The Daring Librarian

Codes to Teach Like a Cowboy / Cowgirl I am SO very excited to announce that two educators whom I greatly respect and admire are going to guest speak on our #TLChat Virtual Cafe webinar series : Shelly Terrell & Jake Duncan "Teaching can feel like trying to conquer the Wild West. We need inspiration and advice from trailblazers used to rough terrains. Two Texas educators invite you to join this campfire conversation in which they will share some practical ideas and tips for handling anything from fundraising to teaching with little technology. Giddy up! Get your boots on and join us for this adventurous ride that’ll get you fired up and equipped for the school year." October 6th, 2014 8pm Eastern USA time Session Wikipage Did you miss it? It was AWESOME!  A huge thanks to the ever amazing & generous Shelly & Jake!  Watch, listen, & enjoy by clicking on the Blackboard Session Archive Link (Please give it a min to download ...

Over the last six years we've made some great friends with the cool people at the website Flocabulary and we love what they've been creating lately with super engaging rap songs & videos tied in with the CCSS! (Common Core State Standards ) We've been using their Week in Rap news feature in our MHTV school TV studio since they landed on the hip hop education scene in 2008 ! Murray Hill even earned a video shout out last year ! W00t! (We were SO proud!) So, when I heard that they were teaming up with the awesome Common Sense Media people, to put out a music video about Digital Citizenship, - I was SO excited! Talk about wonder twin powers! This video is good to use with both students and teachers about making good choices across all social media outets. I've been on Twitter professionally now for 6 years, and I have an AMAZING & generous personal learning network of followers - so being careful, upbeat, positive and mindful of what I Tweet is importa...

For the last five years at the #TLChat Virtual Cafe we've offered a FREE webinar to help librarians and teachers of all subjects and levels get ready for the next school year. This casual discussion generates ideas on how to build school allies, support new teachers, & become indispensable to administration & staff at the beginning of EVERY school year. I'm joined in this conversation by amazing, librarians, friends, and moderators Tiffany Whitehead and Jennifer LaGarde......and hopefully YOU! W00t! Join in! Sept 8th, 2014 - 8pm EST Participant Link Back to School Special Wikipage I Want YOU to Grab the Mic! This year we've flipped the script and are inviting YOU to step up to the mic and share your ideas, tips, tricks, and cool ways to get excited, energized, and to supercharge the library program or classroom throughout the school year. How to do it?  Easy! Just add a slide! Visit our shared and open to edit Google presentation - check out...

  Inspired by a recent blog post by the amazing Richard Byrne I wanted to add a few more things to the list I wrote 3 years ago how to use QR Codes to connect with students, parents, and the community on Back to School Night and during the school year.  Some of these ideas include examples, links to free downloadables, and graphics that you can snag & use in your school.  I've also updated my popular How to Create a QR Code in 3 Easy Steps Infographic comic tutorial to help out! Set the Stage: Have Parents Download the QR Code Scanning App! In preparation for BTSN I posted on our school digital newspaper Murray Messages: QR Codes Hit the Hill! "We hereat MHMS, embrace mobile media. Proof of which you’ll see in cool black and white when you visit us for Back to School Night! Have a smart phone? Be ready & download a QR code scanner app! We really like the FREE iNigma QR code reader available in both Droid, iPhone, or iPad versio...

Hello friends! This is a rare *guest post from my amazing friend Erin Klein , and her friends AJ Juliani , & Ben Gilipin about a topic that I find very fascinating! I've always had a obsession about interior design and decorating. Teacher Librarians...what are our classrooms? Our libraries, of course! I also like to call my Daring School Library Media Center an Information Learning Commons...because it's beyond a classroom! ALL these techniques can and should be implemented into the learning areas of our school libraries!  Please keep reading! Brain Friendly Learning Spaces AJ Juliani writes: "As we look towards the 2014-2015 school year, one question continually jumps out to me as an educator: How do our learning spaces impact our students? As a new English teacher I remember getting into my classroom for the first time. I set up the space like classrooms I had seen before; I got my lesson plans in order; packed the filing cabinets with resources; ...

I love books. I love art.  I love Etsy. I love funky stuff. I love recycling and upcycling. This artist on Etsy combines both! Nifty & Thrifty Crafter Meet Kim Franklin (aka) the Trashy Crafter and here's her nifty thrifty story: "... I love to go to thrift stores, I think mainly because it's such an adventure!  Anywho, my Mom and I were at a thrift store when we saw them throwing out hundreds of damaged and outdated books.  This made me really sad, there had to be someway to recycled them into something useful and beautiful.  My Mom and I grabbed about 50 books and threw then into the back of our truck and headed home.  The books sat in a corner of my tiny bedroom for a few months as I finished up finals for my senior year at UCSD. Soon after graduating I remembered my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Bryant had taught us how to roll  paper beads from magazine paper, but it was so flimsy and not sturdy.  So I thought, why not turn this beauti...

(Warning: This blog post may load slowly because of all the embedded videos.  To hear the audio, click on the tiny speaker in the top left of each video) Every year I get excited to share with my kiddos our district & local library Summer Reading List (more about that below!) and to try and generate new ways to catch their interest in reading over the break. This year we decided to create video book trailers using the Vine App! Six second videos that loop with sound. No editing needed, just creativity! You Gotta ASK For It! When I originally had this idea, I got permission from my principal and then I emailed & called my district tech leaders Julie Wray @jwwray and Robert Cole @racolej  to see if I could actually do it. Unfortunately, the Vine App wasn't approved yet -sooooo I asked if it COULD be and then I had to scramble to adapt the idea using a flip camera. Luckily, Bob Cole pushed the Vine App through in about a week, and BAM!  We were back ...