Checklist Item 9 - PLN - RebelMouse

For my PLN I use RebelMouse and I would recommend this app to anyone who wishes to create a personal learning network.  While Twitter is great, RebelMouse is so much more powerful because of its ability to pull information from so many different sources.  I have Twitter, Linkedin, Blogs, RSS feeds, Tumblr, Flickr, and many other sources feeding into my RebelMouse PLN.  The PLN keeps me up to date with all sorts of topics that I need to know about such as science, media, technology, education, and some personal fun stuff for entertainment.  I have really enjoyed using this app!

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 9/29 - 10/3

This week I continued in the media center at Camden Middle School working with Ms. Peters.  We are working to come up with a virtual bulletin board for kids to use to review books they might want to read.  We are looking at using a program called Aurasma which allows a virtual component to be placed into a picture.  You then can embed video or pictures of what you want to display.  It really is a neat app!  Ms. Peters has begun to show me how to Catalog items in Destiny.  She is very meticulous and after doing a couple of books I fully understand why.  We have to get the books logged in correctly so that we can find the material when we need it.  We installed two new touch screen displays at the circulation desk.  This will make things so much easier for the media specialist at the desk when checking things in and out!  They are really cool!  I helped the para pro MS. Lynn re-shelve a lot of books this week and I also worked helping students who were doing research at the computers find information that they needed for a project.  I continue to learn and grow as a professional!

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 9/22 - 9/25

This week in our school media center I have been keeping up with the various jobs that Ms. Peters has to do.  Helping teachers with technology in the classroom, working the circulation desk, and preparing for the book fair.  This has been a very busy week!  In addition to all of this, we have been put in charge of the Language Arts novel sets.  At this time we are processing all of these books and putting them into Destiny.  I have been placing the books in storage bins and putting all the necessary bar codes on them for inventory purposes.  When that is finished, I deliver them to the appropriate classrooms.
I also visited the high school this week and worked with my other media specialist Ms. Whitetree.  The high school is very different than our middle school and it was interesting to see.  The media specialist also have different tasks over there than we do at the middle school level.  Some different things included making ID badges, study hall, bus passes and late to class slips.  They also handle any Chromebook issues for repair. Being able to compare/contrast the two media centers was very insightful!  Until next week take care.

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 9/15 - 9/19

Hello and welcome back!  This week I worked the circulation desk checking books in and out while helping students with various things.  The media center kind of works in waves as students change classes so the desk gets very busy at times.  I do enjoy the interaction with the students at the desk.  Ms. Peters discussed the book fair and went over what to expect with the book fair along with the type responsibilities that she has.  We also talked about the upcoming Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl and her duties and responsibilites for that event as well.  On the tech side I installed two touch screen monitors for the circulation desk and they are really nice!

I talked to the two media specialist at my other locations and discussed my site visits with them.  I will begin them in two weeks and I look forward to seeing the differences in the media centers at different grade levels.  I know I will enjoy the visits and they will likely enjoy having a new face around.  Have a great week!  RR

Checklist Item 8 - Georgia Educational Technology Conference

I want to take this time to tell you about my experience attending a conference last year on technology and education.  I visited Atlanta with a colleague to attend the Georgia Educational Technology Conference.  This is one of the larger tech conferences in the state and has all sorts of vendors as well as educators discussing technology and its uses in the schools.

I really enjoyed this conference and would recommend it to any educator with an interest in discovering ways to include technology in the classroom.  They have seminars on everything from classroom management tools to grade books and everything in between.  You will definitely come away from the conference feeling like you learned something.  All of the sessions were informative, to the point, and not too long.  This way you could attend several sessions of your choice throughout the day.  My colleague is a language arts teacher so we would split up a bit so that he could attend sessions that were specialized for language arts teachers.  It was really neat.  I am really into using web 2.0 tools in the classroom along with Google so I went to as many of those type sessions as I could.  I also enjoyed learning about Edmodo and Moodle.  We are planning to go back this year to learn a bit more.  If you get the chance please try and attend.

Reflection and Checklist Item 7 - Media Blog Week of 9/8 - 9/12 and ALA Membership

Good morning blog world!  This week I joined a professional association in an effort to improve my professional development.  Of all the groups out there, I decided to join the American Library Association, better known as the ALA.

I liked the ALA because of its national prominence and all of the support that they offer to their members.  The list of resources is very impressive and should provide my with everything I need!

In the CMS media center we have been very busy processing new Smart document cameras that were purchased for all of the teachers.  We took in 45 in all.  These cutting edged technology cameras will allow the teachers to do all sorts of things with documents, 3-D objects, and other stuff with the students.  They are really cool!  We did inventory and put them into Destiny.  Another task was to go through our Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl book collection.  We processed all of the new books and signed off on them so that students could begin using them.  Ms. Peters also discussed with me things that we need to begin doing for the book fair that starts in a few weeks.  See you next week!  RR

Reflection - Media Blog week of 9/1 - 9/5

Hello again!  This was a very busy week in the media center!  It really is amazing just how much the media specialist at my school does or is responsible for.  The daily activities of the media center from teaching students how to do things, to processing books, to helping teachers with technical problems and finally inventory.  Whew!  All of this can be overwhelming unless you manage things in a very organized way.  I helped Ms. Peters process new technology equipment this week along with some of the daily tasks that she does.  She is also helping me learn where everything is located in our media center.  Ms. Peters stores a lot of the technology equipment that teachers use and it is important to know where things are.  The new equipment are audio components for classrooms called Redcats.  They are an audio delivery system for teachers and I really like them.  Here are what they look like:

The school took in 45 of them and we logged them into our media inventory.  Luckily, we have volunteers who help us in the media center and they were a great help with this process.  Well, time to get back to work.  See you next week!  RR