Beech Tree News Network

The Donna Hornsby Joint Technology Award and a check in the amount of $400 was presented to Butler County Middle School 6th Grade Teachers, Cody  Donaldson and Kyllie Doughty, and Library Media Specialist, Latisha Cardwell.  Mrs. Cardwell accepted the award and check at the 2012 Kentucky Library Association/Kentucky School Media Association Joint Conference at the Galt House in Louisville, Friday, September 21st.  The Donna Hornsby Joint Technology Project Award honors the memory of Kentucky school librarian, Donna Hornsby, who passed away in 1999. Donna was instrumental in promoting the use of technology to enhance student learning. This award recognizes two or more individuals in a school for their innovative use of library media center technology to enhance classroom curriculum.  With all of 6th grade researching the topics of natural disasters, the middle school media center lacked sufficient resources for servicing so many, so the monetary award is being spent toward ebooks on various topics, but emphasis will be on various natural disasters, and ebooks also encompasses the use of technology.  Our ebooks can be read by visiting www.butlerschools.net.  Hover on the middle school in the white “schools” tab, and then hover over “library services” in the links to the left.  Click on “Destiny,” and key in the word “ebooks” to see them all.  Click on a title, and then click on “Read Online.”  Collaboration efforts and student use of technology was the premises for an award-winning project.  Students created power points, prezis, and glogsters about their chosen natural disasters and incorporated the use of flashdrives, various websites, embedding video clips on their disasters, and online documentation, and several mini lessons concentrated on various areas of the research process and use of technology. The following link shows our students at work, and there is a file with a student gallery that shows some student products:   http://www.butlerschools.net/olc/class.aspx?id=5135&s=137