The Library Notes

3DToad.com

turbobks — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:23:56 +0000

Free 3-d images–amazing for the classroom! Here’s the link to the home page: 3DToad.com The site includes a wide variety of topics from dissections, to music, to yoga, to history, and much, much more. Check it out!

Thanks DigitalGoonies

turbobks — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 02:44:34 +0000

Read a blogpost from digitalgoonies about juxio.com. What an awesome site to create posters!! It’s free and let’s you save your juxes. Then you can go back later to edit. You can print it as a pdf. If you really like your poster, you can then purchase it. Have fun with this one; I sure will.

CPD23: Thing 1 and Thing 2

turbobks — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:43:47 +0000

The Library Notes was created last July and not much got posted once the school year began. I’ve always wanted to take part in the 23 Things program (initially the adapted version in CT), but when I saw that the “official” 23 Things was going to start up again this summer, I knew I had to participate. Coincidentally, at my school all faculty have to learn a new software platform for summer PD. My “official” PD will be to use Schoolsuite to update the library’s web pages since I haven’t done that since I started last August. For me, though, 23 Things will definitely be a part of my summer PD and I’m looking forward to it.

As a school librarian, (maybe I should call myself a media specialist?!), I’m totally fascinated by and interested in technology. I love sharing with and learning from others. I’ll be hooking up a new LED projector in my library soon and I’m so excited. It’s going to make teaching/learning so much more efficient, interesting and productive. I will be so glad to get rid of the “media center” that is currently there.

I think I read that we will be looking at “branding” in 23 things. This is something that a colleague (also a newer school librarian) and I have frequently discussed. I always keep going back to “The Energized Librarian.” I think that’s what I’ll use. I have a bit of energy and this year during National Poetry month, I organized a Poetry Cafe, complete with some cool plasma globes and such. I find it challenging to see how much I can put my energy into at once.

I did glance at some other blogs that are a part of 23 Things. Looks like several have just started as a result of this program which is great. I’m looking forward to easily connecting with people from other parts of the world as well.

Looking forward to next week.

On vacation and have time to explore tech again

turbobks — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 02:18:38 +0000

Attended a great edweb webinar today “Microblogging” #edwebet . Much discussion about Twitter. I should really make it a habit of checking Twitter daily. I always find great info there; from last summer when I learned about Apple’s free video camp for kids (thanks to David Pogue’s Tweet) to all the details about how Buffy Hamilton created a Kindle program in her library, and so much more. Thanks to Michelle Luhtala for renewing my interest in Twitter today. Michelle also mentioned Diigo. Coincidentally, I just created a Diigo account earlier today before the webinar; or did I create that account yesterday?! The days are pleasurably longer now that I’m on vacation! In any case, Diigo has been great to explore and it’s helping me to organize some of the information that’s floating around in my head from today’s webinar and yesterday’s webinar about eReaders.

Gale’s “Books & Authors” coming to iCONN.org this fall

turbobks — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:44:15 +0000

Gale’s “Books & Authors” will replace “What Do I Read Next?” on iCONN.org. Books & Authors has wonderfully engaging tools; looking forward to using it.

edWeb.net–favorite site of the year??

turbobks — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:12:02 +0000

If you aren’t familiar with edweb.net “where the education community meets,” take a tour. This is a social network that belongs in the “must experience” category of your web life for those involved in education.

EdWeb has communities that you can join; I belong to communities such as Using Emerging Technology to Advance Your School Library Program and Amazing Resources for Educators. “Using Emerging Technology . . .” has put on two phenomenal webinars this summer. They provided great ideas for my library program and perhaps just as importantly gave me a place to meet other librarians from around the country to share thoughts/ideas/questions. The “Amazing Resources for Educators” community provides excellent, free e-newsletters too. If you’re an ELL/ESL teacher, for example, this community has an ELL newsletter; subscribe to it by clicking on the link to subscribe the ELL e-newsletter in the “Amazing Resources for Educators” community. (Note that if you click on the “Amazing Resources for Educators” link in the previous sentence, you’ll be prompted to sign in or create an account on edweb. Do create an account in edweb; it’s free and I promise you, you will be so happy that you joined. Resources galore for teaching!)

If you are a teacher, librarian, or school administrator, I highly recommend edWeb.net. I’m going to be searching all year for a site that I will like better than edWeb as a resource for educators. I doubt that I’ll find one. Did I mention that an account on edWeb is FREE?

Film Use in Classroom and Copyright

turbobks — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:48:02 +0000

Meris Stansbury’s “New copyright law affects educators”

“Higher-ed film students get exemption; K-12, other studies left out”

If you don’t have time to read Stansbury’s whole article, here’s how the new ruling affects K-12 teachers/students:

“Students can rip movie excerpts legally, but only if they are film/media studies majors–meaning students in subjects like history and sociology still won’t have the exemption. K-12 students and teachers are still also at a disadvantage.

The Copyright Office deemed K-12 teachers and students ineligible for exemption, and indicated that they should instead use only screen captures of a film, because K-12 doesn’t need access to visually high-quality clips.” Not so sure that I agree with the Copyright Office’s logic.

To clarify, what K-12 teachers and students can legally do with film:

“According to Hobbs, if K-12 students or teachers are using clips to create a new work for purposes of comment and criticism, and they have a real need for higher-quality clips, they can legally rip video excerpts as long as they are for noncommercial purposes. This non-commercial exemption will enable elementary and secondary students and teachers to create and remix videos legally under these limitations.”

The article also mentions screen capture tools such as Camtasia and Jing (has a free version).

In order to read the full article at the link above, you will need to create an account (free) at eschoolnews.com. e School News is an excellent site that provides “Technology News for Today’s K-20 Educator.

Readkiddoread.com

turbobks — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:57:00 +0000

Readkiddoread.com James Patterson’s site includes much more than just book recommendations for children and teens. (Yes, this site is the best-selling author James Patterson’s creation.) It is an amazing site: extremely useful for librarians, teachers, and parents.

Common Sense Media, eSchool News, BWi’s Title Tales, and Transliteracy

turbobks — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:43:29 +0000

Thanks to the “geniuses/counselors” at the Danbury Apple Store for an excellent, FREE, movie-making camp for my oldest son and one of his buddies this week. They even provided parents with a free program about how to use the parental controls feature on Macintosh computers. Another tip I learned from Valerie diLorenzo (yes, there is another Valerie diLorenzo who did the instruction for parents and then she helped out with the camp too) was Common Sense Media. Common Sense Media gives reviews of all sorts of media (movies, games, Websites, TV, music, books, etc.) I like their Ten Common Sense Beliefs too. Our children/tweens/teens will use all sorts of media throughout their lives. As a teacher and a parent, I feel it is imperative that, as best as we possibly can, we teach them how to be safe and make good choices when using media.

eSchool News is offering a free one-year subscription to educators. (I signed up to receive this at the Rumsey Library.) eSchool News provides “Technology News for Today’s K-20 Educator.”

Marissa Ciullo, Children’s Librarian in CT, recommends BWi’s Title Tales. She found out about it from Linda Williams (of Willimantic Library Service Center–another of my favorite people/libraries). Ciullo writes about BWi’s Title Tales:

“BWI sells books, but you can join and still use its book review service for free. . . The service is called Title Tales. . . . You can search for a specific title or by subject and find books that have been published in the past few years. Many of them have several reviews from places like Kirkus, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Publisher’s Weekly, which you can compare all at once. It’s extremely useful!”

What is transliteracy?

Digital Goonies

turbobks — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:36:16 +0000

Digital Goonies, whoa, what a blog/resource. Just skimmed it a bit and came across the following:

Five Card Flickr (great place to get ideas for writing assignments, inspired by pictures)
Resources to keep elementary and middle school students safe when using Web 2.0 Tools–for example, piggybacking allows a teacher to let students piggyback on his/her gmail account–just add + initials (or whatever, just not students’ full name) to teachers’ gmail account; epals.com and gaggle.net can be used too.
issuu: you publish allows you to digitally publish your docs, presentations, etc.

Digital Goonies has much more than what I just posted, so check it out for yourself. Thanks to Zandra Lopez of the edweb community for sharing Digital Goonies.