Fotonovelas for parental involvement at school!

Check out this very cool concept from the National Center for Family Literacy! Funded by a grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, they created two fotonovelas (both of which are available in English and Spanish) which teach parents how and why they should be involved with their children's education and schooling. Fotonovelas are a graphic style of book, similiar to a comic book, which are popular in Latin American. They combine pictures and words to tell a story.
The two fotonovelas created by NCFL are designed to help clarify the American expectation of parental involvement in education to people who may come from cultures without such an expectation. They explain such things as parent/teacher conferences and ways in which parents can be involved with children's schoolwork at home. PDFs and videos of these fotonovelas are available for free online. I'd love to see us at the library do something similar where we make videos that demonstrate what kind of assistance students and families can receive at our Homework Help Centers!

Proteja contra los incendios!

Gabriela, my fellow Spanish Program Specialist here at CML, is a woman of many talents! Before joining our team, Gabriela volunteered her time to create this video along with the Columbus Fire Department to promote fire safety to the Spanish-speaking community here in Columbus.

There have been too many stories here in Columbus of fires destroying homes and families in the Latino community. This video is an example of a positive response to such tragedy. I wonder what opportunities there are for us to create other informative videos for our community? What other organizations could we partner with in such an effort?

10 Random Things

Super Fun Challenge "Thing" from Helene Blowers! 10 random things you may not otherwise know about me...

1. I'm vegan and I absolutely LOVE food and cooking!
2. I've spent time in more foreign countries (15) than I have states outside of Ohio (12).
3. I have two awesome cats: Chino and Zoey (who is 18 and I swear is going to live forever!)
4. I've been with my amazing significant other for 6 years and we're getting married in late 2010.
5. I love martial arts, and I train in muay thai.
6. Though I enjoy a variety of music, it's definitely metal above all for me.
7. I spend my Sundays watching NFL and have been a Dallas Cowboys fan all my life.
8. Once upon a time in Northern Laos I ate a bat wing and it tasted like a chili flavored latex glove! Catch me in person for the full details on that one...
9. I did not have a cell phone until this year when I finally gave in and got an iPhone, and the tech geek living inside of me finally started to blossom.
10. I am beyond excited for the release of Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland, my all time favorite story! I cannot wait to see what imagery his mind comes up with!

There you go, 10 random things!

L & P #23

The final thing...

I have really enjoyed participating in Learn and Play @ CML for a variety of reasons. First, it gives staff a shared vocabulary. I can talk with my colleagues about the idea of using Twitter or a wiki to streamline our workflow without having to wonder if they know what I am talking about. Second, it lets me as an employee know that my library supports the use of emerging technologies in my job. I don't have to wonder if it is OK for me to set up a wiki or blog about programming because it is clear this is something supported within the culture at CML. Third, through the use of many of these tools I have deepened my connections with co-workers. Whether learning more about their work or personal lives or just having another way to say hello, it has been great to reconnect with fellow co-workers and to meet new ones! Fourth, I have learned more about some new technologies that will be very useful for me in this position, in my involvement with professional organizations, and for my own professional development.

Thanks for extending the time; doing so kept this fun and informative without adding the stressful burden of a looming, impossible-to-reach deadline! All in all, this has been a very cool experience and a model of training it could be cool to see us replicate in the future. I hope the blog remains up so future staff can participate as well!

Educator for a Day

Today I had the opportunity along with my colleague Gabriela to visit the Columbus Bilingual Academy as part of their Educator for a Day program. We were able to visit two of Mr. Holdren's Spanish as a Second Language classes to talk with them about the library, our Homework Help Centers, and to share some bilingual stories. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that nearly all the students already had library cards! We all had an opportunity to practice reading together and drawing and sharing some things from our worlds.

The Columbus Bilingual Academy opened this year on the west side of Columbus for students in grades 4-7. The school is tuition-free and supports a full curriculum in both English and Spanish, complete with after-school activities and clubs! It was wonderful to meet the teachers, staff, and students today. I look forward to visiting and partnering with the school more in the future!

L & P #21

I am pretty much obsessed with NPR. I seriously listen to it all the time. So I have been into Podcasts for a while now, because as much as I would like to listen to NPR all day while I am working, it's simply not feasible. So, I can subscribe to Podcasts of my favorite shows and listen when it is convenient. They get fed right into my iTunes on my home computer. My favorite NPR shows, by they way, are Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!, This American Life, and Talk of the Nation.

How can libraries make use of Podcasting and webcasting? Check out how New York Public Library is doing it! I think there is real potential for webcasting for libraries. We could be webcasting our author visits so those who can't make the time can still participate, webcasting video for each of the Ready to Read pre-literacy skills modeling ways parents can practice at home, and even replace Dial-A-Story with Download-A-Story for storytime footage with our fabulous staff! Lots of library Teen Advisory Board groups are getting in to creating their own podcasts and distributing them through the library website. I definitely believe this is something we will see more of in the years to come.

L & P #20

Ooops! Somehow I managed to skip two Learn and Play exercises! Allow me to backtrack...thing #20 is on You Tube. You Tube is definitely rad. I use it a lot to find sweet kickboxing matches, especially female fighters as they are not usually on TV. I also like looking up concert footage and music videos.

However, I am going to embark on some shameless self-promotion here to demonstrate embedding video content into a blog. Enjoy!