The students have been sending in photos they have taken of their Gnomes at home and we are busily adding these to our Flickr Album so we can share the fun and joy with the greater community. Many of the students have said they are going to make more gnomes at home with their families as well. The gnome hats seemed to be the clincher. Once the kids say them they were hooked and worked diligently to produce their own pompom gnomes by the end of the session.
We will add the photos from the 6th-grade activities to the same Flickr Album as they roll in.
Today we were honoured with a special visit by the sub-director and librarian of Maquilishuat School here in El Salvador. During the visit, we were able to show our visitors around the physical and digital LRC as well as share good practices in the running and development of school libraries as resources centres for learning. Our primary focus was on educational provisions for the school community, collection access, and development, community service projects, and digital equipment and resources.
The visit would not have been complete without an opportunity to explore experiential learning ideas featuring some of our favourite digital learning tools including Ozobot, Sphero Mini and Bolt, and Lego Robots, our beloved 3D printers and pens. We also had an opportunity to share our current VR and AR provisions including Oculus Quest, Google Cardboard, and Merge Cubes. These technologies while used by students from 6th-12th grade in certain subjects will soon form the backbone of our proposed LRC Mixed Reality Lab or MR Lab for short.
The MR Lab is an internal project which the LRC Team has begun to develop in conjunction with the ICT department. Through this project, we endeavor to insert AR and VR experiences more predominantly into student learning across disciplines both within and outside of lessons, in a safe, dedicated space, within the LRC. It will provide opportunities to explore both virtual and augmented reality through preexisting experiences across platforms, as well as provide the resources for students to view and interact with their own design projects in 3D and 360-degree formats. We will share more on this in future blog posts, as the project develops further.
As educators, we believe it is vital for schools to work together as part of the larger educational community. This is a vision we share with many of the educational organisations in the country including La Escuela Maquilishuat. Communication, shared initiatives, and support between centres of learning and their libraries are fundamental to meeting the current and projected needs of our school communities and it is important that we explore ways in which to address the challenges facing institutions, together. Our meeting, therefore, would not have been complete without a discussion of the concerns facing libraries today and strategies for further improvement and outreach within our educational communities. As a result, we have also identified further opportunities through which to further extend the relationships that currently exist between our two schools and have planned to meet up again in the new year to discuss additional collaborative initiatives and events between the two schools.
One such opportunity was that of the Sleeping Mat Club in which students work together outside of normal lessons to create sleeping mats out of plastic bags for those less fortunate than themselves.
Here is the link to our Flickr Album of photos of the visit.
A new reading club has launched!
The club, which was created by three 11th grade students in conjunction with Ms. Melissa from the LRC seeks to empower students to select fiction and nonfiction books for reading, discussion, and sharing.
The reading club bears the name of "Between the Linez", a name chosen to reflect one of the objectives of the club, which is to dig more in-deeply into each book, as well as explore different book-related activities. The club members will be working hard to encourage all ABC Readers to carry out the challenges that they are planning and preparing.
The club will meet every Tuesday from 2:00 pm to 2:45 pm in Google Meet. The entire community of high school students has been invited to take part if interested, in this new club and in taking it to the next level.
Durante el mes de noviembre los estudiantes del Club ReciLectura, planificaron y compartieron unos videos con un grupo ni帽os de la escuela Arturo Ambrogi y de esta forma ayudarles en la comprensi贸n lectora.
Cuento: El ni帽o que no comparte, escrito e ilustrado por nuestra exalumna Fiorella Vel谩squez.
We were asked for a tour but prepared an experience for them that we hope not only illustrated many of the functions and purposes of the LRC in an engaging way but also, highlight ways in which they as future librarians can engage members of their communities through experiences which can be adapted across subjects and grades, at a low cost or no cost.
This was an enjoyable experience for all and many important connections were made.
We have encouraged the students to keep in touch and keep us abreast of their professional endeavors. We do hope that the students will take us up on our offer to support them as they move from university to their first library postings.
It is a wonderful thing to hear that we are considered by many, including university professors to be the best school library in the country. The LRC has come a very long way since 2008 and we endeavor to ensure that the innovative learning, resource collections, community engagement, and support continue to develop and improve, in the benefit of our ABC and local communities.
Please click on the link to view more photos from this event.
Written by Ana Sof铆a Santamar铆a-10th Grade Student
As ABC students, we foresee that our futures will be bright as reflected by our context and the educational opportunities we regularly receive. Most of us are confident that we will become excellent doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. However, not all the youth in El Salvador have these certainties, but most dream of becoming a professional.
At our school, all girls know that they can pursue any interest they desire; yet, outside our community, not all girls believe they can do so. Due to this, in El Salvador, less than one-third of graduates in STEM are female. This saddening statistic led me to design a project to empower girls from low-income institutions by exposing them to the different branches and possibilities within STEM.
This year we participated once again in the Salvadoran Library Association's Cultural Week. This year was the 32nd and was declared the Ibero-American Year of Libraries- Libraries Building the Future.
One of the main challenges we focused on was the need to modify our approaches as we went from having personal contact with students and sharing learning experiences, in an environment rich in educational resources available to students, to a more restricted environment via online access and communications.
In doing so we were able to share how this experience not only allowed us to operate fully with modifications during the closure of spaces brought on by the pandemic but also impacted the manner in which we will operate post-pandemic. The result was a series of short workshops in which we taught our colleagues some basic practices for services that can be delivered electronically and with it provided a list of useful, free, resources that can be shared with the rest of the community.
We focused on the ease of use and the potential impact the following tools can bring to any library setting:
-Create interactive spaces with slides and Bitmoji
- Basic photo editing
- Google devices
- Websites
- Canva
It was a pleasure to always share with our fellow librarians and teachers, to create important links here at home and abroad, and continue to learn together as a community.
Taller: Superar los desaf铆os del encierro. El caso del Centro de Recursos de Aprendizaje de la Academia Britanica Cuscatleca (LRC).
Este a帽o participamos una vez m谩s en la Semana Cultural de la Asociaci贸n de Bibliotecarios Salvadore帽os. Este a帽o fue el n煤mero 32 y fue declarado A帽o Iberoamericano de las Bibliotecas - Bibliotecas Construyendo el Futuro.
En el contexto de la pandemia, compartimos con la comunidad m谩s amplia de bibliotecarios nuestras experiencias con los desaf铆os provocados por el cambio de espacios f铆sicos interactivos a espacios virtuales interactivos, as铆 como las herramientas que nos permitieron facilitar estos cambios.
Al hacerlo, reflexionamos sobre los desaf铆os de la educaci贸n en l铆nea, en particular la falta de acceso a nuestros recursos f铆sicos de ense帽anza (computadoras, colecciones de libros, equipos de impresi贸n de dise帽o 3D, conjuntos de electr贸nica y rob贸tica, la cocina y m谩s) y c贸mo logramos facilitar acceso electr贸nico al aprendizaje en estas 谩reas, aunque de manera diferente.
El principal desaf铆o fue, sin duda, nuestra mentalidad al pasar de tener contacto personal con los estudiantes y compartir experiencias de aprendizaje, en un entorno rico en recursos educativos disponibles para los estudiantes, a un entorno m谩s restringido a trav茅s del acceso y las comunicaciones en l铆nea. Al hacerlo, pudimos compartir c贸mo esta experiencia no solo nos permiti贸 operar completamente con modificaciones durante el cierre de espacios provocado por la pandemia, sino que tambi茅n impact贸 la forma en que operaremos despu茅s de la pandemia. El resultado fue una serie de talleres cortos en los que les ense帽amos a nuestros colegas algunos conceptos b谩sicos para los servicios que se pueden entregar electr贸nicamente y con ello proporcionamos una lista de recursos 煤tiles y gratuitos que se pueden compartir con el resto de la comunidad.
Al hacerlo, nos centramos en la facilidad de uso y el impacto potencial que las siguientes herramientas pueden aportar a cualquier entorno de biblioteca:
-Crear espacios interactivos con diapositivas y Bitmoji
- Edici贸n de fotos b谩sica
- Dispositivos de Google
- Sitios web
- Canva
Fue un placer compartir siempre con nuestros compa帽eros bibliotecarios y profesores, para crear v铆nculos importantes aqu铆 en casa y en el extranjero y seguir aprendiendo juntos como comunidad.
It was with a sense of great community pride that we launched the first-ever live-streamed ABC Digital Video Awards Ceremony known as DVA 2021 last evening. This provided a wonderful opportunity to highlight the best of ABC student filmmaking, in the secondary school. It was with no doubt a moment of great pride and triumph for everyone involved, from the animators and actors to the directors, producers, and staff members.
Do have a look at the short video below which highlights the nominees, winning producers, and their videos.
All of the nominees are to be congratulated for the hard work and dedication that lead them to be nominated for DVA 2021! Winning individuals and teams can derive an extra amount of satisfaction in knowing that they came out at the top of their respective categories.
The DVA Committee will arrange for in-school deliveries of trophies and awards for the upcoming weeks, for both X and Y cohorts. Special arrangements will be made for O Cohort participants. More on that later.
We will also create a special photo gallery for all of our DVA Nominees and Winners to help mark this special landmark for them, one which they can look back on over the years with a sense of joy and pride in their work as part of the ABC learning community.
Also, check out the live stream video of the event below and the DVA Website if you would like to know more about this exciting event and the work that leads up to it.
This week was Book Week in Secondary and what a wonderful Book Week it was. This was the second year we have held it completely online. This year, however, was a very different Book Week Experience from last year's event. This year, our librarians teamed up with librarians from the other IB schools in El Salvador, the Internacional Book Shop, and various authors from around the country to plan a variety of powerful activities. The LRC Team put together a Book Week website to which they added collections of challenges, video sessions, and book fair links.
LRC Challenges were provided for students and in some cases by students as was the case of the Read 2 Books per Month challenge. Additional activities included the Calligram and Creative Writing Exhibition challenges. A prize will be awarded to the top submission in each category.
During Book Week, students in 6th,7th, 9th, and 12th-grade students took part in a variety of activities.
There has been a lot going on this year, often in the background in ICT and at the LRC. It is now the time of the year when we get to showcase some of that work.
Here are some of the highlights for the next two weeks:
1. Earth Day is this Thursday so we have included a few different activities on our website for the students to take part in this week or over the weekend with their families.2. DVA Voting will begin this Wednesday morning and close on Sunday April 25th 6pm. Emails will go out to staff and students tomorrow morning which contain the voting form. The form(which is closed until tomorrow morning) can also be accessed via the DVA Website. *Only members of the school community will be able to log in, view the videos and vote.We have included a short teaser for DVA which highlights certain aspects of each nominated video, which is viewable by anyone with the link.
3. Next week is Book Week , but here is a sneak peak at what is going on behind the scenes. This is a special Book Week that has been put together by the member schools of the Salvadoran IB Schools group and several local organisations. We will be sharing the site with the ABC
community, this Friday. The site itself contains an array of activities for students abnd staff to take part in over the course of the week.During Book Week, we are also running live online sessions with certain grades through the KS3 HoYs in addition to setting up a discussion panel with our 12th grade IB students and those in a school in Paraguay, through the Spanish department.The International Book Store has set up an online book fair for staff and students as well and this to can be accessed directly from our website.4. Finally, we will continue promoting STEAM Fest as of next week with reminders about dates and requirements.
This will be the second time we have had to move both DVA and STEAM Fest online. Both have been revamped to meet the needs of online learning but STEAM Fest has is the event that has morphed the most. In developing this year's STEAM Fest we have done our best to ensure that relveant ICT project work has a place, as well as guided general challenges and guided open challenges as well. You can check out the 2021 Site as well as STEAM Fests past, here.Thanks for all of the hard work you do in promoting these school activities.The DVA, STEAM and LRC Teams greatly appreciate your support.
Each school year the LRC Team prepares a variety of fun activities and resources designed for students to learn more about their brains, how to keep them healthy and challenge them.
This year we are still teaching from home so we again had to find another way to do this. We have found that Google Sites has proven very useful for creating online themed events for the community. Just short of year from the day they locked things down in El Salvador due to COVID-19, we find ourselves publishing our newest resource via Google Sites.
Here is the link to our Brain Awareness Week Page.
We hope that members of our community will enjoy taking part in these activities.
Happy Friday Everyone!
ABC DVA
Safer Internet Day is celebrated at the ABC for an entire week each year. This year Safer Internet Day 2021 will be celebrated globally on February 9th, 2021 with a focus on the theme, Together for a better internet"
Here are some driving statements and questions to prompt powerful conversations focused on this topic:
Let's face it the internet is a powerful place to connect with others, but issues can occur.
How could we work together as a class, a school, a country or a planet to make it a better, safer place for everyone to connect?
Can you think of a few ideas that you as a student would be able to do to help make this happen?
This coming week students in each grade will work on a series of short mini lessons during tutor time and Life Skills. In doing so they will explore a variety of positive and negative impacts of the internet, as well as the various ways to conduct themselves in a safe, ethical and positive manner online, while making the most of the positive opportunities that are available.
We encourage you to browse our resources by grade level and engage in conversations with your child which focus on these topics.
We have also provided a list of videos for conversation starters as well as additional resource collections from leading organisations, lower down on the home page, which we hope you will find useful.
Let's make every day a safer internet day, together!
