Workshop Descriptions Session 4

Denise A. Garofalo

Have you wondered why the records in your catalog look a little different? Why are there extra fields in the MARC record? This session is intended for librarians and staff who would like to better understand the changes they are seeing in their OPACs due to RDA, and to answer any questions they may have about RDA. Attendees are encouraged to bring any questions or issues with them to the session.

Participant Takeaways

Participants will understand the history of RDA, comprehend the impact RDA has for the library user, and can apply an understanding of RDA to identify RDA-compliant records in their catalog.

Jeff Baron and Jean Mancuso

Jeff Baron, an award-winning playwright and novelist, was invited by Ardsley Middle School to be its Artist-in-Residence. Inspired by an event in Jeff Baron's novel I REPRESENT SEAN ROSEN, Jeff, working with Jean Mancuso, the school librarian and members of the English faculty, designed a creativity program for the entire seventh grade (160 students). The program took place over a month, both in the school library and in English classrooms.

Each seventh grader interviewed a grandparent or an older relative about what they were like when they were in seventh grade. Then with the mentorship of Jeff, Jean and the English faculty, students created an original character based on their grandparent as a seventh grader. In groups of four, they created original stories using their grandparent-inspired characters, set in the year one of their grandparents was in seventh grade. They researched that year and used events, music and other historical aspects as part of their stories. They shared their stories with their English classes and Jean and Jeff, who gave them feedback.

Then they wrote and performed short plays featuring their characters and stories, this time getting feedback from students in other grades, as well as Jeff and Jean.

The program has become a much-anticipated annual event at Ardsley Middle School, and the English teachers have built it into their curriculum, stressing character development, story structure, point of view and historical research, all part of a meaningful performance-based learning experience.

The school library became a creative hub, where students devised their stories, researched the years in which their plays took place, and met with the author. The school librarian also spent meaningful time in the English classrooms, serving as a mentor to the students as they developed their characters and stories and performed their finished plays.

Participant Takeaways

Librarians at the conference will be inspired by the exciting aspects of the program itself, many parts of which are reproducible. The author will share some of the exercises he invented to help students develop characters and create original stories. The librarian will talk about the unique ways that the library and librarian became an important part of a schoolwide academic experience. Librarians will be inspired to create partnerships with both outside resources like visiting authors, and also with teachers and administrators within their schools.

Margaux DelGuidice-Calemmo

Five years ago the Board of Education in the Garden City Public Schools approved a mandated research curriculum that was developed by teachers and Curriculum Coordinators, with heavy input from the Garden City High School Librarians. Over the years this curriculum has grown to support the Common Core Standards with a reliance on technology to help students understand the fundamentals of the research process. This presentation will include three parts:

1) The Research Initiative: A discussion of the research initiative from inception to current best practices.

2) The Research Process: A demonstration of how digital resources including, databases, eBooks and curation tools like Symbaloo, Scoop.it and Newsela are used to support the research process. The use of citation makers such as EasyBib will also be demonstrated, along with the use of Jing as a tool to create a “Flipped Library” environment.

3) Editing, Reviewing & Revising: The use of interactive tools to provide students with feedback will be demonstrated via the use of Turnitin.com along with a discussion about the many applications of NetSchool Support.

All resources and speaker notes will be shared with the audience via Haiku Deck

Participant Takeaways

- Incorporate technology skills into the research process.

- Provide feedback to students in a relevant and timely manner to improve future research and writing assignments.

- Streamline the research process using digital curation tools and note taking resources.

“Talk with the Knickerbocker Award Winner”

Marifran DeMaine

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) offers educators and students access to a wealth of primary source materials, including photographs, maps, and documents from a variety of cultural institutions across the country.

Participant Takeaways

* Understanding of scope of DPLA's collection (over 8 million items)

* Familiarity with the organization of the collection

* Knowledge of DPLA's API and open data for app creation* Promotional materials to share with colleagues to publicize DPLA