It’s great to be back in 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8&feature=share
This YouTube clip is an amazing way to get in the soul of books because books are alive and make us dream and fly always !
I love YouTube…..I think this is the best christmas story I have ever seen…….very classroom friendly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zduwusyip8M&feature=player_embedded
Thanks to Shelley McMorran from The Friends’ School Morris Library in Tasmania for the link.
Jane Hart’s Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT) recently posted the Top Tools for Learning 2011 (their 5th annual survey). Contributions came from over 500 learning professionals worldwide.
Here’s the top 20: Twitter; YouTube; Google Docs; Skype; WordPress; Dropbox; Prezi; Moodle; Slideshare; Glogster; Wikipedia; Blogger; Diigo; Facebook; Google Search; Google Reader; Evernote; Jing; Powerpoint; Gmail. New to the list in 2011 are: iPad and apps (44); Kindle (82); Khan Academy (74); Scoopit (33); Strorify (69); Paper.li (90); ReadItLater (90); Knol (63)….Interesting to see how the ratings will change next year.
Click here for a clear and simple slideshow of the Top 100: http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/
Top tools in categories: http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/best-of-breed-tools-2011/
Tools directory – all kinds of learning tools – something for everyone!: http://c4lpt.co.uk/directory-of-learning-performance-tools/
under: Technology
Tags: apps, blog, computers, google, internet, iPad, slideshare, technology, web 2.0
Tags: apps, blog, computers, google, internet, iPad, slideshare, technology, web 2.0
I am constantly looking for free images that are good, free, and easy to search through. I also need to know what sources to recommend to students on a regular basis.
It’s not just about copyright – its about teaching students that not everything is in the public domain – an important point as more students and teachers move into online environments of blogs, wikis etc…. Including images with postings enhances the experience for the reader and can also help to illustrate or support the composers viewpoint.
FlickrCC – This tool searches Creative Commons images from Flickr
Greasemonkey and Flickr for the Adventurous is a way of automating a Flickr Attribtion Helper.
FlickrStorm -let’s you search photos on Flickr that are made available through a Creative Commons license
Compfight – a beautifully simple interface! Tailor your search for commercial or creative commons; original and even safe search.
Veezzle – a search engine which finds free stock photos by crawling dozens of websites.
When you need for some pictures to freshen up your webpage you should:
- Make sure you understood the license correctly
- Get the correct HTML code for the IMG tag
- Link the image back to the Flickr photo page
- Give the author of the image proper credits (Attribution)
- Link to the Flickr profile of the author
- Link to the license the image is licensed under
The solution you’ve been waiting for is offered by ImageCodr.org. You simply enter in the URL of the picture page (as seen in your browser) and ImageCodr.org will generate the ready-to-use HTML code.
Others image tools worth trying:
- Bigfoto.com offers pictures from around the world, including America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Pacific.
- Clip Art for foreign/second language instruction. Basic but still valuable.
- Deviant ART – Very popular community and also very good photos to be found there, but yes, don’t forget about license and asking authors first for their permission.
- EduPic Graphical Resources is a growing collection of images and graphics created and curated by a dedicated teacher.
- EveryStockPhoto is a search engine for creative commons photos, located in Vancouver, BC. They aim to be a community for designers, developers, photographers and other media publishers who want better, easier access to license-specific media on the web. This is a single integrated search, allowing users to bookmark their photos with private and public tags, and increasingly we will be offering advanced searching options, rating systems and other tools.
- FreeDigitalPhotos.net has over 2000 free images that you can use in commercial and noncommercial work. You are not allowed to sell, redistribute, or claim these images as your own. You can browse by category or search for exactly what you need.
- FreeMediaGoo.com has a large collection of images, audio, textures, and other visual mediums that you can use for free with some restrictions. You do not even have to credit the images. The site also features some amazing digital images if you are looking for something different.
- FreeFoto.com says it is the largest collection of free photographs on the Internet (link back and attribution required).
- FreePhotoBank is a free stock photo site. Feel free to download pictures (up to 2048 pixels, Creative Commons licence) but don’t forget to link back to FreePhotoBank !
- FreeRange – All images are at least 2400 x 1600, and photos can be used for commercial or personal projects. Beautiful images for your creative presentations. Just sign up for membership.
- FromOldBooks – Over 2,330 high-resolution images scanned from more than 100 different old or rare books, with extracts!
- The Geo-Images Project attempts to make images (mostly photographs) that are useful in teaching geography more widely available. Navigate via map points on the globe, and capture images around common themes. Love the one on transport! and community is cool too!
- Image*After is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work.
- ImageBase – Pictures are free to use and really high resolution. Includes Powerpoint templates.
- Life Photo Archive - Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.
- MorgueFile.com offers stock photographs in high resolution digital. With over 55,000 images, divided into several categories, they are sure to have something you can use. The thumbnails are small, but your search results display quickly, and the photos are of top quality. (The term “morgue file” is popular in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues flats. Although the term has been used by illustrators, comic book artist, designers and teachers as well The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for use in all creative pursuits. This is the world wide web’s morgue file)
- OpenPhoto – 20 different categories, with high quality nature, technology and architectural photos.
- Pics4Learning collection is intended to provide copyright friendly images for use by students and teachers in an educational setting. Lesson plans also included.
- Sprixi – Images have liberal licences such as Creative Commons or are in the public domain
- Stock Exchange offers high quality images taken around the world by amateur photographers. If you have an interest in photography, you can even submit your own pictures. There are various searching options and over 100,000 images. The photographers establish the terms, so read the fine print, but most pictures can be reused immediately.
- TurboPhoto provides free stock images from 10 categories all of which are in the public domain.
- UVic’s Language Teaching Library consists of about 3000 images useful in the teaching of basic vocabulary in a variety of languages. Its purpose is to provide a set of those graphics most basic and useful for low-level language-teaching, and at the same time, to make them as easily searchable as possible. Transparent an matte images included.
- Wikipedia: Public domain image sources – though in this case you will need to check the copyright.
- Wylio is an all-in-one picture finder and re-sizer made specifically for bloggers.
- Yotophoto is now indexing well over a quarter million Creative Commons, Public Domain, GNU FDL, and various other ‘copyleft’ images
For a full Photography Toolbox you shouldn’t go past Mashable’s 90+ Online Photography Tools and Resources.
You may also enjoy reading the Complete guide to Finding and Using Incredible Images in Flickr. Includes an excellent explanation of Creative Commons and images.
http://www.phillipmartin.info/clipart/homepage.htm
http://familyandfriends.phillipmartin.info/friends_waving.htm
Thanks to Judy Oconnell and Susan Stephenson from OZTLnet for the ideas and links http://www.thebookchook.com, http://heyjude.wordpress.com/find-free-images-online/
We have just recently weeded and culled our 10 year old library and borrowing stats have greatly improved with the cleaner and brighter shelves attracting lots more students.
We held a few books sales for staff and students and gave a lot to charity. Some went to Kanga Books, Rotary and others were donated to fetes etc….
Lawrence Foon (Sydney based) from the old boys association of Marist Brothers High School in Suva picked up resources (books in good condition – Fiction and Non-Fiction), as well as, sets of textbooks – especially maths and science and English. Given that some schools might be purchasing new textbooks for next year this might be a good opportunity to find a home for books that are still in good condition. They are also looking for laptops and computers.
Here is a link to the old boys’ website:
www.ozmob.com.au ( http://www.ozmob.com.au/ )
If you can help out his phone number is 0410 804827.
HOPE worldwide (Australia) is another company that picks up book to deliver to Papua New Guinea I think.
ph: (612) 98681980
em: anabel@hopewwaustralia.org.au<mailto:anabel@hopewwaustralia.org.au>
web: www.hopewwaustralia.org.au<http://www.hopewwaustralia.org.au> 22 Howard Place, North Epping NSW 2121.
We did have a little chat with our Principals and executive staff about the cull before proceeding just to make sure we were all on the same page and they were very supportive after asking a few initial questions about why, where, how etc…
The following website was helpful in guiding us:
http://www.lib.az.us/cdt/weeding.aspx
The books were sorted in into piles labelled : WITHDRAW, MEND, REPLACE, CHECK FURTHER, TRANSFER TO, OTHER as is suggested. One acronym I thought was clever was M-U-S-T-I-E:
‘… MUSTIE, to indicate when an item should be removed from the collection. MUSTIE stands for:
* Misleading and/or factually inaccurate: (this includes items that fail to have the substantial periods of time not represented because of the age of the material)
* Ugly (worn out beyond reasonable mending or having been poorly repaired in the past)
* Superseded by a new edition or a better source (keep in mind the use of the Web as a better, more up-to-date source in many cases)
* Trivial (of no discernable literary or scientific merit & without sufficient use to justify keeping it)
* Irrelevant to the needs and interests of your community; (not used even though we may find it “interesting”!)
* Elsewhere (the material may be easily borrowed from another source or found on the Web)’
This could also be applied to the students at our College
Thanks to Helen Rowling from OZTLnet and also Helen Wynd for the ideas.
I love this cartoon from: http://blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/opinion/rob-rogers-cartoons/30863-library-
The following books are a great fit with Are we there yet? by Alison Lester which is a great Stage 1 or 2 book that fits with any unit of work about Australia.
Picture books:
Wheels on the bus by Mandy Foot
Possum magic by Mem Fox
All the way to WA by Roland Harvey
At the beach, Roland Harvey
In the bush, Roland Harvey
In the City, Roland Harvey
To the Top End: Our trip across Australia by Roland Harvey
The Search for Sunken Treasure: Australia by Elizabeth Singer Hunt
Our Australia series, by Phil Kettle Australian Geographic. Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo by Alison LesterMy Country by Ezekiel Kwaymullina
Riley and the Grumpy Wombat : a Journey around Melbourne by Tania McCartney
My Aussie Ocean Adventure by Jo Rothwell
Highway by Nadia Wheatley
Secondary
Swerve by Philip Gwynne
Guitar highway Rose by Brigid Lowry
Road by Catherine Jinks
Dreamrider by Barry Jonsberg
Thanks to Pat Pledger from OZTLnet for the HIT
As a Librarian in a senior secondary college I see myself becoming more and more of a coach. I have signed up for Peer Coaching Accreditation Training which is a 3 day course run by Western Sydney DEC Region to meet Regional Targets. This article from the Educational Leadership website is a window in to my role here as Librarian in a busy HSC focused school.
The Coach in the Library
Carl A. Harvey
Although the title coach is seldom associated with media specialists, perhaps it should be.
In most schools, the word coachis used to describe a teacher with special expertise that he or she uses to help teachers improve instructional skills. Although educators rarely think of school librarians as coaches, the help librarians provide is similar to what a coach offers. A coach gives teachers guidance and support, which school librarians have been doing for many years. Like coaches, an effective librarian (also called a media specialist these days) gives teachers ideas and resources for instruction, models lessons, and provides information when educators have questions.The role of the school librarian has evolved greatly. The days when a librarian checked out books all day are gone. A school librarian worth his or her salt must be involved with enriching the literacy, technology use, and curriculum of a school. That means collaborating to design instruction and assessment and coteaching lessons. Good classroom instruction today needs to embed various literacies—information literacy, digital literacy, and so on—into the curriculum, and these are librarians’ areas of expertise.
Although the classroom teacher is generally the expert on the content standards, the school librarian is the expert on the process of finding, evaluating, using, creating, and sharing information. Bringing the two together engenders powerful learning opportunities for students and provides professional development to teachers.
After all, part of ensuring that students and teachers have access to the resources of the library is making sure teachers know how to use these resources to enhance instruction. I have been a school librarian/media specialist for 14 years. Throughout my career, I’ve seen many librarians—including myself—guide teachers by modeling how to use cutting-edge resources, leading small-group presentations, and providing one-on-one instruction.
Modeling as a Springboard to Learning
Today, it might be a 2.0 offering like a wiki that I’d introduce to teacher and students simultaneously, but the process works the same: As teachers feel more confident, they take ownership. I don’t think I’ve ever called this way of assisting “coaching,” but it’s certainly a key way librarians give teachers training to bolster their skills. Because the training comes at the point of need, is focused on the task or project at hand, and reflects something the instructor wants to do with students, it’s meaningful. To this day, as I collaborate with teachers—whether I’m teaching in the library, the computer lab, or the classroom, I’m always thinking about how I can give teachers a chance to see the potential of new technologies, books, or other resources.
Modeling a new technology as I work with kids provides a springboard for teachers who want to learn more. For example, my school now has two document cameras. As I worked recently with 2nd grade students on their research project on biomes, I used the document camera to model how students could organize the information in their research journals. My presentation wasn’t elaborate, but as classroom teachers helped their students, they saw me using this new tool and began to ask about it. How did it work? What would they need to use it in their rooms?
An effective media specialist also models creative technology use by initiating conversations about potential projects. Each week, I attend my school’s grade-level planning meetings. I often throw out ideas such as, “You could use the student response clickers for that activity” or “Have you thought about having students create that on a wiki?” Sometimes teachers take me up on it; other times they don’t. But now that I’ve been working with these teachers for years, one thing I don’t hear as much during weekly meetings is, “I don’t know how to do that.” Instead I hear, “You’ll have to help me with that”—because teachers feel comfortable that I’ll give them the support they need.
Coaching Small Groups
I discovered the power of working with small groups of teachers in 2009 when North Elementary’s principal Vince Barnes shared his plan for professional development for the coming school year, telling me, “I have an idea, but you’ll have to lead it.” His vision was that North Elementary School would focus on using web 2.0 to improve students’ literacy and 21st century skills, and teachers would explore how they could best use 2.0 tools. As the principal and I mapped out what spreading learning about web 2.0 schoolwide might look like, we decided to use existing teacher meetings as a forum to introduce such tools—and to gently require teachers to give them a try, with support as needed.
In the past, I’d struggled with whole-group staff development. Some faculty member always said, “That doesn’t apply to me!” When I used middle-of-the-road examples, the kindergarten teachers often perceived the suggested project as too hard for their kids and shut down; the 4th grade teachers assumed it was too young for their kids and shut down. Special area teachers would assume this didn’t apply to them at all. Obviously that approach wasn’t going to work this time. Instead, we looked at how we could provide focused staff development that met teachers’ needs at their particular grade levels.
With each web 2.0 tool, the principal used a whole-staff meeting to introduce the tool or resource, and he and I presented basic activities that gave teachers an understanding of how it worked. To showcase podcasting, we located a variety of examples on the web and played them. My principal and I made sample podcasts and shared them with the group to demonstrate how easy it was to create one.
Rather than go into depth at whole-staff meetings on how to use each tool, we scheduled our trainings during the teachers’ weekly professional learning community meetings. These meetings are organized by grade level and are typically held during teachers’ preparation period. In each meeting, the principal and I trained teachers in using the tool appropriately for their grade level, talked about how this technology might look with their kids, and answered individual questions. In suggesting how to apply the tool, we focused on future curriculum topics.
For example, 1st grade was beginning its farm unit, so we discussed how a podcast might work with that topic. Students researched farm animals and used the information they gathered to create acrostic poems, which they recorded as a podcast. In music, 4th graders were going to be studying composers, so we planned podcasts in which each student took on the role of a composer that student had studied and responded to questions from fellow learners as if conducting a radio interview.
Teachers had six to nine weeks to decide on a project connected to their curriculum (not something “extra”) that used a specific web 2.0 tool with students. Our planning during professional learning community time got them started, but if they needed additional time to talk about options, the principal and I helped during weekly planning meetings. I made it quite clear that teachers were free to do this completely on their own, or if they wanted, I would collaborate with them. It was important to provide as much or as little support as each teacher needed.
Our kindergarten teachers opted to do a grade-level podcast about their field trip to the pumpkin patch. They took pictures, and back at school, we downloaded the photos, put them into a file, recorded the kids’ voices talking about what they saw and learned, and uploaded the podcast to the web. I walked kindergarten teachers step-by-step through the entire process. Our 4th grade teachers felt confident in what they were doing and so opted to be more independent; each group worked on a different project. I was available when they had questions, but they were able to work on their own once our nudge got them started.
Following these trainings and the various projects teachers saw through to completion, we celebrated their hard work at a staff meeting. It was amazing to see what these teachers and their students accomplished in their early tries with 2.0 applications.
One-on-One Help
During the second year of North Elementary teachers using web 2.0 tools, they knew enough that I didn’t need to do trainings for whole grade levels. Instead, I focused on being available to individuals. Some new teachers required in-depth training, and some veterans needed a refresher or help answering a question. Most important, teachers know that they can call, e-mail, or stop by the library, and I’ll try to provide them with all the support they need for trying out a new technology application.
These are just a few examples of how school librarians act as coaches. Although the projects described here focus on technology, there are plenty of other ways a good school media specialist can guide teachers. For example, they
- Bring new literature to teachers and students and suggest innovative projects or lessons that might connect to books.
- Introduce teachers to resources—educational websites, newsletters, or online databases—with a note saying, “Have you thought of trying…?”
- Draw from their particular talents and experiences to enhance instruction or offer professional development, such as training on a new technology tool.
Building Trust
For coaching to be effective, there has to be trust between specialist and teacher. Building trust requires following through on what you say you will do. If I promise to come and support teachers while they are learning a new technology, for instance, I have to be there—ditto if I promise to coteach a project with them at a certain hour.
In these hard economic times, schools must use each staff member to the fullest. School librarians have great knowledge about 21st century skills, technology, literacy, and much more. Schools should take advantage of the opportunities this knowledge store can create and run with them—for the benefit of our students.
Carl A. Harvey is the school librarian at North Elementary School in Noblesville, IN, and president of the American Association of School Librarians.
This book is hot !
The students have been in to Dystoptian Fiction this year in a big way and many of our best titles have been running off the shelves. According to Wikipedia (argggg) “fictional dystopias are often set in a future projected virtual time and/or space involving technological innovations not accessible in actual present reality”.
One of our most popular books has been Matched by Ally Condie which is now set to become a Disney Film.
Disney and Offspring Entertainment have won a bidding-war with Paramount to secure the rights to the yet-to-be-released first installation of the Ally Condie young adult novel trilogy Matched. The novel is set in a society that “dictates what people read, watch and believe.” Based on that bit of information, it sounds like Disney is a perfect fit for the material (Note: my cynicism doesn’t take away from my love of Beauty and the Beast).
Matched, “with its love triangle and young characters, is being described as yet another potential Twilight for Disney” (recently, the studio also picked up the rights to Lauren Kate’s “angel love triangle” Fallen for similar purposes). This sounds great because if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s young girls thinking their lives could ever be complete without having a good man to take care of them. All snarkiness aside, to learn more about what to expect from Matched, hit the link for a quick synopsis of Condie’s novel.
So, as we head into the holidays here are some suggestions that might tickle your fancy if you like this genre. I have read most of these and we have them in the library, but there are some new ones I will be exploring further.
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
The Enclave by Ann Aguirre
Birthmarked by Caragh O’Brien
Epitaph Road by David Patneaude
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Witch and Wizard series by James Patterson
Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Matched by Allie Condie
The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher
Numbers by Rachel Ward
Hunger Games by Collins
Hush Hush by Fitzpatrick
Divergent by Roth
Max Rider by Patterson
Evermore by Noel
under: Literature, Uncategorized
Tags: enjoy, fiction, imagine, language, literature, movies, read, relax, review, science
Tags: enjoy, fiction, imagine, language, literature, movies, read, relax, review, science
I have created a public forum on the school website for our students to sell or buy second hand text books and study guides. Many students have been asking me if I want to buy them and have been wanting to sell theirs so I am hoping that if I advertise this with outgoing and incoming Year 12 students it may be useful.
The site is up and running but is a bit of an experiment at the moment so I will have to try and promote it heavily with the students. Wish me luck !
http://web1.wyndhamcol-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/mod/forum/view.php?id=7921
