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Showing posts from October, 2007

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