Gale Training

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Welcome everyone to your this new training session that we're doing today, get the word out school library and share their Gale resource promotion stories.

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My name is Tammi Van Buren, and I'm one of the Gale trainers that is here with you today. My fantastic colleague Stacey Knibloe is also here we will both be working with you in the session so and answering all of your questions and monitoring that q

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amp a box, Stacey will be keeping an eye on that, and I am your emcee for the day so I will take you through the beginning slides and introduce our fabulous guest speakers that we have today's session, we are going to hear from two fantastic guests speakers

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that are joining us who will be sharing how they get the word out and how they promote their digital resources we have Christy James from Charleston County School District in South Carolina, and Kristen Whitworth from Dover High School and New Hampshire.

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We encourage you to ask questions throughout the session we did work in some breaks where where we can ask Christy and Kristen those questions so you'll see those those points, but do ask them throughout the session.

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So we will make sure that those questions get answered and again use that q amp a box at the very end, I will, we will leave you with guilt where you can go for more guilt support you're looking to promote your resources in your library your school library

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on public or academic we may have all folks here today i'm going to share with you the Galel support site, we will share that link with you also in the chat box, so keep an eye out for that but we're going to save that till the end of the session, and

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really focus on our two fantastic speakers. We're going to start today with Christy James, who is a Library Media Services Coordinator for her district in Charleston county in South Carolina, so Christie I'm going to leave it to you to take over.

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Apologies I couldn't get myself unmuted.

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No worries.

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Tech difficulties happen, so we we can hear you. and there we go now your screen is up.

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Perfect.

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All right. Apologies for the rocky beginning, I am Christy James, I am the Library Media Services Coordinator for Charleston County School District, which is just a fancy way of saying that I get to work with 77 of the most incredible teacher librarians.

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This is my 25th year in education, and my one and only claim to fame is I was a 2020 Library Journal mover and shaker, which that's where my headshot came from so I needed some reason to get an actual official headshot and that was it, active in our South

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Carolina Association of School Librarians, I just left the board is there it chair, but in continuing to be involved in a lot of committees, our state organizations do so much for us.

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Of course I'm a huge advocate for librarians libraries the Oxford comma and mac and cheese is 100% of vegetable.

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My not so guilty or not so secret.

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Passion is for ya romance and that was something I just discovered in the past couple years, and if you want to always feel uplifted, you can definitely check us out on Twitter at vocal CCS D that's voices of Charleston county school districts, amazing

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librarians, and I just share all the good things that are happening there.

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What I want to be able to talk about is what we do with sharing our Gale resources and equity does matter.

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Gale is very very easy to promote because we have so many resources that are provided by state and district investments and equity is so much more than a buzzword it's actually our job.

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And this is one buzzword that is getting attention. So ASL says that part of our job is being a tech integrationist, and that portion of our job really focuses on equitable access, and we know that now more than ever, making sure that all of our students,

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all of our teachers have access to high quality information that is going to provide that relevant unbiased content is just so key, And, of course, the best thing about Gale, is there really is something for everyone.

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And if you're wondering where I got this beautiful graphic from this is from Jennifer would guard and you can find it on her library girl blog so share widely.

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Of course as librarians, one of our key jobs is collaboration, so it's not breaking news that we are better together. And in my position at the district, I try to get those collaborations in place so that people do see we are better together.

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Some people call it being a little bit pushy some people call it being a little bit nosy. I just think that I have a great opportunity to see potential collaboration.

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And what I want to share is a few ways that we, as a district have been able to get our librarians, working together both at the district level, and then actually within our schools, getting those collaborations between different departments.

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So, we see that all the resources that we have from Gale and other places that when we use those together, we are definitely working towards our goals.

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So I'm going to share a little bit about what we do with our department chairs with our school counselors are essential and multilingual learners, and then also PD coordinators.

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So, of course, with Gale, there is something for everyone, and something we have been very intentional about is making sure that folks can find those resources, everywhere.

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This graphic the Did you know is part of a weekly social media campaign that I've put out. And this is just one example of a little weekly reminder that we have all of these databases and this actually isn't all of them I just couldn't put them on, put

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any more of the logos on, but a reminder that everybody has access to these, and that these are great resources for up to date information.

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We shared a lot about that, through November December January, as there was an extra need for that clear coherent accurate information.

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And you've heard about it in real estate that location location location. But this again is something that we tried to be very, very intentional about to make sure that where our resources are located are convenient and actually help teachers find them

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so they can use them more often.

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Our district uses Mac and via which is just simply a portal that contains all of our databases and digital resources so all of our students and teachers know k 12.

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This is where you go.

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We've also pulled specific collections into clever, since clever is our single sign on portal. And we're able to make use of the fact that students and teachers are already in clever every day multiple times a day.

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So putting specific collections like our ebook collections for middle and high school science and social studies, as well as our Cameron's collection and Cameron's camp for wellness.

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Having those readily available for students on top of being available in Mac and via just brings extra attention.

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And then our district also recently went to Canvas, as our district wide lm s. So finding out what integrations were available for Gale, and making sure that we had all of those in place, so the teachers can easily integrate the Gale databases and ebooks

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into their courses, was huge. We want to make sure that everything we're doing is making things easier for teachers.

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About three years ago.

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The district, la coordinator and the district, social studies coordinator and I met together, and we decided that it really just made sense for us to make better use of our time and meet together.

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This came from me actually saying, I was going to meet with the LA teachers during their department meeting and the social studies teachers during their department meeting.

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And we realized those meetings were on the same day at the same time. So, we started looking at what our goals were we started looking at what our standards were.

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And we saw there was so much overlap. And then of course I know that there's so much overlap in the resources that are available to all of our folks. So, we've been having joint department meetings for the past few years.

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And this is just a screenshot of one of our agendas from last September, this was just after Canvas had been brought on. We had a lot of our teachers teaching both virtually and in person.

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And we wanted to make sure that they knew all the digital resources that were available that could help them. So what I've got the big arrow pointing to is that Lacey and I were both presenting during this Lacey was the social studies coordinator, and

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it was extremely valuable to be able to show that this was not these Gale resources, we're not just a library resource that they really do support instruction, and the librarians can be a key part of making sure that all of the features are fully us.

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I'm sure you've heard that time and money show where priorities are. So we've tried to show that by meeting together and devoting this time to our resources, not just saying, Hey look, we've got these and listing them off, but actually taking time to

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provide opportunities to dig in and look around that.

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We have department chairs, who are interested, they're hooked, and they're going back to their schools and sharing.

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And then we had a follow up to that and I'm going to share that a little bit later.

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Another group of folks that we've been able to have some really wonderful collaborations with our, our school counselors.

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We put in a big request with title for funding, focusing on student wellness to fully complete our Cameron's collection and our cameras camp for wellness collection.

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So, those multi user ebooks that are always available for all of our students, all of our teachers that are vetted that are age appropriate to tackle tougher topics.

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Our school counselors, worked with our librarians, getting this in place.

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We have had trainings that have been targeted to our specific groups of counselors and librarians. And I actually just got a email requesting that we do another one of those.

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But, because this is part of a title for grant, and we do want to make sure that we are getting good data as far as, not just the students, and individual accesses, but also what kind of lessons are being taught and how are these resources being used

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so both of our groups have to submit monthly reports and there's actually a question on there about SEO lessons, and we specifically call out those resources, again trying to make sure that those are always in front of our folks, and they're reminded

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what's available.

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We also, of course, take great advantage Gale has some phenomenal promotional resources already available, and for Cameron's collection, they have these great book marks that are just ready to print.

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And so our school counseling department printed out some sent them to all of the schools so they were ready and available, and then we just created our version of one for Cameron's camp for wellness for our elementary kids using that same format, but

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that again is another way to make sure that our teachers and students are seeing those items, and we've been able to be much more successful because we're working together with our school counselors

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and addition to our counselors.

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I went to our professional development coordinators at our district as well, and again through our title for grant, we were able to add to our professional collection.

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Books specifically about SEO VI, and a huge increase in books about educator self care that's been more important than ever, of course, and the professional development coordinators, have been reaching out to school administrators because again, these

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Gale, ebooks, are all multi user, ebooks, so we're trying to make sure that our school administrators know that we have these resources that are available to be used as professional

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book studies, or just to be able to share with specific groups of people that might find the different topics. Interesting, or relevant and valuable.

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I've got a meeting set up next week with our Office of teacher effectiveness. Those are the folks that support our new teachers, and they want to know more about what is in here and books that might potentially be available to support beginning teachers

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as well. And yes, we have some.

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And then on the right hand side, you've probably all seen this before it's the little part of our gala articles and ebooks that allow us to translate.

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And are you ESL department who is now working with our MLS or multilingual learners. And I was talking with those ESL teachers about the features in Gale, that would help their multilingual learners.

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And they were just blown away that there were over 40 languages. Now, being able to actually be in front of those ESL teachers and be able to tell them.

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We have all of these resources, they all have this capability, and you have a library and in every single one of your buildings, who can help make use of this.

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It was, again, not anything that was breaking news, but the way their eyes lit up. I don't know that they'd ever thought of connecting thing, all of those things together, and a lot of them didn't know that that translation feature, even existed.

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So, just taking the time to get in front of folks was really really valuable.

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And this is one of my favorite quotes, we can always try to be like Shirley so if they don't give you a seat at the table bring a folding chair. And I found that, again, some people call it pushy as I bring my chair everywhere, but that's also why I've

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got a meeting next week with our district exceptional children's coaches, because I want to share some of the accessibility features that are available in the Gale resources so they are.

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Exceptional Children, teachers can make use of those and help support students in their classes as well.

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So, the biggest thing is that we want to make sure that we're giving teachers what they want. And usually the top of their wish list is, they just want things to be convenient they want things to be easier and Gale, really, is the closest thing that educators

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have to an easy button. So, taking specific features and trying to share those in ways that teachers can find them has been a big part of what I've been trying to do, and trying to drive traffic back to our librarians and back to teachers who can make

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use of all of the resources.

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So I mentioned earlier, that we'd had that we have our.

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The joint department meetings, and last fall when we introduced the canvas collaboration, I worked with our Social Studies department chair, and we've put together a little Gale one on one Canvas course.

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And basically, we.

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It was something that they could complete in 30 minutes or less. And it was focused on our middle and high schools, because that's what most of our databases and our reference ebooks relate to.

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But we added in all of the available ebook collections all of the available databases, so they could actually explore, they were able to see exactly how they could embed articles and specific parts of ebooks into their assignments, and it was pretty magical.

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there, they're literally I was watching faces is, we were showing things in the mouth just got wider and wider, because this is something that makes their lives so much easier.

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And it's just a fantastic use of what's available. And of course, Gale works with numerous lm S is not just Canvas, as a follow up that meeting was in September, and then in October.

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We took three weeks and we offered Gale chats, and we had social studies, LA, our librarians, as well as our science folks because our science folks had also been introduced to this we had a.

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I worked with them at a different meeting, and we just had this open drop in time. And just answer questions. A lot of times we just went over exactly what they were looking for help them figure out a few extra search features so they could get exactly

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what they were looking for. But that was, again, really helpful to offer that.

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One of what I think has been our best investments, has been our standard aligned, ebooks, our district, over the past six seven years has made a consistent investment in our ebooks This was done in part because of a focus on equity.

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We just were realizing that a lot of our libraries were not keeping up with their reference and nonfiction collections.

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And that we wanted to make sure that all of our students would have access. So, what we were able to do last fall is work with Gale to get the standard aligned bookshelves put in for our middle grades, social studies and science and high school social

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studies and science. This is a screenshot of our high, high school bookshelf for social studies, and it has some basic resources. And then for each course, you can see where it says hg population and migration, that's human geography and their first standard

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relates to population and migration. And if they click on that, that takes them to 65 books that are specifically related to their standard. So when teachers go in, they can just scroll to their course, like what we're showing here is modern world history

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and the emergence emergence of the modern world. It shows the standard, and then it lists out the books that are specifically aligned to that particular standard, so they're not necessarily having to dig through hundreds of ebooks that may or may not

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be relevant to the particular topic that they're teaching at that point.

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It is a paid feature, but the amount of usage increase that we've had. This has been a huge, huge success. And we were also able to, again, thinking about access and location, we were able to in clever, pull out a link just for the high school, social

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studies, ebooks, and have one for each of those. So there's an icon in clever, just for those content. And then we also have that integration available in Canvas.

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So the high school social studies teachers can pull in just the high school social studies ebooks for their courses as well.

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I'm, where a large district.

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We have over 50,000 students we have over 6000 employees, and that does mean that every year we do have a large number of new folks coming in our back to school, new teacher event is called great teachers great leaders, And this year we offered a digital

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launch board where we did a some in person PD, but then also gave the new teachers, a chance to explore things that they were interested in more independently, and we were able to include a section about our digital resources.

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So right away, our new folks were being shown what was available as well as a short, quick overview of how to access things, and where to go for more information.

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And of course I was able to do a whole spiel about the value of their school librarians and that that's definitely where they should turn first. But the fact that that was on here was able to show teachers, one to make them aware that those resources

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even existed. And to show that it's definitely something valued within our district.

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Because it's not just our new teachers who need a little refresher and need to be able to figure out where things are.

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Last summer, we created the world's ugliest website. I've been told that we shouldn't say, ugly, we should say it's utilitarian.

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So it's not going to win any awards for design, but it has been a place for everyone to come back to as needed. So, this is a website that offers our digital resources, and it gives a place for folks to choose elementary, middle, High School, and this

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And this second screenshot shows our middle school page. So, then the all the resources that are available are broken down into content areas, and teachers can go in, so if they're in LA like what's shown, they can see what's available, they get a short

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description of where it is, they can see that it's in clever and Mac and via, but it's also in Canvas. And then if they click on that link, it's also a short screen cast overview, the points out some of the key features that teachers might want to use

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and make use of with each of those resources that website is linked.

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I think everything is open to the general public because we do have a number of charter schools that we share resources with, so that excuse me that link Bit.

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The Edge how to should work for everybody. Again, it is one of the world's ugliest websites, but you can see at least what's available and offered there.

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And we also have a PvP section of PD tab on that. So, we have a lot of links again going back to the resources Gale already offers. They have a lot of short videos of how to do this how to do this how to do this.

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And those are readily available for the teachers to as well.

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Another thing we did this was a huge investment.

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With time, but I had a team of librarians, two summers ago that went through every single raid. Every. Single content area. And we did standards alignments.

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We created a document for each grade level, and each content area so fourth grade social studies has a document seventh grade la has a document, and we went standard by standard and narrowed down, which of our 50 plus resources will actually support and

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will help teachers on a particular standard. And then for each of those resources we gave some basic information as far as where it's located, what's there.

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We had a list of features we just did some icons there, and then any overview, or support we could give as well. Again, trying to make things easier for the teachers.

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This was about two months before Galen context for educators was introduced.

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So we did things the hard way that Galen context for educators definitely would make things easier, but again, just trying to make things as convenient for teachers so they know exactly where to go, and don't have to just dig through and hope that they

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find the right resource.

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And then what I had mentioned previously, is we do weekly social media that I put out, and each week, I offer digital books and resources, and usually focus on something that is either timely or has been newly added in sore.

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try to go through Cameron's collections are social studies and science, ebooks, and other resources. And it's just been a great way to kind of introduce people and make them aware that we have these things available, and I always try to emphasize especially

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with the Gale ebooks that these are all multi user ebooks that's a huge, huge thing for our teachers, and then the Digi know section is again that weekly.

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Just focus on a tip or a feature. And those go out on social media but these are also in our weekly staff, communications, email that goes out through the entire district so if somebody didn't catch it on Facebook or Twitter.

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They are still going to be able to see it in that weekly email.

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And that was a whole lot.

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It was so great.

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So great. We had a lot of people asking questions about weight.

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Is that a good thing or is that a Christie thing so that came through a couple of days we had some clarification, we had to make in the Stacy did there and the questions and answers box.

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I did want to ask you, in your opinion, before we move on to Kristen real quick. For the, the social media posts I know you're, you're at the district level.

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Do you have your individual librarians that are sharing any Did you knows, or like on their own Twitter account save a lot of librarians that I follow that, you know, do a lot of promotion on their own, for their own individual library at their school

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do you have that happening in your district to what I have tried to do is create those, so they can share them as relevant with their particular staff or students, because some of the dingy knows are going to focus more on elementary resources so I don't

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necessarily, you know, expect my high school folks to retweet it but I've been trying to create those. So, the librarians, don't necessarily have to.

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We have an internal TL website which is our internal teacher librarian website which is just the second ugliest website ever created. But all of those Did you knows and digital resources are there, so they can also pick and choose if they want to put

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something in a newsletter. All of those are there for them as well. Fantastic. Thank you, Christy for sharing that and and folks I will share with you at the end.

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Christy had mentioned the bookmarks that are available, and the in there on the Galel support site I will share that with you at the end of our session.

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here that are already created for you that might be really helpful. But I, we didn't get any questions that that came in specific to what you were covering.

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We did get questions about can we get that link that kind of information, and we took care of them and you got an awesome job from from Wanda so thanks Kristi for your portion I'm sure folks if you think of questions at the end that you want to ask both

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of our guest speakers, please feel free to do so, and use that q amp a box and we'll keep track of them but Christy Thank you so much.

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Thank you. Okay, Kristen.

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Are you ready to take over okay so let's hope this is a smooth transition.

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Let's see.

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Let's there we go Can everybody see me. Yes, and everyone I just want to introduce you already hearing your voice but this is Kristen Whitworth she's the librarian at Dover High School, so we had a Christy coming from the district level and showing you

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the approach that way and here we have Kristen, who showing you from a high school librarians perspective and how she's able to promote the resources so Kristen, take it away.

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Great, thank you so Hi everyone, so I'm Kristin Whitworth, I'm my claim to fame is I'm the 2021 New Hampshire school librarian of the year, which was a really big honor.

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And I'm also very involved in Missoula which is the new hampshire school library media state association and have been forever we have the best group of school librarians in New Hampshire.

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I've coordinated the Collaboratory maker space at our state level tech conference, and I am not a manga expert, but I have a really good collection, and I have all my students to thank for that so sometimes they're disappointed I have freshmen come in

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and they're so excited and they want to talk to me about Joe Joe's Bizarre Adventure whatever and I'm like I haven't read it, I just took somebody else's recommendation so that's me.

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So I'm going to move on. This is where I am right now these are all the databases I have this is a screenshot from something I just shared with staff during new staff orientation, but when I first came here, things look a little different.

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So I came on board at Dover High School in 2018. They had just built a new I think $88 million building.

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The library collection was old and dusty. The librarian who retired had been there for over 30 years and she said, basically, have fun, it really needs to be weeded, and I had a very small budget, my book budget was smaller than the elementary school

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book budgets. I have about, I think as of last count 1517 students, and I'm the only staffer in the library. So when I first came on board I ran I did all those collection development reports and things like that you know 68% of the eight hundreds hadn't

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checked out since 2011. I looked at average publication dates, and I got to town weeding I we did.

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Oh, probably half the collection, and I could do a lot more. So, what happens, and great English comes in. teacher one. Let's go to the library and see what resources we have access.

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We have Britannica we have, we have fact site, we have culture grams. That's it.

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So I'm like here's where we here's what we have in Britannica and PepsiCo and here's what we can use. Well, teacher. Number two, comes in and says to me, every student must have three to five books sources like actual, physical books, they can hold in

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their hands. Well, I've just wasted half my collection, I got rid of all those 1988 opposing viewpoint books on poverty on teen driving on marijuana use and all these things.

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I have some books some newer books on vaccinations and stuff but maybe like three, and every sophomore in the building is doing controversial topic research paper.

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So, what am I going to do. Well, I reached out to you. Hosea who is my amazing gal rep, I knew him from a previous job.

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And I said, Is there any way I can get a free trial of opposing viewpoints, I'm pretty sure if I can get teachers on board with this, I can find a way to buy this so of course he's like, go for it you're active let's go and teacher number one is like,

[00:37:40.000]
this is amazing this is the best thing I've ever seen. It's kind of like Opposing Viewpoints like those really old books we used to have, but we more than one kid can use this information at once.

[00:37:51.000]
Awesome. And the other teacher took a little convincing it took me a little while to say like these are still valid sources, but the beauty of this is, um, we had an example where one student to go every book on vaccinations, from my library.

[00:38:10.000]
The Middle School Library in the high school library we all share a catalog. So we're like our own little city collaborative library system, and she kept them out for two months and no one else had x neat had access to any books on vaccination So, anyway,

[00:38:28.000]
this was great. Another thing that I just put in my little badge, there is teacher number two was counted a database as one source. So that was really eye opening for me because that never occurred to me that someone would do it that way so if students

[00:38:45.000]
used to go that was one source, his students used so and so it took a while of taking her through what Opposing Viewpoints had to offer what it looked like what's in those reference articles those a newspaper articles and things like that.

[00:39:01.000]
And it was a really big success, and I was able to talk it up to my principal. And what happened is, I'm a business in our community came through toward the library and donated some money and I was able to purchase my first scale databases and opposing

[00:39:22.000]
Viewpoints was one of them. So, it was just kind of one of those really happy accident and me really like talking it up going to my principal and saying, Oh, we got a free trial, this was amazing, talk to Mr.

[00:39:37.000]
Howard talk to this person to talk to the students. The students loved it.

[00:39:43.000]
We're really big on student voice here. So, I have been known to kind of plant the seed and be like, oh, next time you're talking to Dan Stevens, you should say how easy it was to use Opposing Viewpoints for your paper for 10th grade English.

[00:39:59.000]
So, um, I don't know if there's any questions about that, but that's how I got started.

[00:40:05.000]
Oops, sorry about that. So my next one was, I said, I made a good friend I found an early adopter and it was one of our social studies teachers. He's fantastic.

[00:40:17.000]
And he is kind of the lead teacher for ninth grade social studies which is global studies, and he said, I want to take our kids through all our databases and have them practice all the tools.

[00:40:35.000]
Before we send them out to start you know doing the projects that are coming down the pike. So we actually got some curriculum money over the summer and the three global studies teachers and I sat down and we went through our databases, and we created

[00:40:53.000]
this like database activity. And so I have sent Stacey a link for like a blank template for of what it's look like and it changes every year and we change it in between classes but it was really successful so we use credo source.

[00:41:10.000]
That's something I got last year it's pretty inexpensive. And it talks to your all your other databases. So we've been using credo source sort of as a launching point.

[00:41:20.000]
So, all the students got Somalia, as a country, because that was going to be on like no fly list for any future. Geography projects. So we took them step by step like go to create a source There's your username There's your password This is that Google

[00:41:39.000]
slide where they each got a copy.

[00:41:42.000]
Ok. Notice this about it I'm doing it on the board while they're following along on their computers. All right, scroll down, click on Galea pose. Opposing Viewpoints if you need your password it's this, and then just taken and click on reference sort by

[00:41:58.000]
newest pick the most current reference article.

[00:42:01.000]
Use the citation tool and paste that citation here. So we kind of tediously and painstakingly take these freshmen within the first week or two of class through all of our databases, using Somalia, as our as our topic.

[00:42:20.000]
And, you know, we have green and white days as students have alternating days and when you're on like the seventh class in a row.

[00:42:30.000]
It does feel tedious, but the feedback we get from students is really positive.

[00:42:36.000]
They like that we take the time they like seeing all the tools we're walking around and Oh did you click there Oh did you notice this oh you can send it to your Google Drive, and things like that.

[00:42:49.000]
So, we saw a huge impact from this activity. So, teachers started reaching out to me and saying you know like a science teacher would reach out and say, I sent students out to do research and a bunch of the freshmen were in this database I didn't even

[00:43:11.000]
know we had which of course I had been like hey we have science in context everyone you should use this, but it was seeing that students using it, that kind of helped bring some of our more reluctant teachers on board, and then students coming to me and

[00:43:28.000]
saying like I have to do it, a thing for my social studies elective Can I still use US history and context or can I only use that when I'm with you. So that helped clear up a lot of misconceptions staff and students had about databases and how they work

[00:43:45.000]
and again, things I think as librarians we're so used to using them that it doesn't occur to us yes you can use it you know so now at the beginning of every database presentation and you have access to these databases 24 seven.

[00:43:59.000]
You can be in Antarctica and as long as you have an internet connection you can use our databases so that's become kind of my, my catchphrase and kids will say as long as you could be in Antarctica.

[00:44:12.000]
As long as you have the internet you can use our databases. So, kind of, that helps spread the word.

[00:44:19.000]
Um. Another thing that happened during remote learning. That's been really successful and it's been surprising to me is, we had a new social studies teacher who teaches psychology and she reached out to me and she said, I love librarians.

[00:44:35.000]
I want my kids to just research two different psychologists, I'm going to ask them to pick which one they would hire to be a psychology professor at their university, and I want them to use databases.

[00:44:49.000]
So we partner together.

[00:44:53.000]
I demonstrated how I would research, I'm a psychologist using biography and context, I picked somebody different I can't remember who.

[00:45:02.000]
And then we sent the kids off to go find their information, and do that and I hung out in the zoom and she put me into breakout rooms with kids that needed additional help, but what I did is I wrote down things that the students said when we came back

[00:45:17.000]
together like wow, the database made it so easy. This was better than Google. And my favorite was this only took me a few minutes, and I think I did a pretty good job and the teacher hopped right into google classroom and looked at the students work and

[00:45:32.000]
was like, Yes, actually, you did a really good job. So, I'm just like, I keep saying the databases just are going to make your life so much easier. So word got out about the psychology activity this teacher Caitlin started telling people oh we did this

[00:45:50.000]
really cool thing. It took the class period, sent the kids off to do this, Mrs. What were was there available the whole time to help anybody out. Well, it turned into all these other things teachers came to me and they were like, well, we're getting ready

[00:46:05.000]
to talk about controversial topics. I want to give them a topic, and I want them to quickly go out into the databases, and do some research so this one teacher said my topics going to be should students have homework.

[00:46:19.000]
Students can pick yes or no, and then use our databases to find three current resources that support argument, find a quote or fact saved it.

[00:46:30.000]
Then I the freshman English got in touch with me and they're like, Hey, I heard you're doing this really cool thing with the 10th grade English students.

[00:46:39.000]
Is there any way we can have them research a topic related to the Odyssey just real quick just to kind of get them rolling with this before we start reading and maybe they'll come to class with some knowledge they can share, again, pick a topic related

[00:46:54.000]
to the Odyssey, pick a character or something like that using the databases find three sources of information find an important factor quote, put it in the table below, and save it and I'm always like these databases create the citations for you.

[00:47:09.000]
So, there are so many different variations of this, I've had teachers, borrow it from someone else and send me their revised version and say like, Hey, is there any way you can do this with my class next week.

[00:47:23.000]
So, this simple little thing just sending them out, find three quick facts, and I will tell you, students go to the Gale databases. They do their their favorites.

[00:47:36.000]
I'm something else we tried with a new science teacher last year she was, we had done like how do we say, or sources.

[00:47:45.000]
I know that our freshmen come to us from a very strong middle school program, where they learn about citations they practice aiding, but you know they get to high school and they've kind of forgotten.

[00:47:59.000]
So we started offering Earth Science extra credit activities where we sent them to the databases and give them really simple like search plate tectonics.

[00:48:12.000]
Click on reference. Pick one. Pick an article from the reference me find an interesting fact, put it into the Google Form and paste your citation into the Google form so really you just had to go out into the database.

[00:48:28.000]
You know we sent them to science in context later down the pike.

[00:48:32.000]
To find the most current newspaper article they could on fracking different things like that. And what we saw in the results actually informed how we went forward so if you look down at the bottom of the slide I put in yellow.

[00:48:45.000]
Somebody just grabbed the link to the, to the Gale page and so I was able to reconnect with that student and say hey, like, let's go over the citation tool and science and context again, somebody else, the topic was plate tectonics.

[00:49:02.000]
They looked up an article on fish so the teacher reached out to that student and was like hey, you did the extra credit we, we were looking for facts on plate tectonics.

[00:49:11.000]
So, how did you get to fish. And so just made those little connections there.

[00:49:19.000]
So that's, I shared these pictures here just to remind us how I don't know what situation you were in but we were remote for a really long time and I, we don't have tech integrators in my district, so it's kind of falls on us librarians and I came across

[00:49:38.000]
these photos the other day when I was trying to find things to add to this slideshow. So, I'm in my very early career I was a children's librarian so that's my wealth puppet, and a teacher was having trouble rooming and zooming and asked me to help them

[00:49:55.000]
troubleshoot so my wolf puppet is a standard for the student in the middle side you can kind of see his headphones and just the top of his head just like most of us with our students when they were on zoom.

[00:50:07.000]
And so, I'm be creative, I completely forgot I had this crazy setup going trying to troubleshoot the issue she was having and be persistent and our teachers I know are feeling overwhelmed and even though we're like, no, this is going to using these databases,

[00:50:25.000]
it's going to make your life so much easier. Sometimes they're just fall.

[00:50:29.000]
So don't give up, or get discouraged.

[00:50:32.000]
And don't take it personally it's hard you're like, I have this thing and I can help you and it's going to be amazing and teacher sometimes they're like I can't right now is not personal and find your early adopters and utilize them.

[00:50:46.000]
If you're not connecting with your state association, like, I encourage you to reach out, New Hampshire has such a robust group of like, friendly, helpful school librarians like you can send something out to the list sir where you're like, help, they

[00:51:02.000]
just asked me to give a presentation on fair use in five minutes at the English department meeting, and people will like people will send you stuff and be like use mine take mine tweak it to what you want, and also reach out when you're struggling because

[00:51:19.000]
sometimes we're the only librarians in our building and that's lonely and find your support. And what I see a lot of. I get a lot of library students in here to do their practice them with me and what I tell them is every library in school is different

[00:51:36.000]
so do what works for your students, and your staff, and you what's going really well for somebody, the next town over might not work for you and that's, that's okay.

[00:51:49.000]
So, um, I am going to stop my share because that is me. I'm done. And I'm happy to take any questions.

[00:52:01.000]
Thank you, Kristen that was fantastic. Okay. Do we have looks like we have a couple in here.

[00:52:07.000]
Stacy I think you're reading them so I'll let you take that over. Looks like she's typing one. I have a question to before we get to those so now I know you had shared with us that your school was out or virtual I should say, until just this April April

[00:52:23.000]
2021. How many did you have a lot of teachers that were your early adopters, we call them champions we tend to come champions a lot. Yeah. Did you have a lot that we're already on board.

[00:52:35.000]
Did you feel like a lot were scrambling needing help, or when when you were virtual, or did you see that you know I'm guessing you saw that number grow what what was your experience in that respect.

[00:52:46.000]
It was well we went into remote learning very abruptly. So it was kind of crickets. In the beginning, because I think everyone was just like, Wait what, and so I just made myself available and sent out gentle friendly, helpful little things.

[00:53:08.000]
My champions were fantastic and would email me updates and say, Oh, you know like, I just used, you know I just did this really great thing with the database, and then I might reach out to other people in their department and be like, Oh, Mr Churchill.

[00:53:24.000]
I'm just shared that he had really great success doing this, let me know if you want me to set this up for you.

[00:53:31.000]
I got a lot of takers on the extra credit because I started offering like you give me the topic, I will create the extra credit activity. I will go over it and I will share the names with you have students who are successful so all you have to do is give

[00:53:47.000]
them the extra credit in whichever way you decide to most of those teachers did take a look at the results but I offered like let me just give me a topic, I will create an activity that you can share on your google classroom for the kids to do.

[00:54:04.000]
Um, it was hard we ended up, which was the one of the great things, but the only great thing about remote learning is it gave district librarians we don't ever get to me.

[00:54:17.000]
So we were able to meet weekly and then we met weekly with instructional coaches which had never happened in the history of our district. So through that we developed a really strong partnership and pushed out stuff, we started doing a weekly newsletter

[00:54:33.000]
from the librarians, an instructional coaches, highlighting different things.

[00:54:39.000]
I don't know if that answered the question but yeah, kind of a crazy time. Yeah.

[00:54:46.000]
For everyone right but it's it's.

[00:54:48.000]
I'm always curious to hear. We did get a few more questions. One, and I am going to share the support site in just a moment but how did you connect with parents, where was that something you that worked with the teachers on to share the, or do you now

[00:55:04.000]
like this even going into the school year. How do you promote the digital resources with parents really, um, we send stuff out to parents but it goes out in such an unwieldy kind of email that I feel like it gets lost.

[00:55:19.000]
So my big thing is promoting, I just try to promote my site which provides a, you know, students can access the databases right off our utilitarian Library website and really working a lot with public library as well.

[00:55:36.000]
But I haven't done anything directly for parents I know I can lower levels, our teachers do and that's something I do need to work on so that parents can say hey you have, you know, I was parent of a teenager who I knew his school librarian and I know

[00:55:53.000]
he had access to Gale databases like what. And so, of course right now I would say you should be using biography and context that would give you everything you need for this project.

[00:56:05.000]
So, but that's something I do want to work on is spreading the word more right now my biggest pushes band like students than teachers.

[00:56:15.000]
They're actually what you mentioned public libraries and a question came through on one of our attendees is a public from a public library and she said she doesn't have a good connection with the schools and she asked Where do you recommend starting.

[00:56:30.000]
Um, I just like went and introduced myself to the teen librarian when I started.

[00:56:37.000]
And because we share a catalog we can do a lot of really neat things so during the summer, I send graphic novels and manga and extra copies of the really popular books over to the public library, we can just quickly change their locations and they can

[00:56:51.000]
live at the Public Library for the summer. During the school year, she'll send me things here so we kind of swap things back and forth so we had this long established kind of partnership with the public library.

[00:57:04.000]
I was a teen Services Librarian for a very long time so I remembered how lonely It was during the school day when all the teenagers are in slow. So I've really made a big push.

[00:57:19.000]
So Emily our new teen library and I have decided we're kind of CO library being co library being the teacher, the teenagers of our community and really working together so at.

[00:57:32.000]
Hopefully, you know you can reach out and and just kind of establish some sort of connection, even if it's just agreeing to post flyers for any events they have going on talking them up.

[00:57:45.000]
I've invited our team librarians comment she does really great. Tick Tock videos, we can't take talk for school, but I can share her.

[00:57:59.000]
Yeah.

[00:58:01.000]
So, I don't know if that helps. That's very helpful. And then there's another question came through referring to the approach of a seat at the table.

[00:58:09.000]
Heather asked, Did you participate in department had meetings, how did you collaborate with individual teachers to discover and meet those informational needs.

[00:58:19.000]
I do not participate in department had meetings, um, so this is a big push, I've been, you know, double ASL says your library and should have a seat at the table should be on it committee should be on this committee should be on that committee.

[00:58:34.000]
I am on the it committee and one of our other librarians is on the website committee, but they haven't met.

[00:58:42.000]
So that's been something I'm really fighting for. I can't leave my library, I do have coverage one block a day for my prep, which is never really a prep it's but it's nice to know that at least during third block somebody's going to come in I can go to

[00:58:57.000]
the bathroom.

[00:58:59.000]
So it's been mostly me trying to snag people, and sending out emails and putting notes in people's mailboxes in the morning so that has been a really big struggle for me because I would like if I want that bigger audience.

[00:59:18.000]
One thing I did do is I've department hopped every year so my first year I was in the English department.

[00:59:27.000]
The second year I was on the science department. Last year I was part of the Social Studies Department and this year, I'm going to be part of the wellness department so health and PE, and in, try and make connection so at least when we have department

[00:59:40.000]
meetings. I've been trying to you know spread myself our pack, you're a part of it. And I'm sure that took time to write this doesn't happen overnight but little by little I mean like you, like you said, it really started with what your early adopter

[00:59:57.000]
and led you down this path.

[00:59:59.000]
And the word got out fast, it sounds like that's fantastic.

[01:00:04.000]
Well, we did it. Someone also asked if they would like to connect with you Do you have a Twitter account or anything, public that you share that way. Um, I do not, tweet, I try I go to sessions I say okay I haven't, I do have a Twitter account.

[01:00:20.000]
And then, I'm, I try to unplug when I leave school, and so I don't tweet, but feel free to like Google me and email me or you can send my email to that person I'd be happy to connect that way.

[01:00:36.000]
Perfect.

[01:00:38.000]
All right, Thank you. Thank you, Kristen.

[01:00:41.000]
Well, folks, and thank you so much for, for sharing that last button answering all those questions. I do want to share with you just a last couple moments here as we're a couple minutes over our time.

[01:00:52.000]
We do have some great materials both Christy and Kristen had mentioned a lot of tools that they use there's quite a few different tools available on the Galel support site and that's at support, Gale calm, Stacey if she hasn't already she'll be sharing

[01:01:09.000]
that link for you so you can grab that direct link out of the chat, but also it will also be included in your follow up email, what you'll find on the support site is you're going to find access to product information so specific to your site, you'll

[01:01:24.000]
find all of the URLs that you need your direct URLs to access your individual resources you can locate the title lists there. If you're looking for Mark records we have all your mark records and these are specific to your library your site location database

[01:01:39.000]
icons widgets, even your contact us where you can be connected to your customer success managers that Gale that are there for that one on one support the Training Center.

[01:01:49.000]
This is where we as trainers live most of the time you're going to find great tip sheets there's short video tutorials and those are great to push out if you have a newsletter or you're communicating on social media using those video tutorials because

[01:02:03.000]
they're under three minutes most around that two minute mark, and some of them focus on not just the resource but some focus on specific tools within the resources so maybe you're highlighting a tool within your resource, look to see if we have a tutorial

[01:02:16.000]
to share. There's also all of our recorded webinars, you'll find our brand new training decks that have been added there.

[01:02:22.000]
And those training decks are literally PowerPoint slides that you can use and take them into whatever type of if you're doing, maybe you're at a faculty meeting or department meeting, and you can pick and choose you don't have you're not required to use

[01:02:37.000]
the entire deck, but we've given you a sample of what is available and we've done the work for you. There's also great projects for individual resources and you'll find loads of scavenger hunts and even some lesson plans there.

[01:02:50.000]
And then finally, when we talk about promoting resources, Christy had shared some of the bookmarks that are available that she's grabbed from the Galel support site, you're going to find all of those great tools under the marketing materials bookmarks

[01:03:03.000]
posters digital assets so everything you need to promote your resources on social media, all social media avenues, we have something for everything there.

[01:03:13.000]
You're also going to find great email templates beginning of the year you want to reach out to your library community, connect with parents use those email templates there's also communication templates, and then even some social media posts available.

[01:03:26.000]
So here's an example of some of those features that on the screen that you'll see that you're going to find in that Gale support site.

[01:03:35.000]
Let us know if there are any questions to end the session I want to first and foremost, thank both Christy James and Kristen Whitworth for sharing their very informative and helpful stories of how they connect with and promote with their teachers and

[01:03:52.000]
their students have with all of their Gale resources we truly are very honored to have had you both as guest speakers today and cannot thank you enough for all of your time and all the information that you shared with us today folks if you need to connect

[01:04:06.000]
with your Gale Customer Success managers for one on one support their email addresses here again the support site is available, anyone can access it and grab information and then finally the training survey we would love to get your feedback on the session,

[01:04:21.000]
feel free to make any comments and also if you're looking for additional training or you have some ideas that are where you're needing support and training help, you can leave that in the comments to we ought we take a look at that.

[01:04:31.000]
But that wraps our session, we do have more sessions coming up over the next couple of months, you'll find those in the training center on the support site, or if you want to take this direct link, you can go right to all of our recorded and upcoming

[01:04:46.000]
webinars, but that wraps our session we will stay on the line if there's any additional questions, but thank you all so much for your time. I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

[01:04:55.000]
I really learned a lot and I know Stacy did too. So thank you all and thank you, Kristen and Christy for all of your time and Stacey doing a great job in the q amp a box at me, and I'll just add my thanks everybody and we got a lot of kudos for Christine.

[01:05:10.000]
Kristen in the q&a and chat as well.

[01:05:16.000]
So Priscilla yes there is a template that will be an email, I'm sorry. You're asking if there's an email template Yes. So, for those additional questions, I am going to I can share with you real quick where you can find that information for those of you

[01:05:32.000]
that want to stick around.

[01:05:34.000]
So on the support site. Under the marketing materials.

[01:05:38.000]
If you you can click by browse materials, you can go right to the homepage. Let's start with the homepage, because here you can jump to browse materials browse by type uncover special themes we have this brand new curated collection of information, called

[01:05:55.000]
fresh, your fresh start, you're going to find a lot of great content there you may want to start there. If you're looking at, resources and marketing materials and training tools all in one place.

[01:06:06.000]
This is a great starting point.

[01:06:08.000]
If we go by browse materials.

[01:06:13.000]
You can go into your specific product so let's say I do have Galen context Elementary.

[01:06:21.000]
I can select Galen context Elementary. And you can see all that we have available. And this is specific to this resource so any of these digital assets will have the Galen context Elementary, either the text there or it might be an image from that resource

[01:06:38.000]
you're going to find that in all of the social media web banner post above here is where you're going to find all of those email templates, so you can see we have communication digital assets and then at the bottom printable materials, and these are just

[01:06:51.000]
the marketing materials, this does not include all of the training materials.