Category Archives: Guest Blogger

Guest Blogger, School Media Specialist

CMLE Mini Grant Report: Student-Powered Conference

This is a guest post from Neil Andruschak, Digital Convergence Specialist at Little Falls Community Schools. Read more reports from past mini grant recipients on our page.

A group of Central Minnesota educators (MidMN EDU) put together the 3rd annual Student Powered Conference – A MidMN EDU Event on the morning of February 7th at the Sartell Community Center.

Maddie, a Sauk Rapids-Rice High School senior, gave the opening keynote presentation. She talked about her experiences with engineering and how those experiences were powerful and have shaped the way she approaches many things. The bananas made a surprisingly good piano keyboard! Maddie did a fantastic job.

Following the keynote, there were 3 breakout sessions (with 2 rooms and poster sessions in the gym) for students to choose from. All main and poster sessions were led by student presenters. Based on feedback from the first two years, we put a bigger emphasis on poster sessions (think Science Fair but any subject/content/sharing was welcome).

We had student teams sharing about their robotics endeavors, individual students playing musical instruments, a group of students shared their experiences in school sports, and much more. The rooms and gym were busy with students sharing, leading and answering questions all morning long. It is amazing to watch students in grades 4-12 leading and learning from each other.

The first 3 years of the Student Powered Conference were a great success. Feedback has been 100% positive with over 95% of students stating that they would come back the following year. 

The requested grant funds covered Little Falls Community Schools transportation. We brought 50 people to the conference! Thank you for supporting unique, personalized learning opportunities for Central Minnesota students!


Guest Blogger, School Media Specialist

CMLE Mini Grant: PaperBackSwap.com

This is a Guest Post from Tammie Walker, Library Designee, Staff Development and Assessment chair and Advisor at Jane Goodall Environmental Sciences Academy in Maple Lake. Want to read more reports from CMLE Mini Grants? Check out our page.

We are elated at the support an organization such as yours could be to our small rural Charter School. Our Library team consists of an advisor, two parent volunteers and seven students. We serve a student body of 110, so having a fully functioning library has been a goal of ours for some time now.

Deciding how to best use the $300.00 gave us an opportunity to discuss ways to use the funds in the most beneficial way. Our consideration was two-fold: One, filling gaps in our library book kits. And two, the environment. We have decided to use the money to subscribe to a program called PaperbackSwap.com.

This site allows us to purchase books to fill out our library book kits, and also to share books that we no longer need.
How this works: 1. We list books we no longer need so that we can swap them for ones we do. 2. Once the book is requested we send it to the recipient for the cost of Media Mail. 3. In return, we gain points to have the book we need sent to us free of charge.

It is a win for us, a win for those who receive our books, and a win for the environment, keeping unused books out of landfills. It is a win all around.

The grant will be used to fund the Media Mail fees as we fill our kits. The first titles we will request will be some of Shakespeare’s plays along with Of Mice and Men ​and ​Animal Farm. Some contemporary selections will be Hunger Games ​ and ​Out of the Dust.

Once again, thank you so much for this grant. One of our “take-a-ways” is: when multiple organizations work together and pool resources, a small win becomes a bigger win.

Tammie, Vicky, Janis, Yuli, Sam, Belle, Bayley, Zane, Matt and Drew

Check it Out:, Guest Blogger, School Media Specialist

CMLE Mini Grant: Adventure Book Series

This is a guest post from Karen Miller, school librarian at Bertha-Hewitt School. Want to read more about the exciting materials our members have purchased with their mini grants? Read past mini grant reports here.

I first would like to say thank you for accepting my grant submission!
I purchased 5 book series for our school library.

I had a 6th grader read the first book from each series and give an “advertisement” for their book during Character Building which is a program for K-6 that happens every Friday morning. They presented their advertisement and they all were very happy with the book series they chose.

The most exciting thing to me was all my library classes on Friday as the kids came in they asked to check these books out! I actually have a waiting list on a couple of the series that have to be read in order.

I think it made a difference to have students present to their peers with their book reviews. That is exactly what I was hoping would happen after doing this!

Now I am hoping to do book “advertisements” monthly with different books in our library. Sometimes that is all it takes to get students interested in different genres that they might not normally read.

Some of the students who volunteered to do the advertisements were not ones I thought would be interested in it. So it also was a huge learning experience for me!

Once again I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity!

Check it Out:, Guest Blogger, Materials, School Media Specialist

CMLE Mini Grant: Tech Reading Resource: RAZ-Plus kits

Try something new!

This is a guest post from Mike Barton, Media and Digital Learning Specialist at Cokato Elementary Media Center. Read more mini grant reports on our page.

From our EL Teacher, Shannon Otto: I am very appreciative to have been granted money towards the subscription of RAZ-Plus with the ELL edition. I’m utilizing these resources with my caseload of English Language learners.

I’ve printed off ABC books as the students are learning the American alphabet. These books help students develop vocabulary while also practicing the sounds of each letter.

I’ve also used the high-frequency books to help build reading skills. The ELL comic conversations are a great structure for students to see dialogue modeled. In groups, students read the speech bubbled dialogue and then role-play to practice their oral language.

As of now, I’ve only used this resource with my newcomer groups. However, I know that I’ve only scratched the surface with the resources found in this subscription.

My next steps are to explore the library of leveled books to use with my other groups. There are also vocabulary sets that break down harder concepts into visual supports and key vocabulary.

I’m excited to explore this subscription further and to continue implementing this tool within all of my EL groups. Once again, I thank you for the monetary support that provides all these wonderful tools and resources for my students.

Guest Blogger, School Media Specialist

CMLE Mini Grant: Spanish Books for Collection

This is a guest post from Ellie Michaelis, Library Media Specialist at Pinewood Elementary in Monticello. Find more mini grant reports here.

Through the aid of the CMLE minigrant, our school library was able to purchase 19 Spanish language books for our Spanish speaking students. 

This amount nearly doubled the size of the collection – we have increased our selection of books from 25 to 44. Though still small, we were able to purchase books that were of high interest to our students (such as Diario de Greg and Sonrie!)

Over the past years, our Spanish collection was neglected, because there was almost no demand for these books.  Recently, we have had an influx of new-to-country students who absolutely love the library.

They quickly devoured the small selection of books we had available and were asking for more, something we were glad to provide!  Our students provided input on the titles purchased with suggestions including Scooby Doo and “more big books”!

We also took input from the teachers, who suggested popular class read-alouds (Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate) and book study genres (biographies and fairy tales).

When our students heard that we had received the books, they were ecstatic and couldn’t wait for them to hit the shelves.  The joy of putting the right book in a child’s hand never gets old!