Learn to use our VR devices and bring them to your school!
Last fall, CMLE was THRILLED to receive an LSTA grant that has allowed us to purchase ClassVR headset devices. We started loaning these out to our member schools FOR FREE last fall and are excited to continue this program. Get more details and reserve kits for your school here.
Each kit comes with eight headsets that include access to an amazing array of VR/AR technology, for students K-12. Lesson plans, 360 images and videos, and 3D models are all available to use.
And we are holding in-person training again, to help you get comfortable with using the devices!
If you are interested in reserving kits for your school, either this year or next, sign up for training at the bottom of this post. Learning how to operate the devices and making plans ahead of time can really improve your experience with the headsets.
Training will take place from 9am – 3pm on Thursday, January 30th. Lunch will be provided from 12-1pm
In the morning, we will look at the basics of using the headsets and the portal filled with educational material. In the afternoon, we will practice everything, and give people a chance to work through making their own playlists, and to get their school’s planning set up. (Time is flexible, if you have to come late or leave early it’s okay – we would rather see you for part of it than have you miss it entirely!)
Training will be held at our location: 570 1st St. SE St. Cloud MN 56304. We are inside the cmERDC building and have a large classroom to use.
And if you apply ahead of time, you can definitely pick up your VR headset kit at this training event! You’ll get to keep the kit (each kit has 8 headsets) for approximately one month.
Please RSVP below if you plan to come to this training. Email any questions to vr@cmle.org 🙂
This program is funded in part with a grant from the Minnesota Department of Education using federal funding, CFDA 45.310 – Library Services and Technology Act, Grants to States Program (LS-00-19-0024-19). We would love you to send your thanks to @US_IMLS and with @MnDeptEd for providing this great program we can share with our members!
Fire up those headphones (and your favorite podcast app) because next Thursday, Dec. 19th, we drop the first episode of Season 6 of Linking Our Libraries!
Episode 601: Working With Teachers features Guest Host Amy Moe, Instructional Technology Specialist. We were so pleased she could join us to share suggestions for collaborating with teachers.
Maybe you’ve been enjoying our book group podcast: Reading With Libraries. (We certainly hope so!) This Thursday is our last episode for the season and it is our classic final episode topic: Minnesota Books! Guest Host Wendy brought some excellent titles to share with us and we hope you enjoy the episode and the book suggestions. Catch up on the rest of the season and all previous episodes here.
As always, if you’d like to support our podcasting work, consider joining us on Patreon.
And THANK YOU for listening/subscribing/recording with us! We are so lucky to work with such fantastic members 😊
We love Reader’s Advisory! Heck, we’ve got a whole podcast about it: Reading With Libraries.
And this article was very cool to find, with some useful tips you can use in a school library, or any other library, to encourage people to pick up your books and take them home! That’s one of our big goals!!
Many years ago, I worked in a library where the Head of Cir HATED it when people took things out of the library. She never phrased it like that, but she was very passionate about Enforcing Every Single Stupid Little Rule to keep the books. I was a tiny, new library person; but even then, I thought it was batty. Current Me totally concurs, and adds in a side of anger at these people.
We can be better than this! Do your RA, and let’s get those books moving!
One of my favorite parts of being a
school librarian is connecting students with books they love. Providing
readers’ advisory is an art that librarians are skilled at. However,
sometimes you just can’t reach every student for one-on-one help finding
the perfect book. Sometimes there are just too many students in the
library at once. Sometimes students are just too shy to ask for or
accept help. To combat this issue, I try to make my library more
accessible by providing passive readers’ advisory in a variety of ways.
In my four years as a school librarian, I have made a number of changes
to the library collection and library space with passive readers’
advisory in mind.
Book Bites are quick looks at a book from our Guest Host readers. Try a new book this week!
And this week our Guest Host is admiring the book The Abominable: A Novel, by Dan Simmons. “It’s 1924 and the race to summit the world’s highest mountain has been brought to a terrified pause by the shocking disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine high on the shoulder of Mt. Everest. By the following year, three climbers — a British poet and veteran of the Great War, a young French Chamonix guide, and an idealistic young American — find a way to take their shot at the top. They arrange funding from the grieving Lady Bromley, whose son also disappeared on Mt. Everest in 1924. Young Bromley must be dead, but his mother refuses to believe it and pays the trio to bring him home. “
Subscribe to our newsletter, our social media, and our podcasts to stay up to date on all kinds of great stuff! We serve 300+ libraries of all types, and are always ready to talk about libraries and books.
I love this sign – any state that encourage happiness, and even smiles at me, is my kind of state!
Whew! The United States is a big place! And we’re hitting all lower 48 states, so buckle up for our armchair road trip. You can catch up here, or just get ready to admire the next set of books. They are not “the perfect book” for each state – just a book you can admire to help you connect to each state!
These states are ordered based on how I drove through them this year; so the twists and turns are pretty prevalent! This week we are going to gaze admiringly at Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Indiana.
Let’s do our weekly road-trip discussion. I’ve been talking about this specific trip for seven weeks now (LOTS more to go!), and I’ve put up several other articles about road-tripping. Clearly, this is something I enjoy, and I do it quite a lot. Yay!
But it doesn’t matter how much you are enjoying your trip – at some point, things are going to get dull. Not picking on North Dakota at all (I liked driving there!), but it’s…very flat. And you can go for a loooong time without seeing anything too exciting. Is that why I pull over to see Salem Sue, the world’s largest cow? Heck yes, it is!
When you have ten more hours in the car today, and don’t have cool roadside attractions to visit, you need to pass the time. It’s pretty hypnotic to stare at the highways for hours at a time, so you need to keep things moving inside the car to prevent yourself from dozing off or losing focus on driving. I like to set schedules, to keep myself actively thinking.
My phone is loaded with dozens of podcasts and audio-books; I have more entertainment that I could ever get through in a trip. So I switch to a new thing on the top and bottom of the hour. Every thirty minutes I’ll stop the podcast, and switch to the book I’m reading. Thirty minutes later, I’ll switch back. That keeps me focused on what I’m hearing, and on how much time is passing.
At fifteen and forty five minutes after the hour, I do stretching exercises. Throw out one hand (carefully clutch the steering wheel with the other!) and spin your hands around. Shrug your shoulders, and hold them up for a few seconds. Flop your knees together 100 times. Clench and unclench assorted muscles in your legs, butt, back, or stomach several times. No need to get too intense, but it’s good to keep your blood flowing.
When I’m alone in a car, having an adventure, I tend to just mindlessly overeat if not kept in check. So I set times for eating, and that also helps me to stay focused and alert. I can eat one package of Whisps now, then a half a turkey sandwich in 45 minutes, then a bag of almonds 45 minutes after that. I have nice snacks, and something to look forward to later!
Obviously, I didn’t do any of this when I was jammed up in traffic in New Jersey; but when I was zooming for hours across deserts and open areas of the West, with the GPS telling me the next turn was 400 miles ahead – I need things to help me stay focused. Driving safely is always key!
Pennsylvania
Check out that picture up on top of this article – how great! I like positivity, in people and in signs, and this was a nice burst of happiness in my trip!
“The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.
A #1 New York Times best seller for more than a year, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults (2000) and Best Book for Reluctant Readers (2000), and with millions of copies in print, this novel for teen readers (or “wallflowers” of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life. “
I just love this series, and I’ve read every single one. Book #50 comes out in early 2020 – and I’ve already pre-ordered it at Audible! It’s a mystery series, not sci-fi; but it’s set in the future. And if you like Nora Roberts – this is her, just using a different name!
“She calls herself Lady Justice. And once she has chosen a man as her target, she turns herself into a tall blonde or a curvaceous redhead, makes herself as alluring and seductive as possible to them. Once they are in her grasp, they are powerless.
The first victim is wealthy
businessman Nigel McEnroy. His company’s human resources department has
already paid out settlements to a couple of his young victims―but they
don’t know that his crimes go far beyond workplace harassment. Lady
Justice knows. And in one shocking night of brutality, she makes him pay
a much steeper price.
Now Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, are combing through the evidence of McEnroy’s secret life. His compulsive need to record his misdeeds provides them with a wide range of suspects, but the true identity of Lady Justice remains elusive. It’s a challenging case, made even more difficult by McEnroy’s widow, who reacts to the investigation with fury, denial, and threats. Meanwhile, Lady Justice’s criminal crusade is escalating rapidly, and if Eve can’t stop this vigilante, there’s no telling how much blood may be spilled…”
Ohio
This is yet another state where I’ve lived! I’ve been very fortunate to have lived in a bunch of different places, and I enjoyed my time here. #ClevelandRocks
And this series is exactly my genre: butt-kicking chicks, who may have magic or werewolves or other cool tools they use to save the day! I’ve read them all, and the series is complete now so you can enjoy the whole thing too.
“Rachel Morgan is a runner with the Inderland Runner Services, apprehending law-breakers throughout Cincinnati. She’s also a witch, one of the many Inderlanders who revealed themselves after a genetically engineered virus wiped out 50 percent of humanity. Witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves: the creatures of dreams and nightmares have lived beside humans for centuries, hiding their powers. But now they’ve stopped hiding, and nothing will be the same.
On the run with a contract on her head, Rachel reluctantly teams up with Ivy, Inderland’s best runner…and a living vampire. But this witch is way out of her league, and to clear her name, Rachel must evade shape-changing assassins, outwit a powerful businessman/crimelord, and survive a vicious underground fight-to-the-death…not to mention her own roommate!”
Indiana
I grew up in Illinois so, as with Iowa, I have an inborn sense of superiority to other Midwestern “I” states. But overcoming that, I so very much love Richard Peck – and this even has as librarian! I once met him at a book event, and made a total fool of myself fan-girling all over the place. (I’m not even sorry! LOVED his books! “Secrets of the Shopping Mall” made me want to run away from home and make my own life in a mall!)
“Peewee idolizes Jake, a big brother whose dreams of auto mechanic glory are fueled by the hard road coming to link their Indiana town and futures with the twentieth century. And motoring down the road comes Irene Ridpath, a young librarian with plans to astonish them all and turn Peewee’s life upside down. Here Lies the Librarian, with its quirky characters, folksy setting, classic cars, and hilariously larger-than-life moments, is vintage Richard Peck—an offbeat, deliciously wicked comedy that is also unexpectedly moving.”
And if you read all the way down here, then I hope you get out there this week to enjoy some books, to do some traveling – armchair or otherwise, and to try some fun things!
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