Tag Archives: member reflection

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!

Check it Out:, Conference, Guest Blogger

Impact Education 2019 Conference Scholarship: Ryan Hiltner

This is a guest post written by Ryan Hiltner, ITS at Sartell High School. Do you need a scholarship to attend a conference or participate in professional development?  Apply today!

The Impact Education Conference is a great opportunity to not only learn new things but to network with other professionals at a variety of different levels.

This year I tried to focus on that networking part. I spent time talking with other Technology Integrationist from different districts throughout the state. I also had the chance to talk with teachers and principals from different schools to get a variety of perspectives on how technology is being used in their schools. I really enjoy this network piece as it helps with questions that I have at the time but also gives me a network to fall back on later in the year.

This year I went to some sessions by leaders from different parts of the country. These people are well known in education and have a large presence on social media and have produced books.

One of the sessions dealt with creating an entrepreneurial course in school. We are starting to look at producing and creating items for people in the general public in a few areas in Sartell and this session was great to get more background knowledge.

The conference also gave out books from different educators this year and I am excited to dig into mine soon.

I am grateful for the opportunity to attend this conference! Thanks to CMLE for allowing me to go and connect with other passionate educators and better my practice!