BI HRRB is on Fire!

This past Saturday, our Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl team competed in one of the toughest competitions of the year. As winners of the Southern Region, we faced the top two teams from the Eastern and Central Regions of the state, in addition to the team that finished 2nd at our own Southern Regional bowl. These six teams are the best of the best in our part of the state, and the competition was extremely tough this year. After five rounds of competition, we concluded the competition with 350 points. We knew we had performed very well, but you never know if you have done enough to defeat the other teams until the winners are announced in the closing ceremonies.

For the first time, the high school results were shared first in the closing ceremonies. We learned that not only did our team claim the Division II championship, but our team defeated the teams tied for second by a margin of almost 100 points. We also learned that we were the highest scoring team of the day, outscoring all of the elementary and middle school teams as well.

We will now face Marietta High School in the state championship to be held at the University of Georgia on March 8, 2014. Marietta earned their spot in the championship during the Division I bowl held on the same day as the Division II bowl. Their Divisional consisted of the top two teams from the North, West, and Metro-Atlanta Regions of the state. We were surprised to learn that they finished with a final score of 350, too, and also earned the highest score of the Division I bowl. We are excited to compete against a team so comparable to our own. It should be a very close match!

The Longest Day

Today was the work day that never ended! It is our annual Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl Team Lock-In. It is 11:09 PM, and we are currently practicing questions. Don’t worry – we manage to have a little fun, too. This year, we are going to see if we can all stay up all night. Last year, I was the only one who didn’t crash, but most of the team made it until 5:00 AM. It is never fun to be the first to fall asleep with this crew!

Exemplary Media Program Open House

We have had March 28, 2014 circled on our calendars for a while now. This is the date that we will host our Exemplary Library Media Program Open House. Media specialists, school administrators, and community members from around the state are invited to attend this event. We want to share information on our program and learn about other successful programs throughout Georgia.

If you will be in Hinesville on Friday, March 28th, please plan to stop by between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm to see what Bradwell Institute’s media program has to offer students, staff and the community. For more details, click on the informational flyer link below.

Open House Flyer

Valdosta = Success!

On Saturday, BI’s eight-member Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl team traveled to the Southern Regional Bowl at Valdosta State University. Each year, teams from the 61 school systems in this region compete for a chance to move on to one of two divisional bowls held in the state later this month.

This year, BI competed against seven other high schools during six rounds of competition, including our rivals from Liberty County High School. We had a strong showing early, putting up scores of 90, 60, and 80 in our first few rounds. At the end of the competition rounds, we posted a composite score of 400, our highest score in two years of competitions. We also defeated LCHS in our face-to-face round by a score of 50-40.

Even with a great score, we were not sure if it would be enough to put us ahead of Islands High School from Chatham County, who always brings a strong team to the competition. In the climatic awards presentation, we all held hands and waited as first the participation and then the placement awards were announced. Liberty was announced in 3rd, leaving BI and Islands to advance to the Division 2 Bowl on February 22nd. But we did not come to simply advance. We wanted to come home with another 1st place trophy and repeat as Southern Regional champs.

And that we did! It was a proud day for us all, and we celebrated with the team before heading home after a long day. We now have three weeks to prepare for another repeat performance at Divisionals in Statesboro. Congratulations to our students who have worked hard all year. We are proud of you!

Liberty County Reading Bowl Champs!

January is one of our favorite times of year because it kicks off our Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl competition season. Our first competition each year is the Liberty County Reading Bowl where we compete against Liberty County High School for county bragging rights. Although we don’t compete against many teams at this competition, it is the one that our team most looks forward to because of the big rivalry between our two high schools.

We are proud to share that for the second year in a row, our BI HRRB Tigers dominated the county bowl and came out on top by a final score of 310-200. Congratulations to the eight students who have spent many hours reading and studying to prepare for this bowl. We have already been hard at work this week preparing for the Southern Regional bowl to be held in Valdosta on Saturday, February 1st.

Hour of Code

Along with over 20,000,000 others, Bradwell students participated in the Hour of Code in December. We hosted two self-paced sessions in the media center for all students and staff interested in learning more about computer programming. We had great participation and so much fun completing the tutorials and activities.

Are you interested in computer science and coding? Check out http://code.org to learn how you can get involved.  Here are some of our enthusiastic coders in action!

Donors Choose Projects

We were fortunate to have 12 Donors Choose projects funded during the month of December. This means that we will be adding more resources for our students this month. Check out some of the great items that are on the way:

-An assortment of supplies (paper, pens, scissors, etc.) for our maker space area

-30 new graphic book titles (requested by students this fall)

-Three new cameras for our yearbook and Tiger TV staffs

-Ink for our student’s laser printer

-Ten rolls of MakerBot 3D printer filament in assorted colors

Mrs. Lukkarinen and I still have three projects pending funding on Donors Choose. When these projects are completed, we will add four Hokki stools to our Mac video editing workstations. These stools are great for collaboration and are easily moved for flexible seating.

Check out our individual Donors Choose profiles to keep updated on our progress!

www.donorschoose.org/melissa.mccallar

www.donorschoose.org/nikki.lukkarinen

Collaborating Like Crazy

Wow…December came and went before we had a chance to blink. While that is always the case this time of the year, we were especially busy this year! We are not complaining, though, as we had one of the most successful months in the media center ever. How does one measure success in a media center you may be wondering? Well, of course there are many ways – a high number of student visits (we had 2993 in just 15 school days…a record number for us), a high number of circulated books (not too bad, but no records this month), and special events hosted (Hour of Code comes to mind). These are all great ways to measure success, but the one we celebrate the most is the number of lessons taught, as this is one way that we can directly impact student achievement in our school. It also happens to be our very favorite part of the job!

This month, Mrs. Lukkarinen and I taught at least one class of students every day of the month. Most days, we each had a separate class and lesson for three blocks of the day. After reviewing our statistics at the end of the month, we were astonished to find that we taught 40 lessons in December. We want to give a shout out to the following teachers that stepped outside of their comfort zone and tried something new with us last month. You are awesome Mrs. Eastlake, Mrs. Reese, Mr. Richards, and Coach Miller! Thank you for allowing us to collaborate with you throughout your project, and we can’t wait to do it again (only better) this semester.

Bradwell is 3D Printing

We are really enjoying our new 3D printer. Students and staff have been visiting the media center throughout the month of December to learn about the printing process and to see it in action. We are currently working with teachers in several departments to brainstorm ways that this tool can be used to improve instruction across the curriculum. We are also working with our media committee to create some student printing policies, including the price for each new job. Check out some of the photos of the printer in action!

Making Our Space a Maker Space

When reading about trends and ideas for libraries and media centers, I often see a great deal about maker spaces. To me, a maker space is a student-centered learning space. It is flexible and mobile, allowing users to customize their experience. We think it should also promote inquiry, innovation, and creativity. We decided that we wanted to designate a large area in our media center as a maker space of sorts. We have organized games like chess, Scrabble, cribbage, and mancala on a shelf for student access. We have also received a donation of several MindStorm robotics kits for students interested in building and engineering. Additionally, we are providing other materials used in self-directed learning and exploration, including Mac computers for those interested in application like advanced video and photo editing. We are also very excited to announce that thanks to Donors Choose and MakerBot, we will be receiving a 3-D printer for our school. We can’t wait to see what our students create with this amazing tool!

Here are a few before and after photos of a decoupage project that we took on to spruce up some of our maker space areas.