Using Classroom Ready Collections For Remote Learning!

One of the most important parts of our jobs as librarians and teachers in digital learning is making sure we have curated and shared the best and most meaningful learning and library resources. 

This morning, as I was working on our library and continuous learning site, I thought about all the things we do throughout the year in the wedge of Curates Digital Resources and Tools within our framework as Future Ready Librarians. 

It's a huge part of our job and one of the most important.  And right now with remote learning taking place around the world, it is more important than ever to lead in the selection, integration, organization and sharing of digital resources and tools to support transformational teaching and learning. 

As I work with all of our teachers on their continuous learning plans, we have been working very hard at curating the best interactive and meaningful learning resources we can find in engaging and intuitive ways. 

One example of this is the collaboration my friend and colleague, Ann Volk, who teaches 3rd grade.  We created the Geography Fun Choice Board to give the kids choice in what they explore and how they learn about geography.  

You will find the post with the Geography Fun Choice Board here. 

When I was looking for resources I turned to this AWESOME resource from our friends at Follett....the Classroom Ready Collections (CRCs). 

And guess what?  

To help schools with eLearning during the closures, Follett it is waiving the cost for current Destiny customers through June 30 for its Classroom Ready Collections (CRC), which are standards-aligned, educator-curated Open Educational Resources (OER) that include lesson plans, activities, videos and worksheets.  

You will find the press release with this information here. 

After contacting Follett at SalesGeneralLeads@follett.com,  I was so excited to find the Classroom Ready Collections under the Featured tab in Collections. 

By clicking on this, it brings up the 9 Classroom Ready Collections that focus around...

...Social Studies, Science and English Language Arts for Elementary, Middle School and High School. 

Within each of the 9 main Classroom Collections Sets, 

 you will find dozens of Classroom Collections...

...focused around subject and grade based content.  

I have been using the CRCs for a lot of different projects I am collaborating with our teachers on during this time, but I will show you how Ann and I used them for her Geography Choice Board. 

First, I clicked on the Classroom Ready Social Studies Collection for Elementary School. 

 Within that Collection, I found the one for 3-5 Social Studies: US Regional Geography.

I clicked on that Collection, and it opened up to a Collection with 17 resources. 

And remember, these resources are standards-aligned, educator-curated Open Educational Resources (OER) that include lesson plans, activities, videos and worksheets.  

I love how they have aligned the standards within each Collection.  That is super helpful when collaborating with teachers because you can easily show how the Collection and resources within the Collection are aligned to their curriculum.

You can use the Classroom Ready Collections like they are set up by Follett or you can also pull out resources and copy them to your own Collections. 

For this project, I found resources with that CRC and moved them to....

...a new Collection that I set up for this work with our 3rd graders called 3rd Grade Geography Collection. 

I looked through the resources and found which would be great for our Geography Fun Choice Board and to include in this new Geography Collection.  I found a few I wanted to copy and bring over.

To do this, you click on the three little dots in the corner of that particular resource.  You go to Copy to....

...and choose the Collection you want it to go to. 

After you copy it to that Collection, you can check to see how it looks and arrange them how you would like.

Within this Collection, I also pulled in other resources we have within our Destiny Discover at school.

I added the PebbleGo articles around Maps.

I added the Geography Fun Choice Board...and made sure it was the first thing they see in the Collection. 

 I found a few eBooks and added them by clicking on Collection and...

..choosing the 3rd Grade Geography Collection.  

And I even included a Follett eBook...

...and Lightbox Interactive eBook.  

If you haven't signed up for this special deal for over 1000 interactive eBooks from Follett, you can here!  

 

I also love how students can find all of our Collections by Destiny in the special Collections ribbon in our Destiny Discover.   That makes it super easy for them to find and even explore on their own. 

I will be sharing more about how we are using Destiny Discover to keep our library open during remote learning this week too. 

As you can see, there are lots of ways you can use Classroom Ready Collections for remote learning and learning throughout the year.  I love how easy it to find and share amazing OER's and more with our students and families.  And I love the way we can use these as a tool for collaboration and co-teaching as well.  

To learn more about Classroom Ready Collections, you can visit Follett Community here where they have put together a page with not only information for the CRCs but all of the amazing resources and support they are providing us for e-Learning including Lightbox interactive eBooks, AV2 World Languages audio books and more. 

As this page shares, 

Follett is waiving the cost of CRCs for current Destiny customers through June 30, 2020. To get started with CRCs, please contact SalesGeneralLeads@follett.com and we will work with you to get you set up.