Escamilla Reads

As we reach the end of the summer semester and as I begin my new job as a school librarian, I have realized that this course regarding digital technology has been super beneficial! Especially since we are about to complete the first few weeks of school virtually! Here are some of my thoughts of the course's tools we have practiced with: 1. Which ones excited me most? While all apps and digital tools are special in their own way, I must say that creating screencasts and podcasts were the most exciting to me! For screencasts, we are able to show viewers how to complete a task step-by-step, which is great for visual learners like myself. There are options to show yourself during screencasts, but I like how it's not mandatory since I don't like being personally recorded where my face and body are shown. I also really enjoyed creating a podcast because this was another option where it's just audio that's necessary. I can create a podcast over many topics regarding the sc...

What is Universal Design for Learning? Since students are diverse when it comes to their learning needs and preferences, it is important for educators to plan instruction and provide resources to accommodate all of them. Universal Design limits various types of barriers for students and allows them to engage in differentiated opportunities for learning. As a new school librarian, it is important for me to keep Universal Design for Learning in mind when planning out my library program so all students can feel welcomed and comfortable when visiting and using our available resources. In fact, UDL should be used by all educators! 1. Which of these guidelines am I already doing? Checkpoint 2.5 - Illustrate through multiple media: Instead of depending on texts to get messages across, I like to include various digital visuals for further understanding. These visuals usually include posters, infographics, diagrams, etc. Key information is usually chunked and highlighted in these products so l...

Podcasts are super popular today! There are podcasts over many topics, and viewers of all ages can find some that are most relevant to them or engaging. Did you know that podcasts can be used in school libraries? There are many benefits to them, but first, users need to choose an appropriate podcast host platform to publish them on! BUZZSPROUT I've never heard of Buzzsprout until today. It consists of an excellent free plan for podcast hosting. Users can get up to 2 hours of audio for free. Episodes can be easily created and be available to many different places. Buzzsprout also helps with the transition to get podcasts on iTunes or Spotify. This would be an excellent platform to use if completely new to the podcasting world. SOUNDCLOUD I've always heard people say, "Check out my songs on Soundcloud!", but I never looked into how the platform works. Turns out, this platform is pretty easy to use! It is a good podcast host option, but I believe it's more to h...

INTRODUCTION I have never used comic strips for instruction. Not that I didn't want to, but I just wasn't aware of any great websites or apps to create them on. I always knew students could create their own as a digital option for projects and assignments, but I guess I just never took the time to research them on my own. Today, I checked out three websites that will allow both me and students to create comic strips. It was actually a fun task making example comic strips with these websites even though some of the websites weren't as good as other ones. FOTOJET I'm going to be completely honest, I did not care for FotoJet. It reminds me of Canva a little bit but so much more limited. I made an account with my work Gmail account, and I automatically got a pop-up box that gave me billing options and asked for my payment information for FotoJet Plus. I only wanted to work with the free version right then, so I exited the box and tried to start my comic strip. That...

YOUTUBE YouTube is so popular among students! While in the classroom, students would always tell me that they would follow various vloggers and watch many how-to videos to learn how to complete tasks for themselves! YouTube is actually a great educational tool, and it also can be used to show off what educators are doing with students! This means that school librarians can definitely use YouTube for advocacy purposes, literacy promotions, and teaching information and/or technology skills. I see myself using YouTube videos to organize my screencasts of different technology tools, share book trailers of new books, highlight upcoming library events, etc. There are so many other wonderful ideas! Check out some of these school library YouTube channels and how some of their videos are either helpful or can be seen as most enjoyable for students: THE NHS LIBRARY/CALYPSO GILSTRAP: Possibly Most Helpful: The video titled "CQ Researcher" is a screencast for students to learn ...

From March to May, educators were opened up to the world of virtual learning. For some, it was a piece of cake. For others, there was some struggle. I recall many teachers freaking out on how they were going to teach exact content online. Many of these educators were not aware of screencasts. A screencast captures a person's computer screen and creates a video of everything that is happening on it while the person speaks. It's like a voice over! When teachers use screencasts for instruction, they are able to go through a lesson smoothly by showing specific steps to an audience. In addition to this, the video does not only have to consist of the computer screen. Users can also turn on their webcam so their audience can actually see them as they speak through the video. It's so amazing, and if students miss out on anything the first time they watch the screencast, they can always just rewatch it! I worked with two screencast websites today: Screencastify and Screencast-o-m...

As a current middle school ELAR teacher, I'm pretty familiar with using infographics within instruction. Students really enjoy creating them; however, sometimes they struggle with gathering data and finding the most appropriate way to represent it in the infographic (i.e. a pie chart). I am excited to plan many ways I can use infographics whenever I'm finally a library media specialist. I know I can for sure create different ones to hang up regarding books, copyright, other internet ethics, etc. I can also have students create infographics of their own to help show if they understand the different information literacy tasks being taught. Usually, I use Canva for all my creative designs, including infographics. However, I am pretty familiar with Piktochart as well since most other educators on my campus use it. I honestly thought these two apps/websites were probably the only excellent ones for infographic making, but I was wrong! I've recently checked out Easel.ly and Inf...

Ah, social media. It's such a big thing today, especially in this era of the digital age. Some people may argue that social media is annoying and that too many people are addicted to it. Yes, this is somewhat true; however, because of such popularity, social media can actually be useful among students and educators. In fact, it can be super useful for school librarians! Social media is an excellent way to advocate, share resources, and promote what's in the collection. The following popular social media apps are some of the few that can help with all of this: Facebook School librarians can create Facebook pages for their library. Members of Facebook and can look up the library and "like" the page in order to follow along with posts/updates. I went ahead and looked at three different leveled school libraries and took notes on what they included: High School Library -Virtual reading challenge flyer -Shared audiobook options -Announced reading challenge winners ...

Hello, fellow future school librarians! As my LSSL portfolio deadline and graduation approaches, I've been researching more and more ideas for my future library. I started on Pinterest and have found some amazing ideas so far; however, I realized that I would like another website or app to help me keep different library blogs organized. That's when I decided to check out different feed readers! A feed reader allows users to follow and organize specific desired content. That way there won't be such an overload when searching for topics! Many feed readers are free and also offer premium plans if needed. Some feed readers are both actual websites and apps. Because of this, users will have access to blogs and other content at any time! After looking into several feed readers, I decided that Feedly  was the best option for me! It's actually one of the more popular feed readers, and there are many reasons why! The app is very user-friendly, and the website is very cle...