Using Book Creator & Educational Technology Tools to Engage Students in Reading

The Gorham Middle School (GMS) library website is a rich resource for students to discover and access reading materials from their home or classroom using their MLTI iPads. Librarian Suzanne Liacos-Dix has created an extensive collection of Book Talk videos, a Google Classroom stream, and a selection of Google Forms to engage students in sharing their literary passions with others. This year, in collaboration with 7th grade teacher, Sherry Coyne and the GMS technology integrator, Terri Dawson, the library website has a new feature to help engage students in Silent Sustained Reading (SSR).

The GMS library website features a link to join a Google Classroom where Mrs. Dix streams library announcements like new book arrivals, book fair information, and author visit events. She has also created a Google Form where students can request a featured “Favorites Shelf” to display their top picks as well as a form to request new books to be added to the library. The forms are student-friendly and provide students an opportunity to have a voice in the library collection. The Google Classroom stream allows students across grade levels to have conversations that they might not otherwise from expressing excitement about a new book release or sharing thoughts on upcoming events with others. The stream is also an opportunity for Mrs. Dix to help students learn how to communicate effectively with others and become good digital citizens. Mrs. Dix says there is a long waiting list for the Favorites Shelf that just started this September. It has been extraordinarily popular with the students!

Like many middle schools, Gorham Middle School has a Silent Sustained Reading period during the day to allow students to dive into a book of their choice for a set amount of time. Sometimes getting students to actively engage in SSR can be a challenge. Sherry Coyne, a 7th grade teacher on the Little River team reached out to Mrs. Dix about an idea she had heard about that might help support students who have a difficult time with the SSR period. Mrs. Dix talked to the technology integrator and a new, creative solution was born: Meet a Book Mondays. Using Book Creator, an app for web browsers and tablets that “enables students to create and read multimodal digital books,” ¹ along with audio recording and image editing tools on the MLTI teacher MacBooks, Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Dawson created a comic book style book that is full of book previews, character descriptions, book release announcements, audio recordings of chapters and more. The book has a vibrant and fun design to grab student interest. The Meet a Book Mondays book is projected for the class all together during SSR. Students fill out a feedback form on their iPads and draw whatever comes to mind as they listen. The following day, students have the option to read the books that they learned about. Students can come back to Meet a Book Mondays any time as it is readily accessible via their iPads. Mrs. Coyne has seen a positive result since introducing the project to her students, they are more engaged and she feels like the SSR time is becoming more valuable to students. They are already exploring a new Google Maps project based on the response from students on a particular book that they learned about through Meet a Book Mondays. They plan to virtually follow and map out a character’s journey around the world. After hearing about the success on the Little River team, other teachers are beginning to use the Meet a Book Mondays book with their classes for SSR as well!

Mrs. Dix’s library website and the Meet a Book Mondays Book Creator Project are great examples of blending educational technology tools into every day learning to provide accessibility and actively engage students in a creative way. Using their MLTI devices to create and access content, both teachers and students are connecting and discovering new resources to support reading. You can see the Gorham Middle School Library website and the ongoing Meet a Book Mondays project here: https://sites.google.com/view/gorhammiddle/home

¹University of Massachusetts Amherst. (n.d.). Learner-Centered Tools, Book Creator. Online Tools for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved October 18, 2022 from https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/learner-centered-tools/book-creator/.

The Telling Room Statewide Writing Contest Open for Student Submissions

The Telling Room, a literary arts education organization in Maine has opened submissions for a Statewide writing contest. Youth youth ages 6 – 18 can submit writing samples in all forms of creative and personal writing – the theme is open.

The grand prize winner will receive a $250 Award and will be published in The Telling Room’s Annual Anthology.

Submissions close on November 30, 2022.

For more information and to make a submission visit The Telling Room website.

Download a flyer to help promote.

Media Release: Fourth Grade Teacher Sarah Collins Honored With Prestigious Milken Educator Award

A Hermon elementary teacher was surprised today as one of America’s top teachers. In front of a vibrant schoolwide assembly of cheering students, appreciative colleagues, local dignitaries and media, Sarah Collins, a fourth grade science teacher at Patricia A. Duran School, received the $25,000 Milken Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation. Collins is the first teacher to receive the Award in the Hermon Public School District since the initiative began in Maine in 1990. The cash prize is unrestricted.

The Awards will recognize up to 40 elementary educators in the 2022-23 school year. Over the past 35 years, more than $140 million in funding, including more than $73 million in individual Awards, has been devoted to the overall Milken Awards initiative, which includes powerful professional development opportunities throughout recipients’ careers.

Milken Educator Awards Vice President Stephanie Bishop was joined by Maine Commissioner of Education Pender Makin in presenting Collins with the Award and welcoming her into the national Milken Educator Network. Both Bishop and Makin are members of the 2001 Milken Educator Award class.

“Sarah has found ways to create a ‘living classroom’ for her students, creatively combining innovative technology practices with outdoor experiences that teach young learners about our world,” said Stephanie Bishop, vice president of the Milken Educator Awards and a 2001 Virginia Milken Educator. “Through virtual meetups with international scientists and online field trips around the globe, Sarah has inspired her students to connect to science in real and meaningful ways, and for that, we honor her as Maine’s newest Milken Educator.”

Hailed as the “Oscars of Teaching,” Milken Educator Awards inspire and uplift with the unique stories of educators making a profound difference for students, colleagues and communities. The specific states and schools on this year’s winners’ list remain a closely guarded secret until each Award is announced.

“Sarah brings her passion for science and learning to her students each and every day by providing them with engaging, immersive, project-based experiences. Her interdisciplinary approach connects science and technology across content areas and allows her students to apply the deep inquiry, critical thinking, and research and design, and other foundational skills they learn in her classes to other parts of their lives. She is a true innovator and a lifelong learner in every sense of the word, constantly seeking opportunities to strengthen her practice, support her colleagues, and build connections with her community. The Maine Department of Education is so proud to join the Milken Family Foundation and the entire Hermon community in honoring Sarah with this well-deserved recognition,” said Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin.

More About Sarah Collins

Using Technology and Ecology to Teach Science: Collins secured a Maine Environmental Education Grant to develop an outdoor classroom and garden “lab” where children learn about soil quality and plant growth. Students found fallen trees that became raised beds, and Collins solicited donations of soil and seeds from the community. Growing vegetables helps cement students’ understanding of where their food comes from, and produce from the garden ends up on the menu in the school cafeteria. Because Duran is in a rural area near Bangor, Collins uses technology to expand students’ experiences beyond the classroom, arranging virtual meetings with scientists in a multitude of locations and occupations. Her young scientists have learned from a wildlife ecologist studying coyote behavior in South Carolina, a Hawaiian volcanologist, and a scientist from a local university as she performed experiments in Antarctica.

Multi-pronged Approach to Learning: Dedicated, empathetic and determined to reach every student, Collins uses multiple methods of assessment to encourage children to express their scientific reasoning and understanding. Students write focus questions, record and discuss observations, make drawings, analyze data, and perform self-assessments using notebook entries and checklists. Collins works with the University of Maine’s Research in STEM Education (RiSE) Center, bringing research-based, hands-on learning experiences back to Duran. She worked with Duran’s media specialist to develop a 3D computer design club and has presented at the Maine Science Teachers Association’s annual conference on the use of student notebooks in the science classroom. The project-based learning module on habitats Collins developed for the Maine Department of Education’s MOOSE (Maine Online Opportunities for Sustained Education) platform has been used by students across Maine, around the U.S. and internationally.

Meaningful Partnerships with Parents: Collins partners with parents to keep families involved in their children’s learning. During the pandemic, she researched avenues to get resources into students’ hands, led frequent virtual field trips and found accessible, hands-on science lessons students could execute at home.

Education: A graduate of the University of Maine Orono, Collins earned a bachelor’s in elementary education in 2008 and a master’s in literacy education in 2014.