Midway Middle School is an Exemplary Library Media Program!

Liberty County School System is pleased to honor the outstanding accomplishments of Midway Middle School’s Media Specialist, Mrs. Cristina Dover. Recently, Mrs. Judy Serritella, Coordinator of Library Media Services, Fine Arts, and Literacy Support for the state of Georgia, announced Mrs. Dover was awarded the 2011 Exemplary Library Media Program Award.

Each year school level media committees evaluate the services provided by media centers using a detailed rubric. In order to be nominated for the program a school must score exemplary on a minimum of 14 target indicators. The school library media program must be nominated and the school media specialist must submit a written application to the Georgia Department of Education. In addition, the school administrator must submit a one-page letter of support. Applications from across the state are reviewed by a panel.

The schools selected this year for this honor were:
Elementary- Parsons Elementary in Gwinnett; Compton Elementary in Cobb
Middle- Clarke Middle in Clarke County; Palmer Middle in Cobb County; and Midway Middle in Liberty
High- Glynn Academy of Glynn County; and Sequoyah of Cherokee County

Midway Middle School’s principal, Mrs. Debra Frazier, commented,”Mrs. Dover is a team player. She rejuvenated the media center to include all stakeholders at Midway Middle. She truly has a compassion for reading and is knowledgeable and creative in promoting others to share in the desire to make our community and school literate. Our staff has become technologically literate by way of various staff development opportunities she has presented. Mrs. Dover shares instructional web-sites, resources and training opportunities for certified and classified staff members. She serves as our media committee chairperson. In addition, she provides many services to our teachers. Cristina is a very dedicated Media Specialist- who juggles many, many activities on our campus. I can always depend on her to complete any given task. She is wonderful!!!! For these reasons, I congratulate and commend Mrs. Cristina Dover for our exemplary Media Program at Midway Middle School.”

As part of the recognition, Mrs. Dover will co-present a workshop with the other selected middle school media specialist at the Georgia Education Technology Conference in November. She will also host an open house event for media specialists from the around the state to have an opportunity to watch her outstanding program in action!

Media Coordinator for Liberty County School System, Mrs. Jaime Rearley, commented, “I am thrilled that Mrs. Dover will represent Liberty County at the Georgia Education Technology Conference, and her media program will serve as an example to other schools in the state. She inspires students to read and collaborates with teachers daily to enrich instruction with information literacy and technology skills.”

Creating Animated Media Festival Projects

If you could not attend the annual LCSS Media & Technology Showcase do not worry! You can rustle up your handouts at the Media Matters@ LCSS blog!

Sessions:

45 Ideas in 45 Minutes

Primary Resources @ the Library of Congress (see the handout above)

Puppets and Story Time Destination Fun! and additional handout

Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl Book Club

Download the Excel Question Template for HRRB Here!

Download the HRRB Presentation Here!

Download the Plan Your Book Trailer Sheet!

Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl Framework

Liberty County Media and Technology Showcase

Each year media specialists are invited to attend the Liberty County Media & Technology Showcase. The showcase is a great way to meet new vendors, learn new media related skills, and make new friends. Did I mention this is a free event?

This year workshops will include topics:

• Animate This! Creating an Animation Media Festival Project with Free Online Resources
• Using Primary Resources and the Library of Congress to Teach
• Where does the iPad fit in Your Media Program?
• Cyber Safety Round Table Discussion
• Telling Stories with Puppets!

The event will be Thursday, September 1st from 8:00AM until 1:00PM. Email Jaime Rearley- jrearley@liberty.k12.ga.us if you would like to attend!

Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl Book Club

Teachers, paraprofessionals, and media specialists have been reading and taking notes this summer. Soon they will come together to create questions for this year's Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl!

This year during the professional learning class Liberty County offers, the technology focus of the class will be using the MacBook Pro, Keynote, iPhoto, GarageBand, and the iPad to create interesting book trailers!

Reading Bowl Students are Recognized

Recently at the April 14th Liberty County Board of Education Meeting students and coaches from each school were recognized as part of the good news portion of the meeting.

As in years past all of the elementary, middle, and high schools in Liberty County had a student team participate in the county level bowl.

The first and second place winners were able to advance to the Southern Region Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl. Joseph Martin Elementary, Waldo Pafford Elementary, Lewis Frasier Middle, Midway Middle, Liberty County High, and Bradwell Institute all advanced to the the regional bowl this year.

The competition was very stiff at the regional level only Joseph Martin Elementary, Midway Middle, and Liberty County High School were able to advance to the Division II Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl. Midway Middle and Liberty County High School were recognized for participation, and Joseph Martin Elementary earned second place.

The reading lists for next year's bowl have already been released. Several copies of each book have been ordered at all of the schools, and students have already started to read!

You can see the reading list for next year's bowls at the HRRB home page. Click on the title of this posting to go to the page.

Teen Tech Week in Liberty County!

The Young Adult Library Services Association has sponsored a national event known as Teen Tech Week since 2007. The primary goal of the week is to demonstrate to teens that the library or media center is an important piece of the technology puzzle.
During the week of March 6-8, high schools in Liberty County scheduled special events and contests to utilize technology with students. The events scheduled helped teens and teachers to hone their technology skills and have a lot of fun along the way!

Several classes scheduled time in the media center to learn how to transform digital images into interactive learning tools using Microsoft Excel with the help of Nikki Lukkarinen, a media specialist at Bradwell Institute. Teachers and students were taught how to add roll-over labels to maps and diagrams in a fun and fast paced technology workshop.

Miriam Hudson, a media specialist at Bradwell Institute, taught several groups of teens and teachers how to use Microsoft’s Photostory. It is a free picture editing presentation software that enables users to import digital pictures, add panning effects, text, transitions, music, and narration. Teens and teachers enjoyed seeing their photographs come to life during the workshop.

Teen Tech Week at Bradwell Institute culminated in a unique use of technology. Mrs. Lukkarinen worked with the physical education classes to infuse gaming technology- Wii’s Just Dance 2. Teens and teachers had the chance to exercise their gaming skills and their bodies at the same time.

At Liberty County High School and Bradwell Institute a bingo game was played in which the students picked up a player’s card from the media center which listed several different activities that had to be completed using a computer or other forms of technology. Each activity completed had to be verified with either a teacher’s or a media specialist’s signature. The winner at Liberty High was Aaron Place, who received a Panther flash drive.

Both Liberty and Bradwell offered the challenge of a Technology Trivia quiz as well. Students were given a list of approximately 20 questions to answer about the history of technology, acronyms, people related to the field, etc. They were allowed to use any means necessary to find the answers – other than asking an adult – as in encyclopedias, reference books, etc., as well as online. Liberty’s winner was Daneisha Norman, who received a Panther flash drive.