In this week's 3 Quick Things, I sum up how we've used StickTogether as a community builder, discuss the Gale database Topic Finder tool, and review the crazy world of Kaufman and Kristoff's Illuminae.
The weather's warm, the number of school days are short, and summer is on the horizon! I hope you're enjoying these final days of the 2017-2018 school year!
Love,
Your Library
- If you haven't heard of the StickTogether collaborative posters, you are missing out! Available through Demco as well as the StickTogether official website, these posters take collaborative work in a fun direction by allowing students to work together to create a final product that they can't even picture at the start of the process. As a person who hates creating bulletin board displays, this was a win-win for me--it created an inviting atmosphere while putting the students in the driver's seat. Our StickTogether started out slowly; since it was our first one, I had to play around with signage to promote the activity and posted directions so I didn't have to explain it a million times. Yet, once students saw others grabbing stickers, it caught on like wildfire. My poster happened to be right beside the main library exit, making it perfect for students to work on as they waited for the bell (that, along with Angry Birds
on the Promethean Board and our community puzzle, has essentially solved my behavior management problem for students right before the end of class). It was also a great activity for introverted students to work on during lunch; I had one student come in almost every day to add stickers and make guesses about the final picture. The best part, though, was when I happened to glance over and saw students from totally different backgrounds, age groups, and interests adding stickers alongside one another. Even when we were done, the StickTogether was a great conversation starter, since some students believe it's a sunflower and others are convinced it's an asteroid (laurel vs yanny, anyone?). I created an animated gif showing our progress (check it out below!) and shared that through our school hallway TVs; I'm hoping that this, along with the sunflower/asteroid conflict, will encourage even more students to stop by and create at the start of next year!
- As I've increased my inquiry work with students, I have come to find that (surprise, surprise) they would rather Google an answer than find any other type of source. While I'm an avid Google fan, I would feel remiss if I did not prepare my students for college-level research with database use. My school makes use of the Find It Virginia resources, meaning that we have access to several databases provided by Gale. Upon their first introduction to our Gale databases, students are almost immediately overwhelmed by the search results (common complaint: "Mrs. Kramer, there are SOOOO many!"); they are very conditioned to clicking on one of the top Google results, and that strategy doesn't always work well in a database environment. My favorite tool to show them in the Topic Finder, where they can visualize their search results and narrow them pretty easily. It's not too often that you get comments like, "That's SO cool!" when you're teaching search strategies, but that trick always evokes a pretty nice response.
- Are you in need of a book recommendation for your sci-fi lovers? How about readers with a penchant for zombies? Want something that will appeal to more visual learners, or maybe just a bizarrely different romance for your love-addicted teens? If any of these seem appealing to you, be sure to check out Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Told in a series of files, text messages, word clouds, and just about everything else imaginable, Illuminae follows the story of Kady and Ezra, two survivors of a deep space catastrophe that left an entire space colony stranded on a fleet of three starships. As they race against time to make it back to the base, a deadly strain of bacteria infects a few survivors, turning them into zombie-like killers. The story is further complicated by the fact that Kady and Ezra have recently broken up, the fleet's computer is experiencing some major glitches, and there is no good way to know who to trust. This book nearly defies explanation, and I found myself covered in cold chills as I compulsively read to the finish. The thickness of the volume may be a little off-putting to the casual observer, but I haven't had a student who read this one come back with less than a crazy-good review.
The weather's warm, the number of school days are short, and summer is on the horizon! I hope you're enjoying these final days of the 2017-2018 school year!
Love,
Your Library
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