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EdTech on Deck Episode One

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We want to thank Amanda for taking time out of her very busy schedule to visit with us. She is clearly passionate about what she does and her love for her students and willingness to help educators everywhere was evident. We hope you enjoyed the podcast.

Show Transcript

hello hello hello and welcome to Ed Tech on Deck the inaugural episode of EdTech on Deck. Amanda is happy to be here. Brought to you by Edlio. We are a communication company and we wanted to help Educators communicate with that's why we're putting this podcast together we are streaming live on some of our social media channels were going to stream the audio on our streaming services that you listen to and we wanted to bring together leaders some of the movers and shakers and edges around the globe to talk to you to bring you together to build at Community together and share best practices about everything edtech and education in general and I couldn't be more excited about our first guess our marketing team hit it out of the bowl park with this one finding Amanda Jones out of Louisiana I am so excited that she is with us Amanda welcome good evening how are you absolutely I'm like I'm so surprised that you can take time out of your the schedule when I read your formal introduction here they got to find out just how busy you are and wonder if you ever sleep and how you find time to do a podcast like this but we really thank you for coming we are going to talk about all things School library we have one of these best school librarians in the world with us today I'm going to read your formal introduction Amanda and then we'll get started so I introduce to you our listening audience Amanda Jones Amanda is a librarian in Louisiana she was the 2021 School library Journal Co Library end-of-the-year a 2021 Library Journal mover and Shaker and the 2020 Louisiana School librarian of the year both of the president of the Louisiana Association of school librarians season aasl social media Superstar and was named in 2022 12:30 it influencers to file by none other than edtech magazine and you can find more about her at the library and jones.com library and jones.com that's the formal introduction I will say I took a gander at library in Jones. Calm I love when Edge writers like Amanda just freely share what they know is good practice if you go to it that I managed to strike me as the kind of person that if anybody called in and needed some advice and guidance you would be there the offer that is helpful hints along the way I was very impressed by everything that you do and so I thank you again for taking the time to be with us here tonight because I have so many people helped me along the way and still help me how many people still helped me that you know anything I can do to help others need to encourage Educators not to be afraid to reach out for that help you know if I take my check on Deck now what you really Fart you know we're not alone in this ocean I bet your gation other plenty of ships passing by and people like Amanda will be there to help when needed I'm always interested to find out how people ended up where they're at I currently work forever a video of a brand ambassador but I just ended a 30-year career in education at the technology director there's no way it is God's green earth that when you asked me when I was 5 years old what do you want to be when you grow up I would have said an educational technology director but somehow I ended up here how did you end up in libraries in education and involved in all these wonderful things that you're doing I knew that I wanted to be a teacher and then when I was working on undergrad I was working on my undergraduate degree in education and it was really when the Harry Potter books came out they like really hit the scene this is way back in 1997 and I I read that the first three and come out and I saw a red them and it just ignited that passion that I had to reading that I kinda lost in high school because you get so busy playing sports and you know by school party Thomas I just you know that passed it and so I went the minute I finished the three Harry Potter books in a week I went and got special permission Harry Potter books in a week over fast but I went and got special permission from the dean to take graduate-level library science classes as an undergrad that when I graduated with my education background have both degrees and so it just went to the class for 14 years because the school that I'm at now. going to be the school librarian at so I wasn't waiting for the former it doesn't seem like those positions open up very often got to be patient I guess in your in your field Middle School at small community and I live an hour I mean at 1 mi an hour one mile from my work and I just I lost I want to get some teaching experience and before I was the librarian anyways to help with behavior management all that retired and I stepped right into that role and now I I've been there 22 years and I have six or six co-workers that I taught 7th grade and they work with me now and I have about 60 when I called Grand students with our children of kids that you've been Drury Inn for $22 total of 22 and I'm not trying to generalize here but majority of school library has come from elar classrooms need to have colleagues that has it become Library as if you seen anything crazy like that have my team teacher so I taught English language arts and my team t-shirt for 10 years with his social social studies teacher and I encouraged her to get she loves to read and she likes attacking us so you should get your library science certification so she started the second year I did at a neighboring school as the library who studies background but yeah generally I was going to ask it if you missed the classroom but I think you were the kind of library in whose library is just an extension of the classroom and made my my reading York play their address correct every single student all 700 in the whole school and I work collaboratively with all the teachers in my school to they book time and we have collaborative lessons and and I'll get every suit come to the library at least two or three times a month with one of their teachers to do a collaborative lesson that's just absolutely amazing meaning of the school library as we talked a little bit about this as we're getting ready pre-show butt butts the way I've seen libraries evolved and then and then tell me if I'm reading this right if I go back to when I was in high school this was farther back than that then you were School libraries were very different places they were very stoic there were very quiet it was play stash quiet Horsemen back in my day when I was in high school we talked about the card catalogs that some of you younger listeners go ahead and Google card catalog to find out what I'm talking about cuz it's got to be in there somewhere even in after 30 years in education I look back at what library School libraries are like when I was a teacher or even and they have all so much they have become places that are colorful and inviting him and vibrant am I am I reading that right or am I seeing an arrow lands are we seen that kind of trend happen across the country or across the world and and when did it start that give me your thoughts on that the library metamorphosis we we have Tina Library Metamorphoses I would say in the past 10-15 years and I noticed it because several like School librarian started sharing what they were going to do on social media and social media started beginning morning of prevalent in our society and you could see people started getting more involved with Ed technology the tools and things and Librarians were some of the first incorporate those into the Union to school everything's a scam and steam and virtual reality augmented reality I've seen a lot of my brain starts at first but yeah we used to even ten years ago when I was at my school before school ever and it was still kind of like book check-in book checkout and but now it's completely involved and so we I still do the book check in a book checkout but I thought the kids had to do it themselves so they can check the message yeah so they just don't check out so I can walk right help them find the right book I have more time to help them because I set them up to take care of their their check out needs and it's also involve to where it's more of a collaboration between myself and the teachers which I think started around 10 years ago there were a lot of younger Library I say younger my mentor is 8 years younger than me and I started following her several years before I became a librarian to see what she was doing and it was this younger group of the saliva Rancho feel like got everything going and we started following them and see what they were doing and now it's transforming I will do it's not just books and we do databases and digital citizenship lessons teaching kids how to navigate the internet decipherable city of websites in new site I even do you know like green screening in virtual reality and Escape rooms in the library it's very collaborative effort now so it's not just check out his book check out plus lessons Plus. old school working together we all work together in the library is the heart of the school going in at Fort Sam Houston here in San Antonio the library became a very collaborative space and not only for academics that almost became the Social Hub of the cat the campus our library and one is far and I don't know but I had like a little coffee bar for some of the older kids we were at the high school so they brought a pod and they can put in the carrier and have a little a little sip of coffee before but I think anything that gets those kids have into that environment to begin with whatever hook you're using to get him into the library Sims 4 the mom tooth to do more things in there yeah we do a lot of things outside of the box my school like we'll do cardboard challenges steam Club it's based on there was a kid in California take a big cardboard challenge in the kids in the pear well, they put on their favorites and get them into the library orientation like our open house to get the parents to come into the library offer free green screening pictures how to get them in there so yeah it's it's a but our school I mean I imagine you also deal with the The Reluctant readers and have those kids that somehow what we mentioned already to maybe hook those kids reading my two children one was a voracious reader one was a very reluctant reader who's come around since but what what techniques can Librarians are or teachers or parents even used to kind of reading fire started in their kids Federal educators are parents that graphic novels are real you know they have a vocabulary that's you know a lot higher than the normal the regular novel in comparison and so you get with a love so I have been bulking up we went from 105th novels about 2,000 graphic novels I bought that they are never in there are always checked out but I like to talk to the kids about their interest like do you play sports do you have a hobby what movies do you like and just have a conversation and as you're talking to them. What do you like to do in your spare time and it just evolved well what if I found a book about this store would have found out that you know how the kids who loves to run and runs cross-country and I said well there's a Jason Reynolds book called ghost and it's a whole series called the truck series hooked on this book and I'm like well if you like that there's a Kwame Alexander book about basketball we can get that you know and so he trying to find her interest and it's not always going to be fiction sometimes it's nonfiction sometimes it's the kids going to do Science and Engineering in cars or sports figures or ballet or you know whatever so I just try to find out about their hobbies and what they like and that brings to mind that I mention the metamorph cuz of the library itself Your Role is a librarian his is also just changed dramatically over over the last 10 years or so I hate to date myself but but I think librarian and I take myself Play Back To The Music Man and Madam librarian that you're probably familiar with that although music man has made his comeback on Broadway so maybe it's not too old school but I bet now you know a lot of talk about that the library I hear library and I hear media specialist is there are there different camps on that what where where do librarians fall with that debate that's it just depends on what part of the country you're in because yes it reads but a lot of a lot of us like to say teacher-librarian so that people recognize that school are brands in general and Most states are required to have teaching degrees and that we do have education background so Wednesday teacher-librarian there's some people that said media specialist I like to get away from that cuz I am a teacher first and foremost so I say to your library in most people I know he's teaching library in her school librarian but yeah I did the role of the of the teacher librarian estranged and it's just it's fascinating to me I do everything that you put up with another thing that that has changed it recently and now we're kind of moving into the technology around is a course the Adventist of ebooks when twenty bucks first came around and they've been around for a while I was being mentally opposed to them I needed to have my book I want that hard copy I want the smell of the paper I want to be able to flip that and what changed my mind was was we age because suddenly I can't see you as well as I used to I can't see at night like I used to in and when I was trying to read I have a book lamp them had that my glasses I know what I found out any books you could put a backlight on and you could enlarge the font you could do all of that stuff it kind of soulmate and I've seen ebooks relieve course change bookstores everywhere we don't have book stores anymore we've got a few here in Texas that I still like to go to bookstore to find the book I want to read but I like the feel and I like to read the jacket and then I might take a picture while I go home and I haven't seen that big of Metamorphoses in school libraries because of v-bucks in general we don't have a large budget choose at least I have to cheat like I don't have a large budget so empty books tend to be more expensive so I focus on the physical in my collection however we do partner with our public library and the public library issues every student all 25,000 entire District Indy cars do they have access to all of the eBooks from the public library so I teach the kids all of the different platforms for comics and been the ebooks and audiobooks they just generally the kids generally prefer the physical books by myself. You know I like that you cuz I can download them really quickly I don't have to let you know if I finished one book in the series I can go online and download it but I can do that from the library but the kids just physically like that book in their head at least mine do at my middle school what was good about your son you mentioned earlier that and that's working with with the classroom teacher because I think successful teacher-librarian successful Library really have a lot of open communication are constantly working with their teachers play I need to know what you're doing in the classroom so that I can support you you need to know what I have to offer in the library what what the strategies can teacher-librarian is used to make sure they have that open communication with their staff I sent out a lot of emails but I also like to walk around in between classes I don't have a class and just have those General conversations though what are you learning about today we could do this in the library and I did that a lot the first year too until now at first it was a little bit of a struggle to get the teacher by in but what I also do was we have a social media account for a liver and I would take tons of pictures and that appearance would notice which teachers are going to the library that you Bella Google go to the library in the library stations and showcasing what you're doing and give him a shout out to the teacher social media this lesson together and now when I get my schedule out in the fall I'll give my I'll drop a link at the first equity in service and I called The Hunger Games because they fight and fight to the death of rich and I will book solid from August to December in about 30 minutes and show them what I could do but now it's not a problem it's like way to to to another big heart this discussion I want to have with you is of course this is the podcast is call Ed Tech on Deck so we want to talk a little bit about how I'm School libraries and then teacher libraries can use technology in the classroom that you talked about social media you know horse back in my day there was nothing no social media but even this is first ten years ago maybe a school had a social media account now not only does the school have a social built the library itself as a social media cat what a great way to highlight books in the what's going on in your classroom it was that a hard sell for you to do with your District or do they save Amanda that sounds great let's go for it that when I jumped in and I I I I kind of it was eight years ago and it was before all the schools are district even have Facebook and I went ahead and created a library Facebook Instagram and Twitter all at once and kind of just ask forgiveness later but now we have either Media PA what season we have all of that we didn't have that back then so I just I kind of jumped in and then not everybody knew what you were a Trailblazer teacher library and ahead of her time when we got in touch with Amanda a listeners and viewers we asked her to put together her top 10 technology recommendations for school libraries as she has supplied that to us we're going to post that of course that are social media after the fact and I will put it in the show notes on the audio version of this pot what am I going to bring that up and kind of look through some of those wonderful suggestions that you have I've got it pulled up here off to the side the first one you mentioned we talked about social media but you say you should have a website Wicked website so for not only for yourself professionally because you can showcase what you're doing professionally and that helps you network with other school library I look at other Squadron personal websites all the time because they post their own lessons and and and techniques and tips and things but our school library has a website and I show okay circulation statistics to the what are our top 10 checkouts for the month I post lesson so the parents can click on the lessons and see lessons were doing I have picture gallery a video gallery anytime we had we had yesterday we had an author visits I post all the pictures that are authors Talk Like a Pirate Day that we had an author who wrote a book about Pirates how do you spell throat hooks revenge and so she came but I saw that on the website but I also put I have student resources and teacher resource for that students can go into the night if they forget how is there any car are they forget what is available to them online and then little tutorial that I've made and I'll do the same for the teachers like especially when in 2020 when we the buildings closed down for a minute we were not a Google school so they didn't know how to use I did all these tutorials and then upon posted all that on the teacher website art teacher resource link on our website and I knew they could go there to find out about all this think this is very important to have a school library website I love the fact that you that you say use your but your resources but you also use it to just showcase all the wonderful things going on at adliya we call that showcasing your wins at Adam and I I I always get on the bandwagon that as school's we do not brag enough about The Incredibles things that are teachers are doing that are school librarians are doing most importantly the wonderful things that our students are doing I'm sure you have pictures of their their cardboard creations and all of that fun stuff I think the more that we can just showcase all the wonderful stuff that happens you know we unfortunately something to get bashed in the media because sometimes that the bad news sells and so so they don't always highlight all the great things are happening so is your website use that presents as a resource depository but also to just showcase like you said all the incredible things happening in your school's we sometimes have to fight for a job because of fun and I always say it's not bragging it's advocating to any anytime you can showcase the highlights it's really advocating for for school libraries in general those things for other people and you talk about the project I always find that when you post things like that as your p**** and you're doing a bit of self-reflection at the same time and a lot of times when I would share things through social media when I was still in the educational setting I would start saying we did this and that Latin than I thought but you know what if we had to do it over again maybe you should try this next time because I would have changed this and change that so posting that kind of served as a self-reflection to him as well I have a friend asked the librarian friend who lives in Missouri and I had a lesson and I posted that I just did not like the lesson I did it was horrible and I emailed him because I seen him do those kind of lessons the primary sources lesson and I emailed him and he gave me all the chips that we found each other on social media by sharing a he helped a whole lesson and it changed everything about that lessons. That's wonderful I think you forgot to open let's do that to me it's not the stands for first attempt in learning so that you took that you ended up turning it into a when another great recommendation and you mention this earlier is green screening the kids just eat them up tell me about what you do in there we have beehive in the library and so it's behind glass because can't touch me in and out through a pipe to the outside but we we use the beehive in multiple lesson 7 science be due to communicate and so the kids had to research the waggle dance and how they communicate and they would do they did a little while ago that's why you whining about it in front of a green screen so that it looks like they were in a high we've done that we've done social studies were they have gone on adventures to other countries parts of the world and they've done research and then so we taking pictures or videos where the students got to explain a concept or another geographical location with that location in the background but when you do the green screen you also have the opportunity to teach them how to do Google image search and Creative Commons in what you could use and giving credit for the picture that you're using and what you're allowed to use it was not so you can combine all of that with green screening and you mentioned doing cuz one of the tools that you can buy I think it is pronounce doing I would even do presentations on going to do a joint the great debate I guess we're going to post all ten of these recommendations for you we have time probably for one more you mention them at using a digital interactive whiteboard I love that idea cuz I love anytime you can use a digital interactive whiteboard it allows there's some kids that don't like to just talk out loud and have discussion so we'll use something like jamboard and so I will have a maybe will read a story or will be you know, dating a lesson and whining it down and I'll have them use the interactive whiteboard put their thoughts down but we're we're all looking at it but they can't tell who's writing what so they don't get too embarrassed like I can tell him what he was doing it but they can't and instead they express themselves more so it's like they're speaking out loud and sharing their thoughts but they're not nobody's looking at them and they're writing it on the interactive whiteboard we use that for a lot for discussion yeah it doesn't it allows almost an anonymity to it that allows them to to express themselves without fear of being ridiculed or anyting I don't have time for one more but I got bored as well cuz you you mentioned using a video discussion app kind of like a Microsoft flip which was previously flipgrid this thing reaches so many different ways someone will have an author come visit I'll have the kids if they want to ask the author a question they can use Microsoft slipped and it can pre-record questions and I can send that to the author in advance to answer when the author comes we've done that we've done I have a book challenge called the message it's a reading challenge in the library and they have to read messages from media media literacy E4 ethics as for sociology nh4 history so they read one book in each category and then I have to use Microsoft Live to Tell me what they learn did they learn something new about the society or history or the way they think of things in the world to do use Microsoft flip soon as I get to voice instead of having to like write a report or anything like that and it still helps us kids that don't require their face or put us an emoji over there add backgrounds and things it makes it more fun way to explain about what they've learned than just a simple paper pencil for book review. after they read a book and they tell you all Miss Miss Jones I really really love this book you say you don't want you record why you loved it and what's so great about it without me spoiler alert and tell him that and then maybe you slap a QR code on the jacket or something so that others especially when we had when we were in the school building with covid-19 had a whole book review board and the kids would read and share and comment on each others if they are read that and I liked it too we had a whole discussion board with Microsoft laptop that is awesome that's fantastic yeah posting all 10 of these incredible recommendations that Amanda gave us in the show notes and on our social media before we wrap up I always take an opportunity whatever I'm talking to either an English teacher or a teacher or librarian I don't read as much as I should not coming by phone in and out of Cycles where I'm reading burrescia sleigh and then cut it on a low but I need to get back into it so I always like to ask what are you reading now what are your courage book recommendations and if you could I I don't like to sometimes read in parallel to books at the same time 1 just for fun some pleasure reading some some crime drama or something and then another is something that's going to help me grow either is a as a educator or spiritually or whatever we have a couple of books that you could share with us I would just enjoy them out of here ready to go by my friend Tom bever who I help you help me he wrote a book called building news literacy and its lessons on Building New Jersey with the with elementary and middle school students so I'm reading that and hoping it hoping that I'm holding my skills and then making a little more fun but I'm worth it news about it helping them deciphered true what's fact is they said it is this is this a valid website or we should get her Nation or is not a fun I'm reading and I'm re-reading cuz I love this book so much in the wild life by Jeff Danner it's a young adult book it is the best one I've ever had in my life and I told you I sent her that on Twitter he retweeted so but I'm re-reading it cuz it's just so good I haven't read it in there in about a Year's one of my favorite Richard Paul Evans author who writes adult kind of stuff series and those types of things he also has the whole Michael Vey on so I don't don't just because you see a literature don't pass it up good stuff just an absolute pleasure talking with you. You love what you do. You do incredible work and I thank you so much for joining us on this and New Girl episode I hope you enjoyed it always the best job in the world Amanda Jones footsteps again you can find information on Amanda at librarian jones.com Amanda thank you again for coming we all thank everyone that was watching if you're watching while I would thank you so much if you're watching the video recording one of our social media channels we thank you for that or maybe you're just listening to the audio podcast to be at one of your favorite streaming services will be back on October 11th our next guess we'll be Janet Sanchez she's a good friend of mine who started the Facebook group for military spouses that do not speak English and she's going to talk about language barriers and what that did to her as a military spouse as well as a parent and schools and talk about how do we overcome those language barriers military and nonprofit cuz it's very very important that we make sure everyone is communicated with when we're dealing with our kiddos Amanda thank you once again for joining us on this inaugural episode yours thank you for listening in and we will see you next I'm at. I'm done good night

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EdTech on Deck Episode One

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