Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Tour of Quebec

It's always a great time when Foreign Language classes visit the library.  May's visit from Ms. Marshall's eighth grade French students was no exception.  Last year, these students were introduced to the concept of Augmented Reality (AR) through the use of Aurasma, an AR tool available as an iPad app.  As seventh graders, the students used Aurasma to take a virtual field trip to points of interest in Paris, France.

Aurasma works by connecting a "trigger image" to content to be displayed.  In this case, students opened the Aurasma app on the iPad.  While strolling through the library, students would see pictures of points of interest in Quebec.  When the iPad was pointed at one of these images, Aurasma would then play a video about the location.  This allowed the students to take a walking tour of Quebec -- all from the comfort of our library at Pioneer!

Students located a point of interest in Quebec.  This is a trigger image to be used with the Aurasma app.
Some of the points of interest that the students visited included Old Quebec, La Citadelle, Hotel de Glace, and Montmorency Falls.  Students even got view a video featuring some delicious poutine!  At each station, students took notes on what they viewed during the video.  These notes helped students with the next steps of the project.

Students viewing a Quebec destination by using Aurasma.
Once all points of interest were visited, students were then able to choose their favorite locations.  They then wrote postcards (in French) home to both a friend and to our Principal, Ms. Prorok.  This gave students a chance to test both their personal/casual and professional French writing skills.

At the very end of the project, students created their own travel brochure of French destinations.  This was a great step, as all of the brochures were different.  The brochures were different because students' interests in Quebec attractions varied.

Next year, we will be back to visiting Paris with our new group of French students.  We look forward to visiting Quebec again in the future.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Genre-palooza!

The end of April and beginning of May was a busy time for book selection.  Fifth grade teachers were eager to bring their students to the library for introductions about a wide variety of book genres.  After receiving a brief instruction on various genres, a refresher on the OPAC, and book talks for some favorite titles, the fifth graders were off and running (well...not actually running in the library) in order to get their hands on some new books.

The genres of particular interest to fifth grade are biographies, historical fiction, and fantasy.  Here are some photos highlighting the book selections of some of our happy readers!

Sports stars are always a popular choice when it comes to biography selection.

A gymnastics enthusiast found a biography on Gabby Douglas!

Mrs. Asquith takes a break to begin reading a biography selection.
The Harry Potter and Kingdom Keepers series are excellent
choices within the fantasy genre.
Rick Riordan books fly off the shelves at Pioneer Middle School!
Once students have completed their books, teachers are providing culminating projects to wrap up learning on each genre.  We will be seeing the fifth grade students again soon for their National Parks research.
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