Teacher Spotlight - Standley Lake High School Summer Reading Program with Tanya Jensen, Digital Teacher Librarian

First year Digital Teacher Librarian, Tanya Jensen, has been collaborating with the Jefferson County Public Library (JCPL) and her English teachers to develop a website that supports summer reading at Standley Lake High School. The website functions like GoodReads, but has been created specifically for students; high schoolers can write reviews and search for titles based on genre and recommendations. In addition, the staff will participate and add their reviews to the website. The school's vision is to grow the site so that it is an easy way for students to locate books of interest, based on peer reviews. Students can also submit suggestions for books they want the library to purchase in the future.

The summer reading program has changed from giving students a list of books they have to choose from, to allowing students the freedom to select any book they want. Students that don’t know which book to choose will now have this peer-generated list of recommended books to guide them. In their English class next fall, with the support of the Digital Teacher Librarian, students will write book summaries and reviews for the website.

The kick off for the summer reading program at SLHS is during during Literacy Week, which falls from April 24th-28th. The JCPL team and Tanya are working together to introduce the students to as many books as possible in a short amount of time through a book speed dating activity. There will be tables based on genre, and the students will peruse the books for five minutes at each table to determine where their interests lie. Students will be provided with bookmarks to jot down interesting books they discovered. If students find a title they want to check out, they will be able to do so through JCPL. On Friday, April 28th, Barnes and Noble will visit the school for a mini book fair, where students will be able to purchase books that match their interests.

The staff is excited about this exciting new website, and they feel this will be a better fit for students to find books that match their interests. The JCPL summer reading program entices teens to read through the summer by awarding an Eliche's 1-day pass to the first 5,000 readers, achieving 8 hours or more. The Jefferson County high school with the most readers will receive an $800 prize.

Link to SLHS Summer Reading Website

Speed Dating with Jefferson County Public Library

Lights, Camera Action: Live Broadcasting with YouTube Live

Video is an ever evolving form of educational technology; however more often than not, the way educators have used video in their classrooms has not evolved quite as quickly. One component of video tools that you should get on board with is live streaming or broadcasting. A live broadcast takes the components of a regular recorded broadcast, but adds the capability of interacting with your audience in real time, easily sharing your videos with very little lag time, and allowing you to save your broadcast for others to view later.

A district-supported tool that you can use for live broadcasting is YouTube Live. This is a tool that is available to all teachers in Jeffco using their @Jeffcoschools.us account. Within our Jeffco domain, YouTube Live is not available for student accounts. If you wish to have students utilize this tool, you will need to have them post to your teacher YouTube channel. Please note, that like all district tools, teachers should not give out their log-in information to students and should supervise any content being posted to their account.

YouTube Live is a great tool for teachers to use because it is easy to get started. First, in order to use this tool, you will need a webcam, a microphone, and a computer. For better overall broadcast quality, it is recommended that you use a wired internet connection with your computer. For information on specific equipment suggestions, you can check out the Tech Tips Broadcasting and Video Conferencing page.

Once you have the equipment to get started, check out the tutorial below to learn how to use YouTube Live. If you are looking for more detailed directions, you can also review these instructions from ECTS.

As you begin live streaming, you may wonder about the best ways to share your broadcast to an audience. As with any sharing you do, it’s important to first consider the content that you are streaming. For example, you should never share confidential information, you should always check to make sure you have parent permission for recording, and you should always cite any sources when referencing other’s work. You may also consider categorizing your broadcasts as private or unlisted so that you can select your audiences as appropriate. Once you have taken all of these considerations into mind, you can share your live stream by sending out the URL provided when you create a new event. The link will also be located in the bottom right corner of your Hangouts on Air window. You will have a new URL for each live streaming event that you create.

Hopefully using these quick tips and directions will help you get started using this unique and valuable video tool in your classroom! If you are interested in learning more, please contact your Ed Tech Specialist today!

Schoology Resources - Prepare the way for 2017-18

Don't start from scratch next school year! Leverage the Resources section in Schoology to save, reuse, and share resources you have created. The following step-by-step directions will walk you through these processes so that you can take what you have developed this year and save for use next year, making modifications where necessary.

In your Personal resources, you have a Home collection of resources, folders and files that you may want to use in your account. A collection is a master area that helps organize all of your saved work. This Home collection exists by default, and it’s only available to you. To share collections of resources with other faculty and connected users, you can create additional collections. To share a newly created Collection with others:

1. Click on Resources/Personal
2. Click on the title of the collection you have created
3. You will see a "Share" button option to select.
4. Once you select the "Share" button, type in the name of the person with whom you want to share the collection of resources.

You can create a collection for every year, for each grading period, or for each course.

How to add a Collection: (Schoology Collections)


How to save your course resources to your Personal resources


This area of your personal resources also allows you to create custom learning objectives to align to test/quiz questions and track student learning over time. These learning objectives can also be shared with members of a Schoology group (grade level/team members).

You also have the ability to add resources to a Group’s resources area and to import these resources to your own courses.

For additional support using any of these Schoology features, please contact your school Digital Teacher Librarian, your school Ed Tech specialist or Ed Tech.