Libraries for a Post-Literate Society

Check out this Doug Johnson article in Multimedia & Internet @ Schools: http://www.mmischools.com/Newsletters/MmisXtra.aspx?NewsletterID=744#1. Doug Johnson defines a post-literate society as one in which people can read but who "...choose to meet their primary information and recreational needs through audio, video, graphics, and gaming. Print for the postliterate is relegated to brief personal messages, short informational needs, and other functional, highly pragmatic uses..."

Twitter and FriendFeed

If you're like me, you might find all the interest in Twitter a bit baffling. Check out this article in Library Journal for a librarian's perspective.

The Future of Books and Reading

Check out this panel discussion on the future of books and reading: http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/panel-discussion-on-the-future.

PDF Booklet Creator

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BookletCreator - create a booklet from any PDF document via kwout

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Department Meeting, May 20, 2009

We had a productive meeting:
1. We finalized database selections. Cara will look at Soundzabound to see if we should add to it.
2. We agreed to update our periodicals lists and send them to Delores.
3. I will arrange to have the summer reading partnership flyers translated.
4. We will follow up when mailed overdue notices are returned to us.
5. We picked up the summer reading baskets and will put them on display to entice summer reading participants.
6. We confirmed our training session for Discovery Education (June 1, 8:30-10:30, BOCES, 1 Merrick Ave.)
7. We will distribute UPL censorship exhibit literature.
8. Our final meeting for the school year will be on June 25, location TBA.

Newer Professional Books!

Today's School Library

A movie is definitely worth 1,000+ words:
http://henrico.k12.va.us/hcpstv/vv_library.html

Learning4Life from AASL

NPR Library Blog

NPR has a library blog. Check it out:

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NPR: As A Matter Of Fact via kwout

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An interesting take on creativity and copyright in today's world

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Larry Lessig says the law is strangling creativity Video on TED.com via kwout

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Library of Congress is on You Tube!

YouTube - LibraryOfCongress's Channel via kwout

If you see any videos you would like to make available to your students, submit the url to me and I'll post it on the SafeVideos site.

Department Meeting, March 18, 2009

1. Summer Reading update—Public Library Partnership and In-District Program

2. Poetry Contest and Film Festival at the Uniondale Public Library
Deadline—March 20

3. NovelNY Databases--Grolier and ProQuest added as of 4/1

Go to http://novelnewyork.org/pressroom.php for a listing of the changes.

4. Professional/National Geographic Books

5. Curriki http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/SummerofContent
From the website: Do you have an instructional unit or course you’re proud of that you’d like to publish and get paid for? Interested in earning money this summer to develop a new unit that will be shared with a global audience? For our Summer of Content initiative, Curriki is soliciting elementary and middle school content in ELA, math, science, and social studies. Apply by April 15th, 2009.

6. Taking it Global--Participate in a community of global educators.
http://www.tigweb.org/tiged
From the website: TIGed provides rich, interactive learning experiences designed to improve students' global citizenship, critical thinking, and leadership skills, bringing the world to students and preparing students for the world! You can access existing projects, create a safe, interactive, virtual classroom, access online learning activities and resources.

7. Websites of note:
The Unquiet Library Blog http://theunquietlibrary.wordpress.com/
The Unquiet Library Wiki http://theunquietlibrary.wikispaces.com/
Google Apps in the Classroom http://www.google.com/a/edu/
HotChalk http://www.hotchalk.com/
Joyce Valenza Workshop http://joycevalenzaworkshop.wikispaces.com/
Speaking avatar http://www.voki.com/

New Professional Books!

AASL has new website

AASL has a new website. Check out the details at
http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14378

and visit the site at http://www.aasl.org.

Department Meeting, February 25, 2009

1. New students and Follett. Is the sync working correctly?

2. I was relieved to see that there is a stay in the ruling concerning lead in books published prior to 1985. Check out http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2009/January2009/leadlawstayed.cfm for details. We would have an awful lot of weeding to do if this law is applied to libraries!

3. Summer Reading

I would like to update the list of recommended authors to include in our summer reading newsletter. Take a look at the one from last year (posted http://district.uniondaleschools.org/www/uniondaleschools/site/hosting/uniondalenyorg/Summer_Reading/summer%20reading%202008.pdf) and e-mail me your suggestions.

4. Carousel of Careers

We'll complete our project. Anyone interested in showcasing an online presentation? We could run it on a laptop without being present. Let's brainstorm ideas.

5. NSLS is moving to 1 Merrick Ave.

6. Discussion:
Heroes and Villains--What happens when a hero becomes a villain and we have titles about the individual prior to his/her unfortunate transformation? Read this article: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6632974.html

Websites of Note:

Flowgram http://www.flowgram.com
findingdulcinea.com http://www.findingdulcinea.com

Sweet Search http://www.sweetsearch.com
School Library Media Activities Blog http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/


Articles:
Learning with Wikis and Blogs
http://ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/feb09/vol66/num05/Learning_with_Blogs_and_Wikis.aspx
Dewey Decimal Sudoko http://www.schoollibrarymedia.com/articles/Montgomery2007v23n10.html
Impact as a 21st Century Library Media Specialist
http://www.schoollibrarymedia.com/articles/Creighton2008v24n7.html
What Are They Reading for Fun? http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6636538.html
That's Infotainment http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6632973.html
This article suggests software to create video tutorials. We can do this with Promethean software. If anyone is interested in learning how to do this, let me know. (Flowgram, website listed above, is another way to do this).

Department Meeting, January 21, 2009

Today we're going to create our contribution to the Collage of Careers event that is scheduled to take place on May 19. Be sure to bring any materials with you that you want to use. We have a collection of words for our "wordle", courtesy of Grand Avenue's fifth graders.

A reminder that the deadline is approaching for the winter edition of LITE Bytes. Please send your contributions to me or post them yourselves on the litebytes wiki (http://litebytes.wikispaces.com/). If you decide to post your article, let me know so I can prepare it for viewing.

Elementary librarians may be interested in Lookybook, a web 2.0 tool for sharing favorite picture books.

K-12 Instructional Media Center has links to websites to help students with their research and teachers with their professional development.

If you haven't looked at the Library of Congress website lately, take a look at the Learning Page, replete with resources for teachers.

Take some time to look through the National Plan for Implementation of Standards for the 21st-Century Learner and Guidelines for the School Library Media Program, courtesy of AASL. Acronymed L4L (Learning for Life), this implementation plan was created to support states, school systems, and individual schools preparing to implement the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Forthcoming there will be guidelines for the school library media program.

Do you know about commoncraft, a free site for online video tutorials? I just watched one about RSS feeds and it cleared up any remaining confusion that lingered. Definitely worth a peek.

Leapfish is a new search engine with innovative features. Not quite the same as searchme (did you try it yet) but pretty powerful.

Follett Destiny

Mary and I are at a Follett Destiny user group meeting and we are learning!

We just made a change you might like. On the first screen of the catalog, students can search for Award Winners. In the field next to Search Award Winner, select New York. Then, place your cursor in the search box and hit enter. Voila! You will see the list of award winning titles your library holds, and I know you will be impressed.

You can also search for literary prize-winning titles. In the Search Award Winner field, scroll to the second choice, Literary Prizes, and in the bottom box, either leave it as "all" or select the prize you want to locate. Once again place your cursor in the search box, and hit the enter key.

We also made two discoveries. Well, actually one discovery and one reminder. Check out Library Bytes (no relation to our own LITE Bytes) and 23 Things.

Did you know you could add subjects to your Visual Search? Take a look at the high school library catalog, select Visual Search, and click on Famous People and then Barack Obama. If you're interested in learning how to do this, let Mary or me know. Alternatively, when you're logged on, you can go to help and do a search for Visual Search.

One more tip. When you're in help, you can do a search for "Quick" and you'll get a list of all the tipsheets that are available.

Department Meeting, December 17, 2008

It was great hosting the public librarians today. Their programming initiatives are impressive! I'm looking forward to attending the Global Village celebration on January 25 at 2:00 when there will be a performance by Smith Street students, the high school jazz band, and the ribbon cutting ceremony for the much anticipated new computer center. April is the library's film festival, and we'll be sure to invite our tv studio students to enter their efforts! March and April features a major poetry event which always is greeted with enthusiasm. The public librarians report that our students are active junior Friends of the Library members. Students of all ages take advantage of the varied programs. Book discussion groups and other activities thrive! A new service is tutor.com and Live Librarian, both of which extend library service to users 24/7. Teaching our students the value of being active library users and actually learning about the role of a trustee is a potential collaborative project that will be explored with Nancy Froehlich and Trina Reed. We also discussed the success the summer reading partnership initiative enjoyed, and we look forward to even more participation this summer!

We showed Shelfari, an online site to share suggestions for new books to read.

The librarians were most interested in learning how we use interactive whiteboards in the district, so we had a bit of show and tell. Adele and Gail prepared movies and flipcharts to demonstrate some examples of content and techniques.

We navigated over to searchme, a visual search engine. It's even more versatile than I thought! Check out the homework helper stack. Black History Month is coming in January--check out this stack as well. Kind of reminds me of flowgram--but that robust site is for another day.

Cool site

Have your students select a topic and do a side-by-side comparison of results in Google and Yahoo.
Scroll to the bottom of the page for a geography challenge:

Department Meeting, November 19, 2008

A bold move:

I am no longer going to print the agenda. Please refer to this blog. Minutes will be integrated seamlessly so we will have a record of our discussion and any decisions made.










1.The images to the left and above are brought to you courtesy of Wordle, http://www.wordle.net/.
The first one above simply connects to one of my del.icio.us accounts and arranges the tags I use for my bookmarks. I created the second one by typing words that resonate with me when I consider libraries. This would be a great exercise to do with your students during a brainstorming activity. A bonus is the flexibility to use color and randomize the way the words appear. Have fun, and be sure to share!

2. Good news about SIF--and Follett. The program is working. New student names should automatically populate the fields every 10 seconds or so. Let me know right away if this isn't the case. A new upgrade for Follett has been released, but we are holding off on the download until we're certain that the latest one is working without a hitch. Feedback, please.

3. We are scheduled to meet with the public librarians on Wednesday, December 17. We will meet in the high school library. Thank you to everyone for volunteering to bring refreshments. The public librarians are very interested in seeing how we use the boards, so Gail, Adele and Paulette volunteered to showcase their work.

4. Sharing--Lawrence Road Middle School website. Paula took us on a tour of the Lawrence Road Library website which is a comprehensive, extremely impressive 24/7 learning station.

5. LITE Bytes articles--Let's plan to publish a mid-year newsletter centered around the theme on helping our students succeed. Please volunteer to write an article. Everyone agreed to submit an article by mid-January. I will set up the wiki so you can compose right to the site. If you prefer, e-mail it to me or save it in Library M. Articles so far: eChalk blogging (Dolores), Promethean/video (Gail), ALA standards (Deirdre), collection development (Nancy F.).

6. Database update--Usernames and passwords for Grolier and Book Flix have been received and are available in Library M. Please confirm they are both working properly before I update the username and password lists. Lists will be updated by the beginning of next week.

7. Purchase orders/budget info--Due to the economic crisis, we will not be increasing any of our codes. Anticipate that capital outlay expenses will be placed on hold. You may prepare a wish list of such items, but be prepared to sacrifice them. I again encourage you to prepare your purchase orders for this year and encumber your funds. There currently is a freeze on equipment, furniture, and supplies, except in cases when the items are critically needed for instruction and student use.

8. Collage of Careers--Let's plan to put together our tri-fold boards at our January meeting. Our focus is on resources that support career investigations. Nancy F. is targeting librarianship. Artistic talent and vision will make this extra-special, so start thinking!

9. Websites of Note--Educational Games http://www.ramogames.com/
Library songs http://northside.woodfordschools.org/Media_Center/library_songs.htm
Curriki http://curriki.org/ Since I last told you about this site, it has enjoyed significant enhancements.
AASL Awards http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslawards/aaslawards.cfm Most of these are collaborative in nature. Go for it!
AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslproftools/learningstandards/standards.cfm
Henrico County's Today's Library says it all http://henrico.k12.va.us/hcpstv/vv_library.html
Tech Museum Online http://www.thetech.org/
Teachscape free professional development modules http://www.teachscape.com/html/ts/nps/subscribe_to_our_email_newsletter.html Click on Module of the Month to subscribe, or select from the list for one that interests you.
Write like an Egyptian at the Egyptian Gallery of the University of Pennsylvanie Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: http://www.fi.edu/learn/tut/index.html
Great ideas for using Google Docs http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs.html

Handouts: In the interest of saving paper, I am limiting what I am copying for you. Wherever possible, I will suggest online links and offer to copy articles for you if you're interested.

Blogging in the Library, Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award

If you're interested, let me know if you want a copy of "Mysteries of Ancient Egypt" from Multimedia & Internet@Schools (November issue). It includes links to Ancient Egypt clip art: http://www.kingtutone.com/clipart, http://www.phillpmartin.info/clipart/egypt.htm, http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/egyptian.shtml, http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/index.htm

Stumbling Blocks

Interesting article about filters and web 2.0 tools in schools:
http://www.edutopia.org/web-2.0-tools-filtering-firewalls