Who needs a selfie stick when you have a drone?

Just kidding, although the drone does take good selfies! On a more serious notes, I would introduce our new addition to the ICT team and curriculum and mention some of the reasons for acquiring it.

The LRC and ICT departments recently co-purchased a drone. We opted for the phantom2
DJI, and it has more than met our expectations. The Phantom is destined for big things in ICT lessons. Some of our initial plans include using it as part of our Minecraft project and the work we do in SketchUp,  working with angles in video production, discussions around cyber security and privacy and we may even feature the drone as an actor at different events and in different videos.

There will be plenty more to come as the year rolls on.  None of this, however, can take place until we learn to fly it properly and for this we have taken on the roll of students. Our trainer, and assessor throughout the process is a student. He is an expert on working with drones and has been taking us through training sessions over the last two weeks.

We have captured a bit if video from the flights which I have included below. This was our first time flying and it wasn't without mishap. We did however get a good feel for using the drone and went on to further our expertise in a later session.

Update! Here is the link to an additional blog post on this drone written by our Primary ICT Coordinator. 

Conundrum: my Teacher Concience is Getting to Me....

The LRC is a very busy place and as is the case in busy places, it is often the little jobs that get pushed by the wayside. Sometimes those little jobs are very important however and should take centre stage.

I am very pleased with much that I have done this school year, but there exists in the back of my head a nagging, niggling little voice that has become very persistent and relentlessness in chiding me about my blog. This becomes especially acute when updating our LRC Facebook Page, LRC Blog and Twitter streams, which are ususally quick and easy to deal with. I do these tasks while ignoring my professional blog.

I need a plan, half of the school year is already water under the bridge and I have only posted a few measly times to a blog I created specifically for reflection and collection! Really, who am I to tell my students they need to reflect on and curate their work, ideas and interests? Excuses  abound and they are all relevant within their contexts.

Honestly, so many things have happened this school year. It has been one of the busiest yet what with staff turn over and new projects and fantastic new gadgets to work with. To be fair, I haven't been totally remiss when it comes to curating and reflecting. It has simply been going on behind the scenes informally, instead of it going where it should, this blog!

During this time I have been dutifully collecting pictures and videos of all of our activities and projects, which I fully intended to share with the world. I just never seem to have the time to do so.

So here it is,  that pivotal moment. In fact the moment of truth has arrived.  I am making a pledge (publicly) to myself, not to deal with the overwhelming collection of ideas and activities I planned on sharing, but to slow down, choose just one and share it well.

This will be one of what I am sure will be many New Years resolutions I suppose, and will likely share a shelf (for a short time) with others. That shelf already contains things like cleaning the equipment closets and drawers, updating the iPads and once and for all figuring out what the overabundance of keys in that certain drawer are actually for!!!  January may be soon enough, who knows it could even happen before. 

The message I want to get out to all the busy teachers everywhere is, don't despair if you find yourselves in a similar situation. Life is a matter of balance and we all know when an imbalance exists. I think recognising it, no matter how long it takes and remedying that imbalance if and when possible is a feat worth performing.

Just remember to be kind and patient to yourselves and tell your consciences, so guilty of all those incomplete tasks, to back off, reassess and get on with things even if it means dumping a few by the wayside while following a different plan of action.

Happy end of 2014.
All my best for a prosperous, productive and positive 2015.
(Don't you just love alliteration!!!)

Club Recilectura Visits a Local Library

Yesterday afternoon, the Club Recilectura visited the Santa Tecla Children's Library. The club meats every week to work on book and recycling related arts and crafts. One of their goals this school year is to take their work to different libraries and work with the students there, reading to them and creating craft projects.

Yesterday a small group visited a local library in Santa Tecla, where they read to the children and did a few arts and crafts activities with them. Here are a few pictures from the activity that our school librarian has made into a small collage. 

You can view pictures from this activity and other LRC activites on Flickr.

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.

Salvadoran Civic Week at the LRC

This week the LRC has focused much of its attention on Salvadoran Civic Week. Library staff members have created wonderful displays and set up special gaming areas for staff and students. Class teachers, many of which are from the Primary Section, have visited the LRC during the week for special 45 minute tours each day.  

The staff and students involved have had a wonderful time learning about El Salvador, interacting with the displays and playing some of the typical games.

For more insight into this special event, check out our Flickr Album.

Peace One Day 2014

It is Peace One Day today. 

Peace One Day was founded by Jeremy Gilley, an actor and filmmaker who made it part of his life's work to help the world focus on peace.  In doing so he founded Peace One day,a day of ceasefire and nonviolence, in 1999.

Check out the Peace One Website to learn more about this important global initiative.

The LRC Celebrated Peace One Day with special displays, while continuing to run the Salvadoran Civic Week Class Tours.

The Secondary School celebrated Peace One day with a special Peace One t-shirt day and assembly.

Check out some of the pictures from today on our Peace One 2014 Fickr Album.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48254552@N04/sets/72157647704209551/

Question of the Day: Who will you you make peace with?

TumbleBookCloud

The LRC is very happy to announce its new subscription e-book, video and audiobook service to the Secondary School community.

We have purchased a year long subscription to TumbleBookCloud, just in time for summer reading and in anticipation of the upcoming school year. 

This subscription is a collection of videos, audiobooks and  e-books which is accessible to all Secondary School Students and Secondary School Staff at the ABC.

This is a paid subscription and different than the Graphic novel summer reading subscription I shared with staff and students earlier in the month. Unlike the Graphic novel subscription which will expire toward the end of summer, this new subscription will be available all year long!

Please encourage your students to make use of this account by logging in to the site below with the credentials that have been sent to them via email. 

Their first step will be to create a login of  their own in the MyCloud section of the site, using the instructions on our website.

This link contains all of the information they will need to get started using this fantastic new ebook, video and audiobook subscription. 

We hope our ABC Secondary School community really makes the most of and truly enjoys this new service!

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