Skype A Scientist LIVE...Amazing Events For Remote and Summer Learning!

One of my favorite places to find virtual connections for our students and teachers is with Skype a Scientist. 

As they state on their site, 

Skype a Scientist s a group of 5000+ scientists who are available to video chat into your classroom and have an open discussions with your class.  The goal of the program s for students to have positive experiences with scientists and form a personal connection with someone working in a scientific field.  

You can read how it works here. 

Every month, they have been putting together the Skype a Scientist LIVE calendar which is filled with special events our students and families can be part of. 

On this page, you will find the Skype a Scientist LIVE calendar for June.  When you get to this page, scroll down to find all of the events with a description and link to each session. 

Take a look at a few for June....

And one of the best parts!  They have an awesome Skype A Scientist YouTube Channel where you can find... 

...so many wonderful connections with scientists of all kinds.  

They are also offering their services for families.  You will find that information here. 

Over the last few years, our students and teachers have loved the connections we have made and information we have learned through our connections with scientists. Thank you Skype a Scientist for bringing us such engaging and educational connections with scientists.  We can't wait for even more! 

Week 2 of Virtual Camp Adventure! Let's Go To The Farm!

It's time for Week 2 of Our Virtual Camp Adventure!  

This week, we are focusing on the topic of On The Farm. When you go to the special website, 

you will find the choice board for Week 1.  You can also find it here.  

On this special choice board, you will find places for your students and families to explore as they read, draw, play, cook, create music, exercise, focus on social emotional learning and more.

On the website, I also created a Collection by Destiny for the Virtual Camp Adventure that you will find....

 ...here.  I will add each weeks choice board and other resources including the Google Site, bookmark, flyer and more.

In the Week 2 choice board, they will find the Week 2 of Virtual Camp Adventure Buncee filled with Capstone Interactive eBooks that everyone has free access to at home.

I shared this with my students and families in a variety of places including email, our library Facebook and other social media, the library website and I even changed the header on our Destiny Discover.  I will do that each week.

I hope you share this with your students and families for a fun second week of Virtual Camp Adventure. Let's see what happens when they go to the farm! 

And if you'd like to make changes to the choice board, you will find an editable copy here.

A Handy New Way For Students To Search Digital Only In Destiny!

Our school is out for the summer, as many schools are, as others are continuing to learn remotely at homes with their families and teachers online and in other wonderful ways. 

One thing I have been thinking a lot about is how to organize our Destiny Discover to direct our readers to the eResources we have in our collection at Van Meter.  

Last week, I wrote about how we can now make the homepage a place to personalize this experience for our community by adding messages, news, pictures, special Collections by Destiny, highlighted events and so much more.  

You can read the post about how I did this here. 

I am excited to share that as of this week, we can also direct our community to only search online resources, and not the physical collection.

I was very thankful for this choice, because as our students are at home searching for things to read and use for research and projects, it can be confusing, and often times disappointing for them, to see the physical books too.  And families can feel that way too.

Let me show you how easy it is to make this an option in your Destiny Discover.

You will need to login to your Destiny Discover and go to Admin over in the navigation bar on the left hand side.

 Under Display Options, you will click on Digital Only and it will bring up this screen....

...where you will check the box next to Show a Digital Tab instead of the Book Tab and click Save. 

Now when students and families click on Search Options, 

 

and click on Format, 

 only eBook and Audiobook/Recorded Sound are options.

As well as when they type a search into the search box, 

the only tabs that are available are Digital, Collections and Websites.  They will not be able to search the physical books anymore with the Digital Only feature selected.  

Again, this is such a helpful option during remote learning and also throughout the summer as our readers finds things to read and listen to throughout these months too.