Mark Your Calendar For All4Ed's 12th Annual Digital Learning Day On March 15, 2023, Friends! One of Our Favorite Celebrations of the Year!

 

One of our favorite days to celebrate every year is Digital Learning Day. This is such a special day to celebrate how we make connections with every student everywhere. 

All4Ed’s 12th Annual Digital Learning Day (#DLDay) will be held on Wednesday, March 15, 2023.

As shared on the DLDay site, 

The start of a new year is a perfect year to reflect, reframe, and reprioritize much of everyday life and focus on making intentional connections. As educators, we know that relationships and connections are the foundation of effective practices and for increasing student engagement.  For over two years, the education community has encountered many challenges such as learning loss and staffing shortages. Yet in the face of these challenges, educators continue to rise to the occasion, and there is much to celebrate. 

All4Ed’s 12th Annual Digital Learning Day (#DLDay) will be held on Wednesday, March 15, 2023. We will highlight how educators across the country are utilizing digital learning tools to create authentic connections and personalized learning opportunities for every student, everywhere.

When All4Ed held its inaugural #DLDay more than a decade ago, many districts, schools, and educators were uncertain about the role digital learning could play in their classrooms. The connections between technology, innovation, and equity were nebulous at best. Now, as access to technology has become more ubiquitous, personalized digital learning strategies are a lifeline and a means to level the playing field and close equity gaps, as districts leverage high-quality evidence-based strategies to ensure that each student has the learning opportunities they need and deserve.

Now more than ever, educators need to make intentional connections with fellow educators and students, share, and celebrate the many successes happening in their schools and classrooms each day.

On the site, there are also great things coming soon including Finding a Digital Learning Tool, Planning an Event, and Save the Date for the Virtual Celebration. 

I will also be sharing the Let's Celebrate Digital Learning Day choice board soon. This will bring new digital learning experiences to our students. It will give them a place to learn, create and share new and exciting digital learning experiences. 

Digital Learning Day is an awesome day for all students, teachers and school communities.  Mark your calendars on March 15 and check back with the site and #DLDay on social for more details soon.

Our February 2023 BOOKHUB Takeout Stations To Inspire and Support The Reading Lives Of Our Students and Teachers!

We are always looking for ways to make our library program the best it can be for our students, teachers and school community. 

As a Future Ready Librarian, I want to make sure I am always inspiring and supporting the reading lives of both our students and teachers everyday. 

This year, we made a few little changes to our BOOKHUB program to give our teachers more choice and control over the books they pick and read from the BOOKHUB Menu we put together each month. 

And instead of putting the posters and bags on each teachers door, 

...we decided to make the baskets in the library by the door the BOOKHUB Takeout baskets for all books from the BOOKHUB Menu. 

On the poster, I shared this message with the teachers. They get come and get books from the takeout containers (baskets) anytime they'd like. When they finish, we ask them to drop them back off at the BOOKHUB Takeout Station. 

You will find the Canva template for the BOOKHUB Takeout sign here if you'd like to use it too. 

And here is another layout of the poster that I used on the library door. 

You will find this the Canva template for this BOOKHUB Takeout Station sign here.

I also used this one in the corner of our new BOOKHUB Menu for the BOOKHUB Takeout Station. 

For this monthly menu, my library assistant, Natasha, and I, spend a lot of time reading and talking as we put together a special list of books for our teachers to share as read alouds in their classrooms each month.

You will find the Canva template for the BOOKHUB Menu here. 

I do the collage of book covers in PicMonkey. 

We love how our BOOKHUB Takeout Station came together for our teachers and we are excited for what it will bring to all of our students. 

Natasha and I will keep the books moving throughout the month.  We will monitor to see if we need to add more to the menu next month. 

With our BOOKHUB Takeout Stations, our hope is that our teachers and students share even more amazing reading experiences together throughout the year. We love supporting them from our library in this way. 

Our Virtual BOOKHUB For February! Our Monthly eBook Reading Promotion Using Capstone Connect For All Readers!

One of our favorite reading promotions at Van Meter School is our...

...BOOKHUB Takeout Stations!  This is a place where our teachers can pick up books to read aloud and share with their students each month. 

We select these books and put together the BOOKHUB Menu in Canva, which shows the books that are available at the BOOKHUB Takeout Stations each month.  

I print off the BOOKHUB Menu posters for each classroom. The students and teachers like looking at the menu to pick the books they want to read. They also cross them off as they go as a way to keep track of what they are reading too. 

It is so much fun.  You can read all about our BOOKHUB Takeout Stations here in this post.

Here is our new BOOKHUB Menu for February and March. There are lots of new books, new ALA YMA 2023 books, and books that tie into monthly themes and events. 

You can find this in Canva here to make a copy if you'd like to use BOOKHUB too. 

Along with the BOOKHUB Takeout Stations with the physical books, I also want to support all readers with eBooks each month. This will give our students eBooks to read as they learn about different events and celebrations throughout the year.  It also gives them choice in what they want to read since I put them together in the Virtual BOOKHUB choice boards. 

To create the Virtual BOOKHUB choice boards, I use Capstone Connect. This is an amazing new platform from our friends at Capstone that connects PebbleGo, PebbleGo Next, Capstone Interactive eBooks and teachers resources in one place with links to use that connect to each resource.

Let me show you how I created the Virtual BOOKHUB choice board. 

First, I logged into our Capstone Connect. 

I searched for Valentine's Day using the Title Search in Capstone Connect. 

When I searched Valentine's Day, it gave me the results eBooks and PebbleGo articles.

For the choice board I created, I needed the book cover and link to the eBook.  

To view the eBook, I clicked on Valentine's Day and it...

...opened up in Capstone Interactive.  This let me view the eBook and also grab the cover image. 

I then clicked on Copy Link and took it to the choice board. 

I then went back to the You've Been Virtually Book'd For February choice board I created in Google Slides.  I added the screen shot of the book cover, clicked on the image, and added the link I copied to the image. 

When our students and teachers click on the book covers, it will take them straight to the ebooks within Capstone Interactive.  

We don't even have to login because by using Capstone Connect it takes us directly to the eBooks and PebbleGo resources every time.  

We love our You've Been Book'd program and can't wait to celebrate reading in one more way with our students as we share our You've Been Virtually Book'd program every month! 

I made this template for you to create your own February Virtual BOOKHUB.  If you have Capstone Interactive eBooks, you can find the link and add them to the book covers I have included above or take this template and fill in your own eBooks and choices for February. 

You will find the February Virtual BOOKHUB template without eBook covers here.

Happy Reading, friends.