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What do you see in this picture?  A leaf? What happens when we get closer?  3rd Grade students at Salamanca Prospect were able to get a closer look to a assortment of natural items. Acting like scientists, the students given a tool (Jewelers Loupe) and were presented with the task of trying to discover the different and natural ways things form. Students generated conversations as to how this could hurt or benefit that natural item. In the process of investigating and exploring, students uncovered that this work is being done in the real world by scientists and researchers and it’s called Biomimicry.
In the process, students were able to appreciate how nature has an extraordinarily effective way of surviving and functioning. Scientist are trying to harness that understanding to put it to use on our design and production of materials, structures, and systems.
Looking at our leaf, scientists have uncovered in their research that the way a leaf is constructed, can make fluid or electricity may flow much more effectively through a system. Can you think about how this can be used in a manmade system? This is just one of the many Environmental Science programs that CA BOCES has to offer! For more information on this program or others available to you through Environmental Science please feel free to contact Lance Feuchter at (716) 376-8379 or lance_feuchter@caboces.org. By: Lance Feuchter, CA BOCES Learning Resources
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 Wow! That’s about all I can say.
Our ISS team has been working around the clock to be “part of the solution” as our districts work to provide home instruction to students. We quickly realized we could help our region prepare for home instruction by doing what we do best, providing online professional development to regional educators. Over the past eight days, we have convened job-alike educators in online sessions (viz Zoom technology) to share how districts will provide home instruction, to learn new methods and technology tools, and to serve as a "support group" for teachers who are, like their students, trying to make sense of what is happening in our world. Our first sessions were packed with teachers working from home. And each day since, attendance has grown. So far, 2,641 participants have signed into sessions! Working online has been so very rewarding. Our facilitators “passed the mic” to almost every teacher to build community with a large groups of strangers. It has been amazing to see our region at kitchen tables and in living rooms trying to take a step forward…and, as you know, any step forward right now feels so good. We have heard time after time the resolve that teachers have to attempt to connect with their students and to continue their learning. It has been so inspiring. Our support will continue through this journey with new sessions starting on Tuesday (3/31). Contact your local administrator for our session schedule and connection information. By: Tim Cox, CA BOCES ISS Teachers and students in the Cattaraugus and Allegany County region have all-access to many high-quality online resources. Check out our guide. All resources can be accessed at http://resources.caboces.org Contact anyone on our team for username and password assistance. All Access Content Includes:
 What are the odds that two coordinators would schedule different lessons with the same grade level educators on the same day? While we don’t know the exact odds (perhaps a probability and statistics lesson for those of you interested), we do know that we were able to make this unlikely event happen. With what was seemingly conflicting lessons, we then had to make a decision. Which lesson would stay and which would be rescheduled: coding or fossils? After a quick discussion and a lot of excitement, we decided something different altogether. Why not both?!  With Kevin Erickson, Cuba-Rushford Elementary School principal, and the 2nd grade team on board, we set out to make our lessons a pairing better than peanut butter and jelly (if that is even possible). Based on the response from students and teachers, we may have come close. Students were placed in quasi-random groups and assigned with unique roles (i.e. excavation director, materials specialist, recording specialist, and site manager) to complete their task: locate anything at all from the dig site using only the appropriate tools, the excavation robot and the excavation trowel.  Once each excavation team made a discovery, each member fulfilled his or her role to ensure that the dig site was properly cared for, all team members were participating, and the appropriate materials made their way to each group’s respective work site.  Depending on what the excavation robot and trowel uncovered, each excavation team explored a variety of fossil concepts such as types, formation, and locations.
Whether the topics are technology and dinosaurs, Science and Social Studies, or Restorative Practice and mathematics, reach out to your friendly neighborhood Instructional Support Coordinators to help with your next interdisciplinary, co-teaching lesson. By: Lance Feuchter & Mark Beckwith, CA BOCES Learning Resources & Professional Development P.s. We would like to extend our sincerest thanks to Karen Insley, Distance Learning coordinator, for her valuable assistance and Wendy Sprague, CRCS Elementary Librarian, for allowing us to utilize the necessary space to conduct such learning opportunities. Did you know that as a part of the Distance Learning CoSer, you have access to 200+ K-12 virtual field trips already scheduled and most are recorded? These virtual field trips are from top fee-based providers scheduled out in advance for you to register for using your school email address. How amazing is that? All you need is a computer with internet access, smartboard or projector, and speakers. Set up is easy!  FieldTrip Zoom Zone is the live event calendar where you “tune into” live educational broadcast with many other classrooms and interact in real time via the chatbox feature in zoom. How do you access Fieldtrip Zoom? Just follow the simple steps below: Step 1: Register Your Account
Once logged in, you can navigate to your FieldTrip Zoom Zone calendar of subject areas. Also, you can search for programs by grade range and subject area by clicking from the search menu. Click on any subject area to expand to the program details. **Make sure you are in the Zone calendar (not class) when booking events.** Zone Calendar Step 3: Book Your Event
 Check out the upcoming events for March on FieldTrip Zoom: https://www.smore.com/3pzbf-field-trip-zoom-zone-march-events For questions or assistance with Fieldtrip zoom zone, please contact Carrie Oliver. To see a preview of what the FieldTrip zoom events look like, check out this recorded session: https://player.vimeo.com/video/393456875 By: Carrie Oliver, CA BOCES Learning Resources
 In my short experience working with the Instructional Support Services Team and being introduced to the online world that is available to our students, I have come to realize that I could have done so much more for my students in the classroom. OK…. OK…. Don’t get all in a bunch!! I know that for us educators, doing more is always included when we are preparing for our classrooms of students each day…… BUT …… had I known about MOODLE I could have created blended learning experiences that also made my valuable time more efficiently used. Possibly even giving me some self-care time!! I have been working and creating course work in MOODLE for the past few months, as well as completing some of free training that is available to help maneuver all the options within MOODLE. Of course…..it is something that will need to be created and set up, but once it is done it will allow for more time. Great resource and great experience for inclusion of the classroom. We are always available to assist with any questions or concerns.
By: Lisa Scott, CA BOCES Learning Resources
If you are a faculty member taking a college course or wish you had access to a specific book for professional use, Cattaraugus-Allegany School Library System (CASLS) may be able to get what you need at no cost. The Online Collaborative Library Consortium (OCLC) is comprised of public, academic, and school library systems across the nation who value resource sharing. However, rules for lending vary for each library. A lending library may renew a book for an additional six weeks while others request the book be returned. We make every effort to provide borrowers with the materials and the duration for which they need and frequently ask for renewals. In the event a book must be returned after six weeks, we will make every effort to borrow a copy from another library so a swap can be made. Additionally, if a book is damaged or lost it is the individual’s responsibility to pay the replacement fee. CASLS recognizes the value of loaning and borrowing books to support knowledge. In 2019 CASLS shared 95 books from our professional library to places such as Harvard University, University of Virginia, and Louisiana State University. Likewise, 252 books were borrowed for educators within CABOCES with the highest percentage going to teachers pursuing their master’s degree or SBL or SDL certification. With CA BOCES’ new web page, requesting a book is very easy. Visit resources.caboces.org and log in using your school email; password is caboces. (If you need help, email Rachelle_Evans@caboces.org .)
If you would like to borrow multiple copies of the same title, reach out to Cecelia_Fuoco@caboces.org or Catherine_Dunkleman@caboces.org to avoid having to fill out the form multiple times. If you plan to renew a book, let us know and we’ll request an extension with the lending library. As always, if you have any questions feel free to contact Cathy or myself at our emails above.  By: Cece Fuoco, CA BOCES Learning Resources
This month’s spotlight as we dig a little deeper into the resources we have available to our component school districts in our warehouse is…..Guitaleles! Guita---what?  In an effort to make sure that all of our educators in the CABOCES region can find something of use in our warehouses, we’ve been attempting to add more music and art kits as the music and art standards are being revamped. So....bring on the guitaleles!
We now have 10 Yamaha GL1 Guitaleles in our warehouse. Half guitar, half ukulele…100% fun. This is a unique mini 6-string nylon guitar that is sized like a baritone ukulele (17” scale) and plays like a standard tune guitar. The guitalele’s tuning is pitched up to “A” (or up a 4th) at A/D/G/C/E/A. This is a student pleaser. It is small enough for Pre-K students to play. The nylon strings make it easy on the fingers and the neck size is great for smaller handed players as well as regular sized hands needing a break from the thicker necks of standard-sized guitars. Take a look at our warehouse and give our guitaleles a try! By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources Challenge
January is a great time to have a snowball fight. Every good snowball fight needs some kind of fort for protection and to build more snowballs under cover. Snowball fights are best suited for outdoors, but what about modeling one inside? This will be part of your challenge, building a fort to withstand attacks from snowballs. Since you will be modeling the activity, representing an idea, object, a system or process, think of the materials being used. What kind of structure makes the best fort? Are different shapes better than others? How can the materials be manipulated for best use? Your snowball fort creation does have some criteria and constraints. The fort is being constructed out of 100 index cards and only 12 inches of tape. The fort has to be at least 9 inches tall and 10 inches long. To test the fort, determine how 3 snowballs (cotton balls or wadded up pieces of paper) can be fairly launched at the fort to test its durability. Materials
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By: Clay Nolan, CA BOCES Learning Resources Recently we were asked if it was possible to record a CTE Program class for a student that was facing a medical issue that is preventing them from attending the class on a regular basis in the traditional fashion. Our immediate response was, “Sure!”. Then we started asking questions and learning more about the classroom set up and the technology the student had access to at home. Of course, our CA BOCES Distance Learning Tech Support, the CTE Program administration and the course teacher were involved every step of the way. In addition, the students in the class and the effected student also played integral roles. This was a true team effort! I am proud to announce that we succeeded, albeit after several tried attempts! We have a system in place that is user friendly for the students and teacher, capitalizes on the technology available to our CA BOCES region and the student is able to learn the theory and see the practical skills being taught...however as soon as the student is able to return to the classroom, he/she has to catch up on practicing the practical skills they were able to be exposed too but not able to practice or tested on. Basic equipment needed for such a venture include: a computer, a speaker, a microphone and at least one camera. We used Zoom software to connect and record the videos and are using Office 365 Sharepoint link to share the recorded sessions. In addition, the recorded video links, teacher created PowerPoints and other documents are available to students via Moodle. How can we use distance learning to overcome obstacles in student learning?
By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources
 By: Christina McGee, CA BOCES Learning Resources
Districts are gearing up for the holiday season by traveling to the North Pole. You heard that right. Cattaraugus-Little Valley, Pioneer, West Valley, Fillmore, and Salamanca will be traveling Around the World with Santa and spending time with Mrs. Claus this season, right in their classrooms! These are just some of the types of trips available from the Distance Learning Department.
Christmas trips not really your thing? Randolph is participating in the classic Gingerbread Boy Virtual Experience from the Center of Puppetry Arts. We also have classroom collaborations like “Brown Bear” for elementary, or Career Connection Conversations for high school students that are all free to attend. December’s Career Conversation is with Meme Yanetsko of the Olean Area Chamber of Commerce. These free collaborations are brought to you by the New York State Distance Learning Consortium. The NYSDLC offers out a classroom collaboration for elementary and a Career Conversation session monthly for free for being a part of Distance Learning. Is there a topic you want to see in the offering? Let us know! We are always looking for new ideas to benefit our teachers.
We can find a virtual field trip experience for just about any topic that you come up with. We try our best to provide free/low cost opportunities that work with your curriculum. For more information or to schedule a Virtual Field Trip contact Carrie Oliver at carrie_oliver@caboces.org. To see upcoming events check out the flyer here: https://www.smore.com/40vj6-upcoming-virtual-field-trips Happy Holidays! By: Carrie Oliver, CA BOCES Learning Resources CA BOCES offers a collaborative music library with over 215 music charts for borrowing. Thirty-two charts have been checked out this fall for band concerts making this a well utilized resource. Music teachers in participating districts send purchasing requests to Catherine_Dunkleman@caboces.org who then orders the music through an approved vendor. Upon receipt, Cathy catalogs the charts into Insignia. With a simple search, music teachers may view a chart's summary, select "Click here to watch" for the score, and easily book an item for delivery and use for a semester or school year. When returned to Learning Resources, inventory is taken and any missing or damaged sheet music is replaced per copyright law.
For those curious to see the music collection, visit resources.caboces.org and log in. Search by selecting call number and type in ML. Searches may be narrowed by categories located in the left column of the web page. Some choral teachers have expressed an interest in having a similar collection. If your school is interested in joining this service, contact Amy_Windus@caboces.org or Cecelia_Fuoco@caboces.org By Cece Fuoco, CA BOCES Learning Resources  Have you ever taken an online course? Do you have any idea what is available in the catalogues of online providers? Well… I sure didn’t have any idea of the range of availability to our students. I entered into a new position this school year with Instructional Support Services Division as a Distance Learning teacher for Learning Resources, and let me share with you that I am very excited and in awe of what I can now help offer to our students through CABOCES. Even amongst all of the overwhelming moments that the new school year brings I am HOOKED ONLINE and sinker!!  As I started being introduced to the inclusions of the position, I began to realize all that was available and waiting for students to utilize. The course catalogues, with content areas across the board, displayed on the website and promising to enhance the educational experience in addition to the core and elective selections offered within their district. I would encourage you to take a moment and browse the listings, share it with your friends, coworkers, even your children at home. The students are supported through the Learning Resources department with any technical difficulties or questions as well as communications with course instructors as needed. It gives the students more choices, individual learning skillbuilding, and support as needed. What more could they want ?? 😊
I look forward to working with all the students in all the districts who are taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity. If you have not done so already, take time to check out the long list of opportunities available to our students. Pass the line (HAHA).... and enjoy the atmosphere of being HOOKED ONLINE for learning. By: Lisa Scott, CA BOCES Learning Resources Challenge
Did you know, STEM Day falls on November 8? There’s no way around it: children are significantly better off with strong science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics skills. That’s why STEM education programs are so important. It’s undebatable that these subjects push society forward, and these programs help to find fun and engaging ways to teach them to students, which is all worth commemorating. So, on November 8, we celebrated STEM Day! How can you celebrate? By taking part in the STEM challenge on this day or any other day this month. This month's STEM challege is a little different. The challenge is to build and make a model to brainstorm and answer, "What does STEM mean to you?" Students can build a model to represent what they think STEM means or how they see it using various materials. There are no criteria or contstaints to this challenge. It is an open-ended, metaphoric prompt to let students explore and think critically about the solution. Materials
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By: Clay Nolan, CA BOCES Learning Resources Like many people, here at Learning Resources we are working on shedding excess weight! Shelves and shelves of outdated media kits have been removed from the system and we are looking leaner and meaner.  But any successful weight loss effort needs a support system. And our administrators, teachers, and students are just that. For the past few months, we reached out to CLC’s, forums, Admin teams, and curriculum specialists to give us ideas for new kits that align to standards and/or are high interest. If you have any ideas for kits that can be used in your classrooms, please don’t hesitate to reach out and share your ideas. We’ve already added some kits that may be new to you: Sphero Minis, Sphero Bolts, and BobXL  BobXL is a training dummy. Some of our schools are working with their students on self-defense and reached out to us for help. Self-defense is important to learn, but these lessons can fade without practice. Now students can train to develop the muscle memory they may need if a self-defense situation occurs. In addition, we’ve also added Sphero Minis and Sphero Bolts.
Both are app-enabled robots that provide endless opportunities to be creative and have fun while learning
If you have any questions or want to find out more, please reach out! We have a lot of work to do to create more and more kits that will help teachers and students reach their educational goals. By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources Get ready for the 4th Annual Southern Tier Film Festival! Teachers from all over Allegany and Cattaraugus counties are partnering with their students to help them write, read, and direct their own films. Students are flexing their skills and showing up at school to be directors, writers, and artists. They are recruiting their peers and making their way to the stage. This year the festival will be held in the Olean High School’s Auditorium on May 7, 2020 at 6:00 PM, but before then a lot has to happen. Teachers involved in the ongoing Writing with Video Professional Development sponsored by CA BOCES and Houghton College are reaching out to as many school districts as possible and inviting teachers to bring writing with video to their classroom, which just means asking our students to express their learning through video projects in the following categories; animation, video poems, themes, and narratives. Further, as we reflect and work to continuously improve this wonderful event that includes students, their work, parents, teachers, and administrators, we are excited to include a middle school category this year. For more detailed instructions on how your students can get involved and submit a video to this year’s festival, go to Schoology and enter the access code W8CQ5-968RV. The deadline for student submissions is April 27, 2020.  Here is a link to the video that members of the Writing and Video group compiled featuring student film: https://cabocesorg-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/christina_mcgee_caboces_org/EVwTfkXAIeZBj3InB_aI02ABZ1y68c5vpSi9GwQwkPrx9Q?e=nzS9EO For more information about past events or getting involved with the summer professional development offerings, please check out other articles from the Innovative Teaching blog including “And the Winner is…,” “Fun + Film = S.T.A.F.F. Win,” Your Students and the 2018 S.T.A.F.F. Awards,” and “Creative Professional Development Turns into Collaborative Life-Long Learning, Innovative Curriculum, and Regional Annual Film Festival” or reach out to Alex Freer, Digital Resources & Technology Coordinator, at alex_freer@caboces.org.
By: Christina McGee, CA BOCES Learning Resources Information literacy is pertinent to students’ education and is cultivated through the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (ESIFC) Cycle of Inquiry and Learning skills Connecting, Wondering, Investigating, Constructing, Expressing, and Reflecting. These skills help students think critically, encourages innovation, and prepares them for research projects. Students wonder about many things but lack effectiveness in finding accurate resources, however, through collaborative opportunities between content area teachers and school librarians these skills can be reinforced with students.
School librarians attending the Collaborative Learning Community (CLC) for 2019-2020 have been provided with an updated version of the ESIFC, which also supports the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards. The ESIFC was developed by the New York City Department of Education/Office of Library Services School Library System in 2014 and has recently been updated to include NYS Next Generation Standards. This resource is available to teachers and school librarians and helps familiarize them with curricular resources and assist in planning collaborative lessons. The four anchor standards and indicators are:
School librarians within CA BOCES will receive training in using this fantastic resource. By: Cece Fuoco, CA BOCES Learning Resources It has been a busy summer and start of the school year for the Distance Learning Team at CA BOCES and our districts that purchase the 420 CoSer. We are hosting or receiving ten video conference courses that involve ten of our CA BOCES regional schools, one school from Erie 2 BOCES and two schools from Central New York. Installation of Zoom video conference equipment from the 2017 RUS Grant is complete along with upgrades within buildings as requested. Two highlights from Distance Learning Makeovers in districts: Scio has two different, but very similar systems. They made over their Polycom Distance Learning Room with a Zoom Room featuring two 55” screen displays and Zoom video conference equipment. In addition they made over their Polycom portable carts with a Zoom Cart which also has a dual display and the Zoom video conference equipment. Scio is offering and receiving four video conference courses this fall. The pictures below show the Zoom Room equipment in the made over Scio Distance Learning Room.
Belfast has remade their Polycom Distance Learning Room with a Zoom Room and has installed equipment and is utilizing Zoom video conference software in three additional classrooms. These makeovers allow Belfast to host and receive five video conference courses this fall. Pictures below show two Belfast classrooms that had a makeover using Zoom.
Like most home remodels, a Distance Learning makeover it isn’t always on time or without its challenges. Our tech support has been instrumental in helping overcome hurdles and challenges. That said, we are also learning how to best use Zoom to enhance learning and teaching. Kudos to our CA BOCES tech support for doing research and finding solutions and to our distance learning teachers across the region for taking a risk and innovating their classrooms as the technology available to them enhances learning.
By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources We have been busy with two new improvements in Moodle this summer. First, we have upgraded our Moodle site to version 3.6. New features in Moodle include:
Second, we have partnered with Intelliboard to provide Moodle instructors with a dashboard that will display course information. Intelliboard offers an abundance of instant data from your course which provides instructors with real time data on student progress, completed assignments, and a big picture view of the course. Reports can be generated that provide detailed and specific information about the course and the participating students.  Both of these improvements are value added to our already free Moodle site. You can learn more about any of these at our Moodle Users workshop on Wednesday, August 28th or contact Karen Insley at karen_insley@caboces.org. To register for the workshop, have your district representative register you at: www.register.caboces.org. By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources
For the 4th year in a row, several teachers from our CABOCES region worked in collaboration during our week long Writing With Video Institute. From middle school to high school, from Art to English and Social Studies, from classroom to online teaching, these dedicated educators took the opportunity to become students. They were led by Dr. David Bruce from the University of Buffalo’s Graduate School of Education and Dr. Sunshine Sullivan, Chair of the Education Department at Houghton College.  Technology is changing the way we teach, and the way students learn. With this in mind, the teachers spent time looking at curriculum and lesson plans, and chose a way, or ways, to insert video as a way to engage their students. Certainly, this isn’t something that has to be used every day or every week, for that matter. But it is a tool that many students can easily latch onto and use to lend voice and images to their demonstration of learning. Don’t let the title of this institute fool you, though. Writing can be demonstrated and used in all types of curricular areas. In these past few years, we’ve had students introduce themselves with “Me in 6 Words”. Students demonstrated knowledge of various types of angles by videoing them as they exist in our world. We’ve had Spanish students video themselves acting out vocabulary. We’ve had students put together video, detailing trips to Gettysburg. The options are limitless. Words are often much more powerful when paired with music and images. If students are struggling with voice or approach learning from a non-traditional angle or have a flair for technology, we owe it to them to provide resources and ideas to move them forward on their journey of discovery. Let’s be teachers of students, not simply teachers of content.  Join us as we continue to work with this project and offer new ways to impart information. If you have any questions or want to find out more, please reach out!
By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources Challenge
The days from July 3 to August 11 are known as the Dog Days of Summer, usually the hottest, muggiest of the year. This is the period when Sirius, the Dog Star, rises at the same time as the Sun. The ancient Romans defined this period and believed the weather was warmer because Sirius was also providing heat for the Earth, hence Dog Days of Summer. So, how can this heat help us with this month’s STEM challenge? Heat rises which is going to be a good fact to know when building your solar updraft tower, which harnesses the Sun’s heat energy to do work. Our version to going to use empty cylinders with a pinwheel attached to the top. The goal is to get the pinwheel to rotate from the heat rising through the solar tower. What materials would be best to use for the tower sections? Do certain items warm up faster or more than others? How can the pinwheel be attached so it can spin freely? How high off the ground should your updraft tower be? Your challenge is to create an updraft tower that uses the Sun’s heat energy to spin the pinwheel the most amount of times. Updraft Tower Example. Your updraft tower does have some criteria and constraints. Only the materials provided can be used in your design. The tower needs to be at least 1 foot tall. Every group should build and construct the same type of pinwheel for fair testing during the rotations. *This idea and challenge can be further explored in the Advancing STEM Grade 4 Unit, Full of Potential: The Effects of Energy. Materials
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By: Clay Nolan, CA BOCES Learning Resources Check out this month's Advancing STEM Challenge!
Chalk It Up Advancing STEM Challenges are designed to bring engineering and design to your classroom in a simple, easy-to-implement, challenge-based way. Modify our Advancing STEM Challenges for your classroom. A new challenge will be post The 3rd Southern Tier Annual Film Festival was held at Allegany-Limestone Central School District on May 9th, 2019 under the direction of Suzan Snyder and was another amazing success. Teachers, parents, administrators, and students gathered together, watched student films, and awarded the trophy to the winning district, Cuba Rushford Central School. Participating districts included Alfred-Almond (@AlfredAlmondCS), Allegany-Limestone(@ALCSGator), Cuba-Rushford (@CR_REBELS), Fillmore (@FillmoreEagles), Olean (@OleanHighSchool), and Whitesville (@wcsbluejays).  As a teacher who loves to see the creativity of my students, to witness the brilliance of a new generation, to be part of collaborative communities, I look forward every year to the professional development that spearheaded the film festival. It is an ongoing experience that continues to bring teachers together–those that were there first and new faces that join each year. Three years ago, a group of teachers gathered together for professional development offered by CA BOCES (@CABOCESit), bringing Dr. David Bruce from University at Buffalo and Dr. Sunshine Sullivan from Houghton College to guide us in our efforts to learn to use digital media in our classrooms. We left that experience armed with new ideas for our classroom, exciting project-based assessments, our own creative pieces, and with a vague idea that we wanted to come together at the end of the school year and showcase our students’ efforts. We met periodically and fleshed out an idea for a film festival—a good spirited, but competitive event that would allow students to try to win a trophy for their school, and provide recognition among their peers and throughout their communities. We also wanted our students to create the artwork to advertise the festival so they could own this event alongside their teachers. That vague idea became a fully developed festival. Now, each year towards the culmination of the school year, students enter their best work from throughout the year to a film committee. The committee picks thirty of the best films to showcase, selects winners based on specific criteria, and creates a flight sheet for one final award to be chosen by the audience at the end of the event. This year we had a wonderful artist, Jazlynn Sullivan of Olean High School, create the image for the posters to advertise the event and the programs.  As an English teacher, I am constantly amazed at the writing that comes out of these projects. Teachers ask students to tell a story, to shed light on an issue or a poem, to be a magician with images, to create a parody or satire, and they deliver at the film festival with glowing outcomes and to genuine applause. When we ask our students to put themselves in the spotlight, we are asking them to be vulnerable, to be real, to be exceptional. And they do not fail. Students create comedies and tragedies, extrapolate meaning from a poem through image and sound or investigate the way color is used in writing. Sometimes they look at what it means to be a teenager, magnifying difficult issues like bullying, violence, and trying to find their identity. Students are investigating the deep issues of their lives and sharing it with their teachers and then a wider audience so that we can search for answers or laugh or be afraid along with them.
Sometimes our students bring tears to our eyes. Sometimes the adults in the room go back in time, spend three minutes as the adolescents that we once were. That is what happens every year at this film festival. Every year another group of students radiates their authentic selves and ask the adults and companions in their lives to go with them on that journey. This small film festival is growing every year. This year there were over 110 attendees. The students propelled the hard work of a small group of teachers into something great. For all the future festivals, we hope more teachers throughout the region will attend the five-day summer professional development opportunity and begin making digital projects and films in their classrooms with their students. We can’t wait to see the work of the students next year. Maybe it will be your students that win your district the trophy. By: Christina McGee, CA BOCES Learning Resources In September 2018, school librarians attending the Collaborative Learning Community (CLC) were asked to set goals for the new school year. Some chose to look at their school’s student achievement goals while others focused on developing relationships with students and increasing collaboration with faculty. Meeting as a CLC throughout the year provided school librarians the opportunity to revisit goals and share success stories. Following are just a few highlights: Amber Cheladyn, high school librarian at Allegany-Limestone, focused on building relationships with students. What started out as one teacher bringing special education students to the library has developed into a domino effect. More teachers have visited the library with their students where Amber has guided them through the process of borrowing OverDrive’s audiobooks and ebooks. Students are thrilled with being able to listen to popular fiction as well as those required for the curriculum. Jody Thiel, PreK-12 librarian at West Valley Central School, focused on the long-term goal of increasing student achievement on the Regents and state assessment tests for ELA and Math. Increasing collaboration with teachers was her first step and has resulted in more projects this year. Jody has provided expertise to teachers on how to access CABOCES’ Insignia for borrowing items from CA BOCES and using the library’s online catalog for accessing databases and resources from the school’s library. Elizabeth Brisky is the PreK-12 librarian at Franklinville. This year her school has been staircasing major subject areas and the specific writing and reading strands for each grade level. Elizabeth has participated in grade level meetings and programmed library instruction that builds on students’ areas of weakness. When she learned that genre was a difficult concept for students, Elizabeth created an entire unit on center-based activities that used genres, categorization of books, and writing activities for increasing student success. In March, Dani Newman, PreK-12 librarian at Fillmore, recruited 30 students in grades 3-6 to participate in the IU9 Interscholastic Reading Competition in Bradford PA. When Dani shared her experience and her students’ excitement, other school librarians expressed an interest in recruiting their students to join in for next year’s event. Each team reads a total of forty pre-selected books and are responsible for knowing answers to questions asked during the competition. Librarians have received a list of titles for November’s competition which can also be used for summer reading. Carli Wright is the new librarian at Randolph High School this year. Her goal of fostering relationships with students and getting them into the library led to many creative endeavors. Inspired by Dani’s success with the reading competition, Carli has connected with the Randolph Public Library to make sure her newly formed middle school team has what they need to read over the summer. The Librarian’s CLC provides important networking for school librarians and has consistently seen high participation levels. Thank you, school administrators, for recognizing the unique professional development needs of school librarians! By: Cece Fuoco, CA BOCES Learning Resources
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