NestvogelSLIS761

 The first time I remember seeing anything about virtual reality was in the movie, Disclosure , starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.  Michael Douglas is a computer specialist and virtual reality is used in the film with a headset.  The movie was produced in 1994 and I don't remember seeing anything else about virtual reality for many years.  I don't know what year Discovery Place in Charlotte, NC came out with Virtual Reality platforms and headsets, but we would take our second graders on a field trip there each year and the Virtual Reality headsets were one of the biggest hits of the day. I chose to explore the Oculus Quest 2 by Facebook for this blog post. This gives you a comparison of two different headsets.  I think the Rift is more for gaming and the Oculus Quest 2 is more for experiences.   The Oculus Quest 2 begins at $299.00 for128 GB of storage and $399.00 for 256 GB of storage.  I could get past that number but the number of accesso...

 I must confess that I have been very confused and frustrated and befuddled about makerspaces in the elementary school library.  I have heard about them for years, but being a classroom teacher until a year ago, it wasn't something that stood out on my radar.  As a librarian and a student in an MLIS program, maker spaces have come more to the forefront of my thinking and consideration.  Are they different from "centers" in the classroom where children create and make and take home?  Does technology have to be involved?  Is it STEAM-related?  If so, does it HAVE to be STEAM-related?  Lots and lots of questions.  I really didn't have questions totally answered by this week's readings or viewings because much of it was talking about public library spaces.   I'm also confused because in my school we have a very extensive Technology program and we are a STEAM school.  We have a Robotics STEAM teacher and a regular Technology teacher...

  Illustration by Hiroko Oshima Cyberbullying is defined as, "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices" in the article Cyberbullying:  Identification, Prevention, and Response.    Over the last five years, at least, I have read many news stories about teenagers committing suicide because of cyberbullying.  I remember, very clearly, the case of Tyler Clementi several years ago.  He was a young college student whose roommate videotaped him having sex with another young man.  It went viral and Tyler was devastated enough to commit suicide.  There was another case where a teenage girl, still in high school, convinced a friend to commit suicide through her text messages.  The thing that stands out to me the most is how scary this is for all of us who are grandparents and parents and teachers.  This is such a new phenomenon and although we have great ways to address it, I feel ...

 I am only now getting used to the idea of how powerful a social media presence can be for a school library!  I read other librarians' blogs and Twitter and Instagram pages, but it never really occurred to me to use it for my own library.  I am looking forward to growing it and seeing all the possibilities it has to offer! I chose to create a Twitter account for my library.  I decided on Twitter because my school district supports Twitter and my school, our PTO and many of our teachers already have Twitter accounts so Twitter made the most sense for the library!  It was very easy to create the page!  Twitter makes it so easy and walks you right through the process.  My handle is @DBESlibrary.  I chose to use a dragon reading in the banner since we are the Doby's Bridge Dragons.   Initially, I have posted about our upcoming Book Fair and my thoughts are to do several book reviews about some of the books that are being offered at the book ...

  When I started my teaching career, we had no "disabled" students in our school.  There were no "special education classrooms".  There were no teachers for these students.  All of our disabled or other abled children were in the regular classroom and we somehow made it work!  We did what we had to do to meet the needs of these children just as we did with every other child in our classroom.  Our "typically abled" children learned and grew as did our "other abled" children learned and grew.   We monitored and adjusted and adapted and changed to meet the needs of all the children in our classrooms.  It was very much like the scene in the movie, "Apollo 13" where they are given all the different materials and told to make it work to bring the astronauts back to Earth!   As technology advanced and special services laws were made, we as teachers had to learn and grow.   So many things became available and every company under t...

 At the beginning of the Pandemic, I was teaching second grade as I had for many years.  I was confident in my content knowledge and I was confident in my presentation skills.  My children made huge gains year after year and they had fun doing it!  I was named "Teacher of the Year" by my peers just the year before!  I was a great teacher!  And then Covid hit and everything changed overnight.  Teachers had one week to prepare for months and months of virtual learning.  I was no spring chicken and certainly not a digital native, but what choice did I have?  I had no idea what I was doing, but I dove right in!  The biggest gift that I was given in this week before virtual learning was the gift of Chromebooks to my children!   The support manual for Google defines Chromebooks as, "  a new type of computer designed to help you get things done faster and easier. They run  Chrome OS , an operating system that has cloud stora...