July 2007 Blog Posts (18)

Having attended the Building Learning Communities conference two weeks ago, I've determined that, while I'm nominally in charge of technology at my school, I am terribly naive about social networking and what it means to my students. My experience with MySpace has been mostly attempts to see what our students are doing/saying on their pages. At the same time, our school blocks MySpace. I'm beginning to see a disconnect between what we (the school) teach, allow, and encourage and what our…

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I'm currently teaching 4 online classes. I haven't carried a load like this in years. typically I teach no more than two courses, but things snowballed and I find myself with a very full plate. It's been taxing and very interesting. Great people, great classes, and the pressure has helped me realize that I need to relax, step back and let people learn. (I just can't micromanage and save my sanity, so I'm forced to get more comfortable with my professed guide on the side role.)



When I… Continue

I'm going to spend my first blog talking about two tools I like. The first is Bloglines.com. If you are new to RSS, this is a great place to start. I follow about ten different blogs from this site. It makes it easy for me to keep up with my favority topics without having to look in different places.

Another tool that I'm really starting to like is Moodle. Moodle is an open-source classroom management system that allows you to offer classes online. I'm still developing some…

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You are cordially invited to explore the July-December issue of MidLink Magazine http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink the award-winning magazine for students ages 8 - 18. If you're looking for ideas for your upcoming year, you’ve come to the right place! Please email the teacher/editors of the projects below you would like to participate in with your students! You

and your students are sure to get inspired by the…

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The global librarian group is highlighting Global Library 2.0 week next week, so I have started a post on my blog asking for us to share posts and ideas for bringing web 2.0 tools into school libraries specifically.

http://futura.edublogs.org/2007/07/20/joining-the-network/

Feel free to share your ideas either there, on your own blog, or here.

Ideas for:

library design and what it would mean…

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Anyone interested in participating in a place-based storytelling

project I am creating? This will be a research project for a fourth

grade class studying Native Americans. My class will be focusing on New

York State tribes; I am looking for other classes from the original

colonies area. The project will incorporate:

• research about the tribes
• podcasting
• locating and placing each tribe on an interactive Google map, with links back to podcasts and…

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I am putting together a proposal for my superintendent on what a 21st century elementary school library should 'look' like in a school of 600 students. My main concern is that I have so many classes, many of which are preps, that there is no time for teacher/librarian collaboration in my 1-3 classes. Presently, I am a 30-min. prep for grades 1&2, half the year (not changeable); a 40 min. weekly prep for grade 3,and not a prep for kindergarten.

I am OK with my 4th & 5th grade… Continue

Greetings,

I am new to this but I hope to make some good friends and gain some new ideas to use in my library. I am a Middle School Librarian. We were a year-round school until last year. This is my first full summer off in 15 years. I have to say I really love having the time to play. This summer I am playing with a vengance. I have taken on the musical directorship of a local community theater's production of "Oklahoma". I am having a grand time!!!!!

Also my school has gone…

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I've been collecting online resources and sharing them with students in my info lit class. It occurred to me today they might be useful for people on the Ning, too. Though I'm sure you already know many of them. Anyway, here they are, if you're interested!



Jeri





Download greatlinks2.doc…



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I thought I did post on my blog, but it's telling me I did not. So here is my first blog post I guess. As I look at this page, I think it's much too complicated. My 14-year-old daughter mastered her myspace page and it looked great. I thought I was computer literate...

I found a great website called Footnote. It is created and run in conjunction with the National Archives and is all pirmary source documents. It is worth checking out. The website is Footnote.com

I am interested in authentic assessment in the library setting. What I would like specifically is to hear about others who are interested giving students credit for the work they do in the classroom as a group. The problem lies in how we are to assess the work they are doing which is worth our attention and grading.

I have been researching how other teachers are dealing with the issue of authentic assessment and how they might be incorporating this type of assessment into the…

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Hello everyone,



I am always on the lookout for resources for my students at university. Here are some links that may be of interest to this group.



Library Outreach Wiki - From the Information Literacy Weblog



This wiki has been designed by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe and Lisa Sloniowski to serve as a collaborative tool for instruction librarians to share ideas on best practices in outreach activities for libraries and instruction… Continue

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I just spent the last two days trying to move into the 21st century. We are (and I blush) finally moving to an automated system. The cataloguers are hard at work in my library as I type. It's going to be a steep learning curve and as with all technology there will be glitches but I am excited about the new possibilities that will open up. I spent some time playing with Toondo today and offer my effort below. I think it will be a great tool for introducing kids to things on my library…

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I have just come back from 3 really buzzy days in Wellington enjoying the amazing knowledge sharing that occurs when school librarians get together. Awesome to hear Ross Todd and Pru Mitchell talking about information literacy in a Web 2.0 world. So challenging when you work in a school where the majority of teachers are still coming to terms with information literacy let alone Web 2.0!

Has anyone else seen Zentation? I've been watching a couple of the presentations on it, wondering if it would be useful for the classroom, when I realized how powerful it might be for anyone trying to create a Library 2.0 website. Basically, the site is a mash-up, and allows you to post video that syncs with a Power Point. I'm wondering if it would work to tape yourself teaching a group, say, database searching, then post the video/PP, and link to it on… Continue