Celebrating the Power of Words and Stories Through Connections!

On March 9th, we will be celebrating World Read Aloud Day together.

On LitWorld's website, World Read Aloud Day is described as,

"A day to take action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child's right to a safe education and access to books and technology. By raising our voices together on this day we show the world's children that we support their future; they they have the right to read, to write, and to share their words to change the world."

So last Friday, we collaborated from Van Meter Community School to Brook Forest Elementary School through Skype and brainstormed a way to connect not only our students, but other students, teachers, and communities around the world.

We are calling our project CELEBRATING THE POWER OF WORDS AND STORIES THROUGH CONNECTIONS. Throughout the day on March 9th, we will be connecting our students and others around the world with amazing books through read aloud's and discussions on Skype. Last night, we connected with seven other educators who are as excited as we are. And this is just a start!

Today we created a wiki to connect everyone, coordinate times, post photographs and videos, and reflect after the event. The wiki is open for others to join. Please feel free to share on the wiki too.

This is going to be an exciting project and one that will make an impact on the lives of our students and others. On LitWorld's website there areseveral activities and a blog to read what others are doing for this special day in their school too. Have fun and remember....our voices can make a difference!

Ryan Sloth Visiting Van Meter!

The students at Van Meter are excited to have a very special visitor tomorrow!

Ryan Sloth, author of Sammy Sloth, is coming to speak to the students about being an author and the importance of reading and writing. As his website states, "Ry Sloth introduces children to a youngster who, with the encouragement of his mother, is determined never to give up on his dream. Join Sammy Sloth on his journey to learn the importance of continued effort and hard work to succeed. Children and adults will find themselves cheering Sammy along on his quest to become Sammy Sloth: Sport Superstar!"

Ryan played ball at Iowa State University. He then went on to play arena football for the Columbus Destroyers, Bakersfield Blitz and Iowa Barnstormers. Ryan is currently a defensive and special teams coach for the Barnstormers.

Thank you Ryan for taking the time to visit us! We look forward to learning with you.

Two Libraries One Voice Blog

Once upon a time, two librarians met at the School Library Journal Summit in Chicago. They became instant friends and knew from the start that their students would love connecting too!

Ever since that day, John Schu the teacher librarian at Brook Forest Elementary in Oak Brook, Illinois and Shannon Miller the teacher librarian at Van Meter Community School in Van Meter, Iowa have been creating innovative and exciting ways to connect their students in the library and computer lab.

The new Two Libraries One Voice blog will tell the story of their journey and hopefully give others ideas and encouragement to connect their students to others outside of the school walls.

Connecting with our Brook Forest Friends Using Edmodo!

On November 24th I wrote about connecting with John Schu and his amazing students at Brook Forest Elementary in Oak Brook, Illinois. Ever since I met John at the School Library Journal Summit in Chicago this last fall we have thought of fun ways to connect our students in the library.

In this project we focused on the 4th graders at Brook Forest and Van Meter. We both have two sections of 4th grade in our school so it worked out perfect having two groups....Fourth Grade Reads 1 and Fourth Grade Reads 2.

The students started out by introducing themselves and posting something of their choice about school, their town, what they liked to read, favorite authors, and more.

The next time they came to library it was fun to see them read about their new friends and reply to comments. They were excited when they read about similar interests and hobbies.

Today in the computer lab, I loved watching them also respond to their classmates at Van Meter. The conversations are growing in our two groups and this is becoming exciting and challenging to the students to think about what they are writing. The connections they are making mean something to them and give them a VOICE in their learning.

We created this Animoto video as a THANK YOU to Mr. Schu and all of the 4th graders at Brook Forest Elementary. We wish you a very happy holiday season and cannot wait to connect again in 2011.

The Edublog Awards Meets the Geek Tribe!

Posted by joycevalenza on December 5th, 2010 on the Neverending Search Blog from School Library Journal

Yesterday, the Edublogs folks announced the short list for the seventh annual Edublogs Awards. As I examined the list, I began to realize how far we’ve come as a tribe. It probably started just over a year ago when we first got together as a group to prepare for AASL Charlotte.

This morning Gwyneth and Shannon and I Skyped about our upcoming Educon2.3 session, but the conversation kept returning to the presence teacher librarians have developed in the larger edtechosphere.

Awards are really nice. Personal recognition is really nice. But you can’t help but notice that it has been a year of serious accomplishment and dramatic school library creep across the board. My hope (always) is that a rising tide lifts all boats.

So explore ALL the wonderful contributors who made a difference and were nominated for an Edublogs Award. But also take a good long celebratory look at this Google Doc and see what a difference our own Geek Tribe has made. And then vote for your favorites!

The three of us starred all the library/librarian-connected projects we recognized. Please add stars to any we may have missed. (23 blogs in the official category of best librarian/ library blogs were nominated this time around!)

Congratulations all. Great work, tribe!

And as Gwyneth says, let’s embrace & welcome our new voices and recruit new Geek Tribe members! And no matter who wins the Edublog awards — really, we all win!

We are stronger when we share!

~ Gwyneth – Joyce – Shannon -

Celebrating Ivy + Bean Day with Brook Forest Elementary

This month in the Van Meter Elementary Library the second graders celebrated Ivy + Bean Day! Ivy + Bean are two wonderful characters in a series of books by Annie Barrows.

To make the celebration even more exciting we connected to Brook Forest Elementary Library in Oak Brook, Illinois. Mrs. Miller met their librarian, Mr. John Shue when they attended the School Library Journal Summit in Chicago at the end of October. They just knew that all of the students would have a GREAT time connecting and sharing their celebrations with one another.

During the celebration, we created Double Dare Cootie Catches, designed Ivy's bedroom just like we wanted, dressed Ivy + Bean in awesome clothes, and shared the seven books with one another. As a special surprise, Ivy + Bean even left us tiny cupcakes in the library for us to eat. Everyone had an awesome time and it was so much fun getting to know more about Brook Creek Elementary too!

You can find out more about Ivy + Bean on the Van Meter Elementary Library and Tech Voice Google site at littlevanmetervoice.com on the Second Grade page.

And don't forget to check out the library for all of the Ivy + Bean books!

The Power of the FIRST Connection With Merton Community School!

On Monday morning before school, 2 kindergarten teachers, 2 second grade teachers, 2 third grade teachers, the Merton technology teacher, the Van Meter Elementary principal, and the Van Meter teacher librarian sat down to talk about how they could start connecting their two schools and the different classrooms. The meeting was so exciting and everyone enjoyed the conversation of how the two schools could connect, learn, and create with one another. The unique piece of the meeting is that we were over 300 miles apart in two different towns.

On this day, Van Meter Community School in Van Meter, Iowa and Merton Community School in Merton, Wisconsin were collaborating through Skype and taking their students' learning outside of the school walls. Lisa Morowski, Merton's technology teacher, and myself, the district teacher librarian, connected on Twitter a few weeks ago and soon after started planning our first activity to kick off this new partnership. We shared the idea with the teachers, collaborated on times that would work, and set our plans into motion. What an exciting week this would be!

Today was the first day our students connected! It happened in the two kindergarten classrooms. As I watched our kindergarten students being read Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak from the classroom in Wisconsin, I could feel the connections starting. The students were engaged, excited, and sharing. It was hard not to smile as I watched them meet their new friends. And I loved it when one asked, "When are we going to get to go and visit the Wisconsin students?"

I have had people ask me before, "What is the power in these Skype connections? What do students really get out of them?"

After school my son Hagan, who was one of the lucky kindergarten students at Van Meter today, came up to the library and got a new book from my desk. Hagan and I had read it together last week and he knew there was a map of the United States inside the front cover. Hagan got up on a chair where I was working and said to me, "Mommy, I can show you where our new friends live on this map. They live in Wisconsin. It is right here by Iowa."

There is your answer! Our students are gaining knowledge, experiences, and relationships that they might not have had before. Hagan not only learned where Wisconsin and Iowa were on the map, he was now able to make a personal connection to this knowledge. And he also has a whole other classroom full of wonderful children and teachers that he will be learning with throughout the year. This is something that I want for not only my own children, but for all the students at Van Meter and around the world.

That is the POWER of the first connection!

You can follow the story of these two schools throughout the year at the Van Meter Merton Connect blog!