Department Meeting, October 22, 2008

1. Follett Destiny—update and issues
The upgrade to 8.5 pushed the defaults onto the program so specific items have to be upgraded. I fixed the default browse subjects capability and removed fines from all patrons. As far as the patrons are concerned, the system did not remove those who are no longer in the district. New patrons were added with grade levels 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. without a 0 appended to the beginning. Students who should not be in the system have a 0 in front of their grade—06, 07, etc. When you have a chance, look at the database and run a list by these grade levels. You can ask your assistants to delete those who should no longer be included. The purpose of this would be to clean up the database; however, it is not an urgent task.

2. Staff Development, November 4, 2008, 8:00-3:00, UHS LibraryTraining with the Promethean boards to create lessons enabling librarians to serve as a turn-key resource for teachers in their buildings. Time will also be devoted to exploring strategies to promote the use of district databases in research and instruction.

3. Budget—Status and Preparations
Proposals for capital expenditures always come first, so be prepared if there are upgrades to your library that you want to put forward.

4. Collage of Careers, May 19, 2009
We agreed that we would put together a display for the department, a K-12 look at resources that support career choices and investigations. Nancy F. is going to work on one that focuses on librarianship.

4, Online Databases update
Take advantage of the Book Flix trial that will be in effect until the middle of December. We hope that our subscription will have been activated by then.

5, Blogs
Dolores demonstrated her just-established Northern Parkway blog that she is going to use with fourth and fifth graders. I will also activate the capability for Lawrence Road and the high school. If anyone else is interested, let me know.

6. NSLS Scope and Sequence Project
We discussed the curriculum developed by Nassau School Library System and whether we should make adjustments to ours based on the work done there. It was felt that ours is more specific and that the standards that drive the NSLS document are the overarching ones that are inherent in ours. It was pointed out that NSLS may have used ours as a jumping off point.

7. I participated in a Bernie Dodge webinar where he discussed developing WebQuests that incorporate Web 2.0 tools. Other webinars that may be of interest to you can be found at the EdTechConnect website: http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/.

Websites of Note:AfterClass http://www.AfterClass.net
San Francisco Symphony www.sfskids.org/templates/home.asp?pageid=1
Modern Museum of Art for Children www.moma.org/destination/#
National Gallery of Art www.nga.gov/kids/zone/zone.htm
Science clips www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/
ALA Standards for the 21st Century Learner http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslproftools/learningstandards/standards.cfm
Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&oref=slogin
Blog worth following: http://disruptingclass.mhprofessional.com/apps/ab/
Lookybook http://www.lookybook.com

Handouts: Election Connections 2008, The Summer Olympics: A Catalyst for Learning About a Healthy Lifestyle, Fun with Windows Movie Maker, The LOC Connection: Hispanic-American/Native American Months, Bibliographies: Smiles and Laughter, Editor’s Choice Awards, Aren’t We All Teachers of Literacy?, Learning About Occupations, ISTE Media Award Application