Category Archives: School Media Specialist

Check it Out:, School Media Specialist, Tech

Join us for VR Training in November

Come learn how to have this much fun with VR at your school!

Maybe you’ve heard the news CMLE has VR kits to loan FOR FREE to our school library members!

Apply here!

Come to our training event on Tuesday, Nov. 5th and learn how to use the headset devices!

Training will be held from 9-3 at our location: 570 1st St. SE St. Cloud MN 56304. We are inside the cmERDC building and have a large classroom to use.

We’ll have two sessions but feel free to stay for both of them in order to really get a feel for using the headsets. The first session will be from 9am-12pm and the second from 1pm-3pm. CMLE will provide lunch from 12-1pm. (And if you’re here in the morning and have a book you’re reading that you’d like to tell us about, we will happily record a quick Book Bites podcast episode with you!)

If you can’t make it to the training, you can definitely still reserve the headsets for use at your school (provided you are a CMLE member school library) and you should still Apply Here!

At this training session, you will learn how to operate the devices, find lessons that line up with your curriculum, send the VR/AR content to the devices, and use the headsets effectively in your library, media center, or classroom.

Visit our page to find out more information about the VR kit loan program, including instructions and links to additional materials.

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) until schools close for winter break.

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!

School Media Specialist, Tech

AASL Recommended Apps: ICivics Suite

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their picks for Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019. “Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. “

If you are interested in the best apps for your library, media center, or classroom, you can read our 2019 series here or find all past apps discussed in our archives.

“iCivics is a suite of apps ranging from “Win the White House” and “Your Bill of Rights” to “Immigration Nation” and “Executive Command”. There are a total of 11 apps in the iCivics Suite. “Win the White House” will help students to explain the electoral process, identify the influence of the media in forming public opinion, and analyze how parts of a whole interact to produce an outcome in complex systems.”

Platform: iOS & Android
Cost: FREE
Grades: 6-12

The app has a specific page for teachers with curriculum units and a way to search lessons by state standards.

Check out this article from their blog about how to use iCivics to teach the 2020 election. Tech Learning has this article about using the app in the classroom. Finally, read a review of the app from Common Sense Education.

Watch this trailer to get an idea of the ways this app can help your students learn about democracy:

Check it Out:, School Media Specialist, Tech

Apply Now! Free program! CMLE has VR kits for our member school libraries

Maybe you’ve heard the exciting news that CMLE has VR kits to share with our member school libraries! And you can apply for them RIGHT HERE!

APPLY NOW!

Thanks to an LSTA grant from the MN Department of Education, the State Library Services, with money from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS),  CMLE has purchased VR kits.

Each kit contains 8 sturdy headsets. You are able to check out one or two kits for 4 weeks. When you receive a kit, you will also gain educator access to an online Portal that contains hundreds of curriculum-aligned lesson plans that incorporates the VR/AR technology.

We are pretty excited about this for our members. Remember, you can apply right here! Right now this is just a program available for CMLE member school libraries.

Get more information on our main VR page here.

Check it Out:, School Media Specialist

AASL Recommended Apps: Green Screen by Do Ink

Green Screen by Do Ink makes it easy to create incredible green screen videos and photos. The green screen effect works by combining images from multiple sources into a single video. These images can come from photos or videos in your camera roll, or from the live video camera. With Green Screen by Do Ink, you can tell a story, explain an idea, and express yourself in truly creative and unique ways.

Platform: iOS
Cost:   $2.99
Grades: All

Read a review of the Green Screen app on Common Sense Education. Teacher Cast has this article about how to use Green Screen on iPads in both a makerspace and classroom. This article on Smore has tips for getting started with Green Screen as well as activity suggestions and videos. And this post on Makerspace Education has free downloadable guides for the app, plus student challenges and resources.

Watch this video (1 min 30 sec) for a kid-guided tour through the app:

School Media Specialist, Tech

AASL Recommended Apps: EarthViewer

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their picks for Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019. “Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. “

If you are interested in the best apps for your library, media center, or classroom, you can read our 2019 series here or find all past apps discussed in our archives.

“EarthViewer allows students to visualize changes to Earth’s surface over its four billion year history. Students can interact with a moveable globe, similar to Google Earth, and animate four time scales – modern, ice age, paleo, and ancient Earth. Overlays can be added to show the locations of current borders and cities, important fossil finds, and impact craters. Animated charts comparing temperature, oxygen, carbon dioxide, day length, luminosity, and biodiversity allow students to investigate relationships between these variables over geologic time. EarthViewer also features in depth articles and videos as well as a detailed list of external references and a teacher quick guide are also included.”

Platform: iOS & Android 
Cost: FREE
Grades: 6-12

Read teacher reviews of this app on the Common Sense Education site. EarthViewer is included in this article sharing some of the best free Android apps for STEM and in this article describing ways to incorporate science apps for the classroom by Fizzics Education. It is also included in this article about suggested apps to use when teaching geography from Supporting Education.org.

Watch this one-minute video to see how one educator incorporates the app into her lessons about plate tectonics and continental drift: