Weekend Reads

Guest Review from Kyra Carlson, Class of 2021

The Warriors by Erin Hunter

Rusty has a nice life as a house cat. But he has always wondered what lay in the forest beyond his cozy home. When curiosity gets the best of him, he ventures into the forest. There he finds a young, wild cat. The strange cat's name is Graypaw. When more wild cats show up Rusty begins to get anxious. What will they do to him and why are they here? Rusty finally decides to leave the life he has known. When he follows the strange cats he finds he is more than far from home. 

Find it in Fiction under F HUN

This Way Home by Wes Moore and Shawn Goodman

Elijah Thomas knows basketball. He is good at it, and he knows that hard work pays off on the court. He knows that if he plays hard and by the rules he will win - so when a notorious gang wants him to wear their colors at an upcoming basketball tournament, the answer seems at the same time easy and impossible. This book is fast-paced and full of suspense. The characters are well developed and the plot is as well - a good combination that makes for a great story.

Find it in Fiction under F MOO

Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang

Ji-li Jiang grew up during China's Cultural Revolution. She was a happy young girl; she loved school, she had a wonderful and loving family and many dreams for her future. She also was an enthusiastic supporter of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. She adopted their ideals and their perspective - which eventually led her to a direct conflict with her family and her heritage. This autobiography captures in fine detail the daily life of children in this era, and also helps modern readers understand the struggles that many people experienced during this difficult transitional time. 

Find it in Biographies under B JIANG

Digital Resources: Google Sites

Designing a website can be time-consuming and cumbersome, but sometimes you need the flexibility that websites can offer. Google Sites is an ideal option for teachers and students who need that flexibility but don't have sophisticated design or layout requirements. Google Sites is fairly bare bones in terms of customization. There are about 20 themes to choose from, and they are more functional than beautiful. Where Google Sites really shines is in it's ability to act as a landing site for your students to access your other (Google-created) products. 

As a classroom teacher, my Google Site had my classroom calendar on the main page, but since that was posted in a lot of places I don't think that was where students first went to get the information that calendar contained (i.e. homework, special events, etc.) It was the other pages on the site that were more heavily trafficked - primarily the two Google Forms I used as part of classroom activities. One was a "store" where students "purchased" products they had designed for an advertising project. Students logged into my site every day for a week to "spend their paychecks" that they had earned as a part of the project. The other form was a writing goal tracker I had developed. Students logged into this each time I returned a paper to them so they could track their progress towards their personal writing goals. My site was simply the best delivery method for these digital tools (since this was before the time when Google Forms could be directly shared through Google Classroom). Now that Google Classroom is more sophisticated, my Google Site may only exist as a repository for student work/discussions.

The home page for my Google site

As a librarian, my website is populated differently. My front page still has my calendar, but since that calendar does not exist anywhere else it is used much more frequently by my colleagues. I also have links to the databases our library subscribes to, a Research Portal (developed in collaboration with the high school English department, which gives a quick overview of plagiarism and citation, along with links to resources), a page with the Google Form my students use to sign into the library when they come from study hall, along with a few external links (my blog and Accelerated Reader resources). Part of the reason my site is populated in this way is because I have a button on the myfav.es portal our IT department set up. I have an easy way to direct my students and colleagues to my site (since I don't pay for a domain name), so I know it will be used frequently.

The draw of Google Sites isn't its attractiveness or its sophistication. It's in the ease of use and design, and the simplicity with which you can share content created in other Google platforms. This makes it excellent for student projects, discussion boards, link/file sharing and other basic classroom needs. The more Google-centric your files are, the easier and clearer it is to share them. Getting started is easy thanks to the variety of templates provided, and if you know some html basics you can troubleshoot formatting problems you may run into (after very little time working through Code Academy's webpage building course I was able to figure out why my fonts weren't matching up and correct it). 

Where: sites.google.com

Cost: Free

What: Website builder

Students! Try Google Sites if you want to...

create a website for a project or club

have a landing site for your personal content (especially Google content)

Teachers! Try Google Sites if you want to...

create a classroom webpage to share content or host class discussions

have students create web pages 

Makeshop Monday: Pointek's Puffmobiles!

Ella Ciarimboli, Catherine Berie and Ellie Schaub get ready
to race!

Each year, Mrs. Pointek's 6th grade does an awesome project called Puffmobiles. Students build cars that are able to harness the power of air flow. This year, Mrs. Pointek integrated a 3D design component and each team designed wheels using the Tinkercad program and those wheels were then printed on our Mojo 3D printer! The kids were awesome designers and really thought about what makes a good wheel. Mrs. Pointek and her kids were SUPER patient - the wheels took a long time to print! - and just did her races after we all got back from winter break. 

The kids did a really great job not just designing their wheels but thinking about how to best design their cars to take advantage of convection currents that would power their cars. I was so impressed with the final designs! The pictures I've included with this post are from the final day of races. Students had been testing their cars and then racing against each other in the days leading up to this final heat. The winners of the top honors for the final races were:

Zoe Luu, Macey Schriefer and Maria Babusci show off
their car!

1st place - Crazy Convection Crew 

                Fastest Driver - Keira Trosky 5.78 seconds

                Pit Crew - Emily Davis

2nd place - Mixtape Masters

                Fastest Driver - Erik Studebaker 7.53 seconds

                Pit Crew - Calvin Laurenson & Christian Cropper

3rd place - Unstable Air Mass Crew 

                Fastest Driver - Anna Neiss 8.50 seconds

                Pit Crew - Zoey Miller & Maggie Pappas

Mrs. Neuhaus times Ava Vacek and Cheyanne Snyder as
they move down the track

Over the next few weeks, I will interview these teams, along with other students from the class who did some great design work! Thank you again to all of the students for their hard work and to Mrs. Pointek for such an awesome project!!

Weekend Reads

Guest Review by Hunter Robinson, Class of 2018

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy 

The Prince of Tides is a beautifully crafted piece of literature that will surely leave you in a jumble of emotions by the time you have finished. Set in the South during 1980, Conroy spins a tale about a family that was torn apart at the seams, and that tear has not yet been mended some 20 years later. Told through the eyes of Tom Wingo, you will get a look into a childhood that was not only traumatic, but so inconceivable that you won't believe something this gruesome could possibly be made up. If you are reading any other book when you start this one, be prepared to put it down, because Pat Conroy will grab you and he will not let go until you have read the very last sentence.  Conroy develops this breathtaking novel is his outstanding use of description. The story is set in the American South, more specifically Melrose Island, South Carolina. Tom, his twin Sally, and his brother Luke grew up loving the land, the beautiful haven they grew up on. With his use of creating scenery, Conroy is able to take you into the American South, which has so captivated the men in the story that they never want to leave. The South that is Melrose Island is a different story. 

Literature is not written to help you mindlessly pass time. Pieces of literature such as this help you to not only assess the problems of society, furthermore, they push your thinking to its utmost ability. The Prince of Tides is no exception to this unwritten rule. His brilliance with words not only praises the South, but also humiliates the land he grew up in and loves so. Pat Conroy is an amazing author; period. His use of beautiful descriptions and jaw dropping themes leaves you turning the page until there are just no more to turn. And believe me, you will be highly disappointed when there are no more pages to turn. The Prince of Tides is a thought provoking story which is probably the last thing you want to hear about a novel. But, I assure you that those thoughts will be well worth your time, because you will ultimately be satisfied with this book.

Find it in Fiction under F CON

Old Wolf by Avi

Old Wolf tells the stories of Casey, a teenage boy, and Nashoba, an old alpha wolf. Set in what is called "the starving time", Nashoba must find food in order to keep his position in the pack. He forms a partnership with Marla, a raven who agrees to help him in return for securing food for herself as well. Together they venture into dangerous territory - the Bend Valley, which comes close to the human population that is most dangerous to wolves. Concurrently, we meet Casey, a boy who is fascinated by bow hunting. Casey has read books, and plays bow hunting video games and is excited to use his new archery set - so excited, that he ignores his parents' request that he waits for lessons to strike out and track down some prey of his own. 

Though this novel is short, Avi's shifting perspectives and use of anthropomorphism (giving animals human qualities, such as the ability to talk to each other) make it a powerful story. Brian Floca's illustrations are finely detailed and work well to create sympathy and understanding of the characters. 

Find it in Fiction under F AVI

Auggie & Me by R.J. Palacio

Each year, the student councils from each school donate a book in order to recognize the time and effort of the members of the school board. This year, the Avonworth Middle School Student Council donated the book Auggie & Me by R.J. Palacio. This book is a collection of "chapters" written by other characters about their experiences with Auggie. First is "The Julian Chapter", which takes readers into the mind of Auggie's number one nemesis at Beecher Prep. Next is "Pluto", which gives readers a glimpse at Auggie's life before Beecher and his friendship with Christopher. Finally there is "Shingaling", which is told from the perspective of Charlotte, the girl assigned to be Auggie's welcome buddy at Beecher Prep. Through Charlotte readers also get to see more of Summer, one of Auggie's closest friends in Wonder. This book is a great way to revisit a favorite novel and learn more not only about Auggie but about the world he lives in and the people who inhabit it.

Find it in Fiction under F PAL

Digital Resources: eduCanon

So you've asked (nicely) for your students to watch a video. You've posted it on your website, you've tweeted a link, you've Remind101'ed them, they come in the next day and nod obediently that yes of COURSE they've watched the video that you've painstakingly selected and posted. And probably most of them have (even if it was on as they snapchatted and texted and told their moms about their days). But do they know anything as a result of watching that video? Yes, you could do an entrance slip, but that's at least 12 - 14 hours after they've watched the video and so you should probably make it fairly broad since fine details can be lost in that amount of time. OR you could combine those efforts and get feedback from your students about their immediate impressions/understandings by using eduCanon.

This is the screen for adding a multiple choice question to your video.

 The idea behind eduCanon is simple but powerful. You can take any video published on the web (as long as it has a usable URL) and splice in instructional supports for your students to interact with. The free version allows you to insert either multiple choice or free response questions, or a reflective pause which you can use to clarify or annotate the video without asking students a question. In the paid version ($89/year for educators) you have more question options (check all apply and fill in blank) along with a skip segment option and a website option, along with greater administrative privileges. Splicing the questions in is easy - as you watch the video, simply click the "add a question" button wherever you'd like a question to appear in the playback. You can also crop the video to avoid having to show a twenty minute clip when you really only need the first five minutes. Once you are finished, click "finish build" and the video is completed.

You can share your videos directly through the site. Once students go to the eduCanon website, they can enter the code for your class. You can then assign videos for them to watch through this platform. Once students have watched the video and answered the questions within the video, you can see a question by question breakdown of student responses. Students can also get immediate feedback by checking the scrub bar (the green bar at the bottom of the video that shows the time progression of the video). Each question is marked with a tick mark in the time location it's displayed. Red ticks are wrong answers, green ticks are correct answers. 

One thing to note is that it can be tricky to use this in the classroom. A colleague was using this as an opening activity and she had significant struggles getting this to work smoothly enough to keep with the timing of her lesson. She recommended using it primarily as an independent activity, as an untimed station or as part of a flipped curriculum, as she found those bumps to be difficult to manage within a large group. It could also be useful for you to show a video to a large group with reflective pauses edited in to give you a chance to ask a question or explain a concept. 

Overall, this software is easy to use on the teacher end and easy enough to use for students that it is a very worthwhile project. It is a good way to hold students accountable for video material that they are viewing independently and gives you a good snapshot of understanding. 

Where: www.educanon.com

Cost: Free with paid upgrades

What: Web-based video editing/assessment generating software

Students! Try eduCanon if you want to...

edit pauses into a video you are using for a presentation

Teachers! Try eduCanon if you want to...

use a video as part of a flipped instruction lesson or unit

include pauses for instruction/clarification in a video you want to show students

Weekend Reads

Guest Review by Kyra Carlson, Class of 2021

Maximum Ride by Anthony Horowitz 

Maximum Ride, and her ‘flock’, or species, have wings. That’s right wings! When one of the flocks precious members is taken captive by wolf-men, the flock is determined to rescue her. But the wolf-men take her to the school - the last place the flock wants to go. Where the flock were first made, where they were tested on, poked with needles, and tortured. Now what? This book is so unique because with most books, you know everything right at the beginning, but this one, you don’t know everything, and as you learn what the characters already know, you also find out know things as the characters do.

Find it in Fiction under F HOR

A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin

Georgiana Fitzwilliam is brilliant, bold, straightforward and a problem-solver - all things that girls in 1814 shouldn't be. When a scientific experiment burns down her father's barn, she is sent to Stranje House. There, Headmistress Emma Stranje has built a reputation for herself as administering tough discipline that will get girls like Georgie back in line and marriageable - the greatest quality any young lady of her social class can have. When Georgie arrives, she finds that not is all as it seems at Stranje House. Baldwin immerses readers in the setting of her novel - from detailed descriptions of the clothing and accoutrements to a firm social class frame work, leaving the book feeling very much of the period. What's intriguing, however, is Baldwin's modern take on gender roles and the recognition of women's skills and abilities. Georgie is recognized as very much an equal of her counterpart, Lord Sebastian Wyatt, and a lot rides on her ability to solve a complex problem that affects the outcome of an international conflict. This book is the first in a series; the second book (Exile for Dreamers) is expected to be published in spring of this year.

Find it in Fiction under F BAL

Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

Kate has it made. She is a top student, has a great group of friends and a boyfriend who was once her nemesis and is now her confidante. She is in control of her life, her future and her self. Until she isn't. Added to her sudden loss of control is Teri, Kate's neighbor and former elementary school bully, and her brother who move in when their own house burns down. Anderson writes wonderful characters; each one has good alongside bad, which makes them very human and relatable. Kate is no exception. Thanks to first person narration, readers see the dark side of Kate's commanding control of her life. She is under tremendous self-inflicted pressure, and though her friends and family do not initially see the effects of her drive for perfection, readers understand this immediately. When tragedy begins to strike in waves, it is 

Find it in Fiction under F AND

Digital Resources: emaze

I am a presentation over achiever. I am not above a tasteful animation or a logical sound effect. I firmly believe that the design of the presentation can enhance the message of the presentation (although as a former 8th grade English teacher I can attest to the fact that the opposite is also true - ask any kid who was desperate to get to the end of a slide with 50 spinning animated words to click through). No offense to my white background/black Arial font text users, but even just inverting your colors can really impact your presentation. 

A presentation using the Gallery template, a 3D walkthrough
of your content (this slide will resolve with a close up of
the images on the far wall, which are user-provided images with
captions).

The big drawback to this is that designing a high-quality presentation is time consuming. Coming up with the content can be time consuming, and then to begin the process of designing the presentation to best suit the information is a whole other beast. emaze is online presentation software that provides beautiful templates so that you can focus on generating and organizing content within beautifully designed slides. emaze offers both 2D and 3D slide templates, along with multi-device access and automatic translation so that your presentation can be shared around the world. 

Like many other companies offering online presentation software, emaze offers tiered service. Free packages do not limit you from any of emaze's templates (which is awesome considering that's the thing that really sets them apart from other presentation software), but you are limited from making your presentations private, presenting offline, or downloading your presentations to other file formats (which are all available in the first tier of service, known as "Pro"). Pro service also turns off ads. The second tier of service (Business) gives you analytics, customized brand templates, team management and premium training and support. Educators and students do receive a discount on these services of 50% or more. 

To create an emaze presentation, you can either select a template and fill it with your own information (both visual and textual), you can develop a presentation from scratch or you can "emazify" your PowerPoint presentation. This is a cool feature as it not only incorporates your already-existing information into a new template, but also creates that file online so it is accessible from anywhere you have Internet access. 

Where: emaze.com

Cost: Free (with tiered paid upgrades)

What: template-heavy online presentation software

Students! Try emaze if you...

Are tired of the same old templates in whatever presentation software you are currently using

Want polished, professional templates that are easy to use and access through the web

Teachers! Try emaze if you...

Want to focus on content while still providing information in an engaging and beautiful context

Would like to have presentations available on the cloud (allowing you to work somewhere besides your classroom)

Makeshop Monday: Building a game board

Today's Makeshop Monday interview is with Natalie Marshall, an 8th grader at Avonworth Middle School. Natalie's project is kind of awesome for many reasons - she did a great job of planning and executing it, she used several different production methods in order to create her final product, and she made something that she can use with her family. Check out her interview (and a picture of her project!) below:

ARC: What did you make?

Natalie: I made a tripoley board. This is a very fun board game. It is a card game that is kind of like poker.

​

ARC: What did you use to make your product?

NM: To make this I used the laser engraver for the words on top of the board. I had to program this through photoshop. To make the base, dividers, and center of the board I used the cnc router. The program that I used to make these pieces was Vcarve.

ARC: What kind of planning or designing did you do for your project?

NM: Before I made this, I needed to plan it out and get all of the dimensions right. I needed to get a idea of what this was going to look like. I sketched it out and found the dimensions it was going to be. After, I sized my boards and started programming.

ARC: What did you do with the final product?

NM:I brought the final product home so that my family and I could play it together.

ARC: Did you enjoy completing your project?

NM: I loved making this board game. Everyday when I would come to school I couldn't wait to come to class and work on it.

ARC: What is one thing you learned from designing and creating your product?

NM: I learned how to use programs like photoshop and vcarve. Also, how machines like the laser engraver and the cnc router are used.

Weekend Reads

After a brief hiatus, Weekends Reads is back for 2016! Our New Year's resolution is to feature as many student reviews as possible, and this week we are starting off strong with a student review from Kyra Carlson!

Unwanteds reviewed by Kyra Carlson, Class of 2021

Unwanteds by Lisa McMann

Twin brothers, Alex and Aaron Stow, live in the dullest of the dull, Quill. When a child in Quill turns 13, they go through the Purge, where they are told whether they are lucky Wanteds, fortunate Necessaries, or Unwanteds. Wanteds go to the University. They learn and they are educated. Necessaries simply stay alive, getting servant jobs in Quill. Unwanteds go to the Death Farm, where they are executed. Aaron has been declared a Wanted. Alex has been declared an Unwanted so he will have to report to the Death Farm for execution...or so he thinks. What I like about this book is that it is third person omniscient, which explains more and makes the book more dramatic! Happy Reading! This is a series so if you like this first book the second is Island of Silence!

Find it in Fiction under F MCM

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda Sordino is struggling during the beginning part of her freshman year. Lost in a huge school while trying to struggle to understand and deal with a horrible trauma, she is beginning to fall apart. Speak is a beautifully-constructed story of a young girl who is trying to make sense of herself and her world. Anderson does an amazing job of creating Merryweather High School and the students who populate it. As a reader, it's heartbreaking to watch as Melinda goes further and further into herself but it's also amazing to follow her as she begins to put herself back together. Melinda's story is based on an episode of violence, but the action and the message focuses on how she overcomes that event and what happens when she is finally able to find some peace.

Find it in Fiction under F AND

A Step Towards Falling by Cammie McGovern

Emily is a good kid. She's active in the Youth Action Coalition at school and she gets good grades in her three AP courses. But when she is a bystander to a horrible situation, she makes the wrong decision and has to deal with the consequences of that. Like Emily, Lucas witnessed the situation and chose to ignore it as well. Belinda is a young woman with a developmental delay, and suffered the consequences of Emily's poor choice to freeze when she should have looked for help. As these three students evaluate what happened, they start to look past their initial assumptions about each other and realize that it is possible to forge meaningful connections with people who, on the surface, seem very different from them. Cammie McGovern does a great job of telling this story from multiple perspectives as she makes both Emily and Belinda first person narrators, allowing them each to tell their story. 

Find it in Fiction under F MCG

Digital Resources: Hootsuite

This is a screenshot of my messages that are scheduled for future posts to
my social networks.

So for those of you who come to me through my Facebook and Twitter feeds, you may notice that my social media promotion of my blog is pretty on point. It is not because I am constantly logged in to my social media platforms during the day, nor is it thanks to my stellar memory for repetitive tasks. Instead of relying on my own brain to post alerts about new blog posts, I discovered Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a social media dashboard that allows me to post a single message to multiple platforms, schedule messages to post at times and dates I set, or autoschedule posts for when they are most likely to be seen by my audience (a great option for Twitter, since it's easy to get lost in users' feeds if you don't post when they're actively watching). Hootsuite also offers a paid upgrade, that provides access to analytics, allows you to post to up to 100 different social networks (the free version limits you to 3), and schedule bulk messages all at one time, as well as many other benefits.

The free package is great for teachers who use social networks to communicate with families, community members and colleagues. It is easy to use, and allows you to compose messages, shrink URLs to fit into messages, and attach images to the messages you've scheduled. You can also save drafts of messages, so if you post the same message each week you don't need to retype it each time you'd like to post it.


Where: hootsuite.com
Cost: Free (with paid upgrade)
What: Social media manager

Students! Try Hootsuite if you...

Need to manage a social network that requires regular updates
Frequently post the same message across several platforms


Teachers! Try Hootsuite if you...

Need to schedule posts to send at a later date
Frequently post the same message across several platforms

Use social media frequently for classroom or professional development purposes

Makeshop Monday: 3D Hologram Projector

Caitie Bellotti makes a lot of stuff. So far this year, she's worked on a student production team that made a stop-motion animation video for Open House night, she is in the process of designing a 3' x 12' sign that will go up on the library wall, and these projects are on top of all of the other ones she works on in-between. I interviewed Caitie about her latest project, a 3D hologram projector. 

ARC: What did you use to build your product?

My project is 4 plastic triangles, cut from a CD case using the laser engraver. Each triangle is taped together [to form a square]. 

ARC: What inspired you to make your project?

I found a YouTube video about a year ago, and I was more curious if it actually worked rather than how the finished project would turn out.

ARC: What did you do to actually figure out how to make your project? How did you design it (like how did you figure out measurements, material, etc.)?

Mr. White [the high school tech teacher] mostly guided me through using the correct software in order to make my project successful. I took the size requirements from the video that I got the orignal idea from. To size my item, I used Adobe Illustrator. 

ARC: Did you like making this?

I had a load of fun making this. It was very interesting - I had never done work on the engraver before, and this was truly an amazing first experience. 

ARC: What will you do with your product?

Mr. Lincoln [a middle school tech teacher] is very interested in the project and possibly selling it. Proceeds could maybe go to the school.

A sample 3D projector (not Caitie's actual project)

To make Caitie's 3D hologram projector yourself, you will need:
Clear CD cases

A ruler

A laser engraver (or a box cutter, but be careful these are sharp tools! Appropriate safety measures should be taken when using them!!)

Cut four trapezoids that are 1 cm wide at their narrowest part, about 3.5 cm tall, and about 6 cm wide at the bottom. It's easiest to use graph paper to do this.

Glue or tape the edges of the trapezoid together to form a pyramid shape (the narrowest edges should form a small square and the widest edges will form a large square)

Search for 3D hologram videos on YouTube

Place your projector on top of your device and see your image come to life!