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Hi all:

The Black Caucus (BCALA) will launch an intergenerational literacy project, entitled Reading is Grand! Celebrating Grand Families @ Your Library, targeted at grandparents raising their grandchildren at a branch library within the Chicago Public Library system.

Whitney Young Branch
Chicago Public Library
7901 S. King Dr.
Chicago, IL 60619
http://www.chipublib.org/branch/details/library/whitney-young/

Details about this project, generously supported by the American Library Association as part of 2009/10 ALA President Camila Alire's Family Literacy Focus Initiative, can be accessed by visiting the following website:

http://bcalareadingisgrand.weebly.com/index.html. It is anticipated that other libraries will duplicate Reading is Grand! programs in their libraries and may access resources from the aforementioned website. If you all could help us pass the word along that would be great! Thanks!

Discovered new "Core Standards" proposed for all states in the US. It is useful to see how Research and Information Literacy are built right in, and also how they are articulated across grade levels.

"Research to Build Knowledge" strands are included in the Writing standards, e.g. Writing standard #8 for Gr. 6-12, "Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate and cite the information while avoiding plagiarism." ),.

This standard is articulated across grade levels on p. 42...good to see the recommended progression:

grade 6 students "Gather relevant information from multiple sources...assess the credibility of each...quote or paraphrase...others while avoiding plagiarism and documenting sources."

7th graders do all this but do so "using search terms effectively," and in addition they evaluate the accuracy of sources, and begin "following a standard format for citation."

8th graders are to be doing so "using advanced search features"

The scope and sequence is also a helpful guide in developing critical thinking skills: On p. 36, Reading standard:

grade 6 students "Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment",

while 7th graders "identify the stated and unstated premises of an argument and explain how they contribute to the conclusions reached,"

and 8th graders "Evaluate an argument's claims and reasoning as well as the degree to which evidence supports each claim."

There are also mentions to the necessity of incorporating multimedia into Speaking and Listening standards on p. 46, and the use of technology and the Internet "to produce, publish, and interact with others" in the Writing standards, on p. 39.

Today I discovered a Web site with lots of potential: http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Home.html

It's similar to a Webquest kind of resource using Google Earth combined with teacher-uploaded pictures and reading questions for books read as a class. It's a neat idea worthy of looking at for other projects...I always wondered how to incorporate Google Earth with an academic project!

Questions for follow up:

--can it be used for student-made projects?

-------if so, have students write the questions to develop their questioning skills? (Carol Koechlin's advice in Q Tasks)

--is it best for books that involve a "road trip"?

--or perhaps best for historical fiction?

--similar application for foreign language classes?

--how does the uploading of pictures help/hinder the LitTrip?

--difficulty knowing where to click and what you're supposed to be looking at...would love a tutorial or something on its use with students

1. iTouches in the library.
2. A Scratch project being the best a student had ever worked on, and how it met AASL disposition standards of having students show adaptability and resilience when they couldn't figure it out.
3. Glogster for multimedia posters, booktalks, etc.
4. Books on Foot, a program to have students listen to audiobooks while walking on school campus and logging their steps online, meets NYS ELA standard for listening, PE standards and lifelong fitness, while promoting reading and author studies to boot.
5. Google squared for a visual matrix of relevant articles/subtopics on a topic.
6. Google Image (Advanced Search) can limit results to pictures "labeled for reuse" and thus not a copyright violation to use. Google Timeline (can't find how to get to it, wait til Ross Todd uploads his presentation to the SLMS conference Wiki) to visually chart when the most web pages/articles about a topic peaked.
7. Start a guerrilla marketing information literacy campaign, complete with regularly-changing slogans for info lit principles/standards courtesy of sloganizer.net, use them on printed signs, bookmarks, widgets on your library page with voki and other avatar technologies. Oh, and gotta get that vocabulary sheet Paige Jaeger handed out to see if I can use it to help get teachers using the same terms as district librarians so we're using a common vocab... Lots to do!
8. Catching up on my Knowledge Quests shows me I've got to get cracking...after assessing her need to hone her lesson design skills, Sarah Sindelar decided to join a book study group on "Understanding By Design" in Second Life and Moodle--what a great idea! And Mary Keeling described her district's 4th year implementing a standardized Inquiry Process complete with a scope and sequence document for its implementation K-5. Whew, what an enormous and praiseworthy undertaking!
   
9. Also at the SLMS conference, Laura Boggs shared her award-winning student-made documentary, of which I was in awe of. But I happened to see her regional (Quasar III ) BOCES school library system's Inquiry Research Process documentation...and it seemed great. From their site, it looks like they rolled it out complete with presentations to faculty, etc. This is just what my district librarians are hoping to accomplish, so I've got to add this to the close-read list...
   
10. Oh, and just found out that AASL published a book Empowering Learners and "Learning4Life" campaign to support its efforts in improving SL programs and integration of the new standards nationwide. It is the topic of the NYLA/SLMS Carol A. Kearney Leadership Retreat for 2010 in Ithaca, Aug. 2-3. I hope to attend but have to see if the kids and husband can make it without me for two nights!
    
11. Now to figure out if Ning is the way to go to keep track of all these thoughts swirling around my head. Or should it be Evernote, which I recently learned about by following Will Richardson's Tweets, and which works on my iTouch but apparently syncs up to many devices (not sure if it'll work in school though)....
    

By DINESH RAMDE (AP)

MILWAUKEE — Here's a way you might save $20 this year: Change the font in the documents you print.

Because different fonts require different amounts of ink to print, you could be buying new printer
cartridges less often if you wrote in, say, Century Gothic rather than
Arial. Schools and businesses could save thousands of dollars with font
changes.

Isn't this a face and a cartoon you can trust to represent you in the PK-12 for ISTE Board of Directors?

Have you seen this course on reading

http://yourschoollibrary.org/

I have been lurking around the Social Justice CHallenge, adding whatever resources I can to help address the monthly issues. This month’s focus is on Domestic Violence and Child Abuse. A HUGE subject matter and sadly, one you won’t have any trouble finding any books, fiction or non-fiction, that address this awful plague. Take some time and look around the page set up with book, media and website recommendations. Decide what you’d like to read, watch or learn about this month. If you have more recommendations for us, let us know. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of domestic violence and child abuse?

What does domestic violence and child abuse mean to you personally? Thankfully I have not had intimate knowledge of domestic violence or child abuse. It is a topic that really makes me sad to think that children and families are torn apart by violence, the growing trend of domestic violence and the poor children who are powerless to stop it. They are innocent victims in all this. When I read the newspapers and they cover the most horrorific cases, many poor children under the "protection" of DHS that have died, it makes me want to cry and it also makes me really angry that children are dying everday!

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1717233/Digital_Storytelling

Rikers High is based on the real-life stories of several students with whom I worked during my six years of teaching incarcerated teens to read and write on Rikers Island, the world’s largest jail. Ibelieve that it is, by far, my best and most important work, revealing whatreally happens to teens who get caught up in our criminal justice system and experiencehigh school behind bars. The overwhelming number of events in this book Iwitnessed first-hand—events that document the learning, hope, hopelessness,violence, and nearly unbreakable spirit of these teens.

“Rare is the reader who won’t find this narrative sobering.” –Booklist

“Volponi writes with an authenticity that will make readers feel (the protagonist’s)fear.” –Publishers Weekly.

“This tale of education and life on the Island will keep readers locked to the page.” –Kirkus.

“(Volponi) portrays power, hierarchies, and race relations both outside and inside the jail walls with unflinching realism.” –SchoolLibrary Journal.

I urge you to read the opening chapters of Rikers High at paulvolponibooks.com. --Paul

Talented wunderkind Caleb Brown created this resource and it's amazing! AND he's very responsive giving out his email address at the bottom of the page and when i had a question - he actually answered it himself within a day or so!

You can even edit the page reposition the links easily!

keep up with new updates by checking out the Sqworl blog