The Cooke Special Education Blog

The Cooke Center Tech Support Team is excited about the new Library Arts Initiative/Internship Program taking place at Cooke Center Grammar School. This includes a newly designed class to teach a library arts curriculum to the Grammar School students, and also incorporates the assistance of interns from the Cooke Center Academy and SKILLS campuses to help with the class and organize the school’s media collection.

The class curriculum begins with a focus on the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Egypt from 300-200 B.C.  In Egypt at this time, there were amazing librarians who would seek, make, teach and share knowledge. Knowledge was shared by using the ancient technology of writing on papyrus scrolls. Unfortunately, there was a tragic fire in which much of this valuable knowledge was lost.

A recent Library Arts class lesson!

As part of this history lesson, students are making and sharing their own knowledge through writing and art-making. They are also learning how it can be protected with modern technology by recording their work digitally through scanning and picture-taking.

Our Library Arts students will also be documenting their work with an iPad app called Puppet Pals with which they will create their own Librarian character, and use this character to tell their stories about the knowledge they would like to share with the world.

Interns from CCA and SKILLS are an important part of all of this. Throughout this year, their internship duties have grown from cleaning iPad and computer screens, to data entry of book information into a database, to assisting with this new class.

One of our interns, Marina, is from the SKILLS program. Along with library data entry and tech equipment upkeep, she helps assist in classroom duties by operating PowerPoint presentations, and passing out worksheets and art supplies. She also participates in some of the assignments in order to share her own experiences with the 5th grade Library Arts class. She is consistently helpful, enthusiastic and willing to learn.  Her positive attitude is a highlight of the day, and helps keep the 5^th graders engaged in the class.

In all, Library Arts is helping the students and interns discover that, just like the Egyptians of Alexandria in 300 B.C., they can be their very own librarians –seekers, sharers and protectors of knowledge!