Here Is Where I Will Be At ISTE Live 2024! I Can't Wait To See You There In Denver, Friends.

 

ISTE Live 2024 is right around the corner on June 23-26 in Denver, Colorado.  I have been working on lots of new presentations and setting up lots of events throughout the conference.  

We will kick off the week with the Future Ready Librarians Summit on Sunday at 9:00-11:30am. If you haven't registered for this amazing event, you can do that here. 

Also on Sunday, I have an NEW presentation called 5 Creative and Engaging Activities That Support the ISTE Student Standards. You can preregister for this one here too. 

Throughout the week, I will also be hosting the 4th annual PebbleGo Game Show with an all-star lineup in the Capstone booth.  We will have more details soon but make sure you come to play at one of these fun events.  It's always a blast! 

And as you can see, I will be presenting at more official ISTE events and in several booths with friends like Figma, Kami, and more.  I will keep adding to this schedule above and you will be able to view the live version here.  You can also find my schedule on the ISTE Live 2024 site by searching my name here.

I can't wait to see you, friends and learn along with you during this wonderful week.  

The June 2024 DEMCO Activity Calendar Is Here, Friends!

 

I love the DEMCO Activity Calendars that my amazing friend,  Nadine Poper. 

They have released the June 2024 DEMCO Activity Calendar and it is filled with so many amazing activities and such fun for learning. You will find them here. 

You will find all of the DEMCO Activity Calendars here. 

NEW Dot Day Bookmarks For Your Kids To Color and Create!

 

We love celebrating International Dot Day at the beginning of the school year. Dot Day is always on September 15 and it's the best day to celebrate making your mark on the world. 

I love creating new activities every year too.  Today. I created a new bookmark that our kids can pick up and create in the library, their classrooms, and at home. 

I would love to share them with you too, friends. You can find the Google Slide here with four bookmarks to copy and use with your students and community too. 

Sign up here and celebrate Dot Day too! 

Embracing Library-to-Library Connections: Teacher Librarians Share Their Experiences with the LUV for Libraries Pilot

 

Over the last several months, I have been working with Level Up Village to created LUV for Libraries, a new initiative developed for teacher librarians to bring collaboration and innovation to our libraries.  During this time, we have engaged several teacher librarians and educators from across the country to experience the platform and project, while giving us important feedback.  

This week on the Level Up Village blog, Gosia Jaros-White wrote about the pilot and the feedback, and shared more about the the launch of LUV for Libraries this fall. 

I am so excited about LUV for Libraries and would LOVE for you to join our community and projects, friends. Please read the new post here to find out more.

You can also find LUV for Libraries here on the Level Up Village site. 

Excited To Announce A NEW Series of FRS Leadership Forums For Fall 2024 From Capstone and Future Ready Schools!

 

We have exciting news, friends! 

Future Ready Schools and Capstone are thrilled to announce a new series of FRS Leadership Forums coming this fall. These free, one-day events are designed to equip educators with the skills needed for the future of education.

🗓️ Dates & Locations:
📍 Sept 24th - Edinburg, TX
📍 Oct 15th - Minnetonka, MN
📍 Nov 14th - Long Island, NY

Here’s what to expect at the forums:

1. Gain insights into the impact of AI on leadership & learning.
2. Explore strategies for implementing human-centered AI in education.
3. Foster collaborative leadership to drive innovation.
4. Develop effective change management techniques.
5. Promote sustainability in an AI-dominated era.
6. Create conditions that encourage innovation & enhance learning
through technology.

Participants will:

✓ Build a network of passionate educators.
✓ Shift professional practices to support innovation.
✓ Leverage new instructional approaches.
✓ Stay updated on the latest research.
✓ Engage in candid discussions about challenges & successes in education.

Register today here. 

Read more about the FRS Forums here in the special press release. 

Follow "The Library Voice Pinterest" For Lots Of NEW Updates, Ideas, and Fun!

 

We love finding, sharing, and saving on Pinterest.  There are so many amazing things shared every day. 

Brianna and I have been doing a little revamping of The Library Voice Pinterest and can't wait to share more throughout the summer.  

You will find The Library Voice Pinterest here, friends. I hope you will give us a follow here for lots of new updates, ideas, and fun! 

Create A Special Place For Your Students To Continue Researching, Reading, and Learning In PebbleGo and PG Next All Summer Long!

 

Our students LOVE researching, reading, and learning in PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next.  

There are so many ways that we use PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next in the library, classrooms, and even at home and on-the-go.  

One of my favorite ways to encourage our students to explore and use PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next are the amazing holiday calendars that our friends at Capstone create for us each month.  I take these calendars each month and turn them into interactive choice boards in Google Slides and share them with our students and teachers. 

You can read how I do this here in this post.

This summer, I thought it would be so fun to create and share the interactive choice boards to give our students and place to explore, learn, and share new articles and knowledge with their family and friends all summer long. 

I will share these on my library social media and in the summer library newsletters that will go out to our families.  I also want to share these calendars and the choice board templates with all of you.   

June PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendar here.

And the Google Slides choice board template is here.

July PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendar here.

And the Google Slides choice board template is here.

August PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendar here.

And the Google Slides choice board template is here.

September PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendar here.

And the Google Slides choice board template is here.

I can't wait to see how our students and families use these calendars and interactive choice boards this summer.  It will be fun to hear what they learned when we come back this fall. 

You Will Find My Two NEW May Webinar Recordings and Resources Here, Friends!

Over the summer, I love spending time catching up on professional learning opportunities.  I enjoy learning, creating, and sharing new things that will help me get ready for another year in our library and school this fall.  

I have TWO special NEW webinars with all of you that I was part of in May with my friends at Literati Book Fairs.  

You will find the recording and resources to 3 Strategies to Market Your School Library here.  After you register, you will be sent the recording and resources.

You will find the recording and resources to 3 Great Ways To Spark a Passion for Reading here. Again, just register and you will be send the recording and resources. 

I hope you find these webinars helpful, friends.  Feel free to reach out if you have any questions too. 

3 NEW Summer Reading Bingo Boards From Our Friends At Capstone!

 

I love using Reading Bingo Boards with our readers all year long.  Students find so many fun and exciting ways to bring reading into their lives throughout holiday breaks, snow days, seasons and more with these awesome Reading Bingo Boards. 

Our friends at Capstone have created four new Reading Bingo Boards for the summer!  

On the Capstone site under the Resources tab, you will find the Reading Bingo Boards under Downloads.

At the top under Featured Downloadables, you will find the four Summer Reading Bingo Boards.  

There are two in English and one in Spanish.  Super easy to print and so fun for kids to bring home. 

Hope you're having fun getting ready for summer reading too, friends. 

Celebrating Library Statistics From Destiny and Capstone With Your Readers Using These Fun Canva Templates! You Can Use Them Too, Friends.

 

At the end of each school year, I love sharing statistics from our library with our readers, teachers and school community. It is such a fun way to celebrate all of the reading and research our students did from the library and online.

I make a few different posters to celebrate our library statistics from Follett Destiny, and also our Capstone statistics with PebbleGo, PebbleGo Next and Capstone Interactive eBooks. 

I made the posters above in Canva.  

You can find Our Library Stats of the School Year and...

...Our Capstone Stats of the 2023-24 School Year here where you can make a copy of this template to add your own statistics from the year. 

Once you make a copy of these Canva posters, let me show you where you find these awesome stats. 

In the NEW Destiny Dashboard we can now find these statistics and more.  You can read more about the features I love with the NEW Destiny version 21.0 in this blog post. 

To find all of the books checked out from all grades, make sure you mark Select all Grades, as shown in the image above. 

You also want to click on Select a date range and put in the start of the school year and end of the school year.  This will give you all of the statistics for the entire school year.  

You can also search by classroom teacher.  In the Destiny Dashboard, I also love being able to find the top titles, genres, and more. 

For your Capstone stats, just log into PebbleGo.com as the administrator.  You will find reports for PebbleGo, PebbleGo Next, and Capstone Interactive eBooks.  

You can also download Data Reports for more detailed reporting too.  These are the reports we use fill out and highlight posters like My Favorite PebbleGo Articles and...

...the Top PebbleGo Articles that my daughter and creativity partner, Brianna, and I made and have been using this year. 

I will be sharing our statistic posters on our library social and summer newsletter so our readers can celebrate all of the reading they did over the school year too. 

Honored To Be A District Administration Top 100 Influencer!

To be part of the District Administration Top 100 Influencers in Education is such an honor and very humbling. I love the work that I have been part of at Van Meter. Our students, teachers, administrators and families are the best, which makes this work even more rewarding. And to be fortunate enough to also work with librarians, educators and students around the world has been incredible and such an honor too. I have the best job in the world, thanks to all of you.

I also want to share a special congratulations to everyone else who is part of this group. There are so many people in this list who have been such an inspiration to me, and who are also now dear, life-long friends. I am proud of you, friends.

Thank you, District Administration. This was such a wonderful surprise on my last day of school, and a great way to start the summer full of making even more connections in the work I will do over the next months, and in the future. 

You will find the District Administration magazine to read about all of The DA Top 100 Education Influencers here.

Join Us For Shannon's Summer Webinar Series. You Can Register For Our Entire Follett Content Summer Series Today, Friends.

 

With summer here, we are looking for ways to continue to grow our knowledge and skills within and for libraries. I use this time to look for topics that are interesting and fun, and ones that I can take with me into the new school year next fall. 

To help support all of you and your growth over the summer, I worked with my friends at Follett Content to develop and bring to you...Shannon's Summer Webinar Series!  

I am excited for all three of these motiving and inspiring conversations. I know you will gather new ideas and strategies to improve your program and help your students become more engaged patrons and readers.

You can register for our entire summer series at bit.ly/FollettShannonSummerSeries here. 

I hope to see you there, friends. 

Find The 2024 AASL Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning Here and Use It As A Place To Learn More All Summer Long!

 

The 2024 AASL Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning have been announced!  

This is one of my favorite places to go to learn more about digital tools that I can use with our students and teachers in our preschool to 12th grade district.  There is something for everyone, and for every subject, with this list every year. 

I have created a choice board of the 2024 AASL Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning. You will find it here where each tool is linked in the image within the Google Slide.  All you have to do is click on the logo of the digital tool and it will take you directly to that site. 

I love using the AASL Best Digital Tools list every summer as a place to go as I learn about different digital tools to use with our students and teachers each fall. 

I hope that you use this choice board to do just that, friends.  Let me know how you will use the AASL Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning too. 

Exciting News! PebbleGo is a 2024 AASL Best Digital Tool for Teaching & Learning!

 

One of my favorite days every year is the day that the AASL Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning are announced.  

They were announced this week, friends.  You can find them all here on the AASL site.

And I couldn't be more excited to share that our favorite digital research and literacy tools for elementary students, PebbleGo, is one of the AASL Best Digital Tools! 

You can learn all about PebbleGo here, friends. 

I will be sharing a very special Collection by Destiny of the AASL Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning in the next post.  

I love using this as a guide throughout the summer to learn more about several new digital tools that I can use with my students and teachers in the upcoming school year.  I will share this Collection with you so you can use it as a place to go too. 

Join Us For The Future Ready Leadership Forum In Edinburg, Texas on September 24, Friends!

 

It's time to start thinking about the Future Ready Leadership Forums in the Fall of 2024. 

The first one is on September 24, 2024 from 9:00am to 3:00pm CST in Edinburg, Texas at the Region One ESC Center. 

The Future Ready Schools® (FRS) Leadership Forum is a one-day professional learning event designed to empower educators with the knowledge, skills, and strategies needed to lead their schools and districts into a future shaped by leadership, equity, technology and innovation.

We hope you will join Adam Phyll, Bill Bass and myself for this amazing one day event sponsored by Capstone and Region One ESC.

You can read more about the day, including the agenda, and register for this FREE event here, friends.

Buzzing into World Bee Day with this Special Capstone Merge EDU Giveway!

May 20 is World Bee Day.  World Bee Day is celebrated on May 20th every year, because it coincides with the birthday of Anton Janša, a pioneer of modern beekeeping. He was born on May 20, 1734, and is known for his innovative beekeeping techniques and the first to advocate for the scientific approach to beekeeping. 

Our friends at Capstone and Merge EDU have a special giveaway to celebrate this day.  This giveaway includes a 1-year individual subscription of Merge EDU and 3 Merge Cubes, and 4 Capstone print books. 

This collaboration is a fantastic opportunity for teachers and librarians to lead educational explorations into the fascinating world of bees and pollination, with Capstone’s enriching books and Merge's hands-on experiences.

I am excited to pair up the following Capstone books and eBooks...

Why Do We Need Bees? by Murray, Laura K.
Bee Queens by Sang, Maivboon
How Are Plants Pollinated? by Raij, Emily
Raise Awareness with Crafts by Van Oosbree, Ruthie (this book includes a build a pollinator Garden craft too!) 

...with these Merge EDU augmented reality activities to celebrate World Bee Day by giving our students places to learn and explore all about bees. 

You can enter to WIN the Merge EDU and Capstone Giveaway here, friends.  

Turn The June 2024 PebbleGo & PebbleGo Next Monthly Holiday Calendar Into An Interactive Research Choice Board For Your Students & Teachers!

Our friends at Capstone create these special PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendars each month. 

In this post, I share more about the PebbleGo Monthly Calendars. 

I love making paper copies of these to share with our teachers and kids. 

They hang them up in their classrooms and hang them in our library too. I also share them online through social media and as an image in Google Classroom or Seesaw. 

The teachers even use the PebbleGo Calendars for mini research opportunities throughout each week. The students use PebbleGo Create to share what they learn throughout the month with the calendars. 

Here is the PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next June 2024 Holidays Calendar. 

Last year, when I was sharing the calendars with teachers and students, I thought....Hey, this would be really fun in a choice board! 

So, I opened up a Google Slide, uploaded the PebbleGo June 2024 Holidays Calendar, and added a little chalk board with text over the top.  

Then I went through the calendar and found every special day in PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next.  

For example, Juneteenth is June 19. 

I went to PebbleGo and found the article about Juneteenth. I grabbed the link, as shown in the image above. 

I took that link and added a linked text box around each special date. 

Now, when the kids click on a holiday, it will take them directly to that PebbleGo article.  

If you want to use the template to create your own, you will find the Google Slide here to make a copy and add links to the PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next articles. 

And to make it a choice board, just Publish to the web, as shown in this image above. 

You will share that Published Link with your students.  

I love sharing these interactive PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendars with our students and teachers. They love learning all about these special days that are highlighted each month too.

I am excited to have the June 2024 PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next ready to go for the month.I hope you will find ways to use it with your students and teachers this month too.