News

Kristin Almeida's picture
12
May
News / Posted by Kristin Almeida
I was first introduced to Minecraft by one of my nephews about 4 or 5 years ago.  My first thought was “Well this is pretty pointless.  It will never catch on.”  Boy was I wrong.  Since its inception in 2011, Minecraft’s popularity has soared finding acclaim from critics and educators alike.  Students love it, teachers love it, critics love it...but I still just didn’t get it. That is until I went to the How to Be Dangerous with Minecraft PD at the Cranston Public Library.  This hands on,...
Alyssa Taft's picture
10
May
News / Posted by Alyssa Taft
May 10, 2016. Tiverton, RI. Media Smart Libraries was excited to host Jen Thomas, School Librarian and technology expert, at the brand new Tiverton Public Library for her workshop Making Presentations Pop with Tech. This workshop was designed to break librarians out of presentation ruts and expose them to the many technology options they have for presenting information to students, patrons, peers, and stakeholders. The workshop began with participants collaborating on a Padlet to develop what...
Barbara Miller's picture
09
May
News / Posted by Barbara Miller
Darshell Silva is the Librarian and Technology Integration Specialist at Rocky Hill School, East Greenwich. She teaches Information/Digital Literacy classes for Pre K through 9th grade and serves as resource person for supporting digital literacy and technology use in the classroom. She has been in this position for 4 years. She is a member of the Advisory Board for Media Smart Libraries, a FUSE Fellow with the Highlander Institute, and Per Course Faculty at URI - GSLIS. Darshell has faced some...
Christopher Zanghi's picture
03
May
News / Posted by Christopher Zanghi
I attended the recent public event on “Navigating our Digital Lives” held at Barrington High School Library.  It was an excellent event with a variety of learning settings. There were two separate panel discussions focused on our questions, and many small group discussions designed to address our needs in more detail. There were two areas that I felt most related to my work as an elementary school librarian. I’ve summarized what I learned, some tools and applications, for your information.  ...
Barbara Miller's picture
03
May
News / Posted by Barbara Miller
Are you looking for an easy, creative way to engage your students? Scratch programming might be the answer. Earlier this year I attended the Computer Coding with Scratch workshop and was introduced to this interesting program. Scratch is a graphical programming language which allows you to create programs as easily as building with blocks. Each component of the program has a different graphical shape so it is easy to fit together the pieces you want to make your own project. With Scratch you...