Grad school is officially over

Today was the last day of my internship, and tomorrow is FSU's graduation, so I am officially done!

My transcript won't be finalized for probably another month, and I probably won't get my diploma for at least two months, but no more homework and no more going to two jobs!

It will be sad not being in the library every day, but I got these really sweet notes from students:



And the student who wrote me the lavender and white note above also gave me this really pretty watch bracelet.


I didn't realize these students cared that much, so it was really nice to know that they liked having me there.

Now I'm going to enjoy having no homework!

So close!

I just turned in my final big project!! I have one more smaller assignment to complete and my final evaluation, but then I'm done!

Internship observation

In a surprise twist, rather than the week after next like I thought it was going to be, my internship observation will be Monday and Tuesday of this coming week.

Apparently I got rescheduled, but no one ever told me. So. At least it will be out of the way, and I can relax over the last couple weeks of my internship, but the lesson I have coming up is for the week I thought my observation was going to be, not this coming week.

Bullying Display

My project for this week is creating a display and lesson that go together, so I created a bullying display (Thanks for the info, Laura B.!) and a cyberbullying lesson plan. Hopefully I'll teach the lesson next week to a small group of students, but for now, here are some picture of the display:

Fairy Tale Display

I took a couple pictures of my fairy tale display with my cell phone today.

Here is the bulletin board. It's basically lists of books grouped by fairy tale. The white parts are sparkly, and that doesn't really show up in the picture.



Here is a close-up of my version of Beauty and the Beast based on various public domain generic princess and generic beast/animal cliparts. I sort of envisioned a simplified scherenschnitte look, but it didn't come out quite as cool as I pictured in my head.

Halfway done!

It occurred to me that I'm past the halfway point of my internship. That's crazy!

So far this week I created my second display (fairy tale theme to go along with the fairy tale movies that are coming out this month). Hopefully I'll have pictures of that soon, and I'll post them here when I do. It didn't come out the way I pictured it in my head, but it still came out OK.

I also updated the library's copyright page as my assignment for the week. It's nothing special, but you can look at it here if you want to.

My First Display

UPDATED: Added better pictures

There's a display case in the front of the circulation desk, and it has been empty since I started my internship except for some fall leaf fabric draped over it. I asked if I could put stuff in there and was basically told to go for it.

As I was weeding one section of the collection, I noticed that there were a lot of nonfiction pirate books that have never been checked out. So I decided to make a little pirate-themed display to see if it might draw some interest to those books.

Here are some pictures:







I also made these little "X" signs and taped them to shelves close to where there are pirate books. There are also three different signs, one with pirate nonfiction books, one with pirate fiction books, and one with pirate graphic novels and put those signs in the appropriate sections. The nonfiction section also had room to display pirate books on the top of one of the shelves.

Teaching in the Library

Last week I taught two different kinds of lessons: a lesson on different kind of reference sources and a lesson on plagiarism. Now that I've been at my internship for over a month now and gotten some practice in, I feel a bit more comfortable doing the teaching part.

For the first time this week, a student came up to me and said, "Ms. Haft! Can you tell me what the difference between this big Spanish-English dictionary and the pocket Spanish-English dictionary is?" I was so excited that a) he remembered my name, and b) chose to ask me the question instead of any of the other adults that were right there.

Reference Lesson

Plagiarism Lesson

No more tests!

I'm getting ready to start the fourth week of my internship...almost a month done! So far I've observed some lessons, visited an elementary school and a high school library, learned how to check books in and out, put books on hold for students, and I've taught a couple lessons on print reference resources (dictionaries, thesauruses, atlases, encyclopedias, almanacs, etc.).

This coming week I'll teach more print reference lessons, teach a lesson on plagiarism, go to my first lunch time book club meeting, and have a conference call with the internship coordinator at FSU. There's also a teacher workday this week, so I'll get to see what goes on during a teacher workday too.

I took the Virginia Communication and Literacy Assessment (VCLA) yesterday, and hopefully that's the last test I need to take in order to get a teaching license. The test took a lot longer than I thought it would, and I won't know if I passed it or not until approximately 2/18. Like with all of my Florida tests, when I finished they gave me an unofficial score report printout. Unfortunately, it was pretty much pointless, because the unofficial score report just said a percent of correct answers for the multiple choice sections. To pass, it's not based on having a certain percentage correct, you just need a combined score of 470 or greater. How the percentages correlate to points, I have no clue.

Internship - Week 1

I made it through the first week of my internship in one piece, and so far, it's going well. My schedule looks something like this:

Work: 6:30 or 6:45 am - 7:45 am
Internship: 8 am - 12 pm
Work: 12:15 pm - 7ish pm

This week I basically just started getting my feet wet, observing what's going on and helping out where I can. I also went to Potowmack Elementary on Friday to see what an elementary school library is like. Next Friday I'm scheduled to visit Potomac Falls High School to see what a high school library is like.

Ninjas and action figures

My on-boarding session this morning went smoothly, and I am all set to start my internship on January 3. As far as I know. Apparently FSU is still waiting to receive some paperwork from LCPS, but they told me to go ahead and start anyway on the 3rd.

Soon enough, I'll be a real official librarian. Like this? (Thanks for the librarian action figure, Heatherly! Shhing action!)



Or maybe I'll be a librarian more like this.... (Thanks for the amigurumi ninja, Jess! I love the tiny crocheted ninja throwing star!)

Gearing up for my final semester

I can't believe that in a couple short weeks I'll be starting my last semester of graduate school. This week I'll be getting everything in order to start my internship. I need to run to the doctor's office today and get my TB test read so that hopefully they'll say it's negative and give me a print-out that I can bring tomorrow morning to my "teachers-in-training" on-boarding session at the LCPS personnel office. Tomorrow morning I'll do that, be re-fingerprinted, get a new badge, and probably have to watch the hazardous waste spill clean-up video again.

I had hoped to be able to take the VCLA (Virginia Communication and Literacy Assessment) this week, but there were no open spots at the test center for this week or next. The earliest opening that I'd be able to go to was Saturday January 22, at 4:15 pm, so I signed up for it then. This is the last test I need to take (I think) in order to be eligible for a Virginia teaching license. That should give me more time to review for it, which I guess is nice.

I have a placement...

I was in meetings all day today, but when I finally had a chance to check my e-mail, I saw that I officially have an internship placement now. Starting in January, I'll be doing my school media internship at Farmwell Station Middle School!

I also just turned in my last paper of the semester! Woohoo! Time for a couple of weeks of relaxation before the internship insanity begins!

Next semester is going to be rough...

I just signed off from the spring internship orientation meeting. Wow. Next semester is going to be a ton of work. A TON! The internship involves not only going to the internship site 20 hours a week for 15 weeks, but also doing, if I remember correctly, 10 projects. In addition to the projects, we also need to do several video taped or remote observations and our internship coordinator/university supervisor also has to do a site visit at least once during the semester. Like she'll actually come to Virginia to observe me in-person at some point during the semester. Plus, evaluations that need to somehow be done jointly between the supervising media specialist and the university coordinator.

I thought I was done with classes once I turn in this semester's last paper. Ha! I'll have more assignments to turn in next semester than with two classes in a normal semester!

During the meeting, everyone introduced themselves, said where they were from, and where their internships are. I was, of course, the only one who still didn't know. Very frustrating, but I know FSU is following up on it (I was assured of that again this evening during the orientation, so I know I wasn't forgotten).

Winding down...

Class meetings for the semester were finished last week. I turned in the last two assignments for my digital media class (LIS5313) over the weekend. I have one more paper due on Thursday for my teaching class (LIS5524), and then I'll be done with classes.

Either tonight or tomorrow night (or both? There was an announcement about an informational meeting tonight and an e-mail about an orientation meeting tomorrow night...not sure if they are the same things or different things), I have a meeting/orientation session about the internship process. I still don't have an actual internship placement yet, which makes me nervous. The way things stood on Friday, FSU was going to follow-up with Loudoun County to see if there were any status updates, so I'm in a waiting mode. Hopefully, I'll hear something soon, especially since I'm supposed to start on Jan. 5! Still, it will be interesting to learn about what is involved with the internship.

It's very weird to me that once I turn in my last paper on Thursday that I'll be totally done with classes at FSU. In the first half of January, I'll be applying for graduation. Crazy!

Here's a screen capture from my the video I took for my final teaching project in LIS5524. The kids are blurred out for privacy.

Observation!

Today I had the pleasure of visiting Laura B.'s new school, Farmwell Station Middle School. I was there to observe one of the librarian's lessons today for my LIS5524 lesson observation assignment. She was teaching some ESL classes how to look through the library's Accelerated Reader (AR) lists, find books that are at their AR reading level, and then how to use the library's catalog to see if the library actually has those books, and if so where to locate them.

Both of the librarians there were really sweet and helpful, and the one I observed seemed totally open to not only having me come back to do my final teaching/video taping assignment for this class, but also seemed interested in me possibly doing my internship there next semester. If that can happen, it would work out very well in terms of me being able to continue working at AOL during the internship; Farmwell Station is only a few minutes down the road from AOL, so commuting between them would not waste a lot of time.

I'm still rather baffled by the internship application process though. I was first told that an e-mail I had from January saying I passed a background check was good enough. Now I'm being told I need to get a letter on official Loudoun County letterhead saying I passed the background check, so I sent off an e-mail to the nice woman at the Loudoun County personnel office who helped me set up my ESL placement in January if my background check is still on file, and if so, can she send me a letter on official Loudoun County letterhead saying I passed. And if that background check is not still on file, asking what I need to do in order to get a new background check to submit proof of to FSU.

FSU's distance program is absolutely wonderful, but because I'm here and they're there, and FSU's requirements are not necessarily the same as the Loudoun County requirements, and FSU's process is not necessarily Loudoun County's process, it's cause for much confusion, and I never know if I'm doing the right thing or not.

I should try to get some homework done now.

Last class of the summer

Last night I had my last class session of the summer. I've still got my final assignment to work on (due next Wednesday), but the summer session is essentially over. Fall classes begin August 23, and I believe that I actually have a class that day. I should probably look into what textbooks I need soon.

It's kind of strange to think that by next summer, I'll have graduated! Things are definitely gearing up for the end. This fall semester is my last semester of taking classes, and then in the spring semester I'll have my internship, and then I'll be done.

My application for the internship is due by August 27, and I just submitted the first part of it yesterday. I was able to use proof of my fingerprinting and background check from January to fulfill that requirement for my application. Apparently I just needed to prove I passed a fingerprinting and background check within the last five years to meet the FSU requirements. When it gets closer to the internship, I may have to go get fingerprinted and background checked again to meet the student teaching requirements for whatever county I end up in, but at least I have satisfied FSU's requirements.

Now, I need to write an essay for the second part of my internship application. Then, once my final "official" FTCE scores come in the mail, I need to scan and e-mail them to our internship coordinator.

Just for the heck of it, I checked out Fairfax County's instructional vacancies for the 2010-2011 school year. TJHSST has a librarian opening!!! Too bad it's not for the 2011-2012 school year, because I would totally apply.