Reading Logs – ELA & Social Networking There has been some discussion on our listserv over the last month regarding Social Networking sites such as Shelfari and GoodReads Reader2, Bookcrossing Booktrives, REvish, Librarything, et.al. , for your personal reading log. What an interesting idea for secondary ELA classes to use this as their year’s reading log. Teachers could create usenames and logins, or require students to do this on their own. They could share their Favorites with their friends, automatically share their lists with their teachers, etc. Teachers and librarians are recommended to have this be a “professional persona” where they may not wish to post their pleasure reading, but the recommendations they would read if they were [14], etc.
As we struggle making decisions regarding “archiving” reading data within our automated library system, this is a good alternative for kids to keep track (and accept the responsibility on their own, rather than relying on a print out from their checkout history) of what they have read. When this is in electronic form, they are more likely to do this as part of their homework. Remember—we are teaching the hyper-connected generation, and anytime we can migrate from an old paper-pencil paradigm, to the electronic equivalent, we are trying to reach the 21st Century student.
Channel 1 Network:If your district is in need of new Flat Screen TV’s you may want to check out the offer from Channel 1 Network: -- They provide free televisions for districts, if you agree to broadcast 10 minutes of news every morning. Yes, the news broadcasts have 3 minutes of (kid friendly, acceptable) commercials, but … they will give you the television screens in every classroom. If your district has no money, they may put up with the commercials—who knows? In addition, they provide journalism curriculum, and hope that HS’s will “create” broadcast worthy reporting for their network. The 10 minutes of news, for homerooms, are mostly student-generated and cover a wide variety of topics from health to current events.
Watch one of their broadcasts at: http://www.channelone.com/
Call 1 888 467 3784 for more information or write to schoolsales@channelone.com
Ramona & Beezus – Coming to life this summer! You may have already heard that Walden Media & 20th Century Fox will be creating a big screen version of Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby, summer 2010. Visit Walden.com for information on the books, films as well as free educational materials. PROMO CODE: TERRIFICAL in case you want to enter the contests. There are curriculum connection helps at their site to create interest and bring fiction to life. One example is “ Create a new word, and then write your own definition or meaning. Share your new words with your classmates.” Many will remember how “Ramona invents the word ‘terrifical’ because she thinks its ‘funner’ to say.” [www.walden.com]
Plagiarism WebinarsYes, these are created by Turn-it-In, plagiarism.org . However, they still have merit to watch and learn to keep abreast of what the issues are. Even if you disagree with the premise behind Turn-it-in, we can watch and participate in their Online webinars. There was a discussion, webinar on Wednesday the 18th, and they will be creating an online video to watch from the discussion clips and threads. Here is an example of one of their previous creations:
http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_webinar_2.html -- They have slide shows as well as an “Elluminate” recording of the webinar on their site. The shot below, from their slide show, is one example of their findings, which support what we in the library field are espousing: We need to create assignments, scaffold to foster authentic deep learning. It was interesting to hear that the students view cheating as a “victimless” crime.
Medline plus – Free health database available from the federal government. You might want to add this to your database listing. Especially for the secondary levels:
http://medlineplus.gov
Surgery Videos available through Medlineplus site. HUNDREDS! For the brave of heart and strong of stomach!
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/surgeryvideos.html Medical Encylopedia ! -
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/encyclopedia.htmlMany More…
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/healthtopics.html Visit the site and click around to see what we all have access to for free, thanks to our tax dollars at work.
Capstone Innovative Reading Grant -- Have a good idea? There are a number of grant opportunities on the AASL site. The Capstone Grant here, will award $2500.00 for a new idea. Be sure to check out the other 10 grant/award opportunities on the left navigation column.
Wikipedia as a teaching tool – was spotlighted as a way to show perspectives. If you search the American Revolution, you will see voices from England which have differing views of the Revolutionary War, then we were taught in America. There is also
Islamopedia which exemplifies bias on certain issues. Islamopedia could be a discussion/teaching tool while discussing the Bill of Rights.
Lunchroom Library – One librarian shared that she placed “battered books” and magazines in the lunchroom for kids to peruse at their leisure and it has been a hit.
Webographers - One librarian fosters a photo club and has the kids display their photos on a few pages she maintains on the school website. She has taught them the elements of successful photography, and especially after vacations, she gets great submissions.
Eating in the library -- - Celebrate National Potato Chip Day, with a taste contest in the library. This librarian combed the Internet for a company that shipped over 20 varieties of potato chips to her. The kids voted “electronically” at the end of the line via Survey Monkey link.
This was so successful, that the librarian then added units of “Eating in the Library” to correlate to other curriculum areas. Check out the interesting video on their blog:
http://lucyandethelinthelibrary.blogspot.com/ I believe their handouts are above the video link.
Copyright Compliance for Schools - New book available – We will order this for our professional collection. However, there’s a nice little infomercial on the web, which has some great ideas from her book within it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktyvX2DvdRg One of the sites she recommends in the video is the following:
http://www.cyberbee.com/ Listening Lunch -- Move those tables back, and make way for the lunchtime café! The library that won the AASL Library of the Year, last year, featured a “listening Lunch” concept. During the concert season (winter) kids were invited to début their band, a capella group, select choral, string group, etc… and could sign up to be the featured artist. I loved this idea as it placed the library as a central user-friendly place for students. This fostered a feeling of openness and “happenin” for this “Learning Commons:. This library has evolved itself into a place that fosters INQUIRY , CRITICAL THINKING, CONNECTION, AND Idea sharing. In this case, they thought the music was the idea to be shared. In the Northeast where our winters are long, you may wish to replicate this. Remember—this is the year to be visible! Thank you Valerie Diggs for this valuable idea to replicate.
YUDU.com -- Free place for digital publishing. ‘Online Libraries” can be marked as private. So, this could potentially be used in the classroom, ELA projects, Poetry Slams, etc.
History Mystery - This was an idea that some SC librarians used to foster state history. It involved Questions, Detective work (information literacy skills) and primary sources documents. Even thought this was SC specific, this idea referred to a state site worthy of investigating:
http://www.knowitall.org/ This site provides educators with a searchable database of links to Web 2.0 Interactive websites on various curriculum topics. Check it out.
Oregon State Research Model has a very simple research model site, if you’d like to
http://secondary.oslis.org Secondary level.http://www.teachersdomain.org/ NYS’s new portal for video teaching materials. These links will also be embedded into the Webmax portal through the BOCES multimedia service.
Enjoy!
This Can't be read real well, but it is a visual representation of Pres. Obama's acceptance speech. Compare this with McCain's below. Very interesting that he must have mentioned President Clinton (Bill, rather than Hillary:) more than I would have guessed. What's the main idea?
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This is an example of why we need to teach to the 21st Century Student. One of my relatives, sent this to me from his cell phone. He commented, "see I told you my teacher was boring."
Here's a look at the past.... from an article in 1989 
Individual download site: 
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