All Posts (955)

Sort by

Global Education Conference

11023906867?profile=original

I would like to invite your students to participate in The Global Education Conference this November

15-19, 2010. This conference is held online in Elluminate over 5 days in multiple time zones. We are interested in participants, presenters and partners. The focus is on global collaboration and bringing interested parties together to explore best
practices in helping students and educators develop global competencies.
Students you know may be interested in sharing their work with others around
the globe. Please explore the following conference web site link and let me
know if you have any questions. The conference website --> http://www.globaleducationconference.com

The student track will include opportunities for:


Student Organizations
Model Projects
Service Learning
Homeschoolers
Exchange Programs
Adult and Community
Project Showcases


Our Suggested Session Set Up: (not to exceed 60 minutes)

* arrive in Elluminate room 20 minutes before presentation
* 1-5 minutes welcome & short biographical blurb
* 20-40 minutes - Student Presentations
* 15 - 20 minutes - Q&A
* Suggested Session Set Up: (not to exceed 60 minutes)
* arrive in room 20 minutes before presentation
* 1-5 minutes teacher welcome
* 20-40 minutes - Class Event and Student Presentations
* 15 - 20 minutes - Q&A with Teachers


Possible Social Issues for Presentations

* Human Rights
*
o Convention on the Rights of the Child
* Peace
*
o How can we educate for peace?
o Nonviolence, respect for human rights and dignity, social justice and civic responsibility, global awareness, and environmental sustainability.
* Cities
*
o Cities of Today, Cities of Tomorrow
* Poverty
*
o What does it mean to be poor? What are the best ways to fight poverty?
* Health
*
o Fighting Disease
* Saving Tomorrow's World
*
o Threats to our planet and the issues of environmental politics
o Cleaner Oceans
* Education
*
o UNESCO’s 2015 Challenge
o How is education changing / staying the same



Thank you for your consideration,

Student Strand Committee

Chris Chater



cchater@gmail.com
Committee Chair
and Lisa Durff
mrsdurff@gmail.com
Committee Member
Read more…

Want my aide back!

Do to budget cuts, I lost my aide and now I find myself struggling doing tons of things all at once. Simple things I used to delegate to her now has to be squeezed between lessons, check in/out, shelving books and managing AR. I know I will survive and it's just establishing a routine but for now....I'm exhausted! She used to help me so much...but what can I do???
Read more…
I first met Dr. Bell back when the Nancy Pearl dolls were brand new. She ordered me over the Internet and when I arrived she took me right out of the packaging. I am not crazy about those people who keep my body doubles swathed in plastic and stuck up on shelves. I was meant to be FREE! Anyway, I went to TLA (Texas Library Association) that year in San Antonio and, along the way, Dr. Bell started taking pictures of me. She got me in front of the Alamo! She met the living breathing Nancy Pearl and took a picture of me with HER! Then she took MORE pictures of me around Texas and our relationship blossomed along with the bluebonnets. I have been with her all over the place now! Some places I have been:
London
New York City
Ireland
Washington DC
West Coast USA--Oregon, Washington, California
Luckenbach Texas
Denver
Chicago
Toronto
Boston
Across the Rio Grande into Mexico
On a road trip through the South--Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia. We even went to Dollywood!

I know I am forgetting some...Anyway, I do get around. and am pretty proud that Dr. Bell had me join up as the first member of her Fantastic 591 Class.
Read more…

Academic Library Journal Panic

So here is the post from 144Lhttp://www.144l.com/2010/08/academic-library-journal-panic-2/But here is the original draft!My Library People, I’m aiming this post at friends, fans, passers-by as well as you so forgive the informality…the goal is having fun with a complicated idea.What is this? This is an attempt at analyzing David Rosenthal amazing article which can be found here (http://blog.dshr.org/2010/06/jcdl-2010-keynote.html). Now, I favor humor over facts on this blog. Also, I made no effort to clearly distinguish my ideas from his but I will say that he never compared Academic Publishers to the mob, but I did. Say what you will the implications of Omertà Dude, at least it’s an ethos.If you are looking for an analysis of the article to take seriously look here (http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/2010/07/12/managing-discontinuities/). But not here!So, all the good ideas are David’s and all the crazy stuff that doesn’t make sense is my fault. Okay, objectivity is gone, you get that this is supposed to be fun, get your favorite beverage out, smoke’em, if you got’em.So, to do this right we have to get a few things in mind.The First ThingMetcalfe’s Law (fancy Spirograph)The deal is this. If you are the only person in the world with a phone, that isn’t worth very much. After all what would be the point? Now, if you have two phones, well you can call and be called by the other phone. Now, the more phones the more valuable each phone becomes.Because of this law (so says the article) you eventually get beasts like Microsoft. Why you ask? My guess because if everyone has the same operating system they can all run the same apps, everyone using Windows would be like everyone having a phone. Case in point, pretty much uses everyone uses MS Office and if you send a document made in Open Office… well try it for fun.I’ll take a shot at this golden Metcalfe, because my view is that the internet is now platform. In one respect it validates the argument because the internet is the protocol that won out over all the others (books by fax, really?!). In the other respect so long as Mac’s, PC’s and Linux boxes can access web based applications the OS doesn’t matter so much so long as the browser knows what to do.Look at www.meebo.com where any browser on any OS can chat on almost any chat/social network. So, I don’t think you have to get one super beast out of the deal. You can shoot the law down just by saying the network would be useless if everyone on the network spoke a different language (no one would understand what the heck the other was talking about, seems oddly familiar)…but you get the idea.The Second ThingPublishing as a business is a tough nut to crack and if you are going in to publishing and starting doing what people have been doing, you are doomed. The model for how scholarly things are published are about to get rocked by new technologies (which can be a good thing if you are not doing it old school, mabye).I’d have to agree. Take a look here http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-much-does-it-cost-to-publish-book.htmlThe Third ThingIt’s the cheese, I mean the protocol!I assume nothing, well, little. So for the uninitiated, HTTP is a way of computers taking to each other (like ways of sending things in the mail, FedEx, UPS, catapult, etc), HTML is format, a song can be on an 8-track, LP, Compact Disk, mp3 but the song is still the same song.Most articles you’ll find are like songs, static files. But cool websites are all about user generated content, like Flickr for example. It very well maybe that articles will be completed documents pulling many resources together into something that looks more like Flickr or something cool like that than just a static PDF.There are two ideas here; one is that sites are no longer singular and that they can change. Take this very site for example, if you were to archive it you’d also have to archive the Google Maps, the Tweets, LastFM songs, and all the sites we’ve linked to…which end up being many a Gigabyte. So this site is really made up of other sites. Really, it’s content generated on other sites which then communicate stuff to this site (Think First Thing). Articles could become the same, pulling information from many a source and in a sense, live. This is my assumption of what I think Dave meant, but keep with the idea for now….To archive correctly you’d also have to archive the different versions of this site, the themes we’ve used for example. If academic articles are heading this way, how do you preserve it when preservation is tough as it is? This is a new country we are talking about, the wild west of the interwebs!And if you did it right (let us just say) and get all the links working lovely, you will have to contend with making all the backend profitable or at least make the effort worth it. “Ingesting” or scanning/backing stuff up, is pricey, a pain and needs constant hosting and mothering. How to make a model like that profitable while the very objects are getting more complicated?Forth ThingThis Thing of OursIf you want to get tenured, you need to kiss the ring. At least I said ring. And I mean the ring of the Big Journals. If you want to get Made in the big bad world of Academia, you got to do the work! So, if you are a Big Journal, you got a captive audience because getting tenured means going to the Big Journals which are then pimped out by the Big Publishers which are the same guys that will charge you an arm and a leg to get a copy of same article you wrote. If you use National Institute Of Health money you got to make it public, so that’s a plus.Fifth ThingViva La RevolutionThe music industry once upon a time had control of how music got to people and hence had control of the artist and the wealth the artist created. Now the RIAA are suing pirates for getting music without the music labels seeing a penny and by pirates I mean people who got fed up with the music industry because they are bunch of jerks who have it coming (so the theory goes). The thing is, the RIAA got lawyer happy when they started losing the crazy cash they were getting, not because they were going broke, they just they expect to keep the Mad Money coming from selling CD’s. Keep that in mind because we’ll be coming back to that later but think Second Thing for now.Sixth ThingMiddle Earth is shrinkingSo, you know how the middle class is disappearing? Same thing happens in the World Wide Web, you get your Yahoo, your Google and your Bing. Then, you get your smaller niche sites, say some librarian who really likes road trips and library advocacy. The point is the middle ground is empty because you digg (sic) the big sites, skip past the mediocre sites and check out the small niche sites. Again, Second Thing, as a byproduct of the First Thing.Seventh ThingGreed is good, for screwing things upYou see, the big Academic Publishers are a Hasa, a pig that don’t fly straight (a colorful way of saying, bad business model). Take Nature for example, of the big fishes in the pond. Mighty large, and you can make some cash distributing them, you can make more cash bundling them with other journals. Go with the bundle and get the site license or just get one journal a time which is a pain to use, getting one article at time is a joke and so that’s how libraries got their budget’s jack Soprano style.The thing is, there are only so many big fishes and if you watch gangster movies you know that if you want to make more money, you got to cut your product. Here come the crappy journals, the NutraSweet in your Yayo. Well, with junk journals you’ll need papers, and oh, they ain’t too shy about what they publish. Think Fourth Thing and you’ll see there is an endless supply.Devil’s AdvocateOkay, so you are chilling in your office of you Academic Library Publishing Company, and the thing is you got too big to make more money. You are pretty much only game in town, there are no more customers. Well, you could try to jack up the prices, but your clients only have so much money or maybe you could cut down on your expenses, easier said than done. You want to lay off your people? You are already giving discounts to developing countries, it’s not like you totally don’t have a heart, it’s just business.Hmmm….But the point I think David is making is that these Academic Publishers expect this Mad Money to keep coming and can’t adapt quickly enough to changes both the economy and tech and while they are not closing shop and selling beads on the boardwalk, the future looks bad in part because people could find a way to live without them.In my view, the weakness of the Publishers is that they are actually are on far more an even playing field than they would like to be….So, let’s look at the music industry again for a wee bit of comparison.You can pay per song like you can pay per article (there are differences, but go with the flow). Now, this means you are in a catch 22, because if you charge the same per song you can’t charge extra for the good stuff and charging extra for the good stuff turns people away.And since people will pay for what they want instead of buying bundles, it shows bundles ain’t the way to go. If you charge too much music will get pirated because DRM doesn’t work. Why? So long as it can come out a speaker, it can be recorded and distributed. Articles are just files like music files, and fancy articles aren’t here yet. So, articles can be pirated, or more likely than not, someone asks for a copy from someone who can get it, think of it as an underground interlibrary loan.The point of the comparison is to illustrate the problem with the profitable distribution of content, because it is a problem for all who do so.To make things interesting, Google is pretty damn good at finding things on the ye old interwebs. So, if researchers just post their findings on their University sites, it will get indexed and found reasonably well (in theory). And since everyone including researchers uses Google, it kind of works out that you don’t need the monstrous Academic Publishers if we just posted stuff on the web. But is being at the mercy of Google really the way to go?If researcher were to strike it on their own you’d need to get that peer review element, you can create a group like The Galactic Senate but for academic publishing, and then just post it on a Galactic Senate but for academic publishing server and make their own OPAC.Let us make sense of this madness, or fake it to look cool because this is getting long.David has some ideas to throw down with the big guys. Give a place for scholars to place their work for free, if they use Amazon’s clouds charge’em and throttle connections that don’t use the University’s platform. Yes, we are at the mercy of Google if there isn’t a Galactic Senate of academic publishing with its own OPAC.Yes, easier said than done. That is have a place where scholars can post their stuff, get it reviews and accessed for free. As memory and internet protocols progress, questions of preservation will have to be dealt with, but it is fully possible to have a free peer reviewed system. There are open source journals in existence, this is slowly happening because the tech is allowing it and researchers are just as fed up as music fans. We need a big enough push for it to move from a small niche thing to a big thing and between the finical pain of Big Publishers, the new found tech, and the willingness of some people to publish open source maybe enough of a mix of disruption and tech advancement that it could be pulled off.
Read more…

First post, some ideas

So, hello. :)

A little about our project. Firstly, most of it can be explained on our about page, so if you really need a point of reference check out our blog. www.144l.com.

My hope here is find some cool people and bump ideas back and forth.

In general, the idea of the BIBLIOTHEKSPOLIZEI project is to visit historical sites, libraries and museums, then blog about it. Now, going some place and blogging about is okay, but doing in a fake looking police car is another. The idea is to make the trip exciting, borrowing from what I learned about rallies, what make them exciting and adding that to visits. Then the post act as advertising for the place in question. Also, we plan on more library related post when the fall comes because we can't get out as much. School, work and bad weather makes this project far more seasonal than I'd like.

The techie side of the project is using "web 2.0" or "library 2.0" to interact with the people who follow us on our web presence. I acknowledge that some people want to see if we'll get pulled over, but I think that's just a few. I think most people who follow us are just stuck at the computer for that day and want to follow us out of boredom or because we going to something they really care about and can't make it. That said, our mom's follow us so we drive nice and easy.

I think the main aspect of the project is that there is an excitement about road rallies that can convert to road trips, on a far smaller scale but the icons on the car, the photos and the tracking kind of add to project an air of interest that makes advocacy interesting.

Of the top of my head, the problem with most attempts at advocacy is that they are boring. Sadly attention spans are short, even for the best of us. Blame what and you will, but you have to come across and novel. And as a personal narrative so there can be an emotional investment.

Okay, that's all for now.

Best,

Us

Read more…

Exciting Job Opening at TeachingBooks.net

Hi TeacherLibrarianNing-ers,

I thought I'd share a job posting for http://TeachingBooks.net in case you know someone who might enjoy it. I think this job will be great for any smart, energetic person who loves books, education, and working with teachers and librarians. I know it isn't a school librarian position, but it sure is connected to the field and enables advocacy and support in personable, meaningful ways.

Details of this Madison, Wisconsin-based opportunity are copied below or at
http://teachingbooks.net/jobopportunity

My very best. -- Nick Glass ( nick@teachingbooks.net )


Educational Outreach Coordinator at TeachingBooks.net

TeachingBooks.net, an educational organization that adds a multimedia dimension to the reading experiences of children's and young adult books, is looking for a qualified individual to help lead company outreach and customer support efforts.

The primary focuses of this position are to:
* Actively support the integration of multimedia into reading with current and prospective customers (teachers and librarians).
* Clearly and enthusiastically provide information to users of our service to improve their understanding of and experience with the TeachingBooks.net service.
* Communicate with license coordinators to assist them in effectively raising awareness of TeachingBooks.net within their educational communities.


Valued attributes that will enable you to thrive in this position include:
* Exceptional written and oral communication skills.
* Comfort talking with educators and presenting in front of a group.
* Strong organizational skills with the ability to multitask and meet deadlines.
* Ability to manage details with ease.
* Attentiveness to data integrity.


An ideal candidate has a familiarity with and interest in education, librarianship, and books; an interest and willingness to take initiative; and experience working in a team environment.

Position is full-time with competitive salary and benefits, including health insurance. Position is on-site in a Madison, WI office.

View the complete job description at:

http://TeachingBooks.net/EducationalOutreach


Reply with cover letter and resume to:

Alyssa Yokota-Lewis, Lead Educational Outreach Coordinator
alyssa@teachingbooks.net

(608) 257-2919


About TeachingBooks.net:

TeachingBooks.net is a portal to thousands of online resources that educators and students use to explore children's and young adult books and their authors. We offer a multimedia connection to reading, and are currently licensed in more than 25,000 schools providing resources to more than 13 million students.

Learn more at: http://TeachingBooks.net/about

Read more…
New Virtual Classroom Launching on the 25th of July - Important Points to Note
Hello Everyone,

The much awaited new Virtual Classroom is finally set for launch on Sunday, the 25th of July 2010. We sincerely thank all the teachers who have helped us with their valuable feedback and suggestions for the new look and feature-rich Virtual Classroom. The new Virtual Classroom has been designed specially for teachers and students, and offers ease-of-use, a rich look-and-feel experience, and smooth interaction.
With only few days left for its launch, we suggest that you start getting acquainted with the new Virtual Classroom right away to get a seamless experience in your future classes. Try the new Virtual Classroom by following the link below or just copy and paste in your browser directly:
http://www.wiziq.com/info/newvirtualclassroom.aspx
You can also send a request for a demo and one of our technical support executives will get back to you shortly to help you on the new Virtual Classroom. A personal invitation will be sent once you confirm your slot for the demo. So please reserve your slot at the earliest by writing to us at support@wiziq.com.
After the launch, all the classes that you have already scheduled will use the new Virtual Classroom by default.
Important points to note:
1) There will be a downtime between 3:30 AM and 7:30 AM (GMT) and 9:00AM to 1:00PM (IST) on Sunday, the 25th of July 2010 due to the upload of new Virtual Classroom to the WiZiQ's server. During this time, you would neither be able to access the website, nor schedule a class. We also request you to make sure that you do not have any class scheduled between the above mentioned downtime. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.
2) Our new virtual classroom works with flash player version 10.0.42.34 and above. You can download and install the latest flash player from http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ for version 10.1.53.64
What's new?
Here are some enhancements:
1. Improved Audio and Video
• View videos of four participants simultaneously
• Enjoy much improved, latency-free audio
2. Feature-rich Whiteboard and Interface
• Cut/copy/paste, group, ungroup, bring objects back/forth, or rotate the shapes on the whiteboard
• Rename whiteboards
• Change the background colors of the whiteboard
• Add a grid to the background for drawings
• Minimize or move windows within the whiteboard area
• Use emoticons in your chat
• Handle the new ‘File’ and ‘Edit’ menus
3. New-look Media Player
• Select videos from your playlist history in the content library
Also, the new Virtual Classroom adjusts to your screen resolution automatically on launch.
We look forward to your feedback and hope that the new Virtual Classroom fulfils all your online teaching needs.

Warm wishes,
The WiZiQ Team

wiziq.com
Read more…
The school year is about to begin, and it will be an interesting one. I have been a teacher librarian for 7 years in practice and after this year I will be taking some time to concentrate on my own research and studies.

I have been enrolled in a Teacher Leadership program since Summer of 2008, and am finishing my second master's this year. My studies have been wonderful, exhilarating, and life changing and I don't want to stop. By definition, I guess this makes me an intrinsically motivated lifelong learner. And yet despite these flow like feelings I am increasingly frustrated (on good days) and downright ambivalent (on bad days) as a result of living two connected but separate academic lives.

In addition to my ongoing research and studies, I crave MOST of the activities and responsibilities inherent in my role as a high school librarian. And while my job and my scholarship are intricately woven together and seamlessly whole at times this is not always the case. The daily battles I fight on behalf of my teachers and students (access, funding, technology integration, and relevant instructional practices) suck the life energy out of my being as if I were Bella and bad educational policy was a vicious coven of nomad vampires. If I am to remain productive, creative, and, well, fun to be around, I can no longer serve two masters.

My year begins with an interesting dilemma that makes me think of Chris Cruncher's novel, Deadline. Ben Wolfe, the protagonist, has a year to live and must decide what projects will fill his remaining days. Unlike Ben, fortunately, I am not dying a physical death nor am I keeping my time limits secret from everyone around me. Like Ben, I need to decide how best to devote my limited resources. I have a lot of thoughts on this matter, but only two rules.

  1. I must intrinsically enjoy whatever I devote myself to achieving this year. Why? Because this means whatever I leave as my tangible legacy to the school will be AWESOME!

  2. Everything I do during my contacted time MUST be student centered. Each goal must begin and end with a litmus test of how to best to create optimal learning environments and structure individualized learning opportunities for all of my students, no exceptions. Given it is a school of 3000 teens, well, "enjoyable" isn't exclusively synonymous with "easy."

So, if you had one more year as an employed school librarian, and you knew it, what would you do with your time?

Read more…

Public and School Linraries

What is the future of the of our libraries? How can we work together to benefit education in general and students specifically? How can we implement distance learning?
Read more…

Need of a coordinator for librarians

I have always been surprised that each 'department' in our school has a coordinator who specializes in that field - well, every department except mine. We fall under the auspices of the person who handles the federal funding - whomever it may be from year to year.

I am not saying that the individual does a bad job. I am not saying they do not try to do their best. I am saying that they have no idea of what librarianship entails and so we get shortchanged occasionally. Their aren't many of us in our district so I do understand why they haven't hired a coordinator but might I suggest one of the librarians with an MLS or who has the experience to provide appropriate guidance, support, and professional development required of librarians.
Read more…

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Draper's book was awesome. Definitely different from all of her other books---getting into the mind of a girl with cerebral palsy is just the kind of book EVERYONE needs to read.
I really enjoyed Melody! She was feisty, she loved Mrs V (she got Melody). About Mr. Dimming, I really thought he was horrible, have WE as a people, not advanced enough to recognize that all students deserve a chance? I think he was deceitful and those other two girls, Claire and Molly, well they could be any teen today (even though they are in 5th grade), isn't that sad! It was heartbreaking when they all conspired--even Rose---to leave her behind, yes I know what they all said, but their actions spoke louder than words, and I was rooting for Melody when she confronted them and then whirled around in her chair and sped off when she gave it to them, you go Melody!
But I was tormented by the scene with her mother and the rain and Penny! It really showed that Melody was trapped in her body and only a few people listened to her---Mrs V, Catherine--- even her parents couldn't figure out when Melody was trying to tell them something.
I think this book should be read by all teens from 5th grade on up---it would be a great form of sensitivity training---just by reading a book!
Read more…
Hello Everyone,

I willbe leaving Grandview June 29th for my new position at Rockland BOCES - Director of Information Resources and Learning Technologies. We are looking for a Library Media Specialist to fill my position here at Grandview.
The space,technology, and support by building administrators make this an ideal place to work.

Here is a video of the library space.

Those who are interested can contact me via email or phone W: 845-577-6260. I amhappy to host visitors who may be interested.

To be considered, you will have to add your resume, cover letter etc. tothe Rockland BOCES OLAS System.

Sarah Chauncey
http://www.grandviewlibrary.org
http://www.digitalpencil.org
http://skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com
Twiitter: sachauncey
Second Life: Sanny Sweetwater
Read more…

After Ever After by Jordan Sonneblick

What a wonderful follow up to Drums Girls and Dangerous Pie!!! Jeffrey and Tad's friendship, their survival of cancer when they were much younger, and their ongoing pledge to each other to help Jeff in Math and Tad walk across the 8th grade graduation stage are the signs of true friendship. Lindsey is wonderful as the new girl who likes Jeffrey despite his limp from chemo. Steven, Jeff's older brother has taken a year off from school, from life and to Jeffrey, it seems like he has been abandoned by his older brother. But this book has the humor of all of Sonneblick's books, even when dealing with very sad subjects. You laugh and you cry and that is a good thing when reading books. I learned so much about cancer from both of Sonneblick's books and I definitely recommend this to readers from grades 8 to adult, his books are inspiring, humorous and touching.
Read more…

Girl Stolen by April Henry

I loved Girl Stolen! I know my students will too! Imagine you are in your back seat, sick, waiting for your stepmom to pick up your medication and someone (not your stepmom) jumps in the car and speeds off! And on top of that, you are blind, that is what happens to Cheyenne Wilder. Cheyenne is totally believable as a strong female protagonist. The reader finds out later that she succumbed to weakness, pity and wanting to die after her accident and resulting blindness but she has worked hard to regain her life, maybe not as she knew it before, but some semblance of a life with a guide dog, a cane, family and friends. The students/readers will relate to Griffin as a teen who has had a very tough life, a nasty, mean father who makes money the wrong way and doesn't care in the least about anyone. But both Griffin and Cheyenne have different kinds of hope and that is what propels the suspense and drama in this numbing story of a car theft gone terribly awry. Will Cheyenne use her heightened senses to save herself? Will Griffin save Cheyenne? This story is one wild ride from start to finish, and you will not be disappointed! For those who love mysteries and suspense and for the reluctant reader as well!
Read more…

Beyond Books new and unfreindly log-in

Do any of you subscribe to Beyond Books?

They changed the log-in. It now takes at least four steps until the contents of Beyond Books is accessed.

One cannot directly connect to the topical pages of this product. This discourages students from using this.

Has any one had realized this? If you have, it would probably be helpful to complain to the Apex Learning Company, publisher of Beyond Books.


Read more…

Blog Topics by Tags

Monthly Archives