DVD Movies

The Media Center will be selling K-5 Grade Level DVDs this May! Send your order form and $10 to school for this special opportunity. The order forms will be the Monday Messages newsletter on May 7th and 14th. All profits will go directly towards new library books in our Media Center collection. A special thank you to Mike Reno and Kopy-Rite for all of the donated materials!

These are the titles of the DVD movies:
Kindergarten: Mother's Day Musical
1st Grade: Dinosaur Hill Field Trip Experience
2nd Grade: "Get Up and Grow" Musical
3rd Grade: Stoney Creek Field Trip Experience
4th Grade: "The Best Little Theater in Town" Musical
5th Grade: Electronic Yearbook My Favorite Long Meadow Memory

School Podcast

Our Media Center was awarded money from the Rochester Community Schools Foundation to start a school podcast. My project idea is to have 4th grade students organize and present their own weekly podcast. The students will choose their position that they will be responsible for compiling information that week at Long Meadow.

These are the tools they will use to make their own podcast:

• MacBook laptop equipped with GarageBand podcasting software
  
• Snowball Microphone for small groups to record voices


• External Speakers for playback listening for entire class of students


• iPod Video with attached microphone for onsite interviews


• Digital Camera for images to be placed throughout the podcast

Inventory of book collection

End of the Year library schedule:
Week of May 14th: Books returned to the library. No book check out.
Week of May 21st: Letters for students missing books.
Week of May 28th: Letters for students missing books.
Week of June 4th: Start Inventory of entire library collection. Phone calls home for students missing books.
Week of June 11th: Complete Inventory of entire library collection.

Best Buy Teach Award Grant

I won the $2,500 Best Buy Teach Award Grant for iPod Shuffles and iTunes Audiobooks! The Media Center will have them available for check out for students in grades 3rd through 5th. There is an informational flyer, permission slip, and polices for this program on the Long Meadow Media Center Webpage. Visit this for more information: http://www.rochester.k12.mi.us/index.asp?item=165&name=Media%20Center&school=6

Podcasting Future?

Over the last two days of freezing, cold weather, my laptop has been my heating blanket for myself and my dog, Sammy. With this extra time, I have been updating/listening to my iTunes subscriptions of professional podcasts. What a great way to get my technology information!

These are my favorites:
this WEEK in TECH
Radio WillowWeb
CNN Student News
KidCast
Teachers' TV News

My podcast for the Long Meadow staff (Media Messages) is currently only emailed out to our staff group every week. I would like to involve the students in the creation of a communication podcast with pictures describing our school events for our Rochester community in the near future. A prospective, written grant would provide the funds to start up this project.

33 Reasons!

"33 Reasons Librarians are still Extremely Important" is an essential essay providing research for the importance of public libraries and school libraries. Our School Media Center offers many opportunities to our K-5 students on a weekly basis. Opportunities ranging from book check out in the recently updated 9,500+ library collection materials to distance learning booktalks in our interactive computer lab. This research helps our voice travel with data for support.
Check out this study at the following link: http://www.degreetutor.com/library/adult-continued-education/librarians-needed

MACUL Detroit Conference

On Thursday, March 15, 2007, two fifth grade students from Long Meadow and two fifth grade students from Hampton will be attending the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan for the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) Conference. The students will discuss and demonstrate the project for the teachers during the student showcase. These students have participated in the webcam booktalks this school year with expertise!

This is an awesome opportunity and we are all very excited to invite each of the students to present the very successful webcam distance learning activity this school year!

Grolier Online

Our Media/Technology department supplemented by the school budget purchased another year subscription of Grolier Online! You should use this online encyclopedia whenever you need to research for school projects. It could also be used for just exploring topics and viewing the many movies on the feature showcase. There are learning games that are available on "America the Beautiful" and the "Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia".

Rochester Community Schools Foundation

Our Media Center was able to purchase 220 new library books thanks to the Rochester Community Schools Foundation! The 2006 Golf Outing raised funds to supplement a Media Center book refresh for the entire School District. The students and staff are thrilled to read these new books. Each book has a book plate recognizing the Foundation's gift as well as giving the opportunity for the community to further donate towards this exceptional cause. Check out this link to view pictures of the display in our Media Center:

http://www.rochester.k12.mi.us/index.asp?folder=21111&name=Thank%20You%20RCS%20Foundation!