Thing 01 Blogging

Hello, my name is Mary Shands.  I work at a K-4 elementary school in Rotterdam, New York.  I have been a school librarian since 1991 in the same district.  For fifteen years, I worked as the high school librarian and this is my ninth year as the elementary librarian.  

I have taken three of the on-line UB classes and loved them.  Not only did I learn new things that I could apply in my work, but I liked the on-line aspect and the camaraderie of the group discussion forums.  I also find that taking classes like these, keeps me interested in the profession.  I try on a yearly basis to get out of my comfort zone and to try new things. The one problem I might have with this class, is the lack of deadlines. I do much better with deadlines.  

What I learned about blogs was a rediscovery.  I had been using blogs about seven years ago for a project that I did with fourth grade and then fell out of the habit because I switched to a different platform for the final product.  I found it very useful to look at all of the grade level examples of blogs and I also started following one of the recommended tech educators that I had not heard of before on Face book.  I also learned that you can use Canva to make cards which might come in handy and how to upload a picture into the blog.

How I think I might use the blog professionally is currently, the middle school librarian and I have a joint STEM program.  She has something called, Maker Monday.  What she does with the middle school students that day is pre-packaged and brought over to the elementary school the next day where middle school students assist the elementary students with the project.  It would be nice to keep a blog about this so that we can see a history of the projects and share it with the community.  It will also be handy in remembering what we did for the next year!