techieMusings

You may remember my excitement about the Call Me Ismael Project that we began last year at my school – to help our school community share and discover great books. Beyond talking about books we love, our goal is to have students and teachers add a personal touch in their featured recordings (why the book was meaningful to them, a character they related to, how the story influenced a decision they have made, etc). In this way, we can all learn more about one another and use stories to build an even closer, more empathetic and understanding school community.

This year, we are rolling the project out beyond just the Upper School. With the help of my fantastic librarians, we will be engaging the entire school, grades K-12, and teachers in this project. Additionally, we have changed our setup so that we now have all books that are featured on the phone on physical display. This way, if a student listens to a recording and that sparks interest in a specific book, they can pick it up and check it out immediately. In case a book is checked out, we have put a laminated photo of the cover right behind each book to serve as a placeholder. And, to add a personal touch, we have asked each contributor to take a “shelfie” (a picture of themself holding their book). So, each nameplate includes the name of the student/teacher, their grade/role, the title and author of the book they’ve selected, and their shelfie.

We will also be archiving all of these recordings in Flipgrid so that as we swap out recordings each month, we can still reference past stories: https://flipgrid.com/t9txl5h.

Make sure to check out the Call Me Ishmael project and consider calling in with a favorite story of your own!