Teaching With The New York Times: A Virtual Summit
Posted on March 24, 2022 by Michelle Loomis
Librarian and Digital Media Specialist
Summary of workshop/​opportunity
An overview of the New York Times' educational resources and the innovative ways they can be used in the classroom.
Goals & Collaborations
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What were your big takeaways from your workshop or project?
The NY Times and The Learning Network offer a huge number of interesting resources to supplement almost every area of learning. There are class openers to get students thinking and sharing (What's Going on in this Picture? What's Going on in this Graph?), writing prompts, the Hyphen-Nation video series, the Headway project (looking at progress and possibility through the lens of events in recent history), the Times Machine for archival content, lesson plans, mentor texts, author annotations, and more. I was interested in this training because I have previously integrated NY Times' educational resources into advisory and HEART, but the content is really intended for 8th grade and beyond (with an emphasis on high school). However, I believe that many of these resources have the power to be extremely powerful in a 7th or 8th grade classroom with adaptation. They could also encourage interdepartmental collaboration.
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How does what you learned connect to your goals this year?
I am always looking for new resources to add to the Library's collection. While we have a print subscription to the New York Times, much of their Learning Network content is available to digital subscribers only and cost-prohibitive, especially if underutilized. To make this decision, I will take some time to speak with 7th and 8th grade teachers to see whether and how they might make use of these resources.
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How might this opportunity lead to collaboration with other faculty?
These resources could encourage a number of collaborations with other faculty, whether using the NY Times Machine to research the archives for a particular subject, exploring the social implications of a new scientific discovery for a science-history/social studies collaboration (e.g. Headway's series on the peat lands in Democratic Republic of Congo), a collaboration between math and virtually any other subject using What's Going on in this Graph, or a History/English/Makery collaboration using Hyphen-Nation. This just barely scratches the surface, and the opportunities are endless.
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Would you recommend this opportunity?
Yes
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Optionally, offer a one sentence recommendation for the opportunity.
Learn how the NY Times education resources can enhance your lessons and create collaborative learning opportunities.
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PD #255
BAISL Spring Meeting
Posted on April, 2022 by Michelle Loomis
Librarian and Digital Media Specialist
Summary of workshop/​opportunity
Quarterly meeting of the Bay Area Independent School Librarian network.
Goals & Collaborations
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What were your big takeaways from your workshop or project?
So many takeaways! This meeting focused largely on our digital resources, and the information was very useful. We learned that the California State Library has added a series of STEM databases (now available through the Burke’s Library), and that there may be a more cost-effective way to purchase some of our ebooks. We also discussed our desired changes to our consortium’s ebook collection, and are especially motivated to increase the number of available audiobooks (including and especially those partnered with ebooks) to best meet the diverse reading needs of our students. One unexpected but interesting focus of the day was the discussion about our digital vendors and their connection to the rise in school library censorship across the country. This is not something we need to act on at this time, but our vigilance is vital. In short, in several states digital vendors are being forced to comply with keyword filters provided to them by individual school districts which, depending upon who holds the administrative credentials, can result (and in some places have resulted) in the unintended consequence of filtering content statewide. Finally, we learned that Overdrive has added a collection of Spanish language books for young readers, which are also excellent for Spanish language learners. I am excited to share this information with our Spanish teachers.
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How does what you learned connect to your goals this year?
One of my ever-continuing goals is to diversify the voices in our Library collection. Virtually every one of our discussions from this meeting hit on that goal.
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How might this opportunity lead to collaboration with other faculty?
This meeting gave me tools that can enhance learning and recreational reading across our community, whether working with language teachers to provide beginning language storybooks, helping history teachers access materials from wider range of perspectives, or providing classrooms with even more literary mirrors and windows from our collection.
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Would you recommend this opportunity?
Yes
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PD #258