Blog #9 - Alive Studios

Through augmented reality, Alive Studio is making reading (and math) come to life!

You might be thinking, "What does augmented reality mean?" Well, rather than entering a computer-generated environment, as in virtual reality, augmented reality adds to the reality you would already see rather than replacing it (Emspak, 2018). Think 3D without the need of glasses. 

Cynthia B. Kaye, an elementary teacher & CEO of a company that provided educational products,  noticed that her sons were struggling with learning to read. When she was unable to find the resources needed to help them, Alive Studios was created. The program is designed for on-level PreK-Kindergarten instruction but could also be used as an intervention for students in first through third grade as well as ESL, RTI, at risk, and special needs students up to third grade.

Here are two short informational videos about Alive Studio:

 

As you can tell from these videos, the augmented reality paired with animals really created an engaging, fun, and memorable way to teach letter sounds, phonics, and reading. This product could be utilized as part of a whole group instruction to introduce new concepts. For example, in my school, the CD teachers focus on one letter per week. Using Alive Studios would be a wonderful instruction tool that would really leave a lasting impression on the students. The great thing is that this program isn't just for the classroom. Check out Gwinnett County Public Library who is the first public library to roll out Learning Alive. 

Alive Studios offers the following products: Letters Alive Plus, Math Alive, Learning Alive Plus, and Storybooks Alive.  Here is a link to their 2018 Summer/Fall Product Guide.

 

Click here for case studies and video testimonials. They have a great blog that is full of great information as well. Below is a news segment from ABC World News.

Here is a great song produced by Alive Studios to help the kids learn more about the Zoo Crew Alphabet Animals. This upbeat song allows the kids to clear their minds, have fun, sing, and dance. It could be used during a class transition, clean up time, or just when a brain break is needed.

Additional Resources:
Emspak, J. (2018, May 31). What is augmented reality? Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/34843-augmented-reality.html

Blog #8 - Code Club

Makerspace is a big movement right now in schools and school libraries. In my research on finding out more about what different librarians are added into their makerspaces, I found a blog posting from Jessica Snow on the Young Adult Library Services (YALS), a division of the American Library Association. The blog was titled “Looking to create a makerspace in your library? Here are some ideas” and listed several great suggestions for various tools, but I was mostly drawn to her suggestion of Code Club.

Code Club is a worldwide network of coding clubs for children ages 9-13 and they have a great mission statement, “We think all children should have the opportunity to learn to code, no matter who they are or where they come from”. Through the site, a librarian is able to connect with Code Club volunteers in their area to start a club at their school. Code Club provides easy to follow project directions to make games, animations, and websites. The coding projects are based on Scratch, HTML & CSS, and Python. A smart and helpful feature is that the projects gradually introduce coding concepts. This allows for the students to develop and grow their understanding of digital making, but it also means that the adult running the club doesn’t need to be a computing expert. 

We are living in an age where technology is growing at a rapid pace and for our students to be able to compete in the job market they have to have knowledge of various different digital tools, techniques, and platforms. Coding is a great place to start because it requires tools that most schools already have, computers and internet access. By learning to code students have the possibility to improve academic performances, build soft skills, and pave a path to the future. The blog post from Tynker, Ten reasons why kids should learn to code, explains this in more detail and I have to say that I fully agree with the post.

Working in the world of education, our job is to help prepare our students for the future and we cannot ignore the fact that this also includes the understanding of technology. Part of the purpose of a library is to help meet the needs of our patrons, and sometimes that means making predictions on what we think will be the most helpful. I only see benefits to teaching students coding. R. David Lankes, a professor at Syracuse University, said it best when he stated, “Librarianship is not about artifacts, it is about knowledge and facilitating knowledge creation. So what should we be spending our precious resources on? Knowledge creation tools, not the results of knowledge creation.”