Tag Archives: member services

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

Conference, Guest Blogger

Impact Education 2019 Conference Scholarship: Amy Moe

This is a guest post written by Amy Moe, Instructional Technology Specialist at Pine Meadow Elementary. Do you need a scholarship to attend a conference or participate in professional development?  Apply today!

I was able to attend the Impact Education Conference with support from CMLE. This was beneficial for me as an instructional technology specialist. The sessions available covered a wide variety of programs, implementation and tools. There are three programs and/or tools that will be beneficial to try within my district. 

Keyboarding-This is a hot button topic in my district due to consistency among grade levels and continuity between buildings as well as the ability to track student progress. New ELA standards that are forthcoming will also play a role in the tools or programs needed. I attended a session from Keyboarding.com to compare it to the program we currently use (Typing Club). It will be interesting to pilot with a classroom or two to see how it teaches kids to use home row keys and not to “peck”. They gave out cute little bobble head chickens as a reminder. 

Applied Digital Skills via Google-I think this would be good to integrate with keyboarding. These project-based activities could be put in after certain levels of keyboarding are met that introduce students to Google Docs, Google Slides, and so on. These activities practice real-life skills such as researching and creating presentations and complement digital skills taught such as coding and digital citizenship. I feel our staff would benefit from a few of the courses as well! 

Seesaw-I LOVE Seesaw and have been using in my school for the last 5 years or so. I am a Seesaw Ambassador but learn something new each time I attend a session at this conference. This time was no different. We learned how to “FLIP” the lesson for a small group situation such as math stations. Teachers can record video directions with modeling and print a QR code for students to scan. AMAZING! There were also great networking opportunities to see how other classroom teachers and specialty areas use Seesaw.

A great big thank you to the gals at CMLE for seeing the importance of allowing individuals to attend this conference. 

Check it Out:, School Media Specialist, Tech

Training in November for our FREE VR Device Loan Program!

If you are a school library member of CMLE, you can borrow VR kits for your school!

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

📣🎆Have you heard the news? CMLE has VR kits to loan FOR FREE to our school library members! 🎉🎆

Apply here!

We’ll have a morning and afternoon training session with lunch in between so both sessions can eat. Please feel free to attend both sessions in order to get comfortable using the headsets and Portal.

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.

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!

CMLE

Member questions: Do you want videos through CMLE?

We have an opportunity to start providing streaming video services K-12 schools, public libraries, and academic libraries can use for patrons, teachers, and faculty. Members would pay us, then have streaming access to high quality videos, lessons, and ideas that can be used in classes, downloaded, and enjoyed.

No commitments right now, but we want to get an idea if this is something our members might want to subscribe to through CMLE.

“Infobase is one of America’s leading providers of supplemental educational materials to the school and library markets. Founded in 1940, our company has a long history of publishing award-winning and highly acclaimed resources for K–12 schools, academic institutions, and public libraries. We take pride in creating products that engage, enhance, and enrich the learning experience of students at all levels. And while we still publish individual print and video titles, we now embrace the efficiency and expediency of digital formats in the form of online databases, eLearning Modules, eBook collections, and streaming video collections.”

“Learn360 is the ultimate streaming multimedia resource for the K–12 educational market—the complete district solution. Teachers, students, and parents can access more than 130,000 multimedia resources—including high-quality full-length videos, video clips, images, audio files, articles, activities, worksheets, interactives, and more—on any Internet-enabled device, anytime, anywhere. Its enhanced, state-of-the-art platform, featuring the content, navigation, educator tools, speed, and performance that today’s online experience demands, makes Learn360 a powerful tool for flipped classrooms, blended instruction, project-based learning, and 1:1 environments.

Content is provided by more than 200 top educational producers, and that number is continually growing. Learn360 currently serves more than 22 million students in 26,900+ schools across the United States and Canada. Continue reading Member questions: Do you want videos through CMLE? →