Author: duecks

Media Literacy in Action

Photo credit: K Yan

On Friday March 3, Divisions 2 and 3 enjoyed a field trip to visit the library at Burnaby South. Our purpose was to get a sneak preview of all the amenities a high school library has to offer its future students. One of the goals was to give students the opportunity to experiment with green screen technology. Students filmed live-action videos using the green screen studios set up by Ms Yan in the library and by Ms Alexieva in the Media Arts classroom.

Photo credit: K Yan

They learned how to create additional footage,

Photo credit: K Yan

 

 

 

 

and they practiced editing their productions using the Do Ink app.

 

 

 

They learned about forced perspective, and how to create it in a live-action video.

Photo credit: K Yan

Media literacy is about understanding a wide variety of tools and techniques for making messages. Some students preferred creating animated videos using apps like ChatterPix and Puppet Pals

 

 

Photo credit: K Yan

All the students were willing to give video production a try, but some decided it was not for them, and Ms Yan had a thoughtful array of alternative activities available. When students have options and possibilities for exploring how they prefer to learn, it paves the way for them to take charge of their own learning. And you can see that libraries offer havens for all the learners and all the ways of learning.

Thank you to Ms Yan, Ms Alexieva, and all the Media Arts students at South who were so welcoming and helpful during our visit.

2022 Summer Reading Club! Read all summer long!

School’s out (almost)! What are you going to do with all your time this summer?

Have no fear! The Burnaby Public Library Summer Reading Club is here . . . again!

Yes, reading is about stories, but it can be more than stories too. You can learn how to play a musical instrument; or how to grow your own vegetables, and then cook them! Be a lion tamer or a pet doctor, a champion swimmer or a marine biologist. Whatever you can think of, you can learn about it by reading. What will you learn this summer?

Click here for more information: Continue reading “2022 Summer Reading Club! Read all summer long!”

Using the online catalogue

We are doing this!

We have been learning about the Dewey Decimal System all year long as part of the Information Literacy program in the library , with the end goal that students will be able to search for information in the online catalogue, and then locate the material on the shelves in the library.

Now the students in Division 10 are applying what they’ve learned to their research project on animals in the wild.

Click on an image below to see it as a slideshow. Use the right and left arrows to move back and forth between slides. Then click on the ‘X’ at the top of the slide to close it. Click on the ‘x’ at the bottom to turn off the captions.

Student-Led Conferences 2022

On Wednesday April 13 Maywood held Student-led Conferences for the first time in two years. Students were excited to show their parents the library, to talk about their favourite books, and to show them what they’ve been learning during their weekly book exchange time.

As part of the library Information Literacy program we have been talking about how to use the Dewey Decimal System to help find books and to get an overview of what kinds of books there are in each category. You might never have known we have these books otherwise.

Set in the Library

Last week, Ms Baker’s class came in to the library to work on their unit on ‘Cinderella’ stories from around the world. They are developing their critical thinking skills by comparing different versions of the story.

Our goal in the library was to learn about why the setting is important to understanding a story. We watched a short video about setting, we had a class discussion about how setting works in one of the stories we are reading, and then students used the loose parts materials to create settings for their ‘Cinderella’ stories.
We used the story of The Turkey Girl as an example of why setting is important to a story. The Turkey Girl is set in a Zuni pueblo in New Mexico. The Zuni people have lived there for hundreds of years, and they have many stories and customs that they pass on to their children. The Turkey Girl is one of those stories.

We looked at slides showing the old pueblo villages of the Zuni people, and the desert that surrounds them to this very day.
We talked about how the story was first told a long time ago, before European explorers came to New Mexico and changed the lifeways of the Zuni people.

Zuni Village | Frank Reed Whiteside | 1905-1910
We also talked about the importance of turkeys to the Zuni people, the ceremonial dances they performed, and the traditional costumes they wore. This discussion was interesting because many students mentioned connections they made with their own cultural backgrounds and traditions.
And then students created settings for their own ‘Cinderella’ stories, using the illustrations in their books for inspiration and the materials from the loose parts cart to realize them.

Ms Baker and I filmed the students explaining their creations, in terms of both the story and their use of materials. For the students, being able to explain their ideas out loud is an important first step in writing them down. For me, listening to them give their interpretations was the best part.

Image from The Rough Face Girl by Rafe Martin, 1998. Illustrated by David Shannon

Ms Baker posted the presentation information on the Division 8 Team site so students could have access to it as they worked on their projects at home. For Ms Baker and me this was a true collaboration–we each brought our ideas, resources, and skills to the lesson; we co-planned it and we co-taught it. It was a very satisfying experience all the way around.

Contest! Prizes! Reading! Library!

You’ve seen the demos!  You’ve watched the videos!   You’ve been practicing your skills!

Now is your chance to show what you know in the Maywood Community School ‘Power Users of the Library Online Catalogue Contest’

Rules:

Contest runs from February 14 to March 12. That’s 4 weeks.
The class with the most individual students who place holds using the online catalogue during that time, wins.
You can only place a hold on a book in the week when your class does NOT come to the library for book exchange. That gives you two chances.
A ‘hold’ means you place a hold online and then you actually check the book out of the library. This means you should choose a book that’s IN the library already.

You can only borrow one book at a time, so if you already have a book checked out, you need to return it (you can return it on the day you borrow the new one).

If you put holds on two books and they are both ‘In’ the library, I give you the first one that comes up in my list.

Use the How-To videos on the library blog if you can’t remember how to log in, or how to place a hold, or how to look at your account information. Here is the link to the videos.

Prizes:

Depending on how many classes tie for first place, the prize money will range from a minimum of $20 to a maximum of $80.  As a suggestion, you could use the prize money for a book or a set of books for your classroom; it could be food; it could be a combination of books and food, depending on how rich your prize is.

Using the New Books links to find your next book

Congratulations to Tony from Division 5 for being the first person to find his next book by checking the New Novels and Chapter Books link in the right sidebar. He gets the glory and the reward of being the first one to borrow the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End.

It could be you next. Check the New Books links, see something you like, and put a hold on it to borrow it.

Burnaby Public Library visits our Kindergarten students online!

This week we are having virtual visits from the Burnaby Public Library children’s librarians, who are showing us around the children’s section of the Bob Prittie/Metrotown library. Below is a letter with information they want to share with parents. Right at the top of the letter there is a link to a kindergarten reading list (you can click here to get to that list too). When you open the link it takes you to the Burnaby Public Library website. Keep scrolling down the page to see the list. If you have a card for the Burnaby Public Library, you can use the ‘Hold’ button to immediately put a hold on a book you would like to borrow from the list.

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In case your child missed the presentation, or if you would like to watch it yourself, here is the link to the video presentation showing how to find the children’s section in the library, and also introducing some of the library staff who will be there to help you find the books you want: See the Metrotown Library

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