Tech Award Application

 

Put your best 21st century technology skills to the test to showcase your story of successful technology integration. We want to hear how you are using and promoting your use of technology tools within your school or district, as well as the ways you are collaborating with teachers to combine technology with curriculum to research or present information. This award honors a teacher librarian who uses technology as a tool for learning and collaborates to promote the integration of technology in the curriculum. This award is sponsored by Mackin Educational Resources and includes $1,000 for use in the winner’s library.

 

Your entry must demonstrate how you are “bragging” about your technology programs throughout your broader school community, and explicitly state how it carries out the CSLA’s mission. Award candidates must be CSLA members who are credentialed Teacher Librarians working at the site or district level. Applicant may be self-nominated. The deadline for submitting your application is October 15. For details, go to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfeRfkUZXjLZb8nrAk-dj1fRQGZ-ALU91LjGR5fHKQ5h-0sjQ/viewform

Don't kill your own storage - Make a YouTube Channel!

For many, the concept of putting library videos on a social media platform like YouTube can be daunting.  However, YouTube can be a powerful tool for increasing your library's visibility amongst students and parents.  In this era of Distance Learning, we need all the resources we can get in order to connect digitally with our patrons and their families.  

Why should we use Youtube?

• The kids are already using it!  Think about how many times you've gone around to classrooms or had students in the library who were jamming out to some sick tunes on YouTube.  How many times are students sharing a funny video with each other? Students love videos.
• YouTube doesn't (currently) have a storage limit. One 5-minute video file can be anywhere from 25 to 75MB! If you don't have unlimited Google Drive Storage or a hard drive in the terabyte range, you can be filling up your personal storage really quickly with videos! Lack of storage space could slow down your computer's performance.
• Keep generative views for years to come. When videos are posted to Facebook, Instagram, or other social media, they can be lost to the sands of time (which might be good in some cases!).  If you or your students have worked hard on a book trailer or a book tasting, those videos are ones you'll probably want around for a while.

What are some things you can use a YouTube channel for?

*Check copyright for books in your Read-a-louds - SLJ has a great post on this! 

Convinced??

If you're ready to start, head over to youtube.com and sign in with a Google Account (or create a specific one just for your library).

When you sign in, you should see your account icon in the top right corner.  Click on that to reveal all sorts of settings. Here are a few key ones:

• Your channel - this is where your videos live, and where you can upload more videos. You can also create playlists in here and add videos to existing playlists
• YouTube Studio - another place to upload videos, but also where you can edit and change settings for videos previously uploaded. 
• Settings - this is where you will find a lot of really great features, including:
• Notifications - control what emails/notifications YouTube sends you
• Playback and Performance - where you can turn on closed captioning and other settings

Tips for starting out

• 3-and-your-done. Your video will never be perfect.  Why? because you're not a Hollywood actor with a cast and crew behind you! Give yourself a limit on retakes - 3 takes and you move on. Otherwise, you'll sit there all day trying to get it to be perfect!
• Make playlists like you would make a book collection.  If you have many book talks in the same genre, make a playlist so your viewers can 
• If you're using a phone or tablet, invest in a stand.  Shaking videos are never fun to watch! There are a ton of great stands for under $20 on Amazon and other similar websites.
• Record in Landscape, not Portrait. If you're using a tablet or a phone, turn your device "sideways" aka landscape.  This will ensure your video fills up the Youtube viewer, rather than having a strip of video in the middle and a bunch of black space to the left and right.
  
  
  

Things to consider about your channel

• Do you want comments on your videos? Commenting can be turned off on videos, which might be good especially for younger grades where there are more privacy concerns.  Rather, invite conversation on other platforms or through email where commenting can be private and monitored.
• Public, Unlisted, or Private? There are three privacy settings for videos which can be leveraged for specific needs.  Depending on what you're posting, you might want your videos to be unlisted (like with read-a-louds, where many publishers have asked for videos to not be publicly searchable), or public for virtual tours, interviews, or book talks. 
• Public: anyone can find your video in the search, and these videos are in your channel 
• Unlisted: viewers need the direct link to your video to view it.  These won't appear in searches, or on your channel. 
• Private: you invite others to watch your videos. They can't send the URL to others to watch it

Start posting!

Like many social media, YouTube is very much a "Build it and they will come".  But you have to make it easy to find!  Start posting your videos on your school or library websites, or connecting them to book collections in your favorite cataloging system.  Share out on your other social media that you have a channel, and you might start getting subscribers!  Send out links or QR codes to your videos in your School Newsletter.  

Feel free to share out on Twitter using #4csla and tagging @cslainfo and yours truly at the address below! Happy YouTubing! 📹

Sara Smith, Teacher Librarian

Sanger High School & Sanger High West

sara_smith@sangerusd.net

@sm_wordsmith on Twitter

Survey on obstacles to remote learning

Designed to give school leaders a pulse check on their communities, a recent national survey highlighted opportunities, challenges and differences in perception when it comes to communications, connectivity, tech support and other components of the remote learning experience. Here are some of the highlights.

• Uneven access to devices makes getting assignments a challenge (20% have problems).
• Parents overestimate how often their students have a quiet place to work.
• Some parents say they didn’t receive schedules and learning goals.
• Teachers report overwhelmingly using their LMS—but few other educational technology programs.
• There’s tech support for teachers. For students, not so much.

2020 Remote Learning Survey Research Results. (2020). BrightBytes and ISTE.https://www.brightbytes.net/rls-researchx

Attend CUE 2017

Attend CUE for $75!!

No joke. CSLA is seeking six members to attend the March CUE conference in Palm Springs at very little cost – only $75. Yes, there is a catch. In exchange for your admittance ticket, valued at $280, you will volunteer to staff the CSLA booth for a six hours during the conference March 16 – 18. You do not need to be a CUE member to take advantage of this offer but you are required to be a CSLA member.

You will be responsible for your own transportation, meals and accommodations.

CSLA will NOT create purchase orders or invoices.

Visit the CUE website for further information about the conference. http://www.cue.org/conference

Contact Silvia Gutierrez at joeeg@earthlink.net if you are interested in this offer!