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Showing posts from 2007

Term Blogging

David Warlick published a post on the Quiet Revolution where he discusses a colleague who was speaking to a room of 19-20 year olds and when blogging was mentioned, no one raised their hand. Is blogging becoming an obsolete term? If the same person has asked if those students wrote on Facebook or MySpace the response would've been different. They don't consider that blogging. Many of these same students probably keep a journal at Open Diary of LiveJournal, do they consider that blogging? As vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds, I would suggest subscribing to a reader {like Bloglines or Google Reader } and adding some RSS feeds to see what the most current influences in technology and your occupation will come from next.

Blog Readability

A great link from Doug Johnson ! This website judges your blog's readability http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx Thanks for the mention Rob ! {Even though you called me Julie instead of June.}

wikipedia vision

If you would like to see who is editing the Wikipedia and where they are located, check out WikipediaVision It will give you a map of the world, powered by Google (no surprise!). It is amazing!

What an expensive database offers for free

The Resource shelf just published a list of free resources from the databases people subscribe to. http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/11/05/resources-of-the-week-free-stuff-from-pricey-database-vendors/ Some of these resources include: EBSCO Free Databases LISTA EBSCO Publishing is proud to provide the Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database as a free resource to anyone interested in libraries and information management. This world-class bibliographic database provides coverage on subjects such as librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Delivered via the EBSCOhost platform, LISTA indexes nearly 600 periodicals plus books, research reports, and proceedings. With coverage dating back to the mid-1960s, it is the oldest continuously produced database covering the field of information science. As well as many others.

Websites to find "lost" websites

We have all gone back to a favorite website to find it "missing". Some people routinely use the Wayback machine to find "lost" websites but sometimes you can't find it using this site. What do you do then? The Search Engine Showdown has made a list of different websites to use to find your lost page! http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/others/archive.shtml

AASL as Library 1.0

I was catching up on Joyce Valenza's blog from the AASL conference where she was saying how disappointed it was that there wasn't any evidence of 2.0 technology being used at the conference. As I have been pondering this all morning, I had a idea. Couldn't they put up all the sites/links/presentation mentioned as a set of bookmarks on del.icio.us? Then everyone would have access to the resources.

Why Can't Johnny read?

This is always a great topic. Usually blame is put firmly on the school's shoulders but Walter Dean Myers spoke up yesterday in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer . "I would say there is a crisis," said children's book author Walter Dean Myers. "Too many parents have walked away from this idea . . . that education is a family concept, is a community concept, is not simply something that schools do." It should be the community. If students aren't read to at home and encouraged to read, the blame shouldn't be put on the schools. Parents should be held accountable too. Myers is primarily speaking about boys' reading habits and is giving a lecture called "Books & Boys -- Making It Work!" at the University of Washington this week. It is still a great article to check out!

Reflection and lack of quiet time

If any of you read Ma Bell's Blog about Librarianship and Technology You should read her current entry: http://drmabell.blogspot.com/2007/10/contemplating-contemplation.html It questions our own practices of reflection and quiet thinking. After reading this, I asked myself ..when do I reflect? When I arrived at work, I had 105 emails in Yahoo!, 10 school emails, and over 100 updates in my Google Reader... I feel as if I am reading all the time. It is all good stuff and helpful for my own professional development. I listen to an audiobook in my car, when I walk I have my Mp3 player, etc. When am I reflecting? When are we able to reflect at school? Maybe more of this time needs to be built in...along with sustained silent reading...hmm Great food for thought!

Presenting

How many of us have sat through a presentation to watch the presenter read off the slides? David Warlick had a great post a month ago about how to set up a presentation (or a webpage ). He called it writing to communicate. I also had a teacher approach me about a book called Make It Stick that deals with the same topic. There are many great articles out on the web and in professional journals about presenting. Maybe people should brush up every time they present to be sure they are using common practices or try something new!

Back in the Saddle

After a long break for summer vacation, I am blogging again. I have been doing my personal blogging at OpenDiary but have been neglecting my professional blogging. I have sent in my proposal to SLMS -I am going to do Books for Boys. I love technology. Most of the blogs I subscribe to are technology based. When I present though I am leaning more toward literature. I want my students and staff using the latest tech to promote learning but I still worry about student literacy-especially with the amount of reading on they web. I try to promote literacy of all types. Since my teachers listen and watch all my techno plans..and the emails I send from workshops and conferences I attend...I feel that I need to research and promote books for my students. If I agree to present on a literature based subject, I have to read up on it and find what people are talking about. I am getting ready to present at the Books Abound! conference in Binghamton November 15th . I chose to facilitate the discussi

Library drops Dewey!

The Gilbert library in Arizona is opening a new library and ditching Dewey. Here is the link for the article: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0530nodewey0530.html The are going to shelve by topic...Move over Barnes & Nobles!
http://acrlblog.org/2007/05/14/formula-for-academic-library-success/ There was a great article on the Association of College and Research Libraries blog today discussing the formula for academic success. "Given what Law shared about his research results, there may be cause for optimism. It seems that students may be more savvy about using library research databases than we suspected. They also tend to depend on search engines less heavily for serious research than we may think, and more frequently as a complement to library databases. Yes, students may typically begin in a search engine, but that’s how they acquire background or introductory information. But they then seek out the library’s databases for more detailed information or scholarly content on their topic. " Posted by StevenB on May 14 th , 2007 under Libraries and Learning , Research Issues , Public Services . There is an archived copy of the webcast available here http://home.learningtimes.net/library?go=1561563

SLMS 2007 Luncheon with Tim Green

Tim Green has recently written a new YA book called Football Genius . He was a wonderful speaker and a great way to end the conference. I went back and spoke to my principal about getting Tim while he is doing his book tour. I emailed Tim but am still waiting for him to get back with prices and dates. Jane and I are hoping to split him between East & West. Odds & Ends: The Knickerbocker Award banquet was very nice. The sound system wasn't hooked up correctly or something making it very hard to hear the award recipients. Jerry Pickney was a great speaker and very charming. He didnt' stay for the dancing afterwards. I danced from 9-12 (after I ran upstairs to lose my jacket and do the inhalers that I brought-though I forgot my rescue inhaler). It was a lot of fun though part way through I had to remember not to sing at the top of my voice since I had to present on Sat! Thank you to all the great people I met and for those of you who attended my presentation! I am going to

SLMS 2007-SOS for Information Literacy-Dr. Small, Session 5

I presented during Session 4. http://www.sosinformationliteracy.org SOS for Information literacy is a free K-16 multimedia database. It contains: Lesson plans Quick teaching ideas Online lessons Videos It encourages collaboration. S. Situation (grade level, curriculum area) O. Outcome (information skills) S. Strategies (teaching, motivation, techniques) There is no Ask A service because you can contact the author of the lesson directly. You don't have to sign in to use this but if you would like to save your lessons after you find them you have to create an account. You can create teaching units by putting together different lesson and saving them to "your space." Information literacy and the Information Power standards are included. The next phase of this project will contain a new search engine created by Liz Liddy. The Educators Spotlight Digest in part of this site. There are tutorials as well as online help. If you would like to submit a lesson to be included there

SLMS 2007-Ethics-Session 3

I went to Information Ethics presented by Ed Nizalowski. His concept was good-putting a section of information literacy into a Participation in Goverment class. His project took 5 days to complete but was taught in isolation with the teacher leaving the room during it. On a positive note, he did get to evaluate his part. He created a webquest to go with it but he didn't show it to us or share a link for it. Unfortunately his presentation was poor (due to many things). This caused much of the idea to be lost. We received one handout on the project. The idea was a good one though.

SLMS 2007-Advocacy by Jane Fenn, Session 2

Okay-some of you may be asking yourselves-how could I have gone to both session 2 presentations? I left early after I copied down Jacquie's information (took the handouts) and heard it's all online, then snuck over to Jane Fenn's. Great handouts were provided. She will be sending these in to be posted on the website that Bernie Tomasso said was being created to house them. Ideas for Advocacy Breakfast and bulbs When the AV position was cut at Corning West High School, Jane invited her teachers to bring down their overhead projectors to clean them and teach them to change the bulb. They had breakfast, got a can of air and a new light bulb. Go to high profile events (so the parents & students see you) concerts, plays sporting events be a club advisor go to school events and award programs Call attention to the extra jobs you do Write up professional/library events and send them to the district office to be included in the district/building/parent newsletters. Ask yourself

SLMS 2007-J. Henry Was Columbus Wrong? Session 2

Jacquie Henry has a blog called Wanderings She shared with us A Song for Students: Not on the Test by Tom Chapin Her notes and presentation are available here! http://nlcommunities.com/communities/wanderings/articles/127368.aspx I am checking out the "Did you Know" video by Karl Fisch at Youtube! (I added it to my blog if you would like to view it.) Please add her blog to your reader. She has a lot of fantastic ideas that are definitely work reading about. A great example of Library 2.0 all around!

SLMS 2007 Luncheon with Alice Yucht

You would think that after sitting through session 1-Web Feeds I would've had enough but Alice Yucht delivers fresh materials and ideas with each presentation. Her luncheon presentation was entitled: The New 3 Rs, Digital Literacy Skills for the 21st Century There has been a evolution of information: The information superhighway User driven Interactive Collaborative 2. Information Ocean Can't control the ebb and flow of information Kids need instruction to stay afloat Teenagers now referred to as screenagers. They are digital natives. They use their thumbs (from texting) the way we use our pointer fingers. Pew Internet - Teens, Privacy, and Online Social Networks Alice referred to students by their millennial characteristics. I found an interesting PPT on how it effects them as students. She commmented that we are teaching digital kids analog skills. We are in 1950s buildings using 1990s technology with a 1980s curriculum. We should be looking at contextual learning http://

SLMS 2007 Web Feeds 101-Alice Yucht

If you ever get a chance to go to a workshop presented by Alice, take it! She is a great speaker-very down to earth, humourous and knowledgable. Her SLSM presentation was entitled: "How blog reading can make you look brilliant" She mentioned many blogs in her presentation including Shiny Shiny , Indexed and Lifehacker . She stated that our role is "chief information officer". (Which I agree with!) Some sites she mentioned: AAA Fuel Cost Calculator Jot-it (where you can leave yourself an electronic note) Even a texting translator ! She proceeded to define what a blog is: "A website with entries in reverse chronological order with catagories." There are 3 different kinds of blogs: Personal/ point of view (covering events and impressions) Practical/purposeful (new resources/links) Philosophical/polemical (exploration/big ideas) You can use blogs to further your professional development. They provide: Instant information Hot topic in the profession Lifelong

Great tips for patrons to promote libraries

I came across a great list of tips from Superpatron's blog. Not only could patrons use it but librarians too! He also created a video that he presents at libraries that is listed on his site . People who love their libraries want them to be better. Here's what you can do. Ten ways for superpatrons to build better libraries: 1. Blog about your library Write about your experiences at the library on your blog. Note who you talked to, what you noticed while you were there or while you were online, and how things worked. You have a set of eyes that the people who work at the library don't have, and by giving feedback in public you have some way to draw attention to what is working and why your library is valuable to you and to your community. 2. Request the books you want to read Libraries have book acquisition budgets, and people whose entire job it is to put books on the shelf that get circulated. There's no way that they will know every last title that should be on the s

SLMS 2007 Opening session-Toni Buzzeo

The 2007 session of SLMS in NY opening speaker was Toni Buzzeo . Her construct was entitled "Collaborating from the Center of your School Universe: Beyond the Basics to Advocacy". She is very passionate about collaboration. She talked about how information is either causing the collapse of schools or accelerating the growth of learning. She commented that positive growth encourages expansion. Toni defines collaboration as "The process by which we learn/design, team teach, & team evaluate." Students need to know, understand, and be able to "do" whatever learning task is set. She mention Information Power I which was published in 1988 and was the beginning of the concept of collaboration. Information Power II stated that collaborative energy powers the library media program. To follow her universe construct, she mentioned that productive collision courses (running into a teacher in the hall) provide an exchange of ideas. (Like when stars collide, ener

Joining the conversation

I read a great post today by Steven Bell on how we don't tend to disagree in the blogosphere. It really made me think and reread the blogs I usually check in on daily. It is mostly true that instead of dissent or differences of opinion there are many comments that are just "yes, I agree" or what a great post. One of Steven's arguments states that if we want to be considered as library science professionals we would do well to debate both sides of every controversy. Another great blog to check out is Monsterlibrarian This is a site that reviews the horror genre. It's updated often.

New and upcoming

The newest site I've found this week is http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com If you have wondered about what kids addiction is with social networking sites-this is for you! This site is dedicated to Teacher Librarians-you can invite a friend, post images or videos-the site is great. This one was started by Joyce Valenza. Another one is Chris Harris's Library 2.0 http://library20.ning.com/ If you join both it links them together. Chris's network is for librarians interested in what a library can offer to it's patrons that involved today's technology. They are both great websites. You can browse or lurk for free. If you wonder what the buzz is, check them out! I am still getting ready for SLMS 2007. I am very bummed that my program is opposite Chris's since I like to attend his presentations. Maybe I can talk him into podcasting or posting a video at YouTube!

Interesting new tool

There is a new mapping tool that combines sickness outbreaks with Google maps. If you are wondering who in your area has the sniffles or what is going around. Check this out: http://whoissick.org/sickness/

New networking website

For those of you who have been wondering about the addiction of social networking, this site is for you: http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com Here's the blurb for the website-it was started by Joyce Valenza. "For those of us who connect, teach, share, and lead in new information landscapes. Come play in this exciting learning sandbox! Pose questions in the forum. Add your images!" You can post video and collaborate with your peers. Come and satisfy your curiosity!

Ten Things a Blogging Librarian Must Do-by Mike

Ten Things a Blogging Librarian Must Do (an exercise in common sense) Cite your sources . Link to them. It's what this Web and blog thing is all about. Post often but have something to say . I'd rather read one or two super good posts than multiple posts that someone puts up because they feel they have to. I've done that here. I used to post everyday, but now I focus on what's really interesting me and what I can comment on. However: make the commitment though to follow through. It pains me to see a new blog go up, get listed here and there and then never hear from it again. Blogging is an investment of time and energy, commit. Post about what you're passionate about and don't be afraid to say what you think! And share yourself . I love learning about folks and how they see the world. Their POV may help me understand or change mine. It also adds to the community that is the blogosphere and more so the Internet. We are people... be yourself! Never miss an opportu

The library and the scrotum

I have been following the controversy over The Higher Power of Lucky (the Newbery Award winner). This book has been banned from libraries because of the use of the word scrotum. Not even a human scrotum but a dog scrotum. One blogger wrote "It’s right there, on page one. Our heroine overhears a dramatic story about a man whose dog was bit on the scrotum by a rattlesnake. " Why is this such an issue? It is a dog.....maybe the author could've used a different word-privates-but would that have solved the problem. I bet you could get a huge influx of teens to read this book if the controversy continues...

ALA Washington office now in Second Life

Published by Lorelei January 9th, 2007 in Cybrary City Tags: ala, cybrary city. We are excited to announce the opening of the virtual ALA Washington Office in Second Life. The Washington Office is located on Cybrary City next to several other libraries. Cybrary City is one of several islands that librarians are using in SL to provide services to the users of this community. To visit our virtual office, simply click on the SLURL (Second Life URL): SLurl. At present, you can find the following items in the virtual office: An introduction to the Washington Office Information on upcoming activities at Midwinter and National Library Legislation Day. An interactive computer that will point users to ALA Washington online resources, including the District Dispatch podcast and blog. A slideshow of pictures of our office and staff. The Washington Office was established in 1945 as a conduit between ALA members and federal legislators on Capitol Hill and now consists of the Office of Government Re

New Tools

I have created a book blog for my high school students and a wiki for my Teacher book club. I haven't gotten any hits on the book blog but my teachers are enjoying the wiki. Do you have any online tools to suggest? I am using http://www.pbwiki.com for the wiki and I think I'll use http://www.surveymonkey.com for their evaluation.