curipod

• Diffit

• Book Creator

• Screencastify

Let’s BeReal.

There’s a new social networking app that a lot of kids are using and it’s called BeReal. So what is it and how can you use it in your library?

BeReal is an app that is available for download across platforms that “show your friends who you really are, for once," by removing filters and opportunities to stage, over-think, or edit photos. Take a look at the rules of BeReal below. *You must have notifications on for this to be successful. Many teens and tweens are over Instagram thanks to the new platform that has ads and suggested accounts all throughout your feed. Maybe BeReal is the next photo sharing app for teens.

The app notifies users at a random time throughout the day that it's "time to Be Real." A two-minute timer starts when the user opens the app, giving them a limited amount of time to take a picture of whatever they're doing at that moment. Be aware! The photo will take a picture of what’s in front of you, as well as a selfie to keep everything 100% authentic to make sure you’re really where you are, doing what you’re doing at the time the notification goes off and that you’re looking exactly how you normally look—no filters!

When you sign up it’s going to almost immediately ask you to take your first BeReal photo. Get ready! You have 2 minutes to complete this activity.

Throughout the day BeReal will send you a notification to post your BeReal photos. You have 2 minutes to complete this, but if you don’t, you can still post your photos. It will just be late and friends will get a notification if you post late, which I’m not the biggest fan of TBH. Be aware: you can only delete your post once a day after you've posted it on your feed. While you can retake your BeReal as many times as you like during the two-minute countdown, once you've pressed "post," you can only delete and retake it once. Don’t try and create content on your own—you won’t be able to. The point of this app isn’t to capture the perfect picture any time you want, but to BE REAL and take a photo in real time of what’s happening in your daily life.

In other social media apps you can react to posts of your friends. It works the same with BeReal, but you can actually selfie the emoji yourself. When I went to heart-eyes emoji a friend’s post it asked me to take a selfie of what I think that emoji looks like on a human. It saves it so I can continue to use my version of the heart-eyes emoji on anyone’s post. These are called “realmojis”. Like with other social media apps you can comment on others’ posts as well as react. You can create a comment under your post after you take your photo so that it explains what you’re doing, where you are, etc.

Like the app 1 Second Everyday, BeReal creates a digital scrapbook of all your posts. I like that feature so I can have a memory photo roll to look back on. This app is also not a big time waster. You can click on Discover and view others’ posts, but basically how it works is you wait for your notification, take your selfie/photo within a 2 minute time frame and move on with your life.

What I like about this for student use is that it shows them what’s real about social media and what’s fake. So much of IG is posed, filtered, edited, etc. Many students believe what they see and think that all these celebrities and influencers live their lives like their posts. This app forces all users to show what their everyday life looks like without getting that “perfect shot”. I plan to use this app when I teach digital citizenship this year.

How I plan to use it in the library:

With everything happening in the library community with book challenges, I believe that a lot of it stems from ignorance about our profession. Many people don’t know all it takes to become a librarian and what we do on a day-to-day basis (and no, it’s not sit and read! I wish!) With this app I’ll be able to take real time photos of what I’m doing in my library whether it be inventory, weeding, shelving, processing, curating, research, teaching lessons, working with library aides, clubs, PD, meetings, hallway duty, creating displays, etc. The list is endless for what we do everyday in the library and how detailed our job is, as well as how much training goes into what it takes to be a knowledgable and proficient librarian. Many don’t know how we choose books and if we create an “open door policy” so to speak, it gives the public a look into our lives in the library. Perhaps we can reach more citizens if we show what a day in the life of a librarian looks like. As my friend and fellow school librarian, Amanda Jones, says, “It’s not bragging; it’s advocacy.”

One last note: this app is still new-ish and is working out the bugs. Be patient as they continue to roll out updates to fix all the kinks with any new app.

Let’s BeReal this year and have some fun in the library! https://bere.al/thenextgenlibrarian

*Thanks to The Insider and NPR for help with some of the features.

Content Warnings

Diversity Audit is completely done (as far as my library aides are concerned)! I have to go through and put the data into the spreadsheets then share in blog posts, but the students are ready to move on to our next project. I’m so excited that we will be moving forward with our Content Warning Project. Students will go through the shelves, book by book, and using this website (and Goodreads/StoryGraph) they will find what content warnings are in which books. Thanks to Willow Darling I have personalized content warning stickers that I purchased from Sarah Styles at willowdarling.com. If this is something that you want to purchase and edit to fit your needs, contact Sarah through her website or Instagram (@willowdarlingbysarah) and she will sell you the template for you to print at home on sticker paper. I was able to get a set of 200 sheets of 6 per page. I’m hoping this will hold me for what we need in all my genrefied fiction sections.

For the past several months I have made it a goal to use content warnings in my bookstagram posts when I do my daily book reviews. I have found it to be more and more common on Goodreads and StoryGraph lately too. By listing content warnings in books I am hoping to have students be more aware of what they want to read and what they feel emotionally ready to read. Social Emotional Learning is at the forefront of education right now, in addition to checking on students’ mental health. By labeling these trigger or content warnings we are helping those students acknowledge their traumas and feel comfortable reading what they choose to.

I recently had a comment on one of my bookstagram posts about how content warnings can be perceived as spoilers. To some degree, I agree with this. However, I believe that people who are triggered by content in books need to be protected over those who might get some type of spoiler. Most of the content warnings on the list below can be taken in many different contexts so I hope that anyone who sees them checked, realizes there is so much more than one word to a book. I would rather protect the mental health of someone going through (or having gone through) a traumatic event and can’t handle reading a book dealing with similar topics than someone who feels like checking one of these boxes is considered a book spoiler. For those who are worried about spoilers, if they don’t have any triggers (like the person who commented on my post said they didn’t), they can skip the front title page altogether, missing the content warnings sticker completely so they’re not in danger of having their books spoiled.

I also think this will help with all the book challenges that have been popping up in Texas and beyond. If a student can see right away that a book has content in it that they aren’t interested in reading or content that might be triggering for them, then they won’t check out that book. I plan to also have my library aides add notes for the book in Destiny Follett so that we can look up the content warnings as well. This is a big project that will take us most of the year, in addition to other tasks such as book fairs, weeding, inventory, etc. I can’t wait to see the results of having a library that has content warning stickers. Reach out if you have any questions about this process!

Library Orientation

In the past few weeks I’ve had a lot of librarians reach out to me asking what I do for library orientation. This blog will discuss various ideas you can do to get students excited about the library, as well as share important information with them. *Please make a copy of any of the documents linked in this post if you want to edit.

Google Slides: you can always do the tried and true presentation option. I’ve done it this way before when I didn’t have much time. Here are two examples you can make copies of if you want to go this route: ORMS Library Orientation and Virtual Library Orientation. Including your Bitmoji, active links, QR codes, cute transitions and backgrounds can keep students’ attention and share the information you need. It can also be another opportunity for students to “sit and get” so to speak, meaning they get a lot of that in class. Orientation can be a fun way to get them up and moving, but if you do use the Google Slides option make sure you end with a tour and check out so kids can move around and see the library for themselves.

Family Feud: I love playing this as students’ first introduction into the library. It creates an environment of fun, excitement and shows that MY library isn’t one where SHUSHING happens a lot. If you click on this Powerpoint presentation you will get the game already set up with transitions, music, etc. All you need to do is change your questions to fit your library. I put the students into two groups usually (please try and stay away from boys vs. girls. It can exclude non-binary students, as well as also make students feel like they have to fit themselves into one of those two categories and they might not be ready to do so just yet). I use a buzzer from Lakeshore Learning Store, but you can get one from Amazon here. I usually have a prize the winning team can get.

Breakout Games: Escape Rooms, Breakout Rooms, games, etc. are a fun way to create teamwork between students in classes. It also promotes outside-of-the-box thinking, race against the clock and lots of exploration of the library to find and solve clues. Click here for some ideas I’ve done in the library, as well as BreakoutEDU.

Goosechase: This app is super fun to create classroom or whole school scavenger hunts, however, due to COVID I haven’t used it in over a year. I have a presentation I’ve created, but might be outdated since apps do evolve and change frequently. Feel free to take what I’ve used and make any changes as you find them. I highly recommend using Goosechase, even if it’s not for your library orientation. Goosechase for Teachers, Goosechase for Students.

Bitmoji Classroom/Library: Last summer Bitmoji classes were the THING. I’ll be using Canvas this year instead of my linked up Bitmoji library, but I still think they can be adorable and it has all your links in one place, one of the strongest cases for someone to keep using one. Here are some links to get you started if you wanted to go the Bitmoji route: My Bitmoji Classroom, Bitmoji Templates, Bitmoji example.

Here’s a list of apps you can use to share your library orientation with and then you can play a quiz-style game to see if they retained the information: Kahoot, Quizizz, Poll Everywhere, Quizlet. I’ve also used the website Riddle to create a “Find Your Favorite Genre” personality quiz. The students love doing this magazine-type quizzes and you can create your own!

Please comment or message me what you’ve used for Library Orientation in the past or what you’re using this year. (I’m sure there’s some I’ve forgotten that I’ve done before and I’m always looking for new ideas!)

New School Year Resolutions

Photo credit: https://www.theloophk.com/keep-your-new-years-resolutions/

I’m back! Took some time off this summer to focus on me and now it’s almost time to start the 2021-2022 school year. As I sat down to write my goals I started thinking about another time of year when we as a society make goals, plans, promises for the upcoming year and that is the dreaded, but usually required in the U.S., New Year’s Resolutions. It’s when the entire world reflects on the previous year and makes new goals for the upcoming 365 days. Teachers get to do this twice a year instead of once. I don’t think any other profession in the world makes resolutions two times a year other than those in education. In the field of teaching we are constantly growing, changing, reflecting on what worked and what didn’t from our previous school year. Last year was anything but normal for teachers. We had to adapt more than we ever had before in order to teach students remotely, in a hybrid model or face-to-face. COVID restrictions made it almost impossible to teach at the level we are used to and with the same norms and consistency we always had. However, almost every educator I know took this summer and at some point began thinking on what they want to do differently for the next year.

Some educators write their goals/resolutions down, others make it a part of their professional evaluation system for their evaluator to monitor throughout the year, some have them mentally while others jump in head first and start implementing change immediately. I’m a list maker. I have post its on the side of my computer at work, on my desk, on the Stickies app on my desktop, reminders in my calendar on my phone, etc. constantly nudging and prompting me of the goals I have set for myself. Some are whole year goals while others are ideas, lessons, clubs, library actions, etc. of what I want to do at some point in the year.

One goal I did not meet last year was to finish my Diversity Audit. With almost 10,000 titles in fiction alone it was a daunting task to try and complete, during this past year especially. However, I am only three genre sections away from completion (Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Fantasy) and while they are my biggest sections, I am going to make it my number one goal to finish that this year. I also got new shelving for my graphic novels so I plan on genrefying that section in itself such as: manga/anime, general graphic novels, nonfiction, superhero, etc. I am so excited to do this because when I got to this library six years ago there weren’t many graphic novels. Now I have tripled that section. Other goals I have: present more at the state and national level, be more active on Snapchat for my brand, continue with TikTok, IG and Twitter for my brand and PLN connections, bring my clubs back on campus, earn more #edtech badges, continue to blog, and above all else: connect with my students more now that restrictions won’t be so tight in the library.

What are your New School Year Resolutions?

I’m Ready For A Return To Normalcy

We are coming up on the one year anniversary of COVID-19 effecting our lives, at least for us in Texas. We left school on Friday, March 6, 2020 and didn’t return until the following school year, August 24, for the first day of school. For many school districts around the country, teachers and students have been working from home for almost a year. In New Braunfels, TX, where I live and work, we returned in person this past August and haven’t had to shut down since then. We have had outbreaks and followed procedures for them. To say it’s been a different year would be an understatement. We have kids who have the option to be remote learners, as well as in-person or quarantined, if exposed, for 14 days. We have procedures we’ve never had before such as wearing masks (unless at lunch or athletics), hand sanitize as much as you can, bathroom breaks as a whole class to prevent mixing of kids, A/B block scheduling to prevent too many passing periods of possible exposure. The library has also never been so different. Students aren’t allowed to browse the shelves, we do hold deliveries to classrooms instead of students coming on their own to look and pick out books, we have to sanitize the check out and student tables in between classes and all my fun things in the library are in quarantine for the year such as our couches, big comfy chairs, our Read & Ride exercise bikes, etc. We can’t do book studies because we don’t have enough copies for every student. I can’t have my clubs like Robotics, Makerspace, etc. because of students touching the items.

But we had adapted. It’s been almost 3/4 of the year like this—you can get used to a lot in that amount of time. However, on February 12 we left again, thinking it was going to be a three-day weekend for President’s Day, only to be out over a week due to Snowpocalypse 2021. In Texas it has been really bad. Busted pipes, ceilings caved in, water damage, power outages, low food supplies, and overall coldness for weather we don’t see ever in Texas. We were not prepared. I worried about my students throughout this entire time, as well as not having power off and on for three days. It was scary and another unprecedented event in an already unprecedented year. It just had me thinking: I’m ready for a return to normalcy. And it’s odd because it’s getting harder and harder for me to remember what that looks like. I can’t imagine walking around with naked faces, hugging and being close to other people again without fear. I’m hoping the spread of more vaccines helps lessen our COVID cases in the U.S. so that we can begin to move in the direction of normalcy, or at least a new normal that’s better than this.

I have a Book Fair scheduled next week—my first in-person one in over a year. We will have protocols in place to keep everyone safe, but again, it will be another example of change in what we are used to. Only 10 students will be allowed in the fair at once, hand sanitizing after payment occurs, no adults allowed on campus as per our rules in place already, etc. I want a normal year, with a normal Book Fair, with normal interactions with my students. This job has been incredibly hard this year. The only bright spot has been being able to spend it with the students. My library aides are the highlight of my day, my why. My library aides have kept me sane in this year of insanity. They’ve kept me connected to why I love this job so much. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to connect with the rest of the students as much due to lack of time they’re in the library for lessons, not being able to see their faces and recognize them, not being able to host clubs and get to know them on that level. I’ve done more on social media because it’s kind of the only way I’m able to connect with the other students on campus. I miss connecting and reaching more students like I have in the past.

Can the crazy weather & COVID-19 times be over now? I’m ready for a return to normalcy.