Learning in Progress

When it comes to planning for and creating a makerspace in your library there is a lot to consider, beginning with the needs of your school community, budget and space concerns.  At the KLA/KASL 2015 Joint Conference I'll be sharing my experience with creating a makerspace on a budget.  Below you will find my slide show, and some suggested items that you might want to use as a starting point for stocking your makerspace.    Be sure to check out KyMakes as a resource for sharing and curating ideas, especially those that are standards related, and for exploring a Symbaloo of maker related links and resources . Makerspace On a Budget from hneltner Makerspace on a Budget Thinglinked Handout  Hover over the handout below to see links to some of my favorite resources and items.   Fall 2015 - Sample Supply List The list of items here is a really just for reference - it's not the perfect list, there's no such thing really - but it may get you thinking.  I d

During Tuesday's Power Lunch, teachers in my building will get a crash course on how to use Voxer to keep in touch with their team, and we'll brainstorm other uses.  We'll discuss basics such as how to use it and privacy settings.  Scroll over the Thinglinked image below to see resources that include educator examples of use and a how to video. Below you will also find a Smore of the same resources with some additional comments.  

After reading Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer and getting to hear her speak a few years back, I felt inspired to challenge the students in my school a challenge of that nature.  It just took me awhile to wrap my head around how to accomplish such a task with a whole school.   Facing Obstacles I had two obstacles, in my mind, to overcome.  The first was coming up with a way to monitor reading logs for a whole school.  In The Book Whisperer , Miller describes the reading journals her students keep as a living, breathing, dynamic student record.  Students are recording information about books they want to read, books they are reading.  They write letters, thoughts, ideas.  For a classroom teacher this sounds like an incredible way to interact with texts.   For a librarian like myself, working with a few hundred students, creating this kind of experience isn't quite a possibility.  I thought about using paper logs, but that seemed unreasonable, so as an experiment, I

Here are some resources I'll be sharing via Thinglink at an upcoming professional development session at Northern Kentucky University.  Hover over the document below for links to other sources.