Sharing Your Work-Local Media Outlets

I love having the opportunity to share the work that is happening in school libraries. Advocating for and sharing what you're doing in your school library is SO important. It's important to share how your students are learning with local, state, and national stakeholders.

AASL has included great one-page graphics for stakeholders to relay information about the AASL National Standards and how school libraries support learners.

To help spread the word, share the love, and spread the wealth of information school libraries hold, contact your local newspaper or media outlet. Check websites for the correct procedure to submit an op-ed piece or call their office directly. Fortunately, I have a great relationship with our local newspaper, and they enjoy printing pieces that feature happenings in our local schools.

No Green Screen? No problem!

A few weeks ago, I ordered a Green Screen. During December, we participate in Hour of Code. We planned to have various Makerspace stations for students to rotate through for a week, one week of coding, and then another week of Makerspace rotations. One station was, obviously, the Green Screen Station. We wanted students to see how we convert images and change the backgrounds. The plan was for students to create holiday cards.

Well....the Green Screen didn't get shipped in enough time to make it here for us to use it the first week of Makerspace rotations. I remembered using Pixlr to edit out backgrounds for other blog posts and Snapchat filters. I spent some time exploring and making many, many mistakes, but I came up with a way to change out the background of an image and super-pose it similar to that of a Green Screen.

This may not be new to everyone, but sometimes it's the small victories during a stressful time of year that make the world go 'round.

Our images started like this:

Then ended like this:

For step-by-step directions, the Google Slides presentation is linked in either picture above. I know that I could have gotten a green cloth or paint to create a faux Green Screen, but I really like having the option to work around a problem. It's always good to have a Plan B...or C...or D...