READY PLAYER ONE

“Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.” 

This quote pretty much sums up what life is like for most people living in 2044. The income gap is not so much a gap anymore as it is a gulf separating the extremely rich and completely destitute. Wade, one of the have-nots, lives in a dismal world of poverty and lonliness, and the only time he feels alive or connected is when he is plugged into the virtual reality of Oasis, a simulation of the real world. Although Wade is content living in this virtual utopia, his only real shot at any sort of upward mobility in society is through a puzzle designed by the mysterious creator of Oasis himself. The winner of this puzzle is promised fame and riches beyond compare, and people would kill, quite literally, to solve it.

ME BEFORE YOU

Me Before You is a novel that I only read because it was September's pick for a book club I belong to with a few friends from college. I was skeptical at first since I am generally leery of love stories and all things sentimental, but when I brought up the book title during lunch one day and several colleagues from the English department assured me that is was a great read, I became intrigued.

Using Padlet to Teach Source Credibility

The first ELA 9 project we worked on this included web credibility as a main learning target. We used the open source program Padlet as tool to help us check for student understanding, and I found it a great means of formative, real-time assessment.

Honors Biology Research Part I: Beginning Research

Each year the BVH library works closely with the Honors Biology team to engage students in the research process for a year-long project.  The project requires students to come up with a topic and hypothesis, write a literature review, complete an experiment, and then report on that experiment. Although the middle school teachers and librarians do an incredible job preparing students for high school research, these kids still require much support throughout the process, and we are happy to have the opportunity to teach these skills.

Google Tour Builder

In light of the current Ebola crisis in West Africa, the 12th grade English Language Arts teachers at The Hot Zone, which explores the origins and outbreaks of one of the most deadly viruses known to man. With all the information currently available on the outbreak, we wanted to give our students the opportunity to delve deeper into research of the virus. We gave groups of students the task of researching the outbreak with the intention of presenting to a specific target audience, ranging from American children to the citizens of East African countries. The major learning target was that students would be able to present complex and sensitive information to a target audience, focusing on what that specific group would need to know.
our school made a last-minute decision to start the year off with the novel

Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT (a.k.a. me finally getting serious about graphic novels)

I have a colleague in the science department who is a huge aficionado of comics and graphic novels, so when he saw Mind MGMT on the shelf in our library and recommended it, I knew I needed to give it a try.  I've been wanting to get more into graphic novels lately, and this seemed like just the book to get me started.

FAR FAR AWAY - A Modern Fairy Tale

Fairy tales are so en vogue right now, and I'll be the first to say that I am very very into this trend.  I've always loved fairy tales, and the public's new interest in the darker originals of these stories is even more exciting.  TV producers of shows like Grimm and Once upon a Time have jumped on the fairy tale bandwagon, and authors have started to do the same over the past few years.

WINGER

"I get by with a little help from friends" - The Beatles

This Beatles quote was in my head a lot while I read this book. Andrew Smith’s Winger is full of situations where the main character and narrator, Ryan Dean West, relies on his closest friends to get him through the most tumultuous year of his young life. 

Megaphones and Mayhem in DARE ME

Okay. I just want to start by stating that Megan Abbott's Dare Me is a novel about cheerleaders.  Pass all the judgements about the book's subject that you want; I did the same thing when I picked it up.  However, let me go on by stating that, as someone who does not like is typically hesitant about picking up books about cheerleaders, I was sorely (and gladly!) mistaken.

THE KINGDOM OF LITTLE WOUNDS: not for the faint-of-heart!

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Susann Cokal's debut novel The Kingdom of Little Wounds is the story of two young, lower-class girls caught up in a very adult, upper-class world of treachery and deceit. While the Scandenavian city of Skyggehavn celebrates the impending wedding of Princess Sophia, a terrible illness plagues much of the city's nobility, including many members of the royal family.  Ava Bingen, a seamstress, and Midi Sorte, a slave, find themselves at the center of a power struggle amidst the chaos and fragility of the young princes and princesses meant to succeed the throne.  

THE RADLEYS (no relation to Boo)

"Your instincts are wrong.  Animals rely on insticts for their daily survival, but we are not beasts. We are not lions or sharks or vultures. We are civilized, and civilization only works if insticts are supressed.  So do your bit for society and ignore those dark desires inside you. -The Abstainer's Handbook (second edition), p. 54"

How to Love your Summer Reading Assignment

It's a time of year every student and teacher looks forward to. Days are getting longer, shorts are getting, well, shorter, and Tank Top Tuesday is in full swing (did it ever really end?). Students are eagerly awaiting the days where they can spend their time as they please, completely free from school work of any kind.  Free that is, until they receive their summer reading packets.

Here goes nothing!

Welcome to the Blue Valley High Library's first ever blog! Though we've been following some of our favorite bloggers for years, this is our first ever shot at joining the blogging community and documenting our own experiences as we explore new ways of teaching research and digital literacy skills in the library.

We hope that this page offers our staff and students a peek at what we do here in the BVH library, as well as an opportunity for us to reflect on our roles as media specialists. Follow this blog for updates on class projects, new tech tools, and (of course) books we loved!