March 2022

I normally strive to push out more frequent newsletters, so I appreciate your patience as I recover from a rough first semester. My work family at HHS has been incredibly supportive as I recover from a back injury, mourn the loss of my brother, and face public book challenges. To those who have reached out with cards, gifts, and words of support, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your generosity is appreciated more than you can imagine. Now let's forge ahead with a much brighter 2022. 🙂

Megan Griffiths-Ward is the new library media aide in the HHS Media Center. We are excited to welcome Dr. Griffiths to our team. Megan brings a wealth of experience to Hudson City Schools.

Megan is an experienced researcher, having earned her PhD in Biology from Tufts University. From 2003 to 2015 Megan served as a research associate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. She was a university lecturer in South Africa, Germany, and most recently at Kent State University. Last year Megan and her husband published a book Problem Plants of Ohio.

Megan has always been a prolific reader. She particularly enjoys Young Adult fiction, which makes her a perfect fit for a high school library. Megan is a member of the Genreflections Young Adult Book Discussion Group at the Hudson Library & Historical Society. She has always wanted to work in a high school library where she can share her love of YA literature with teenagers.

Please stop by the media center and introduce yourself to Dr. Griffiths. You will be greeted with a (masked) smile! :-)

Our amazing Gale databases now offer an array of different view options, which aim to make articles more easily readable by students of all abilities. When viewing an article in a Gale database, users can select the Display Options icon to enact a dyslexic font, as well as alter the spacing of the lines, letters, and words. You can also add a color background to the article, which helps many users track the text more effectively.

The media center is a multi-function facility that offers teachers many useful features for teaching lessons. You are invited to bring your classes to the media center. We offer:

• A wide-open space with many tables. Great for group projects.
• An instructional space to accommodate 30+ students. This classroom has moveable desks, dry-erase walls, a Mac Mini computer, an Apple TV with projector, and speakers. We'll supply dry erase markers if you need a space for your students to brainstorm on the walls.
• A Digital Den with 14 brand-new Mac computers, two smart TVs (with Apple TVs), a large green screen for chroma key video recording, four Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets.
• A Collaboration Station where small groups can work together on projects. This room has two HDTVs with cables to connect iPads.
• A small-group study room with comfortable couches.

If you would like to reserve any of these facilities for your classes or to send small groups, please call us at x1416 so we can set them aside for you.

NoodleTools is an online research management system that does a phenomenal job of organizing student resources when conducting research. It recently had a significant facelift and is so much easier for students to use.

NoodleTools integrates very well with most of our databases, including Gale. As a student locates an article in a database, they can click the NoodleTools logo to instantly send the citation to their collection. I highly encourage teachers to use NoodleTools whenever their students are conducting research. It is so easy to use, and it takes the guesswork out of writing citations in the correct format. It even generates a works cited document that can be sent to Google Docs in a hot second.

Below is a link to a webinar that shows teachers how to take advantage of the features in NoodleTools. But you'd rather skip the webinar and come to me, I'd be most happy to get you and your classes going on your next research project!

Over the past few years I have been using Google Expeditions to take students on virtual field trips to locations their classes were studying. Then Google pulled the plug on Expeditions and discontinued it.

A company called RobotLAB is filling the void with a product called VR Expeditions 2.0. Using VR Expeditions, students view 360° images of a location chosen by their teacher. They hold VR ViewMaster goggles to their eyes and see the location from all sides as if they are standing there. The teacher directs the experience on a tablet and guides the students on the field trip. Teachers can read information on the tablet that describes what the students are seeing.

I recently obtained licenses for 10 student devices. If VR Expeditions become popular, I will look into increasing our collection to 30 devices. I encourage teachers to contact me this spring to arrange some VR field trips.

Below is a link to VR Expeditions available on the devices. You will be prompted for a password when accessing this site. Copy and paste this password: XK!sJ86sNq2Lt5d9 . You can then search for keywords on the list by typing CTRL+F (or CMD+F on iPad or Mac).

The above website is passworded. Please copy and paste this password to access it:

XK!sJ86sNq2Lt5d9

The media center has a new display of staff recommended books. Students are flocking to the display to discover which books are recommended by their favorite faculty and staff. To recommend a book (or two or three ...) please follow the link below.

We also have printed Staff Picks forms in the media center if you'd like to fill one out in person. Thank you for sharing the love of reading with our students. 🤓

Staff book recommendation

Gale recently added an impressive collection of topics in their For Educators resource that focuses on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Social Emotional Learning. Educators can browse through the topics and easily assign them to their classes via Google Classroom. (There is a lot more that Gale in Context For Educators can do, and I would gladly meet with you to discuss the features.)

Each of these two areas contain lesson plans, journal articles, ebooks, magazine articles, videos, images, audio recordings, biographies, and so on.

The area of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion contains the following topics:

• Identity
• Diversity
• Justice
• Action
• Contemporary activists
• Commemorative months and celebrations

The area of Social Emotional Learning contains the following topics:

• Self awareness
• Self management
• Social awareness
• Relationship skills
• Responsible decision making

The direct links to these resources can be found below. To sign into Gale in Context For Educators, simply click the Google sign-in button.

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Social Emotional Learning

Please reach out to me if you would like to discuss these resources further or plan an integrated lesson.

Did you know that you can access most of your iPad documents from any computer web browser? Simply visit icloud.com and sign in with your hudson.k12.oh.us email address. From any PC or Mac you can then access all of your iPad's Notes, Photos, Reminders, and iCloud Drive files. You can even edit Keynotes, Pages, and Numbers directly in your web browser.

Teachers are able to check their library account to see what items they are currently borrowing. Here's how:

1. Click on the iSearch icon on the main library website.
2. Select My Account in the top-right corner.
3. For the User ID, type your 7-digit employee ID number.
4. For the PIN, type your birthday in MMDD format. (Use four digits. Eg., April 9 is 0409.)
5. Select the Checkouts tab to see your current loans.

Email: robitaia@hudson.k12.oh.us
Website: https://www.hudson.k12.oh.us/domain/798
Location: Hudson, OH, USA
Phone: (330) 653-1412
Twitter: @aussieandrew

View past newsletters at https://www.hudson.k12.oh.us/Page/14764