Blog Post 1: Who Am I?

Carol Satta
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., School #9
Library Media Specialist
Pre-K-6


Experience using technology in the classroom:

At my former school and as part of an action research project, I taught my students (and select teachers) how to use Noodletools to organize research writing projects and store all of their work online. No more lost papers or thumb drives!  NoodleTools allows students to collaborate on writing projects, record their thesis statement, create virtual notecards, outlines, and citations/bibliographies and compose in Google Docs. Teachers and librarians can collaborate, attach links, rubrics, etc., see and comment on all parts of the research process and provide awesome formative feedback.

I also created a book review blog at my former school with hopes of getting the students blogging.

The blog ended up being more of a platform to post student projects (such as a digital storytelling project created with Storybird - see sample below) and an archive of my own books reviews.




This fall at School #9, the library students in grades 3-6 have been creating eBooks with Google Slides. I plan to post some of the projects when they are completed on my SchoolWires web site  and also create a bulletin board display with hard copies of the covers of the students' books along with a QR code so that the books can be read with iPhones or iPads. My sample book is posted on my SchoolWires page.

What I hope to gain during this Collegial Learning Circle:

I have been wanting to create a book review blog at my new school so I might take this opportunity to develop that. Also, I'm always looking for more ideas for digital storytelling or collaborative projects to do with classroom teachers.

Fears/passions in using technology:

I love using technology when it increases student engagement or improves a process--and helping other educators use those tools, too. I fear dabbling in too many technologies--being a "jack of all trades and master of none."

My  children
 Mark, John, Stephanie & Laura