Are you looking for a fun, new way to engage your students? Enter GooseChase! This free app is available for a variety of devices, and it has an easy-to-navigate website for the teacher/administrator who is running the game. First, you'll need to go to the website and sign up: http://www.goosechase.com. Then you'll want to start a new game. Name the game and give it a description. My GooseChase scavenger hunt was for library re-orientation... the kids knew where MOST of the books were, but due to recent reorganization, some of the collection had moved to a different location! Here's what my game looks like: Next, you'll need to make "missions". Each mission is an activity for the kids to complete - and the possibilities are endless! Math teachers could have the kids snap a picture of a problem, science teachers could have the kids snap a picture of a model they created, ELA teachers vocabulary words... I had my students take "Shelfies" (a selfie with a book!) all around the library. Here's a sample: Students were encouraged to explore the library as they searched for books and re-familiarized themselves with the location of the materials. The last step is to set the game time - I made mine a full week window of time that the game is open! Now, what about the kids? They will need to download and install the GooseChase app on their devices... It's free! We have a BYOD initiative going on, so phones and tablets were plentiful. They will need to register with a username, password, and email address. I had my students use their information provided by our district. They then search for the game name. If you added a password, it will ask them for that, too. Then the hilarity ensues... check out some of my students' posts! Even the surliest 8th grade boys (who are much too cool for everything) wanted to participate. It was loads of fun, and what a great way to tour the library!
As a teacher, you are able to see all of the pictures that they upload. I could definitely see it being used for assessment. Considerations:
Comment below - how could you use GooseChase in your class room?
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It's no secret that today's students are screen-hounds. They spend a lot of their time in front of screens... a 2013 study said that a group of 6th graders self-reported that they spent 4+ hours a day in front of screen on a school day, and more on the weekends. FOUR HOURS a day! That is an incredible amount of screen time for kids... and that doesn't include the amount of time they spend looking at screens for school. Whoa.
Book circulation also tends to drop off in middle school... kids in middle school are more apathetic than their elementary school peers. They just don't care to read the way they used to. So the million-dollar question remains - how do we engage them? Here's a simple way that you can grab your readers of ANY age... The 7th grade science teachers are having their students read sci-fi books (LOVE this idea, BTW!) for class. They asked me to book-talk some sci-fi that we have in the library. The problem was that during the time slot they had their students, I already had another class scheduled, and none of us wanted to wait until the following week. The solution? iMovie! I went to our catalog and searched for keyword science fiction, browsed through the titles, and picked the 10 books I thought would most appeal to our kids. I found pictures of the front covers of the books and loaded them into iMovie. I then recorded myself reading the publisher's blurbs found on Amazon.com. I posted the resulting movie on YouTube and shared the link with the teachers, who showed them in class. The result? I have hold lists miles long for those 10 books... it goes back to my post from last week about raising readers... those kids want to read those books because I took an hour of my time to make a movie. YES. The return on that time investment has been well worth it! Want to watch it? Just don't make fun of it please. I used to record commercials for Radio Disney and I'm STILL not used to the way my voice sounds! So what are my next steps? I'm going to pick some genres to focus on each month and promote those books on my YouTube channel. Hopefully this will further engage our reluctant readers. What do YOU do to capture their imagination as readers? One of the questions I get asked most often is "How do I get my child to enjoy reading?" I've heard it from teachers, parents, friends... and they all want to know how to make their kid(s) enjoy reading. I am a huge fan of this quote, by my FAVORITE author: Never was there ever a kid who didn't like to be read to when they were young. So what happens? How are we killing the love of reading in our youth? And how do we recapture it in the modern age of screens and technology sucking up all their attention? I certainly don't have all the answers, but I do have three reasons why I'm so interested in raising readers: I know, I know, I have the cutest.kids.ever. As you can tell by the picture, they are still pretty young. 6, 3, and 8 months at the time of this blog post. And I'm worried about them. Right now they LOVE to read. They can't get enough books! So how do I keep that momentum going to turn them into lifelong readers? It turns out that it's not super difficult to raise a reader, but it does start at home. Here are three tips: 1. Read aloud early and often. I know this can be next to impossible. Just last night I was thinking about reading aloud to my own kids, and it occurred to me that some nights we hurry through books because it's already past bedtime and everyone is tired. Sometimes we pick "just one book" or "just a short book" because we don't have time to read a book aloud. I'm working on this as a parent, because reading aloud to my kids is the most important indicator of their future success as readers. We made time last night to read aloud six chapters from my son's current favorite series... Junie B. Jones. There was nothing better than cuddling up with him (and my daughter, too!) and reading aloud to them in the chair. The dirty dishes waited because there were more important things to do. And just because your kids are big doesn't mean you shouldn't read aloud to them! Check out this article about reading to big kids and why it is so vital to their success as readers! 2. Model reading and talk about your own reading. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I love to read. Don't most librarians? But my kids never see me reading, because I am too busy taking care of everything else that needs to be done. And that is not okay. Seeing important adults in their lives reading and talking about what you are reading to kids engages them in books too. Just today I had a great conversation with one of my 7th graders about how I totally HATED how Veronica Roth wrote Allegiant - I loved the story, but I hated the writer's craft. It now has a hold list of kids waiting for it! I told a couple of kids last week about how Holly Black's Doll Bones CREEPED ME OUT and that I wished someone had warned me - I can't keep it on the shelf. I showed them the shrine to Harry Potter that I have in my office - and now there are no Harry Potter books to be found anywhere in the library! As this article says, "If you have books, newspapers, and magazines around your house, and your child sees you reading, then your child will learn that you value reading. You can't over-estimate the value of modeling." 3. Go to the library. I am totally biased because I work in one, but go to the library. Go regularly and frequently. One of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, gets a slow clap for this article on why our entire future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming. "The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them." Is that man brilliant or WHAT? I LOVE HIM. #FanGirl. But he's right... our future really does depend on raising readers and having a literate society. And where better to find materials than the library? Libraries are awesome places full of awesome people who love to share their love of books and technology with their patrons. Get thee to a library today! Looking for more tips on raising readers? I have a collection of articles for parents and educators - check it out by clicking the "Literature Resources for Parents" tab on the left of the website.
Do you have any tips for raising readers? Leave them in the comments below! Kids today have access to many different forms of social media, and regardless of how adults feel about it, it's here to stay. Check out this article on a 13 Year Old's View of Social Media. It's eye-opening, to say the least, especially Part 2, entitled Do 13-Year-Old's Even Know What Facebook, Google+, Snapchat, Vine, and Twitch Are? The standout quote for me in that article was this one about Facebook: Facebook is seen as a way for old people to connect with other old people that they haven’t seen for decades. To be completely honest there is no use case for teens my age. The only time anyone used Facebook was when FarmVille and Zynga were still a thing. Old people...? OLD PEOPLE? I'm 35 - not exactly one foot in the grave - and I LOVE Facebook! Of course, by 13 year old standards, I'm practically ancient, so I guess it really is for "old people." So what are we to do about this rabid use of social media by our students? ENGAGE!! Engage the students in using social media for classroom discussions! Have them tweet during a field trip or find an expert in a field to discuss a science topic. Use Instagram to post pictures of their work! Make a Facebook page and maintain it for parents (and students, even if it is for "old people"!) Instagram is big for the middle school set. I'm trying to engage my readers by asking them to take "shelfies" - a selfie with a book that they are reading. I also post monthly challenges. September is "Banned Books" since the ALA Banned Books week is at the end of the month. Check out my display! Before you think I'm too creative, again, Pinterest is my friend. Students can take a picture of themselves with a banned book (or any book) and tag it #SPMSshelfie so I can see. Here are some of my kids' pictures! Even the teachers are getting involved!
So here's YOUR challenge... how can you use social media to engage your patrons? Let's get it! In June of 2015, we had the good fortune of having the amazing Pam Harland come speak to the media specialists of Washington County. I bought her book - The Learning Commons: Seven Simple Steps to Transform Your Library - at the professional development. What a GREAT book! It is a short read packed full of lots of ideas for transforming your library into a "Learning Commons".
Being new to middle school, I knew I wanted to make some big changes in the library and really take ownership of the space. The first part was done for me by the awesome media specialist whose shoes I had to fill this year... she moved all the shelving to the current configuration, opening up the space and making it more user-friendly. She also rearranged the fiction shelves at the end of the year, weeding heavily to make space. Here is a general idea of what the space looks like now: My amazing supervisor assisted me with moving and re-shelving over 8,000 books to get them where they are currently located. We:
She also purchased for me 8 awesome tables with wheels on one end and legs on the other - easily movable to make the space more flexible! Next, I re-labeled all the shelving with Aisle Numbers... like my favorite store, TARGET! The idea is to be able to tell patrons who ask for books to go to an aisle number to speed up the process of locating the materials they are searching for! Finally, I created a check-out station where the students are able to check out their own materials. Per Pam's suggestion, I do not limit them on what they can check out at one time. Most students are checking out 2-4 books at once. All students circulated through the media center with their ELA teachers for a "quick and dirty" training on how to use the checkout system. So far, so good! These changes may be small, but they are fundamental to our program here at SPMS! I am excited to begin the next phase of our Learning Commons transformation... our MakerSpace!!
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About the AuthorHi! Welcome to my blog! My name is Christine Hurley. This is my 17th year of teaching - I've taught Kindergarten, 4th grade, elementary media, and now I am in my 6th year of teaching middle school media! Archives
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