Falling Back into the Swing of the School Routine!

Tech Tip of the Week:

Are you tired of logging in to Google? Then stop! Here is a tutorial that will show you how to create separate Chrome profiles so that you never have to log in again! Just toggle between profiles to switch from personal to school accounts. It's easy! Also, let's give a shout out to Justin for helping us out with this video!

Sharpening Research Skills:

Is Geography Destiny? 

Freshmen students in Global I are delving into the Essential Question: Is Geography Destiny? They conducted case studies on countries to draw conclusions about geography's influence on the success of a nation as well as the impact of institutions on a country's success. Teacher Librarians co-taught with social studies teachers. Students learned how to access databases, use GapMinder, which provides statistics about global development, and properly create citations in a bibliography. Students shared findings and thoughts about the impact of geography on a country's success or failure.

Who was the greatest absolute ruler? 

Sophomores in Global II are studying Absolutism. They are tackling the Essential Question: Who was the greatest absolute ruler? Teacher Librarians are co-teaching in classes as students are learning how to use keywords more effectively and how to use a variety of sources, going beyond the use of reference materials.

Booktalks: 

Sophomores participated in booktalks to choose an independent reading book and to keep a list of titles on deck. Students discussed which books seemed to be a good fit for them. Students are exploring how knowledge of text structure can improve a reader's comprehension.

Open Doors at Open House: 

Parents Welcome! Parents visited the library during Open House to explore all the library has to offer. Highlights included checking out out the library book collection, exploring the Makerspace and learning about how Teacher Librarians and the Tech Integrator collaborate with teachers to deliver the curriculum.

Making in the Makerspace: 

Growth Mindset 

Students in Mr. McAteer's sophomore English classes have been delving into the concept of a growth mindset and how to represent that idea. Students shared ideas about Growth Mindset vs. a Fixed Mindset via different mediums, such as 3D depictions, podcasts, and videos.

Teddy Roosevelt's Square Deal 

Juniors in U.S. History portrayed aspects of the Square Deal's goal of the conservation of nature, control of corporations and consumer protection.

3D Printing 

Students come in during lunch and after school to use the makerspace.

Happy New Year (2019-2020)!

Freshman Orientation
What a great start to the new year! Our team, comprised of Ms. Sheehan, our "new" Technology Integrator Ms. Hernberg (the English department's loss is our gain!) and Ms. Luhtala, hit the ground running on day one by walking the freshmen through a whirlwind of introductions to NCHS technologies including

• PowerSchool
• the BYOD network
• Schoology
• @ncps-k12.org email
• Printing
• Mobile phone policy
• Library services
• the nchslibrary.info website
• texting the library
• 80% of our time is spent help students learn how to learn
• Data has shown that students who use library services perform better on research projects
• The NCHS research model
• Getting feedback on projects BEFORE the teacher sees them - a chance to revise and improve work
• Booktalks
• Makerspace

What is Schoology

We also shared a video about our new learning management system, Schoology with all students during Connections on  day one.

Schoology Tutorials:

As we create Schoology tutorials for students, we are adding them to a shared folder in Schoology so that teachers can upload them to their courses as needed. 

We encourage all members of our learning community to suggest topics for upcoming tutorials. Please use the form below to provide feedback.




Social and Emotional Wellness
To support our district's efforts to promote community-wide social and emotional learning, the library is happy to offer the print, digital and audiobooks authored by featured speakers who will/have present(ed) to parent and teacher audiences in New Canaan over the past three years.


Booktalks
Ms. Sheehan has been rocking the booktalks! Over 200 students will have borrow NCHS library books by the end of next week.

Book Club
Our book club meets on Wednesday, September 11 at 6:00PM in the high school library. It's a Bring your Own Book event so students are invited to bring any book they enjoyed reading. Our club set up a Schoology group to connect and discuss our upcoming selections. Please reach out to our club president Julia Carpi or Ms. Sheehan or Ms. Luhtala if you wish to be included in the group. RSVPs are required (so we can order the correct number of pizzas).

Summer Reading Time!

Post your video review here!

It is summer reading time! That's when we get to catch up on what’s new and exciting in publishing. Our summer reading list is primarily recreational. Its purpose is to connect our learners with resources they may enjoy.

We generally keep the list relatively short – under one hundred books so as not to overwhelm. We are mindful of genre and diverse interests. We focus on contemporary publications - the last two years or so, but we also include a few classics. We aim for balance between young adult and adult literature.

Keeping in mind that our library users include young teens and adults, our list is thematically comprehensive. Not every book is for every library user. Selection is part of the reading process and we encourage young readers to be reflective about their choices - to contextualize them with their personal and family values. Readers are encouraged to consult reviews and publisher notes to make predictions about whether a book will suit their interests and to switch to a different book when one falls short of their expectations. There are so many books to enjoy. Summer is not the time to slog through a book that holds little appeal.

As in previous years, New Canaan (town) Library runs a dynamic Summer Reading Program. We send our copies of the summer reading books to the town library so students may borrow them over the summer months. We carry as many titles as are available in both eBook and audiobook format. Students may use Destiny, our online catalog, to access those formats. They can text the library at (615) 669 6670 if they need help.

As always, we aggregated our summer reading list in GoodReads - which is a social book recommendation site (see right). The entire NCHS learning community is invited to connect, share what they are reading, rate books, and write reviews in GoodReads and this year, we invite students to post video reviews to Flipgrid. Members of our learning community can use their @ncps-k12.org login to add a 90 second clip telling us about a book they read over the summer.



Again, the list is here (below), and the tabs at the bottom of the sheet allow viewers to switch organization – title, author, genre, etc.

Learning Is Blossoming as Spring Rolls In

 Read, Research, Write and Present:  Freshman English students read a nonfiction book and are researching an issue related to one in the book. After researching an issue using school databases and other resources, they are writing a speech to bring attention to it and persuasively argue a specific way to handle the issue. Some books include Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden, Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg and Spare Parts by Joshua Davis.

Infographic about Collapse of a Civilization:  Global I students created infographics to explain why civilizations collapse. Students read about a civilization in Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and applied new learning to creating an original infographic to explain Diamond's causes for collapse and societal responses. 

Invisible Influence: Sophomore English students are exploring an ideology held by our society on a specific issue (gender roles, national identity, tolerance, politics, homelife, workplace, power structure, etc.) that they feel is outdated, the problems/challenges these views create, and the influence of the media on society's change or lack of change regarding the issue. They are analyzing past and present ads looking for fallacies used in advertising to perpetuate myths.

Blackout Poems from Night by Elie Wiesel: Sophomore English students created new found/blackout poems using Elie's language. Blackout poems are a form of found poetry where one takes existing texts, reorders them and presents them as poems.

Global I: Students in Global I are depicting the role of religion in a movement, event or conflict. For example, some students chose to gain a deeper understanding of the Iranian Revolution and the Holocaust.

             

March Learning Coming in Like a Lion

Why Do Some Societies Collapse?
    Students in Global I are deepening their understanding of why some societies collapse and others endure.  Students close read writings by Jared Diamond, including parts of his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Some students explained the dynamics of Diamond's reasons for collapse through a Rube Goldberg Machine. Students became the teachers and explained why civilizations, such as the Anasazi, Easter Island, and Tokugawa Shogunate, either collapsed or found a way to endure.

Students teach each other about how societies collapse or endure.

In the process, students took notes on background of civilization, reasons for success, reasons for collapse as well as any miscellaneous information that was intriguing.

Students thoughtfully planned and created infographics to deepen understanding and explain the reasons for the collapse or endurance according to Diamond's text.

Key ideas are included in an infographic. 

Global I students are also thinking about what they learned about the past civilizations' collapse or endurance and are relating it to modern day society: Are we doomed?  Some Global I students researched a modern day issue and wrote a magazine article about it through the lens of a collapse problem defined by Diamond and suggested possible solutions to adapt and endure.

Open House at New Canaan High School Library

    Visitors from other schools, including an administrator, came to visit the NCHS library and to engage in professional dialogue. Visitors toured the library and the makerspace.

MLA 8 Certified

   Freshman students continue to learn about citing sources using MLA 8 and earning digital badges after watching short videos and taking a quiz.

Makerspace Sightings

  Civic students created a visual representation of a part of the Constitution.

Earth Science students created aliens and explained how they adapted to another planet. Students kept in mind that everything that lives on Earth has adapted to certain features of the Earth: the atmosphere, climate, land, oceans, temperature, seasons and gravity. The alien must be able to adapt to the planet being studied.

Living Poets

    English students read works of a contemporary poet that they found intriguing. Then they made a pitch as to why the library should include the works of these writers. Students were given a budget to work with and had to justify which works would make a good addition to the library collection.