Podcasting in Plain English May 7, 2008
I am teaching a summer course on Podcasting. I just found my introduction! Thank you, Common Crafts!
At Ellis Island : a history in many voices May 7, 2008
Title: Ellis Island: A History of Many Voices
Author: Louise Peacock
Reading Level: 5.0
Schu’s Rating: 4 
out of 4
Notes: The perfect book for an Ellis Island unit and for teaching students about quality journal writing.
In this historical fiction picture book, Sura, 10, writes letters to her dead mother about her journey from Armenia to Ellis Island. It brings to life a girl’s struggle to join her father in America. Also, a modern day girl shares her grandfather’s journey through Ellis Island and brings to life the voices that dropped off their baggage in a chaotic room filled with a variety of languages. Immigrants proceeded to the great stairway where many were pulled from the line and tested for physical staminia. If you were lucky enough to make it to the Great Hall, you went through a medical exam, a mental exam, and, at times, further questioning. Of the nearly 12,000,000 people who passed through Ellis Island, an estimated 2% were sent back to their homeland. Too many found out the roads were not paved with gold. :( My students are becoming Ellis Island experts and preparing for an Ellis Island simulation. The most poignant story I read was of a young girl who was asked, “Do you wash the stairs from top to bottom or bottom to top?” She replied, “I did not come to America to wash stairs.” The girl was sent back to her home country.
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Keep a Pocket in your Poem May 6, 2008
Book Links announced a new column called “Everyday Poetry.”
“Keep a Pocket in Your Poem” by J. Patrick Lewis could be part of a “pocket poetry” display, with miniature copies of covers of favorite poetry books tucked into blue jean pocket shapes. Enjoy sharing this and future poems with your students!
Linkman May 6, 2008
I’m not sure if Linkman will replace del.cio.us but I’m willing to give it a try. It is an Internet bookmark management system. It uses a database to “store, organize, annotate, and check up to millions of links.”
http://linkman.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=5
The Evidence-Based Manifesto for School Librarians May 6, 2008
This article shows the importance of the school library making a difference and being an important center. It also reinforces everything I learn at Dominican. Thank you, dear friend, for sending it my way.
Every fall, School Library Journal hosts a national Leadership Summit that brings together a mix of school librarians, administrators, other educators, researchers, and university professors, as well as policy makers and elected officials. While the topics change, the Summit always focuses on an issue of critical importance to school librarians. Our goal? To jump-start the conversation and create a ripple effect throughout the profession.
The 2007 Leadership Summit, “Where’s the Evidence? Understanding the Impact of School Libraries,” dove head first into evidence-based practice (EBP). (To learn more about last year’s Summit see “Peak Experience,” p. 41.) Evidence-based school librarianship, according to Ross Todd, director of Rutgers University’s Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL), “is an approach that systematically engages research-derived evidence, school librarian-observed evidence, and user-reported evidence in the ongoing processes of decision making, development, and continuous improvement to achieve the school’s mission and goals. These goals typically center on student achievement and quality teaching and learning.”
Much of what follows draws upon the Summit’s closing session, which Todd led. Here the 200 participants worked at small tables, capturing ideas on paper which they then shared with the larger group. They defined core beliefs about evidence-based practice, identified the challenges ahead, and determined the key actions that needed to be taken—Brian Kenney
Evidence-based practice in school libraries hasn’t emerged out of nowhere. In fact, it’s centered on several beliefs, which most school librarians already share.
- The fusion of learning, information, and technology presents dynamic challenges for teachers, school librarians, administrators, and students in 21st-century schools. Providing the best opportunities for children to learn and achieve in today’s educational environment, and knowing that they’ve done well, is at the heart of quality teaching and learning, and is the driving force behind evidence-based practice.
- School libraries as schools’ information and knowledge centers are essential for addressing curriculum standards, the complexities of learning, and quality teaching in information-intensive 21st-century schools.
- School librarianship derives its mandate from a diverse body of theoretical and empirical knowledge, and active engagement with this knowledge is what enables the profession to continuously transform and improve. Leading this transformation is the professional expertise of certified school librarians who possess expertise, insights, and skills based on the knowledge that they apply in practice.
- All students can learn through engagement with school libraries. School libraries play a transformative role in the lives of students—not only by helping them develop intellectually, as measured by standardized test scores—but by encouraging students’ intellectual, social, and cultural development.
- The transformation of information into knowledge, and the development of attitudes, values, and beliefs are enabled through carefully designed instructional interventions and reading literacy programs that guide and engage students.
- The value of a school library can be measured. Learning outcomes, as well as personal, social, and cultural growth, can be documented.
- Evidence of the school library’s crucial role in student achievement is not fully understood, nor seen, nor acknowledged by many stakeholders.
- Accountability is an essential component of sustainable development of the school library profession. Accountability, as a blueprint for professional integrity and significant outcome, is a commitment to growth through examining progress and practices. It brings alignment, innovation, collaboration, introspection, and effectiveness.
- Sustainable development through accountability requires a move from rhetoric to evidence, from a “tell me” framework to a “show me” framework, and from a process framework to an outcomes framework.
- If we do not show value, we will not have a future. Evidence-based practice is not about the survival of school librarians, it’s about the survival of our students. This is the social justice and ethical imperative for evidence-based practice.
Click here to view the rest.
iPhone News Aggregator May 5, 2008
The iPhone changes your life. I just added Mobile News Network, a news aggregation Web application. It provides international, national, and local news. You can read more about it at the Associated Press website or @ www.iphone.com/webapps.
Virtual Library Day May 5, 2008
Organize a Virtual Library Legislative Day at your library!
Can’t make it to DC on May 14 for National Library Legislative Day? No problem.
Post this flier (http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/nlld/virtuallibrarylegislativeday/NLLD%20Flier%202008.pdf) and recruit everyone you know to take part in a VIRTUAL LIBRARY LEGISLATIVE DAY!
Through Virtual Library Legislative Day, thousands of people all across the country will call, fax and email their Members of Congress to tell them about the importance of libraries in this country.
Get as many library advocates as you can to participate in this incredible event with the Virtual Library Legislative Day flier!
For more information, please visit www.ala.org/nlld.
Are you a Library Blogger? May 4, 2008
Online publishers—and that includes educators and librarians who regularly write or blog for the Web—may now receive a free subscription to the online Encyclopedia Britannica.
“This program is intended for people who publish with some regularity on the Internet, be they bloggers, webmasters, or writers,” advises the April 29 announcement by Britannicanet.com.
Considering that regular subscriptions to the online reference cost $70 for individuals and 65 cents per student for schools, is the mighty Britannica taking a financial risk? “We don’t think so,” says Corporate Communications Director Tom Panelas. “It’s going to create more exposure for us and ultimately bring more people and give us more subscriptions.
“People who publish on the Web are the people shaping and driving the main issues of the day,” Panelas explains. “We think Britannica belongs in the middle of those conversations, so we want to make our material available to the people shaping those discussions.”
Though the complimentary subscriptions last only one year, they are renewable—so long as the subscriber continues publishing, Panelas says. The offer is not intended to “hook” future paying customers, he adds.
Once subscribers gain free access, they can then set up “widgets” which, Panelas explains, will enable readers of subscribers’ work to access clusters of Britannica articles on the topics they cover.
The company will review all applicants, who are asked to fill out an online form. They need to be able to state that they publish regularly and to supply a URL and description of their work. Writers offering e-commerce sites with no content are not eligible, nor those who maintain a simple Facebook page. Nor is anyone who creates a new blog with a single post in order to snag a subscription, says Panelas, tongue-in-cheek.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6556229.html?rssid=190
Hillary signed Grace for President May 4, 2008
This weekend I held, not shook, President Clinton’s hand for about one minute. He focused so intently on my friend’s statement that he stood discussing No Child Left Behind and did not realize that he still had my hand.
On Saturday night I stood just feet from Sean Astin, Rob Reiner, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, John Mellencamp, Senator Evan Bayah, and HILLARY AND BILL CLINTON!
This afternoon Hillary Clinton made my year when she signed Grace for President (see 4/7/08) at Indiana Tech University in Ft. Wayne. Thank you, Hillary!
KizClub May 1, 2008
KizClub.com provides educational resources to educators and parents of pre-school and elementary school age children. Korean and English resources are avaliable for downloading. The website includes:
This website provides…
1. ABC’S
2. PHONICS
3. TOPICS
4. CRAFTS
5. STORY PATTERNS
6. NURSERY RHYMES
7. FLASHCARDS
8. TEACHING EXTRAS
