DVA and STEAM Fest 2021

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Link to the Website

ABC Secondary STEAM Fest is Coming!

This year STEAM Fest will work a little differently and take place online.

In preparation, the STEAM Team has prepared a great many challenges for you to look through and take part in. There are Grade Level SDG challenges, General Challenges and you can even Build your very own challenges using the guidance on our website. All entries are individual this year due to our special circumstances.

This year we will include a judging panel full of wonderful ABC teachers who will help determine which of our wonderful ABC Makers attain  Bronze, Silver and Gold Level standards! The students whose projects are allocated the highest points by the judging panels will also be awarded a special prize.

Finally, we would like to issue a challenge to all Secondary ABC Students to design the STEAM Fest 2021 Logo and Slogan for the event. To be eligible, all entries for the Log/Slogan Competition must be sent to either Mrs. Garcia or Mrs. Serrano by March 15th. 

Please check out the STEAM Fest 2021 Webpage and watch our Promotional Video for further details on how to join the STEAM Team of student Makers, for STEAM fest 2021.

Finally, a reminder about LRC- Today  in History, is our weekly update with interesting facts for you and the students to enjoy.

A New Year-Same Modality

 We are back to school in the same online learning modality. Our new hybrid plan has been put on hold as COVID-19 numbers continue to rise word wide and locally.

The LRC has continued with the Books2Go initiative we have been running since late October and we are now working on our weeding plan for this year, the second book order and initiating conversations regarding our annual STEAM Fest as it is quite likely that it along with the Digital Video Awards will take place online. 

We are looking into the possibilities for comfortable 3D printed ear savers to use with masks when we are allowed back into school and will be doing some initial test prints with our brand new Makerbot over the next few weeks. Personally I prefer my quickly crocheted ear savers to plastic ones but giving this a go will give us a chance to try out the new printer and compare it to our existing CR-10s and XYZs as well as provide a service to our teachers.

I have downloaded a few recommended savers from the NIH in the USA and they will be the first ones we try out. 

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Student Access to Online Reading Materials

Dear Parents and Students, 

The LRC wants to ensure that you have continued access to quality reading materials throughout the school closure weeks. In doing so we would like to remind the community about the various options we have available and clarify any concerns you may have.

Please note that during this time, the LRC Library System will not be generating late/missing book messages or fines. We have set up the system in such a way for the closures that this should not be an issue. Students and parents need not worry about this. 

The ABC through the LRC has invested in several options for online reading for students from KS3-IB. All of these are available through the LRC Website, which is easily accessible 24 hours a day 7 days a week through the Student Portal section of the ABC Website.

At the LRC we have been busily updating our website to include a great many online magazines, databases, and fiction collections thanks to the generosity of EBSCO, Gale, JSTOR, and Audible, which can be accessed during the school closure.

These can be accessed along with all of our regular resources from the home page.

We hope you will check back regularly and encourage your children to take advantage of this opportunity.

Regards,
The LRC Staff Members

The 2014-15 Library 2.0 Conference

The Library 2.0 Conference is one of the best, online  conferences in the world.  This conference which begins next week, does a great job of bringing together educational experts from around the world. The conference offers many exciting learning opportunities for professional development. Don't be fooled by the name. It is not just about Libraries.

This is the second year that the LRC will be presenting at the conference. This time around, Yensi Vides, Jennifer Garcia and Hilda Gomez will be presenting a session on using ebooks, collections and creating ebooks. The session will be held in Spanish. Please do consider attending if you are interested in this topic.

• The session is scheduled for Wednesday October 8th from 4-5. 
• SESSION LINK - https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=LIB2014P...

You can browse through this session as well as all the others , most of them in English on the Library 2.0 website.

Presenting Our WoW Project

Last Saturday we had the privilege of presenting our WoW project at the Social Learning Summit .  My co-presenter, who is a 12th grade WoW expert, and myself were really excited about sharing our experiences and those of our students in the club so far. The session was only 30 minutes long so it was a bit of a rush and we couldn't delve into things too much, but we managed to cover the important points. Hopefully through our sharing session we managed to spark an interest in other teachers.

There are two things that really stand out upon reflection on this project. The first is the ability of a blogging platform to facilitate the writing process, and enable students to collaborate, and teach others as they publish their ideas to the world.  The second is the way in a which a game environment not only helps students in thinking strategically, but also moves them towards directing and resourcing their learning.

Our students, took the initiative and began to research the WoW game. They  made it their business to visit and read through forums and wikis. They searched out and watched videos on the game, and they engaged in important discussions with other more experienced player's. Their appetite for learning kicked in and they became ravenous. Funny enough, at no point were they instructed to do so!

So the question is, if kids can turn on this need to learn more, and the appropriate web search and web evaluation skills are in place, enabling them to locate important resources and teach themselves, then how can we shift or redesign other learning experiences, in order to evoke a similar hunger, a similar response?

Safety, The Rules Have Changed and Then There's Facebook

Look both ways before you cross the street! Don't talk to strangers!  Some safety rules haven't changed at all, but the arena in which they are practiced has.

Image via CrunchBase

It's Internet Safety Week at our school and we decided it had to be a whole school event this year, which basically means that the majority of grades are directly involved somehow. In the Secondary School we have put together a series of mini lessons for form time, most of which contain short video clips, and hopefully lead to plenty of discussion. There are so many great resources out there to choose from, that we have been able to provide a fairly rich array of experiences for the kids. During the week we are also running assemblies for each grade which focus on web presence and safety settings. There is a clever video from the CEOP which we use in the assemblies and  which really gets the message across and spurs kids into action, when it comes to their online presence.  This leads me to Facebook.

We are aware that many of our students under the age of 13 have Facebook accounts, but do their parents know?  Let's face it, the kids are there for the apps and the cool factor! During our assemblies this week (after the video) a short demonstration is given on how to apply safer settings in Facebook, right at the point when the kids are starting to really worry about the information they have posted online. I've uploaded the presentation (which is not  mindblowing or terribly pretty, just a set of slides taking you through the process of adjusting your different settings). This presentation has also been posted on our ABCICT wiki by student request.  The response so far has been good. Kids are looking for help in adjusting their privacy settings.

So what message are we sending out? The message is simple. We know you may have a facebook account and if you are under 13 you shouldn't. Your parents need to be aware of it, be able to monitor your use of it and you need to ensure your behaviour is safe. We are not condoning it, but rather accepting that this is the case and trying to cover all bases in keeping  everyone safe. What's missing then? The parents of course.

Parents for whatever reasons are often unaware of the extent of their child's online activities and let's face it, kids (and other people) will lie about their age to get what they want, in this case an account.  Parents themeselves are an essential link in all of this. They need to be aware of the situation, regardless of their child's age, talk to their child about their experiences online, help them monitor friend lists, privacy settings and reinforce appropriate online behaviour.  Parents need to know. Sometimes its hard to get the message out.  In our case the school has started an online newsletter, which  intended specifically for the purpose of opening up the issues by informing and supporting parents in keeping their kids safe.

When you are focused on something like this good things often make their way to you. Just this afternoon a tweet came through on TweetDeck about a Facebook Safety blog post by Laura Deisley. Perfect! I've included it in this post as it contains an excellent set of guidelines for helping parents sort out their child's safety settings.

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