Thing 03: Photo Fun

Thing 03: Photo Fun

This topic is a fun one and there are a ton of possibilities when it comes to creating and using images in education. There was a lot in this module, from the nuts and bolts of digital tools to the thoughtful instructional use of digital images.

I am an enormous fan of Flickr. I thought that they were on the cutting edge of image hosting back in the early 2000’s. Around 2010, I was able to secure a high quality Canon D-SLR camera for my elementary school. Since I was the webmaster, I made it a personal goal to take photos of events in classrooms and other school related events away from school. I would use Flickr as a place to organize & host all of the albums. For about $20.00 per year, I was allowed to upload as many photos as needed - storage was unlimited. What’s more is that Flickr provided a great HTML embed code & widget, where I could quickly upload an album to the school’s website. Parents & administration LOVED this! ((P.S. The Halloween photos ALWAYS get the most views and likes))

Outside of Flickr, I respect what Google Photos has to offer. Personally, I am in the Apple/iOS environment, so I don’t take full advantage of Google’s image backup & hosting capabilities. My girlfriend recently switch over to Google Fi for her cellular service and uses Google Photos to back up her camera roll and free up space on her device. It works seamlessly.

In regards to social tools, I love the way that I see Instagram used to promote services, events and books in school libraries. There are some amazing Instagram school library accounts that I follow that do an incredible job posting ‘books of the day/week/month’ and trying to engage with their followers - whether they are students or parents. Some of my favorites are:

https://www.instagram.com/epicreads/


https://www.instagram.com/mrschureads/?hl=en


https://www.instagram.com/dianalrendina/


https://www.instagram.com/teensatvpl/?hl=en


https://www.instagram.com/thedaringlibrarian/?hl=en


Tony Vincent is amazing, in many aspects of tech in education - he is one of my mandatory follows! Almost everything he publishes and promotes is gold.

As a middle school librarian, one of my most necessary lessons is the thoughtful use of digital photographs. Way too many students are comfortable going to Google, right clicking & saving a photo, then inserting it into their project. They are totally unaware that they could be STEALING someone else property/intellectual property! Beyond that, many teachers reinforce this bad habit and encourage students to just go to Google if they are in need of a photo. I often spend a ton of time on teaching the Creative Commons vs. Copyright and the ethical downloading of photos. Kids practice using alternate websites like Wikimedia, CC Search, and Pixabay in front of me but I know that Googling will always be the easier option for them and it’s tough to police!


My sense is that teachers need to thoughtfully create assignments that encourage students to prove that they are using copyright friendly images. Further, I can’t help but share my frustration how in the younger grades, these bad habits are built and then continued throughout one's educational career and onto adulthood. I really feel like it’s my responsibility to help teach this content and help students understand that they have options. Perhaps there’s no better way for students to learn this is to have one of their OWN photos used without permission. I’d be curious to learn if any other educators have a unit or experiential ways to walk students through this content.

**All photos in this post were some of my favorite student gifts over the years of being an elementary school librarian. I posted these to Instagram over the years to capture the memories**

Thing 2: Student Blogging & Writing

Blogging seems like such an OLD technology even though it has only been around for about two decades. When I perused this assignment and clicked through the resources, my mind immediately went, “been there, done THAT!” I was about to skip this module altogether when my brain went to a completely different warm and fuzzy memory about all of the good things that came to me from blogging - both personally & professionally. I blogged as a first year school librarian with a running commentary and reflections on daily life at school. I now look back and see how critical that process was to my own growth as a teacher and professional. It also provided me with some levity, and an outlet, to run with ideas. I was eventually solicited by School Library Journal to write an article with advice to other new School Librarians. It ran in the September 2006 issue, and I was published in the same issue as one of my heroes, Stephen Krashen.

I think, at its core, blogging is an extremely healthy exercise to practice writing and reflecting. It’s my opinion that all students that are learning to practice their writing and thinking skills would benefit greatly from attempting to blog.

From the resources listed in the module, two nontraditional tools seemed to catch my attention. In thinking about implementation & application for me at the middle school level I was very intrigued by Google Docs & Flipgrid.

First, in thinking about Google Docs, I see a ton of potential in students being able to compose their work in a simple word document/ text editor and then have the capability to share at different levels - either with peers, teachers, or publish to the WWW. On the surface, Google Docs might seem like a laughably pathetic and unsexy blogging tool, but I think there is a lot of power in its simplicity. As a School Librarian, I love how I could be invited into a teacher’s Google Classroom and add to the conversation about literature, information literacy or tech. Since my district is a Google for Education school, all students have access to the Google Tools suite. There are so many simple ways to have students microblog using Google Docs.

Secondly, my latest crush has been on the tool Flipgrid. This is a relatively new one to me, and I think it is considered to be more of a vlogging resource.  Nearly every device these days comes with a camera. What an amazing way for kids to use video to reflect on learning prompts - whether it's writing or any other critical thinking assignment! I’ve used Flipgrid once before and was impressed that it is fairly low tech. I had the most trouble keeping my recorded message under the teachers request of 90 seconds. In looking at the Flipgrid website, it looks like the video length range is from 15 seconds to 5 minutes. I had written a small list of bullet points to help guide me when it was time to speak in front of the camera, but even then it was WAY harder than I thought to record myself. It took at least 15 takes for me to capture something acceptable. I know students would probably be less analytical than I was in recording but I thought the entire process was valuable practice for how make a succinct statement and defend an opinion.

In closing, I still think that there is a lot of merit in having students as bloggers. They might pushback or dislike blogging exercises at first, but with electronic journaling, it’s easy to measure growth over time. It seems like this “old” technology is still around for a reason. I’m impressed with what’s still available and how the blogging space has matured over time.

Thing 1: Getting Started

Howdy All!

I am creating and posting to my 2nd career blog! Back when blogging was all the rage back in 2005, I had a weblog about the musings and commentary of being a first year school librarian. It feels like an eternity ago, but as I look back, I can't help but reminisce how healthy it was for me to be actively reflecting on my practice during my first year of teaching.  I had no clue of what I was doing, but I had a lot of energy and was excited to be a part of the profession. If I could only go back and teach that 22 year old kid a thing or two!

My name is Justin Ashworth and this is my fourteenth year in school librarianship. This is my first year as a middle level librarian at Ray Middle School in Baldwinsville, NY. Prior to this new adventure, I spent thirteen years as librarian at McNamara Elementary School.

I am going through the growing pains of transitioning to a new level. I'll start off by acknowledging that I am basically a first year teacher all over again! The transition has been tough and I am learning all of the nuances of being a middle school librarian - completely different from the elementary level! The first 50 days have been eye-opening and taxing.....SO MUCH TO LEARN!! I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow!

I am motivated to take this class for a number of reasons. My primary reason is my shift to a new grade band. I realize that I need to begin examining the use of instructional technology in a middle level context. While I was fairly well versed at teaching with tech in the elementary level, the middle school level presents many new challenges. Another motivating factor is to prevent my practice from becoming stale. After fourteen years, I notice complacency setting in and I realize the best way to hedge against it, is to push myself to learn new tools & techniques and learn from my colleagues.

I am REALLY looking forward to what this class has to offer and for the activities to push my practice to a new level.  LET'S  GET STARTED!!