Media Moments

August 2025

The friendly staff in the media center are excited to welcome you to the 2025-26 school year. The media center is a lively place of teaching and learning, with multifaceted instructional spaces, technology integration, and access to robust literary and research resources. We LOVE to see classes in the media center. If you need a large space to spread your students for an activity, the media center is the place to be. If you want your students to access reliable resources, audiovisual tools, or Makerspace equipment, please reach out to media center staff to schedule collaborative teaching time with Mr. Robitaille. We genuinely hope to see your classes in the media center this year.

The HHS media center subscribes to a variety of periodicals, both print and digital. We try to have the latest Hudson Hub Times available at the entry table. Also, we are renewing our subscription to the Akron Beacon Journal. We will receive weekend print issues and display them on the entry table. Additionally, we can provide digital access to the Akron Beacon Journal. Please contact Andrew Robitaille for the login.

The HHS media center also has a current subscription to the New York Times. Our subscription is site based. Any user within the high school building will have instant authentication to the New York Times. There are no usernames or passwords to remember and no account creations to worry about. Staff and students can access NY Times articles while they are in the school building. The subscription will not work when off campus.

Many people have been requesting access to The Atlantic magazine. I am happy to report that print issues have begun arriving in our media center. Additionally, staff can access the electronic articles. If you would like to receive the login to our online Atlantic account, please reach out to media center staff.

You can find a magazine rack in the center of our facility that contains the following print subscriptions:

• National Geographic
• Food Network
• New Yorker
• Time
• Amazing Spiderman
• Batman
• Daredevil
• Miles Morales: Spiderman
• Wolverine

Teachers and students are welcome to borrow magazines by bringing them to the circulation counter.

Hispanic Heritage Month occurs from Sept. 15 - Oct. 15. The media center will display books that celebrate Hispanic culture and authors. We also have many ebooks and audiobooks through Sora that feature Hispanic characters, authors, and stories. Gale in Context contains excellent information about Hispanic heritage, and we have other databases that investigate countries and cultures. Please stop by the media center in mid September to see our book display and to inquire about our resources about Hispanic Heritage Month.

Whether you have spent a lot of time or next to no time in MagicSchool, you should take a moment to look over their 2025 back-to-school guide. The guide (below) provides useful information and activities that prepare any teacher to take advantage of this amazing resource. The guide introduces you to Raina, the MagicSchool AI chatbot. You will learn helpful tips on how to structure successful prompts and how to use MagicSchool to plan your workflow more efficiently. You can also learn how to use their lesson plan generator, the standards unpacker tool, and ideas for how to employ MagicSchool with your students. The MagicSchool back-to-school guide is a quick but helpful read. Click the link below to get your copy.

PrintFriendly is a Chrome extension that allows you to create printer-friendly web pages and PDFs. If you've ever tried to print a busy webpage full of ads and other distractions, PrintFriendly can swoop in and remove all of the clutter. You can add this extension to Chrome by clicking here. Whenever you encounter a webpage that you want to clean up for printing, simply click the extension icon and follow the prompts. PrintFriendly also helps you create clean PDF copies of web pages.

If you are looking for some inspiration to jazz up your lessons, it's worth providing some parameters to a chatbot to see what ideas might jump out at you. I recently stumbled upon an AI lesson plan template that helps you maximize the output you will get from your conversation with a chatbot. With some quick copying and pasting of information, you can receive some solid activity recommendations that you can modify to meet your needs. This template helps you work smarter not harder. Below is a link to a Google Doc that will give you an editable copy to which you can follow the instructions for quick lesson plan inspiration. Give it a whirl! You might get an ah-ha moment or discover some new ideas worth exploring.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TbyyAFA9F1gvpx6ZSgA0ug-IQvRxoAkK8Coux2QUVr4/copy

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://hhs.hudson.k12.oh.us/departments/library
Location: Hudson, OH, USA
Phone: (330) 653-1412
Resource repository: https://wakelet.com/@AndrewRobitaille2572

View past newsletters at https://hhs.hudson.k12.oh.us/departments/library/library-newsletters