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          I must admit that prior to this week’s discussion about Augmented and Virtual Reality, I never realized the educational benefits that they provide. Honestly, it looks as if they are just cool new electronics for kid and adult entertainment. However, after exploring this week’s resources, it’s evident that these are both great gadgets that can be implemented in a classroom or library setting. Virtual reality strives to completely simulate an immersive sensory experience indistinguishable from the real […] often using technologies like headsets that attempt to completely deprive human sensory organs like the eyes from any stimuli outside of that which is artificially generated by the VR technology. Augmented Reality strives to overlay additional layers of useful (e.g. actionable, descriptive, informative, directional) media onto the real without replacing it (Zoladz, 2015).n According to Bruce Massis’s article, “The mission of teachers in today’s cl...

          According to Dr.Laura Fleming, makerspaces are “a unique learning environment that encourages tinkering, play, and open-ended exploration for all”(Fleming, 2019).  With libraries becoming more modern, it seems as if makerspaces are popping up everywhere. Makerspaces provides access to physical resources such as materials for crafting, engineering, design, robotics, or media. In particular, makerspaces would be extremely useful in elementary libraries. “Integrating a makerspace within the school library is a means “to boldly go” beyond the traditional offerings of library programming” (Davis, 2017) .  In her PowerPoint, Dr. Fleming provided us with great examples of makerspaces around the world. However, I must first brag on Richland County Library’s makerspace located in Columbia, SC. I had the opportunity to visit there during the time that they were remodeling which was about two years ago. When we got to the makerspaces area, I fel...

             This week’s readings were very interesting. Cyberbullying is one of my favorite lessons to teach and there are so many resources pertaining to the subject on the internet. According to the article entitled, “Digital Curation: Cyberbullying, “The Cyberbullying Research Center defines cyberbullying in four elements. Those elements are willful, repeated, harm, and involving electronic devices like computers and cell phones”   (Smith, 2019) .   Most cyberbullying situations is intended to embarrasses, humiliate, torment, threaten or harass individuals.   Cyberbullying can be easily seen and more accessible on social media sites. Social media sites are so popular now days and it seems as if children are being introduced to them at a very early age.   This week’s video, “Cyberbullying Explained by Common Craft”, had a great explanation of how cyberbully works and how we can prevent it.   We have had many cases wher...

    This week, I explored a variety of tools that can all be beneficial to me as a librarian now and in the future.   In particular, the article, entitled, “An Exploration and Explanation of Device Agnostic Tools” was filled with many resources that I can introduce to student in the library. The article also brought my attention to Device Agnostic tools, its meaning, and great examples of how to use them in the classroom/library.         “According to PC Magazine (2013), when an online tool or app is not tied to any particular device, it is considered to be a device agnostic. In other words, the tool is independent of any machine (Moorefield, 2014)”.   In my opinion, all classrooms and libraries should be required to ONLY use Device Agnostic Tools. There have been so many times that teachers have approached me with issues with apps that would work on the students ipads but not their chromebooks or on the desktop. Other issues we found we...

This week’s readings were on making libraries and classrooms accessible for children with disabilities. According to the article entitled, “School Librarians of the 21 st Century”, Having a child come into the library-whether on their very first visit or one of many visits-means that we, as school librarians have the incredible privilege- and responsibility- to make that child feel welcome and to support her learning process in every way we possibly can   (Copeland, 2011) .    As a new librarian, one of my main goals is to make my library equally accessible for all patrons. By doing this, I started with weeding and categorizing books based on the genre and children’s reading levels. I also noticed that quite a few of our students were either struggling with reading. I asked teachers to provide me with a list of their struggling readers.   From list, I made a request for students to visit the library more frequently throughout the week so that I could work more cl...

Chromebook Users: Utilizing Modern Day Technology to enhance Pedagogical Practices            As I begin to write this week’s blog, I started to reminisce over the time I spent in elementary school having to share one computer with all thirty of my classmates.   I can remember asking my mom to drop me off to school early just so I could be the first student on the computer before class started.   By the time I got in middle school, laptop computers started to become more widely available to students.   We were able to visit the library with our teachers to checkout laptops. By the time I got to high school, our only access to computers were the two in the classrooms unless we requested one from the library.   Technology has come a very long way since I was in school and the student to computer ratio has changed drastically over the years. At my elementary school where I currently work, students have their own Chr...