New Trier Library

TED Talk called “Defend Our Freedom To Share (Or Why SOPA is a Bad Idea)

2012-01-18T18:16:00.000-06:00

Shirky summarizes the evolution of online content law leading up to the Stop Online Piracy Act and its sister bill, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). He tells how the two controversial bills were preceded by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 and Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.

Shirky not only explains what SOPA and PIPA want to do, but also serves as a call to action for opponents of the legislation to preserve their ability to share, remix, and discuss.

Learn more about digital rights management and privacy issues

2012-01-06T06:41:00.001-06:00

Libraries and individuals are spending money on ebooks and other digital files which they may no longer have access to (because we technically don't own them) in the decades to come because of the current user agreements with Amazon and other vendors. We are all locked into these proprietary "ecosystems" of ipad, Kindle, Nook, etc. Amazon is the clear leader currently and Amazon knows everything the library patrons are checking out! A private company now has this data for the first time ever: this is not what we're accustomed to because libraries have always prized patron privacy.

Must see interview with Sarah Houghton, Librarian-in-Black from the School Library Monthly Blog:

Save the Date

2012-01-04T12:10:00.002-06:00

Exciting professional development opportunity:

ISTE UNPLUGGED - HOME via kwout

Looking to Expand Your Personal Learning Network

2011-12-07T07:13:00.002-06:00

The Edublog Awards is a community based incentive started in 2004 in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learner and teacher blog sites for educational purposes. The purpose of the Edublog awards is promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media.

These are fabulous resources for educators to use for ideas on technology tools and how social media is used in different contexts, with a range of different learners. It introduces us all to new sites that we might not have found if not for the awards process. Now, you can also nominate your your favorite educational mobile app for education.

The Edublog Awards 2011 are now open for voting. This is a good time to lurk around, read, and see what you are missing. I find new people to follow each year and enjoy expanding my PLN. Add some of them to your rss feeds and/or follow them on Twitter:

Best Individual Blog
Best Librarian/Library Blog
Best Educators to Follow on Twitter
Best Hashtags to Follow on Twitter (educational discussions)
Best Professional Development Groups

Click here to view all the categories and spreadsheets of nominations.

Open Mic Night with Joyce Valenza & Moderator Gwyneth A. Jones - The Daring Librarian

2011-12-06T13:03:00.001-06:00

On December 5th , Joyce Valenza and Gwyneth Jones shared their top discoveries of the year.

Additionally, dozens of other teacher/Librarians shared their faves and help build an interactive resource book.

View the slides from the crowdsourced google doc which highlights important tools.

New Trier Library proudly supports the projects of Integrated Global Studies School

2011-12-02T11:57:00.000-06:00

Inside the Leviathan: The Art of Moby Dick on Prezi

Collaborative Document Editing

2011-11-21T13:17:00.000-06:00

Here's a screen shot of a recommendation by Mark Brumley:

Crocdoc – Collaborative Document Editing | Mark Brumley via kwout

I do love using kwout which allows embedding clickable screen shots!

Goodnight, iPad

2011-11-17T21:55:00.001-06:00

To enjoy at the end of a long day:

17,849 and counting

2011-11-14T14:30:00.008-06:00

17,489 -- that is the number of petitions submitted to the Obama administration's "We the People" project. It is also roughly the number (slightly over 17,000) of signatures needed for the petition titled "Ensure all school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every day."

Read Joyce Valenza’s plea for action, noting support from Library Journal, School Library Journal, and Horn Book – if you decide on signing a petition, it involves creating an account (simply supplying first and last name, email account and zip code) and then activating the account (to ensure that the email is a live address); a relatively easy task for important subjects such as this. The White House is promising relatively quick responses if the goal of 25,000 signatures are reached. According to the Wall Street Journal, 81 petitions have received that required number of signatures, with 15 new petitions being received every hour.

That’s an active democratic society and leads me to also refer to an inspiring presentation given last week by Dave Lankes at CARLI (Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois). He spoke about becoming more vital to the community and how librarianship is about improving society in “Expect More: Service is Proactive”. Take a few moments to read his blog post which has links to his slides and audio presentation.

Michael Stephens Keynote: Hyperlinked Library Services @Library 2.011

2011-11-05T14:05:00.001-05:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennx/2513840755 used by Michael Stephens

I didn't expect the Michael Stephens' keynote to have such emphasis on kindness, heart, connecting to patrons, trust, and breaking down behaviors. We really need to look at our own behaviors instead of always judging our patron behaviors. "Let the heart drive change". Check it out for yourself as you contemplate library innovation. It's really all about what it's always been about: "Be Kind".

There are technologies that are definitely game changers. But there is nothing new under the sun about human behavior.

Kindle Lending Library details = limitations

2011-11-03T22:22:00.007-05:00

It was exciting to hear about what some have called "Lendle", a Kindle Lending library, until I read many more details about the various limitations (need to be a member of Amazon Prime, one book per month and only one at a time, 5000 titles, none from the biggest publishers....). Here is an excellent overview posted by Sue Polanka at No Shelf Required.

Stephen Abram's Keynote: How do we move to the next step? @ Library2.011

2011-11-03T14:45:00.004-05:00

Notes from the Keynote: @ Library 2.011 Thursday, November 3, 2011

Libraries cannot afford to just be descriptive and market themselves as only books/database articles.
Patrons want "to love" something. How do we re-position ourselves as knowing stuff that will help their real lives?

Librarians need to stand up to the challenge and have "help" sessions to enable patrons and prepare them for web 2.0 and mobile apps. Otherwise, we'll have problems sustaining libraries in the future.

How do we make books social on a learning level? What programs do we need to create so that we may exceed the walls of our physical spaces? Can we get it to the next level? We cannot hide behind the book; we cannot hide behind the computer either.

Libraries are fundamentally about framing questions. We are experts at improving the quality of the questions.

We need to move beyond transactions and move toward transformation. The book is evolving. Our profession needs to evolve re: perception of books. There are more saavy users and devices are moving into 'almost free'. Sharing/collaborating is now social. Learning is social. We know about our customers more than ever before with web 2.0. Now we are able to support social context.

The challenge is to how to teach people what content is right/wrong or correct/incorrect on the web. What we learned from Amazon is that it's an environment for sharing information/reviews about books. There is a new Google lending environment. Book borrowing will go to the web, engaging not only with the books but with others, with the author, with the videos. eBooks allow for sharing notes while reading; this social nature challenges how libraries address patron confidentiality.

Why do people read? See Stephen's notes: to learn, to interact with others, to teach, etc
What is the role of books which are shared collectively/collaboratively? The platform (ebooks) is not what changes things; it's in deciding how others can engage with the ebooks. The social tools embedded in the devices is what will ultimately matter. Sharing is what will matter. This is why we belong to groups/communities. The regulatory world is changing. We are moving way beyond the print environment. Librarians know there are rights beyond copyright involved in the social act of reading. The reader experience is altered by geo-tagging; it can also manipulate what you are reading within the Google search engine. We need to understand search engine optimization (SEO). We are Google's product --one they are serving up to advertisers. In some cases, it improves the user experience. In other cases, the information "filter bubble" can manipulate what you are reading.

Evolution of answers: these are issues of confusion and sense-making. Librarians need to provide people with tools to teach them to make sense of the information. We can find "good enough" answers in many areas, but these good enough answers are not enough when doing important research such as health/wellness or divorce. The process of extracting articles from books is what databases do; podcasts, charts, video, and social web can build the "enhanced" book on any given topic.

Will libraries become publishers for their communities?
Libraries are for learning, research and discovery, for helping society progress, for curation, and to have an impact on the community. We have to understand and provide for our community needs.

Mobility is a game changer. Where is the social help and how do I get the help where I am?
We need to embed librarian 'goodness' into the user experience. All the tools we know and use will ultimately change sooner rather than later.

TEDxNYED with Will Richardson: What is Your Definition of Better?

2011-11-01T20:15:00.000-05:00

A great time to be a learner; not such a great time to be a teacher: Why Race to the Top and aligning teachers evaluations to student "achievement" won't work. Why teaching to the tests won't work.

We need "life prep" not "test prep". Test prep and learning are two very different things. We have to "stop talking about better and start talking about different"....AMEN.

Library 2.011 Virtual Conference

2011-11-01T08:50:00.005-05:00

Do not forget about this important information from Steve Hargadon:

The Library 2.011 worldwide virtual conference is this Wednesday and Thursday, November 2 - 4, all online, all free. As of today, we have 5,000 registrations for the conference from 151 countries! Amazing! The conference schedule is also now online, with all 160+ sessions, and an individual hour-by-hour schedule calendar for each of 36 different time zones--and the live links to the session rooms will go up later today and tomorrow. Be sure to register by joining the site at the link above.

Keynote speakers, including Sandra Hirsch and Steve Abram, are profiled here. Topics include:

New Career Pathways for Information Professionals in a Library 2.0 World 11/2, 9am CDT
Participatory Libraries as Enabling Spaces for Creative Practices, 11/2 10am CDT
Hyperlinked Library Services for Everyone: Exploring what a connected world of continuous computing means for twenty- first century library service. 11/2, 8pm CDT
The experience of information literacy and learning: reflections on social media 11/3 5am (from Australia) CDT
New paradigms for higher education libraries 11/3 8am CDT
The New Normal: Social Institutions and the Social Web Is there still life in web tools for library strategies? 2pm, CDT

Many, many other sessions are available over the 2 day conference time.

And coming soon:

The 2011 Global Education Conference is November 14 - 18.

Mother Nature and College Applications

2011-11-01T08:25:00.005-05:00

Like other New Trier teachers, I have been talking with students over the last few weeks about their college essays and November 1 was a big deadline. With 2 to 3 million households without electricity on the East Coast, the entire process has been impacted. Here's the text of a recent email from Common Application:

October 31, 2011

The Common Application Board of Directors has asked all member colleges with imminent deadlines to be sensitive to the adverse conditions affecting schools and students in the northeast. The Common App system allows counselors and teachers to submit school forms at any time, regardless of deadline. Students and counselors with questions about application deadlines at individual institutions should contact those colleges directly.We wish a quick return to the normal fall routine for all affected colleagues and students.

We Have an Author in the House at New Trier Library

2011-10-30T14:41:00.000-05:00

And, I'm not even talking about the upcoming Literary Festival on November 4...where we have a full line up of authors speaking to students.

What I recently discovered is an ebook published and co-authored by teachers and library media specialists:
School Libraries: What's Now, What's Next, What's Yet to Come edited by
Kristin Fontichiaro and Buffy Hamilton
Foreword by R. David Lankes

Our own librarian, Linda Straube wrote an essay for

CHAPTER 7: VIRTUAL LIBRARIES

"Together We Light the Way"
Linda's essay speaks to the power of crowdsourcing our library work and she highlights a vast array of resources for every discipline via the Libguide Community. Linda has been an "early adopter" in this area working tirelessly in at the New Trier Library to train colleagues in the use of the software enabling contributions to the larger sharing community.

In that same chapter I also enjoyed Joyce Kasman Valenza's essay: "I Want to Be an App". Here Valenza writes about the necessity of going both virtual and mobile with our catalogs, our databases, and other electronic resources. Valenza argues that "mobile practice is no longer optional. Our practice should be cloud-based, participatory, portable, and attractive."

This crowdsourced collection of over 100 essays from around the world about trends in school libraries is written by librarians, teachers, publishers, and library vendors.
Get your free copy of this ebook in a variety of formats from Smashwords.com

Available Ebook reading formats:

This book is free.

Format	Full Book
Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser)	View
Online Reading (JavaScript, experimental, buggy)	View
Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)	Download
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)	Download
PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing)	Download

Dropbox - Pogue and our students agree

2011-10-22T11:07:00.006-05:00

Recently as part of Banned Sites Awareness Day, we asked students to tell us about their use of certain sites for school/learning. One we asked about was Dropbox.

The result? Almost half (45%) of our students use it for school work and their comments indicate that they would agree with David Pogue's recent enthusiastic review in The New York Times:

Here are some comments from our students:
• For Policy Debate class, we used DropBox to share debate files on our computer so that all members of the team had the same files and access to all of them.

• DropBox is literally the best way for students working on projects to collaborate and share information. I have used this tool many times over the years, and my partners and I have been extremely organized and successful thanks to this technology.

• I believe Dropbox is a great website to share vital files.

• In my opinion, more teachers should encourage Dropbox use.

• Since I was introduced to Dropbox a few years ago, I've considered it one of the most useful (free) web services outside of Google's Web Apps.

• Dropbox seamlessly synchronizes files across computers and you can access your complete archive of documents from any computer with an Internet connection.

• This is incredible, as I can keep all of my school documents (and various other files) on Dropbox, and this enables me to: allow people to download files from my Public folder, given an explicit public link, share files and folders with classmates for collaboration, *automatically update my documents at school to my computers at home*, and host photo albums.

• We used DropBox in all my classes in middle school for sharing files and submitting homework/projects to teachers. We also used it to see who turned in what assignment and who still needed to turn assignments in.

• We used dropbox for my Debate class to share files with our whole team. It spreads info to everybody who needs it.

We will be working to raise awareness amongst teachers and the 36% of our students had not heard of Dropbox.

Afghanistan Resources

2011-10-22T10:39:00.004-05:00

Homeland Afghanistan is a new, fabulous resource for classes which are studying Afghanistan. Produced by the Asia Society, it contains many links to videos and other information (map, glossary, bibliography).

Although navigating it is a little complicated, there is a very long timeline (one section focuses on Afghanistan today) and there are several themes which are explored, including:
• Geography and Destiny
• Identity and Perception
• Traditions and Modernization and
• Traces and Narratives

See also the companion webinars (free to teachers). As we pass the 10 year mark of US military involvement, I have gathered more resources on Afghanistan, including timelines and various media perspectives, which are available here.

I made my own 'flippin book' with FlipSnack

2011-10-10T19:20:00.012-05:00

The free version allows you no more than 15 pdf pages. So it was necessary to trim down my resources significantly.

Really easy/fun to use.

Web Tool Mashup

2011-10-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

Integrating Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, Gardner's Multiple Intelligences and Web Tools for Student Centered Learning

Audio-Visual from NASA

2011-10-06T11:55:00.003-05:00

Still Images, Audio Recordings, Video, and Related Computer Files

NASA still images; audio files; video; and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format, generally are not copyrighted. You may use NASA imagery, video, audio, and data files used for the rendition of 3-dimensional models for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages. This general permission extends to personal Web pages.

This general permission does not extend to use of the NASA insignia logo (the blue "meatball" insignia), the retired NASA logotype (the red "worm" logo) and the NASA seal. These images may not be used by persons who are not NASA employees or on products (including Web pages) that are not NASA-sponsored.

NASA should be acknowledged as the source of the material except in cases of advertising. See NASA Advertising Guidelines.

If the NASA material is to be used for commercial purposes, especially including advertisements, it must not explicitly or implicitly convey NASA's endorsement of commercial goods or services. If a NASA image includes an identifiable person, using the image for commercial purposes may infringe that person's right of privacy or publicity, and permission should be obtained from the person.

For contact information, restrictions, or more information, see:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html

"Purposeful Play" - theme of K-12 Online Conference

2011-10-03T12:44:00.003-05:00

2011 K-12 Online Conference
Post By Wesley Fryer ⋅ August 26, 2011

The 2011 K-12 Online Conference is coming to a computer near you soon! This year’s FREE online conference will take place the weeks of November 28th and December 5th, 2011, with a pre-conference keynote on Monday, November 21st.

The 2011 theme is, “Purposeful Play.” Educators and students worldwide are invited to respond to our 2011 call for proposals. Presenters create twenty minute, engaging video presentations shared during our two week conference. Please check out some of last year’s presentations.

Not sure what the conference theme “Purposeful Play” includes? Bud Hunt provided a great description on his blog. “To play on purpose is to take risks. To challenge what you know. To ride the edge between what is and what might be, what never was and what should’ve been. How are you making time for play in your learning? And we mean “play” in the best sense of the word. Fiddle. Tinker. Explore. Discover. Try. Fail. Reengage. “

More information at: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=809

New York Times on Banned Sites

2011-09-30T12:37:00.001-05:00

If you haven't read it, check out The New York Times article on Banned Sites Awareness Day -- it quotes several librarians, including our very own Judy Gressel!

And thank you to all of the teachers and advisors who graciously encouraged their students and advisees to participate in our Banned Sites Day survey. With their help, we were able to gather responses (almost 400!) from over 10% of the student body at the Winnetka campus and to also roughly reflect our population by gender, grade and sending school.

We truly appreciated the students' participation; hopefully it was a small step in helping raise awareness at other schools where students find that many sites are blocked. Overall, it was a great opportunity to add to a dialogue about technology, to simply teach students about QR codes, and to encourage all of us to think about censorship in its many forms.

More on Vizualize Me!

2011-09-29T16:44:00.001-05:00

I wrote to the Vizualize blog suggesting that this would be a great educational app for historical figures and here is the (prompt!) reply:

Iris Van Kerckhove just commented on the post "Vizualize.me Featured on BBC News" on Vizualize.me's Blog

Hi Judy. You can now log in without LinkedIn and create your visual resume by filling everything out manually. Let us know how your historical character resume goes! Sounds like an awesome teaching tool.

That's what I love about social media...so immediate...so helpful...so awesome! We do learn better by crowdsourcing. I did discover that their "timeline" for education/jobs, etc does not go back before 1950 which is unfortunate.

Give it a try:

vizualize.me: Visualize your resume in one click. via kwout

Kindle Fire on Order

2011-09-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

Read the commentary by Business Week:

Amazon, the Company That Ate the World - BusinessWeek via kwout

Seems Like QR Codes are Still Alive and Well

2011-09-29T14:46:00.000-05:00

QRPedia.org, developed by Wikipedia, is a QR code creation service that lets smart phone users snap a picture of a QR code and be automatically directed to a linked mobile Wikipedia entry in whatever written language their phone uses.

QRpedia also allows you also to generate a QR code from a wikipedia url.
Here is one I made from the wikipedia article on Banned Books week:

Wikipedia Unveils Probably the Coolest QR Thingy Ever Made via kwout

Want Your Resume to Pop? Try Vizualize.me

2011-09-29T07:09:00.002-05:00

1. Step one - update your Linkedin Resume
2. Login to vizualize.me -- a new web app that creates an infographic visualization of your LinkedIn profile’s data.
3. In just a click, import your Linkedin resume information and it transforms into an infographic.

As an education app, it would be great if students could set up a Linkedin resume for a historical character and create the infographic to share in a class presentation! However, the current Linkedin user agreement policy prohibits misrepresenting your identity.

Are QR Codes obsolete with the new Google Wallet?

2011-09-27T18:30:00.002-05:00

Few consumers are actually using QR codes. According to a recent study: from digital analyst comScore, " a measly 6 percent of mobile subscribers currently use the technology. That 6 percent tends to be male, white and wealthy".

NFC or near field communication could replace QR codes. Last week Google launched its first NFC app, called Google wallet which could bypass QR codes altogether. Read the story at NPR.

Kindle Downloads and Returns on Overdrive

2011-09-23T19:26:00.002-05:00

At some point our library may consider loaning books out to Kindles via Overdrive. Read more about the deal recently reached with Overdrive at the amazon.com website.
Here's a video from a library which is already doing this:

Teaches you to download Overdrive titles to your Kindle. From the High Plains Library District

Read Bobbie Newman's thoughtful post about what libraries may not be getting as a result of the Overdrive deal with Amazon.

A Few Tools Shared at NICE: Or Why You Should Attend Next Month

2011-09-22T19:38:00.000-05:00

Thank you to MaryAnn Apple who shared her notes from her ipad with the Noterize (document app)
Some tools shared at the NICE meeting which are helpful for sharing/gathering information:

1. Kwout

kwout | Chrome extension via kwout

2. embedit.in

embedit.in — Any file, in your website via kwout

3. How educators use QR Codes

Wise Words with Edlio » The Ultimate Educators Guide To QR Codes via kwout

4. Testmoz

Testmoz - The Test Generator via kwout

5. Flipboard - an ipad app you will really enjoy as you flip through your favorite sources

Flipboard for iPad via kwout

Kindle Books from your local library

2011-09-22T05:04:00.003-05:00

Amazon announced yesterday (9/21) that Kindle and Kindle app customers can now borrow books from more than 11,000 local libraries in the United States.

According to the press release:

"Customers will use their local library's website to search for and select a book to borrow. Once they choose a book, customers can choose to "Send to Kindle" and will be redirected to Amazon.com to login to their Amazon.com account and the book will be delivered to the device they select via Wi-Fi, or can be transferred via USB. Customers can check out a Kindle book from their local library and start reading on any generation Kindle device or free Kindle app for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry or Windows Phone, as well as in their web browser with Kindle Cloud Reader....

When borrowing a Kindle book from their local library, customers can take advantage of all of the unique features of Kindle books, including:

Whispersync technology wirelessly sync your books, notes, highlights, and last page read across Kindle and free Kindle reading apps
Real Page Numbers let you easily reference passages with page numbers that correspond to actual print editions
Facebook and Twitter integration makes it easy to share favorite passages with your social networks
Popular Highlights show you what our community of millions of Kindle readers think are the most interesting passages in your books
Public Notes allow you to share your notes and see what others are saying about Kindle book"

Thinglink - an interactive graphic tool to enhance blogging

2011-09-17T17:06:00.000-05:00

A Thinglink is an interactive hotspot you define inside an image, from a thing (an object, a person, or a place) to a link (a shop, a blog post, or anywhere you like). You insert the widget for the correct blog software,e.g. Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, and other platforms. You may also tag a single image or import images from Flickr, if you cannot add Thinglink to your site. Supported browsers include Mozilla Firefox 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and 8, Apple Safari 5 and Google Chrome (newest version).

Watch this short video to get a sense of how Thinglink works:

From the Help section of the Thinglink website, I discovered these common sense tips:

5 Tips for Tagging Images with Thinglink

1. Make Tags Engaging - engage readers with fun, interesting links

2. Tell a Story - Uncover the hidden and explain the non-obvious

3. Place Tags Tastefully -if you tag a person, don’t cover her face

4. More Than One, Less Than Twenty - 3 to 5 tags make it interesting and fun

5. Direct Links - provide info by adding accurate links

View an example:

Image from the Facebook website.

Some PREZI tips

2011-09-17T09:58:00.000-05:00

As librarians we usually are not given time to show students how to maximize the use of PREZI for class presentations. This should help!

Recently shared by Tom Barrett:

Click.to

2011-09-13T06:17:00.000-05:00

Watch the video and learn how Click.to may change your workflow and simplify sharing. Hyperlink everything in a flash.

Teacher Librarian Virtual Cafe for September 12

2011-09-12T19:49:00.000-05:00

Back to School Special: nearly 100 participants from around the nation
A casual discussion to generate ideas on how to build school allies, support new teachers & become indispensable to admin & staff at the beginning of every school year. Featuring how Google tools (forms, docs, & presentation, and more!) can supercharge the library program & classroom throughout the school year. For Teacher Librarians,
How to connect with students and your community: tips for sharing with your staff
See the Back to School Special Wikispaces page

Ideas from Gwyneth Jones-- aka The Daring Librarian, a middle school teacher librarian, an award winning bloggr and one of Library Journal's Movers & Shakers 2011:

Quick animation on Go Animate! for library orientation.
Community Crowdsourcing with Google Forms
Student produced book reviews - on Google forms which is published on a wiki
Trouble shooting wiki - to help students with "how do I...." frequently asked questions
Library blog: use of Edublogs; see the Daring Librarian Blog - share with students, parents & librarians
Like us on Facebook even if your school blocks Facebook
Twitter style book reviews with 140 characters which can also be posted to a Google form
Stay up on pop culture, e.g. Angry Birds, Glee, etc so you can stay relevant with students
Create give-aways for your teachers: e.g. PPT with homemade graphics to give to teachers to customize to make their own back-to-school PPT
Parents please scan me - put a QR code out their to your resources on parent night
How-to-tutorials: http://www.flickr.com/photos/info_grrl/sets/72157625298744518/

Tiffany Whitehead - librarian from Baton Rouge

We have to change the perception of the librarian
Create a welcoming space in the library; students need to feel comfortable
You can do a lot with a little
Bring in lots of toys; students love to play, e.g. puzzles, rubric cubes
Engage students: Destiny Quest - interactive library catalog; let your students interact
Use Google docs for scheduling classes in the library - meet each teacher where they are
Offer help on Windows 7 - use of a wiki for help
Tech Tuesday videos - 5 min video tutorials that teachers can use on her own YouTube channel
Make parents an ally
Facebook page - fight for a fan page with the parent organization & update it with important information for parents. If there is a will there is a way!
Connect with grandparents as volunteers
Comic Life - Jing -Screen shot videos for Tech Tuesday tutorials. Go Animate - Promotional videos. These are tools to create your library presence.
librariantiff@gmail.com

Crowdsourcing: Open Mike Night coming up, led by Joyce Valenza.

Teaching Sept 11 ideas from Teachers

2011-09-02T12:00:00.004-05:00

Today, we wanted to share some ideas from teachers around the country:

As published in The New York Times Learning Network blog: Teaching 9/11: Ideas and Projects from Teachers
As described by Suzie Boss at Edutopia: "How to Help your Students Observe the 9/11 Anniversary"

Resources like this are continuously being added to our libguide on Sept. 11. And this post builds upon earlier ones related to Sept. 11:

If you have more ideas to suggest, please post a comment below.

We must try this new we tool

2011-08-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

Book Club It --new web tool for creating and participating in online book discussion groups.

Nice features!

Find/choose books online
Public or private
Set up online pools related to the book
Create one or more meetings with meeting locations to discuss your current book.

Best of all, it's free and easy to set up. It seems like you must join the public book clubs in order to make comments on the books.

More Sept. 11 resources

2011-08-26T11:49:00.003-05:00

As blogged by Sue Polanka at "No Shelf Required":

ebrary developed an open access collection of e-books related to the events of September 11th at http://site.ebrary.com/lib/september11/. Libraries can include that link on their homepage and enable anyone with access to an Internet connection to download and read any or all of 15 full-text e-books throughout September. The selection includes

We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant America After 9/11, by Tram Nguyen,
Reclaiming the Sky: 9/11 and the Untold Story of the Men and Women Who Kept America Flying by Tom Murphy,
Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11, Damon DiMarco and Thomas Kean, and
Shock of the News: Media Coverage and the Making of 9/11by Brian Monahan.

This is a fully-functional site with access to all of ebrary’s research tools at absolutely no cost.

Thanks to Sue for noting this.

'TL Virtual Cafe - Back to School Special' on TLNing!

2011-08-24T17:03:00.002-05:00

'TL Virtual Cafe - Back to School Special' on TLNing!

From the Ning: "An essential webinar for those first weeks back at school"; hope to see you there!

Time: September 12, 2011 from 8pm to 9pm EST - that would be 7pm for Central Time
Location: http://tlvirtualcafe.wikispaces.com/Back_To_School
Organized By: bj neary - Librarian at Abington Senior High School located in Abington, PA

Event Description:
Guest speakers: Gwyneth Jones and Librarian Tiff will host a casual discussion to generate ideas on how to build school allies, support new teachers & become indispensable to admin & staff at the beginning of every school year. For Teacher Librarians, classroom teachers, tech teachers, adminisrators, & well...everyone!
8PM EST

See more details and RSVP on TLNing: if you haven't yet joined Teacher Librarian Ning, this is a worthwhile Ning!

http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/events/event/show?id=672799%3AEvent%3A127347&xgi=5dbZv6uo4Ezypb&xg_source=msg_invite_event

TL Virtual Cafe is a Ning (with forums, blogs, videos, groups, etc.) created by librarian Joyce Valenza which is a community for teacher-librarians and other educators with 6000+ members!

Also, on Twitter you can read tweets from the hashtag #TLChat or consider following the tweets of:

TLCHAT23 -- (a secure Twitter discussion with protected tweets)

Teaching September 11

2011-08-17T09:03:00.000-05:00

Here are some excellent primary source materials on the web:

The September 11, 2001, Documentary Project captures the reactions, eyewitness accounts, and diverse opinions of Americans and others in the months that following the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93.
Common themes: patriotism, unity, sadness, anger, and insecurity
~200 audio and video interviews, 45 graphic items, and 21 written narratives.

The September 11 Digital Archive
see also: award winning high school lesson plan for Teaching 9-11
Question: Should the Government go beyond the normal limits of its authority during wartime?

College & University Syllabi for teaching 9-11

Smithsonian: September 11 Bearing Witness to History

The New Trier Library has collected an awesome set of web resources for September 11 and Terrorism.

See also: New Trier Library collection-- Books/AV relevant to the issues surrounding September 11 including many wonderful books of photography:

Adams, Neal, and Marvel C. Group. Heroes : the world's greatest super hero creators honor the world's greatest heroes, 9.11.2001. New York: Marvel Comics, 2001. Print.

Al Qaeda after 9/11. Distributed by Discovery Education, 2006. Film.

Atkins, Stephen E. The 9/11 encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2008. Print.

Bagley, Mark, and Marvel C. Group. A moment of silence : saluting the heroes of September 11th. New York: Marvel Comics, 2001. Print.

Bernstein, Richard. Out of the blue : the story of September 11, 2001, from Jihad to Ground Zero. New York: Times Books, 2002. Print.

Bishop, Jennifer A. Through the eyes of freedom : a teen perspective on September 11, 2001. Oklahoma City, OK: New Horizons Pub., 2001. Print.

Brown, Cynthia. Lost liberties : Ashcroft and the assault on personal freedom. New York: New Press, 2003. Print.

by the reporters, writers and editors of. Inside 9-11 : what really happened. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002. Print.

Carlisle, Rodney P. September 11, 2001. New York: Collins, 2007. Print.

Comics, Alternative. 9-11 emergency relief : [a comic book to benefit the American Red Cross. Gainsville, FL: Alternative Comics, 2002. Print.

Comics, Dark H. 9-11 : artists respond. Milwaukie, Or.: Dark Horse Comics, 2002. Print.

The day the towers fell. A & E Television Networks, 2002. Film.

DC Comics, Inc. 9-11 : the world's finest comic book writers and artists tell stories to remember. New York, NY: DC Comics, 2002. Print.

Dixon, Wheeler W. Film and television after 9/11. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. Print.

Fahrenheit 9/11. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2004. Film.

Faludi, Susan. The terror dream : fear and fantasy in post-9/11 America. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007. Print.

Farber, David R. What they think of us : international perceptions of the United States since 9/11. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Print.

Firm, Life B. The American spirit : meeting the challenge of September 11. New York: Life Books, 2002. Print.

Frank, Mitch. Understanding September 11th : answering questions about the attacks on America. New York: Viking, 2002. Print.

Gilbert, Allison. Covering catastrophe : broadcast journalists report September 11. Chicago, IL: Bonus Books, 2002. Print.

Halberstam, David. Firehouse. New York: Hyperion, 2002. Print.

Halberstam, David, and inc Magnum Photos. New York September 11. New York: PowerHouse Books, 2001. Print.

Hendra, Tony, and Frank McCourt. Brotherhood. New York: American Express Publishing, 2001. Print.

Hutchinson, Robert, and Jake Rajs. Sometime lofty towers : a photographic memorial of the World Trade Center. San Francisco: Browntrout Publishers, 2001. Print.

Jacobson, Sid, Ernie Colón, and Thomas H. Kean. The 9/11 report : a graphic adaptation. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Print.

John Mroz December 04, 2001. 2001. Film.

Lamb, Chris. Drawn to extremes : the use and abuse of editorial cartoons. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Print.

Looking for answers. Distributed by PBS Home Video, 2001. Film.

ltd, Reuters. September 11 : a testimony. New York: Pearson Education, 2002. Print.

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. The 9/11 Commission report : final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. New York: Norton, 2004. Print.

One nation : America remembers September 11, 2001. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2001. Print.

Photoinsider. Unique Photo, Inc. Print.

Poynter Institute for Media Studies. September 11, 2001 : a collection of newspaper front pages. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel, 2001. Print.

Raines, foreword b.H., and introduction b.J. Scott. Portraits 9/11/01 : the collected "Portraits of grief" from The New York times. New York: Times Books/Henry Holt and Company, 2002. Print.

Rich, Frank. The greatest story ever sold : the decline and fall of truth from 9/11 to Katrina. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. Print.

The road to 9/11. Distributed by PBS Home Video, 2006. Film.

Roleff, Tamara L. America under attack : primary sources. San Diego, Calif.: Lucent Books, 2002. Print.

Salaita, Steven G. Anti-Arab racism in the USA : where it comes from and what it means for politics today. London: Pluto Press, 2006. Print.

September 11, 2001, a turning point in history the first 30 days. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2001. Film.

Spiegelman, Art. In the shadow of no towers. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004. Print.

Stewart, Gail. America under attack : September 11, 2001. San Diego, Calif.: Lucent Books, 2002. Print.

Thoms, Annie, Taresh Batra, and N.Y. Stuyvesant High School New York. With their eyes : September 11th, the view from a high school at ground zero. New York: HarperTempest, 2002. Print.

World Trade Center anatomy of the collapse. TLC, 2001. Film.

The World Trade Center rise and fall of an American icon. History Channel, 2002. Film.

Wright, Lawrence. The looming tower : Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11. New York: Vintage Books, 2007. Print.

Amazon Alters Rules for Kindles in School Libraries

2011-08-11T19:10:00.013-05:00

Read the recent School Library Journal article which discusses how Amazon is changing its rules for school libraries. This may really impact how we go forward with our Kindle program.
Amazon Alters Rules for Kindles in School Libraries

Perhaps NT Library should look into purchasing the Barnes and Noble Simple Touch Reader

which enables downloads from Google Books!

According to a Mashable writer Lauren Indvik:

The Simple Touch Reader is a major upgrade from the original Nook, and also significantly improves upon Amazon’s Kindle 3 device in five respects: 1) It has a touchscreen, and is buttonless (save for the on/off button on the backside).2) It has double the battery life. 3) It’s 1.5 inches shorter (5 x 6.5 inches). 4) It’s one ounce lighter (7.5 ounces). 5) There’s less of a page-turning delay.Both devices have built-in Wi-Fi, 6-inch display screens and are priced at $139.

Barnes &Noble's New Simple Touch Reader from School Library Journal on Vimeo.

As usual, change is fast-paced in the library world. With the ebook revolution, don't expect the impact to be anything less than the Gutenberg printing press.

Things I learned on Twitter today

2011-08-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

New Creaza video editing tool (see posting below)
Scroll to bottom of a Wikipedia article to get Wikipedia ratings: Visitors rate an entry on a scale of 1 to 5 on trustworthiness, objectivity, completeness and quality of writing. Article raters have the option of self-identifying as a subject matter expert. Share with your students!
Two new features on Twitter: click on the new tab with your @username, and you’ll be able to see which of your Tweets are Favorites, plus the latest Retweets (of your Tweets), Tweets directed to you, and your new Followers. AND Activity tab. It provides a rich new source of discovery by highlighting the latest Favorites, Retweets, and Follows from the people you follow on Twitter – all in one place. This doesn't mean that I am giving up my Tweetdeck!
Twitter for librarians: a resource guide from Phil Bradley: this includes 43 Twitter search engines you may already know, plus dozens of other resources to get the most out of Twitter. One that sounds fascinating is: Packrati.us = Twitter + Delicious This site provides a simple bookmarking service. They follow your twitter feed, and whenever a status you tweet or re-tweet contains URLs, they are automatically added to your delicious.com bookmarks.
YALSA's Readers' Choice Booklist-- anyone may nominate a favorite title by filling out a not-so-brief nomination form.
National Book Awards accepts 1st interactive eBook submission (waiting to see if they reveal the title)
The best tools for creating online slideshows - from Larry Ferlazzo-- Just signed up for Knovio's private beta! Make video presentations from webcam and PowerPoint - http://l.aunch.it/rgL9

Lunch time....ciao!

Creaza: Cool New Tool for Digital Storytelling

2011-08-11T12:25:00.002-05:00

Discovered this new tool on Twitter today: Creaza --video editor which works with any camera device
No need to worry about codecs and extensions....

From the website:

Shoot and capture media with your mobile phone or any camera device, and sync it to your private media library in the cloud.
Shape and edit your media clips with professional-looking titles, transitions, effects, animation, music and narration.
Share and collaborate in an online workspace and publish your movies to social networks and video scrapbooks.

This one looks like a winner for classroom projects. A sharing/collaboration features allows you to invite others in to edit the film. It's all stored in the cloud and even allows for HD - movies can be exported with a resolution up to 1080 pixels. No installation or software is required and all files are safely stored.

I signed up for the waiting list; it's in Beta right now and will hopefully be getting an invitation to try it soon.

Webdoc brings you rich expression on the web

2011-08-09T16:38:00.000-05:00

Webdoc has a new way to build a site on the web. This fits into blogging or Tumblr in a really neat way because it brings even richer sites than those allow plus they bring in the social web too.

see a webdoc which I embedded at the IGSS blog:

It's free....for the moment...

Some Government money is not wasted: Primary Sources and Worthwhile Reference Guides

2011-08-08T08:09:00.000-05:00

The Library of Congress is constantly adding resources such as wonderful newly digitized primary source materials. One recent discovery is the Herblock! cartoon collection celebrating Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Herb Block (1909–2001) with 82 digitized original cartoons spanning his seventy-two-year career (1929–2001).

Another amazing resource librarians should pay attention to and add to web reference online resources are the Reference Guides from Library of Congress.
See: Science Reference Guides

see also: Subject guides produced by the Science Reference Section of the Library of Congress.

Horticulture & Gardening

The Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress has eight alcoves. This ninth "virtual alcove" is a collection of websites selected and annotated by Humanities and Social Sciences Division subject specialists.

Alcove 9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites--All of these websites have components that are free and available to the public; some might require user registration, or may have links to fee-based services.

SUBJECT INDEX

A new social network: Google Plus

2011-07-09T12:32:00.003-05:00

Google recently announced their new Social Network, Google+ ('Plus') with several features that distinguish it from Facebook. The most interesting one in terms of classroom use may be the "circles" feature in which you can share content across distinct, separate groups.

The core Google+ features are:

Circles: A method of assigning people to different micro-networks and then sharing information with only them
Hangouts: Video chats where people can get together and catchup
Huddles: Ongoing IM conversations across groups
Sparks: Search for content by your friends and share your own content

Google plus is still being tested right now. After the testing period, many invites will be sent out. Sign up for invitation here

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googleplus/

Watch:

Folks are already developing a collaborative Google Doc for tips and tricks with Google +

Read more commentary from PC World on Google+ and privacy.

See also: thoughtful post by Ryan Bretag: He argues that rather than trying to "school-ify" Facebook, Google + could fit the bill for classroom learning commons.

Rode the Wave and Buzzed the Tower: Now I am +for Ed

Arne Duncan teaching summer school ...

2011-06-20T15:09:00.006-05:00

…in a school library?

This past spring, at the TEDxSFED talks, David Orphal (Skyline High School) suggested that Arne Duncan should consider teaching summer school. I would recommend teaching in the school library. It would be informative to juggle the preparation (identifying sources, pulling books, and creating PathFinders) and the teaching for the numerous subjects, grade levels, and student backgrounds of those who utilize the library. Here, for example, is a summary of the classes taught this week in our summer school library:

Business

Consumer Product Reviews In a state required Consumer course, we worked with high school students to select a product and review a Consumer Reports summary, plus identified additional online sources of product evaluations.

English

Magazines and Newspapers – these English Language Learners had a tour of the library, learned about a special collection of resources for them, met in our periodicals room on multiple days and selected stories of interest in preparation for creating their own newspaper.
Zeitoun Background Research – these rising Juniors began researching about Hurricane Katrina and its impact, prior to reading Zeitoun. We were fortunate to be able to collaborate with librarians at other schools and colleges preparing for similar units.
Using the list of Abraham Lincoln Book nominees from our state professional association, we devised an assignment to help rising Freshman practice using the library catalog and databases, plus gave them a tour of both the physical and virtual library spaces.

Social Studies

The multi-grade level group of students participating in this summer’s Chicago History Seminar researched several projects, including a Timeline of important events and information to support their Worker Roundtable
Presidency Project - An advanced US History class (rising Juniors) came to the library on multiple days in order to locate primary sources and to create annotated bibliographies in support of a research paper, presentation and monologue about a US President.

Speech and Theatre

Debate: Interviewing and Company Research – these high school students learned about company information and interviewing techniques and questions in order to stage and critique mock interviews during class.
Debate: Famous Speech – A library tour highlighted those aspects of our collections (plays, monologues and anthologies with speeches) for students to use in selecting a piece to memorize and present to their class.

Yes, that was just one week of summer school in the library…

Teaching summer school in the library would give an overview of curriculum across multiple disciplines, an opportunity to collaborate with classroom teachers, and, most importantly, a chance to work one-on-one with students of differing abilities and motivations. Even more so than during the school year, some are freely pursuing a passion while others are merely attending because it is required.

You may have been smiling as you imagined Secretary Duncan teaching summer school, but seriously think about what a perfect assignment it would be for him and for Department of Education’s Director of Education Technology, Karen Cator. That’s because while all of those classes were occurring, we also were

Learning about how to run a trace route to help address a tech issue;
Requesting that the filter be reset so as to unblock the Chicago History Museum site on the Great Chicago Fire (it is available now);
Coordinating with the Technology Department as we continue a conversion in operating system;
Reviewing set-up and directions for weebly so as to be able to anticipate and answer student questions;
Thanking our Web Master for solving a display issue on the main library page; and
Responding to numerous student questions about netbook operation, passwords for network access and so on…

Yes, that was five half-days (just one week) of summer school in the library…

Wait! While teaching in the school library, one would also be involved with

Providing direction on several summer projects for the Circulation Desk Staff and;
Assisting an alum with research and directing him to the archives;
Updating and posting links for the high school Seniors who will be writing drafts of College application essays
Ordering new books and materials based on student requests and reviews from professional journals;
Mentoring a teacher undertaking a Practicum in Library Science, including supporting her professionally by attending a webinar and providing daily feedback.

Yes, that was roughly 1500 minutes (just one week) of summer school in the library…

Even if Secretary Duncan will not be teaching summer school this year, it is worth considering the assignment of a little “homework” to Department of Education (DOE) staff in support of school libraries. In addition to the ideas listed here, what would you add?

Study the research that supports the important contributions that libraries and librarians make to avoid further cuts in funding for literacy programs;
Go on a “field trip” to the 15^th National Conference and Exhibition of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL); Listen, participate and share ideas with librarians from across the country;
Subscribe to the RSS feed for award winning blogs, including Buffy Hamilton’s The Unquiet Librarian and Carolyn Foote’s Not So Distant Future;
Read and discuss Joyce Valenza’s Revised Manifesto as published in School Library Journal and interview a local school librarian for additional perspective on the librarian’s evolving role;
Visit a school and experience a day (or a week!) in the life of a school librarian.

Libraries and librarians make a difference as research has shown for years. Secretary Duncan would recognize that, too, if he had the opportunity to teach and then to read the thank-you notes such as those I just received from summer school students.

Yes, that was just one week of summer school in the library – and those notes were certainly a highlight!

Salem Press Announces Library Blog Winners

2011-06-15T15:27:00.003-05:00

And here is even more summer reading (though these are so good, you'll want to continue throughout the school year): Salem Press Announces Library Blog Winners

The school library blogs include quite a variety, amongst them commenters on our blog like Cathy Nelson and many other familiar names such as Nancy Keane (booktalks), Doug Johnson, Richard Byrne, and Carolyn Foote and Buffy Hamilton - this year's winner for The Unquiet Librarian.

A couple other high school blogs that were recognized in addition to New Trier Library:
21st Century Teacher Librarian
Rich Meland
Rich is currently making the transition from English teacher to teacher-librarian at Sunnyside High School in Fresno, CA.
Not So Distant Future
Carolyn Foote
Web 2.0 tools, teaching strategies, and library research tools for educators. Carolyn is a high school and district librarian in Austin, TX.

Summer Options

2011-06-13T21:59:00.002-05:00

In between planning for and helping teach a couple of classes a day at summer school, I have been trying to do some reading and thinking. Here's a few ideas worth exploring:

I am reading the book Is the Internet Changing the Way you Think? This series of essays by Edge contributors (about 150 in all) has a new perspective to offer on every page.

As to online articles and posts, everything seems to have a number in the title and it is a bit overwhelming, but choose one to explore -- you have PLENTY of options:

* From THE Journal: "6 Technologies that Will Change Education" and

* From MindShift Blog: "5 Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) for Educators"

* Shelley Terrell's "What will You Learn this Summer? 26 Professional Development Resources"

* Richard Byrne list "77 Web Resources for Teachers to Try This Summer".

* Laura Turner's "20 Technology Skills every Educator Should Have" is from Tech & Learning and pretty daunting (she needed to publish a part 2 and part 3 - which I saw on paper.li), but the breadth of links is amazing.

And in many ways it all started with Joyce Valenza's "How to retool yourself - a road map of at least 15 ways" or Helen Blowers' 23 Things which Alicia Duell will be reprising in her AASL presentation: "Facilitating Staff-wide “23 Things”-style Web 2.0 Learning Programs in Your School or Organization".

Next on the reading list are Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants and Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble. Any ideas to share?

Information Just Wants to Be Free....more open access

2011-06-05T14:34:00.000-05:00

Just learned about SpringerOpen: important open access to scholarly science journals which cover science, technology, and medicine (STM) fields.

From their website:

"The entire content published in a SpringerOpen journal is freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication. SpringerOpen views open access to research as essential in order to ensure the rapid and efficient communication of research findings. SpringerOpen is committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review."

Springer Journals are known for quality; it is exciting to see the open access feature blossom and grow.

Introducing Flavors.me

2011-06-04T07:54:00.002-05:00

Check out this very simple aggregator for a website "made in minutes"...great looking splash page/portal for an online identity that brings together social networks and other aspects of your online presence. This free service routes viewers towards aspects of your online identity you want to share including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Tumbl.r, and a dozen more.

View the New Trier Library flavors.me

Flavors.me from Hiidef on Vimeo.

YouTube's new Creative Commons remix feature in its video editor!

2011-06-03T06:51:00.002-05:00

This is amazingly good news for education:

Students will be able to make their own videos and create mashups with documentary video from reliable sources such as C-SPAN, Voice of America and Al-Jazeera.

Additionally, users will be able to publish any of their own videos under CC-BY simply by selecting the licenses as an option during the upload process. CC is hugely successful for Flickr images; YouTube's adoption of creative remix has huge potential for students' multimedia projects.
Read more here.
We are fortunate at New Trier that YouTube is not blocked for students and that they can make use of this fabulous resource more fully.

Information Just Wants to Be Free

2011-05-27T07:00:00.001-05:00

Exciting news from ResourceShelf which announced yesterday the premier issue of SAGE Open, "the only broad-based open access journal featuring content from the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities."

No cost peer-reviewed articles! SAGE Open will feature scholarly articles from social scientists who require their articles to be freely available because of personal choice or because of university or government requirements. Good news for researchers who are trying to find new articles in the social and behavioral sciences or humanities.

New Trier Library will certainly add what is certain to become a goldmine of articles to our database offerings. This is a resource which will hopefully promote collaborative and interdisciplinary research in the social sciences and humanities. Services include sharing of articles by email, alerts for corrections in publications, alerts for posted comments, and links to similar articles in the journal. Sign up for email alerts as each new article is published.

Citations may be sent to a "citation manger" which exports the citations to:

Our students may groan when they realize NoodleTools is not yet enabled to accept exported citations. Yet, we all know they need to learn the elements of citations in a variety of formats.

Sir Ken Robinson to speak on creativity

2011-05-23T20:07:00.004-05:00

Steve Hargadon just posted: Wednesday, May 25th... a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Sir Ken Robinson about the extensively revised and updated version of his best-selling classic, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative."

This session should be worth attending. Here is a short video you may have seen (it was shown at NICE earlier this year):

Seth Godin Has Librarians All Fired Up Again

2011-05-17T19:55:00.002-05:00

The Twittersphere is buzzing with comments on Seth Godin's latest article: Seth's Blog: The future of the library. (May 16, 2011)

Both Phil Bradley and Librarian By Day weighed in: Seth Godin Misses the Point on Libraries, Again. | Librarian by Day(librarianbyday.net). Both disagree with some of his simplistic ideas on libraries and librarianship but Phil Bradley gives Godin cudos for realizing that "They need a librarian more than ever (to figure out creative ways to find and use data). "

The saving grace is that Godin was way more positive than when he dissed librarians in 2010. Godin actually argues that "We need librarians more than we ever did. What we don't need are mere clerks who guard dead paper. Librarians are too important to be a dwindling voice in our culture. For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime."

Andy (Agnostic, Maybe) writes sarcastically: “Bring Me the Head of Seth Godin!” He argues that Seth Godin "should be waaaaaay down on the list of scalps to attempt to claim right now. Think about it." PC Sweeney thinks that Seth Godin nailed it in his comments regarding libraries and Buffy Hamilton agrees with her! I do agree with some of Godin's comments but he gets way too simplistic for me when he makes silly statements such as, "Post-Gutenberg, books are finally abundant, hardly scarce, hardly expensive, hardly worth warehousing." Excuse me, but since when have print collections become totally irrelevant? So I tweeted in support of Librarian By Day's thoughtful response as I weighed in ...

4,068 people like Seth's post on Facebook
2124 have retweeted Godin's Blog Post from his blog
All this happening in 24 hours
Quite interesting that Seth's blog doesn't seem to accept comments.
He lets Facebook and Twitter do the heavy lifting.

I just love this viral aspect of social media when everyone is willing to share an opinion and is trying to figure things out. What do you think?

National Jukebox

2011-05-17T19:07:00.002-05:00

Great listening treasure!

National Jukebox

What a Difference 10 Years Makes!

2011-05-09T19:49:00.002-05:00

How the Social Web Reflected on Bin Laden’s Death

Diving into Digital Books - fire up Elluminate for Webinar Monday Night

2011-05-01T12:33:00.006-05:00

From the TL Virtual Cafe:

Be sure to attend:
Diving into Digital Books

Adding eReaders to Your School Library
Guests: Buffy J. Hamilton & Jennifer LaGarde
Host: Gwyneth Jones
May 2 - 8pm EST - 7 pm Central time
Session Wikipage - Resources and More!

Kindles, Nooks and iPads, Oh My!

"Implementing eReaders into your library program is about more than just jumping on the latest technological bandwagon or attempting to reinvent your library in order to stay relevant. It’s about good practice. Join Buffy Hamilton and Jennifer LaGarde as they discuss how eReaders have helped them provide students with a) access to the most up to date titles, b) the unique ability to efficiently link works of fiction with nonfiction resources and, c) the opportunity to interact with texts in ways that are simply not possible with traditional, library owned, books – all in an environment that both appeals to and enhances their skills as 21st century learners."

Hope to meet you in the Cloud!

40 Years of E-books [Infographic]

2011-04-27T17:06:00.000-05:00

Surprising that Project Gutenberg has digitized only 33,000 books.

Check out the great visual for 40 years of ebook history.

Google Search screened by reading levels

2011-04-21T08:09:00.004-05:00

I am currently teaching an ESL class and we were talking about using Google Advanced Search . One of the students showed me that a user can now sort results by reading level.

After a little more research, I found that "the breakdown isn't grade- or age-specific, but reflects the judgments of teachers as to overall level of difficulty. Roughly speaking, "Basic" is elementary level texts, while "Intermediate" is anything above that level up to technical and scholarly articles, a la the articles you'd find in Scholar."

Try this new option and see what you think -- it's exciting, especially the idea that a student brought the feature to our attention!

National Library Week and Gale

2011-04-08T07:55:00.004-05:00

Gale, part of Cengage Learning, is celebrating National Library Week by offering free access to six highly-praised online resources for use by any library during National Library Week. Free access runs through National Library Week, from April 10 to April 24, 2010. Librarians can download the widget to their homepage by visiting www.gale.cengage.com/NLW starting on April 10. Gale is offering access to six resources:

Gale NewsVault – a specially designed online platform that enables cross-searching of Gale’s enormous range of historical newspaper and periodical collections from a single interface

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, Part I – a historical archive that embraces the scholarly study of slavery in a comprehensive, conceptual and global way

Science in Context: an online learning and research portal that covers everything from earth science and life science, to space, technology, mathematics and science history and biography

GREENR – an electronic resource offering authoritative reference content on the environment, energy, economic development and natural resources

Global Issues in Context – an online learning and research portal that offers global news and perspectives on issues and events of international importance

Powerspeak Languages – a world language learning product that uses the research-driven powerspeaK12 language learning methodology

Originally seen at Sue Polanka's blog: No Shelf Required - Thank you!

New Trier Day of Silence: April 14

2011-04-07T09:12:00.000-05:00

What is Day of Silence and Why Do New Trier Students Participate? on Prezi

Recent find: Classtools.net

2011-04-05T06:30:00.001-05:00

Classtools.net was shared on Twitter today by Steve Anderson, posted on Michael Gorman's blog which highlights 20 free tools that require no login developed by educator, Russel Tarr, Head of History at the International School of Toulouse, France.

Two Tools that seem relevant to library research:

The tool I examined Keyword Checker - helps students to check their essays to see if they have used the most important key terms for a topic. Just PASTE a list of keywords/phrases into the box on the left; PASTE the essay in the box to the right; then click “check”. Students are given feedback that can be used to provide focus for further redrafting if necessary.

Source Analyser helps students to look critically at a source and reflect on how useful it is. Seems like a great way to think about how to write thoughtful annotated bibliographies.

What is exciting to me is how quickly these tools and ideas are spread through social media and how easily educators can't put them to the test right away.

QR codes in the library - an information literacy issue!

2011-03-24T05:48:00.000-05:00

Librarian Laura Pressley of Wake Forest University Library has created a nice LibGuide which gives more ideas on how QR codes can be used in other libraries: displays, audio tours, library tours, signage, in the library catalog, and to connect e-resources to the physical stacks.

Be sure to read the Library Success Wiki for more QR Code examples.

Listen to what Wake Forest University Library is doing with QR codes.

QR Codes in Libraries from lauren pressley on Vimeo.

At the New Trier Library our latest display for Women's History Month has been augmented with QR Codes. Using their phones, students can scan the QR codes and find out more about historically important women.

Technology great : But libraries and books remain even more important today .

2011-03-22T08:45:00.001-05:00

April 10th -16th is National Library Week. Author John Grishom, honorary chair, shares the value of libraries in his life and a personal story about helping to rebuild libraries on the Gulf Cost after Katrina.

Facing History website

2011-03-16T18:00:00.003-05:00

Just pointing you toward a wealth of resources provided by Facing History and Ourselves: helping classrooms and communities worldwide link the past to moral choices today.

This site is filled with lesson plans, video clips and podcasts, plus more resources on a variety of topics including the Holocaust and Little Rock Nine. Currently, the home page features a video entitled "Do Something, Do Nothing". Choose to do something: review and share these resources.

Resources from Teaching about Japan - Earthquake and Tsunami

2011-03-16T17:01:00.003-05:00

Libguides regarding recent news and the Science related to events in Japan can be found here:

Info on Earthquake in Japan - UMass at Amherst (also used by Eastern Connecticut)
Japan Disaster Outreach - Arizona State University
Japan - Earthquake & Tsunami - College of the Mainland, Texas City, Texas
Japan Studies - University of Washington Libraries

A Way to Organize Your 'To Do' Lists

2011-03-13T12:03:00.000-05:00

Russell Tarr shared this tool on Twitter today. Check out the new & improved TeuxDeux - an online personal organizer. You may end up ditching your Google Calendar when you see this!

Features include:
TeuxDeux features include:
- week overview
- check off, delete, or move tasks
- someday bucket
- jump to a date in the future
- automatic rollover of unchecked tasks
- edit existing tasks
- sync with mobile version (iPhone app)
- Multiple accounts (iPhone app only)

Hoping someone develops an Android app for this.

TeuxDeux Part Deux from TeuxDeux on Vimeo.

Click to Call: New Gmail Feature

2011-03-11T06:40:00.000-06:00

Starting today, you’ll see that phone numbers in your Gmail will appear as links!

What you need: Google Voice and video plugin.

Call phones right from your Gmail by clicking. You don't need to copy and paste your number or type it in to Google chat to call your friends. Read more about the free convenient calling from the Gmail blog.

Makes you wonder if Google is collecting phone numbers from all your contacts.

Firefox 4: What You Need to Know

2011-03-10T19:10:00.001-06:00

Today, Mashable previews some features of this soon to be released version that is six times faster and incorporates new sync and panorama features.

The new sync features allow users to sync booksmarks, browsing history, passwords, form fill data and open tabs across mulitple computers and even a smartphone.

Watch the short tutorial on how the panorama feature works:

Firefox Panorama: How To from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Kindles in the Classroom Webinar

2011-03-08T19:16:00.000-06:00

I joined the Kindles in the Classroom Webinar tonight to hear the moderator Will @ eReadia discuss what is helpful when using Kindles and other ereaders in the classroom. It seems that the most difficult problem is to get your students focused on the same passage for discussion. What is helpful is for the teacher to embed the teaching notes for the text you are using by selecting and highlighting passages for easy reference. Some teachers use a doc camera to supplement teaching notes to make it easier for students to follow along. Will referred to the excellent Kindle resources shared by Buffy Hamilton on her web presences. Kindle page numbers are supposed to help with this but they are not available as yet for all books. One participant suggested that it helps to have students set all settings the same, such as font size. Another problem is that many books teachers use are not yet available on Kindle. Teachers may have to consider using Open Source textbooks; this is another obstacle which involves changing to a new textbook. CourseSmart is a digital textbook library used by many major textbook publishers and this is definitely a work in progress. CourseSmart advertises the largest selection of etextbooks available online at low prices.

Visit the eBook Educators Group Ning to join forums and ask questions. Webinars are archived on the ning.higher education.

Create and share images with interactive notes

2011-03-08T06:39:00.000-06:00

SpeakingImage is an application for creating interactive images and share them with others.

You can also create groups, add wikisand set different permissions to manage collaborative work among students.

Science classes would love this application because it allows for complex annotation of complex systems. See the cell membrance example.

A set of video tutorials allows the user to create basics such as markers and annotations and also use more technical features:

Nice Chart of Social Media Links

2011-03-05T11:09:00.001-06:00

Recently shared by the Resource Shelf from the Research Information Network: Worthy of printing! and bookmarking.

Register for March 8 Webinar

2011-03-03T20:09:00.000-06:00

Interested in using Kindles in the classroom? We are experimenting with that right now in a couple of classrooms at New Trier. Want to learn more? Join the the eBook Educators Group. The high school forum discusses and shares information about how they are using or planning on using ereaders in the high school classroom. Register for March 8 Webinar at 6 pm. central time, and 7:00 PM EST.

Crisis in Dairyland - Message for Teachers

2011-03-03T19:49:00.000-06:00

Nobody says it better than Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Crisis in Dairyland - Message for Teachers

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Kindle Nation Winter 2011 Citizen Survey Results

2011-02-26T18:19:00.000-06:00

LibrarianbyDay shared this on Twitter today: Results of the Kindle Nation Winter 2011 Citizen Survey

Some items worth noting:
93% of respondents were from the U.S.; only 3% a resident of a country other than the U.S., Canada, or the U.K.

70% of respondents are earlier adopters of new technologies, so there is much potential for growth

Reading on Kindles: A superior experience 4.9/5 rating

A majority of users are interested in free books

Shared at ICE Conference by Dr. Henry Thiele

2011-02-25T19:16:00.000-06:00

View the tutorial on how to use Google Forms to update events/announcements in a Google Calendar while sharing reminders automatically to Facebook and Twitter Accounts. Something to think about as we envision updates to our library web presence:

Librarians all a Twitter about Overdrive

2011-02-25T18:45:00.000-06:00

Librarian in Black is outraged over recent developments with ebook aggregators:

"Consumer market eBook vendors like Barnes & Noble and Amazon don’t let publishers get away with the amount of nonsense that we get stuck with through library eBook vendors. I fault the publishers for not realizing what a huge mistake they are making by not realizing that new formats are opportunities–not threats to be quashed. I fault the library eBook vendors for not standing firm and saying “no” to asinine demands. And I fault the library profession for, to date, not standing up for the rights of our users. Our job is to fight for the user, and we have done a poor job of doing that during the digital content surge."

Read the entire post responding to publisher HarperCollins, and their demanded limit is 26 lifetime uses per copy:

Library eBook Revolution, Begin

More ideas on how to use QR Codes in the library

2011-02-24T07:08:00.000-06:00

Read the ideas recently shared on Twitter by librarian Heather Braum who posted this list of ideas from a brainstorming session.

Diane Ravitch: How can we improve schools while cutting funding and demoralizing teachers?

2011-02-21T12:43:00.002-06:00

Protest at Wisconsin State Capitol on February 16

The uprising in Madison is symptomatic of a simmering rage among the nation's teachers.
--Diane Ravitch
Read Ravitch's opinions on the Madison Wisconsin protests. Ravitch basically thinks thatit is not just about unions trying to protect their members' hard-won rights.... It is about teachers who are fed up with attacks on their profession. CNN ReportIn a recent SLATE post, Egyptian solidarity with the Wisconsin protest puts a real "one world" feel on this.

Egyptians Order Pizza for Wisconsin Protesters:

"In an act of intercontinental solidarity, an Egyptian has ordered a pizza for Wisconsin protesters, reports Politico. The call from Africa is just one of many streaming into the Madison, Wisc., pizza parlor Ian's from all over the world. So far, people from 12 countries and 38 states have rung up looking to help get free pizza to the Wisconsin protesters clustered in the Capitol. On Saturday, Ian's distributed more than 1,000 free slices and sent 300 pizzas to the Capitol."

Without social media this would never happen. There is strength in numbers. However, the unions have a definite public relations problem. Read

"Who is winning the public relations fight in Wisconsin?" to understand how things in Wisconsin are likely to get nastier.

More on QR codes

2011-02-20T12:33:00.000-06:00

These QR codes are getting really big and I think we can have fun in the library with them because many of our students/staff have smart phones. We can partner students up for a library scavenger hunt during orientation!

Here are the ideas of Barbara Schroeder, Clinical Associate Professor with the Department of Educational Technology at Boise State University:

10 Ways to Use QR Codes in Your Classroom

I love the interactivity piece...sending people to further information. To keep students awake during our own presentations in the library we can even put QR codes into our LibGuides and they can scan them when they are projected on the screen. I did that with my recent PREZI presentation and participants could get the direct URL for the PREZI sent to their phones.

So easy to do: just enter a URL into a QR code generator (many on the web) and then embed the image on your blog, web page, or simply copy & paste it into a word doc. The mobile phone user just needs a bar code scanner app on their phone.

View the New Trier LibGuide on Ipads in the Classroom

2011-02-19T16:26:00.002-06:00

Created by MaryAnn Apple and Jacqui Pritchard this valuable resource contains many useful apps and resources. Check it out!

YouTube Statistics for those at New Trier Awaiting the Unblocking of YouTube

2011-02-19T15:19:00.000-06:00

Today, Mashable reports:

"As of February 2011, YouTube has 490 million unique users worldwide per month, who rack up an estimated 92 billion page views each month. We spend around 2.9 billion hours on YouTube in a month — over 325,000 years. And those stats are just for the main YouTube website — they don’t incorporate embedded videos or video watched on mobile devices."

Social media statistics are equally impressive:

YouTube reports: "there are more than 400 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link. Meanwhile, over on Facebook over 150 years worth of YouTube videos are watched every single day."

Not surprising, 20-to-35-year-old bloggers embed most of the videos (57%), followed by teenagers (20%) and bloggers over 35 (20%).” See ReadWrite Web.

Most tech saavy teachers are working to get valuable YouTube content into their schools. View Steve Dembo's impressive presentation on Digital Storytelling with YouTube. It is a compelling argument for reforming our approach to YouTube. Most school blocking is apparently useless and outdated for today's sophisticated teenager who can easily download a software to their flash drive, bring it to school, and get any blocked site they wish.

Social Media Revolution Updated

2011-02-15T19:34:00.001-06:00

I think that Malcom Gladwell's October New Yorker article missed the mark. Maybe he will revise his stance in light of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and (hopefully) Iran.

From pbs Newsletter

2011-02-10T16:40:00.002-06:00

Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century
On-Air | Sunday, February 13, 10:30pm [note: Our local stations may not carry it, but watch the video HERE after 2/13/2011]
Grade Range: 6-8, 9-12, Educators

While technology isn’t yet pervasive in every classroom, kids interact with digital media constantly, and more educators are trying to meet students where they are to incorporate digital learning into traditional lessons.
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/digitallearners/

Connect Your Students with True Originals for Black History Month
This season PBS celebrates True Originals — innovators, artists, scientists, political leaders and ordinary citizens who dared to advance, challenge, improve, invent, and explore. In honor and celebration of Black History Month, PBS presents new and encore programs continuing throughout the spring season.

Thousands of hours of PBS programming are available on the PBS Video Portal at http://video.pbs.org/. The Video Portal includes a special collection for Black History Month 2011, featuring new and encore programming. Learn more at http://video.pbs.org/feature/118/.

In addition, PBS Teachers offers the activity packs Unsung Heroes in African American History at http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/resources/6929/preview and Civil Rights Movement in American Literature at http://www.pbs.org/teachers/activitypacks/reading/civil-rights-movement-in-american-literature/ for educators to use in the classroom or to post on their classroom, school, or favorite social networking websites. The activity packs are designed for multiple grade levels and contain links to African-American history-themed education resources and activities from PBS.

Why didn't I know this sooner?

2011-02-06T11:27:00.000-06:00

Recently read on Twitter shared by Buffy Hamilton: Access two Gmail accounts at once in the same browser!

I am now rushing over to my Google Account (google.com/accounts) so that I can see and use multiple Google Accounts in the same browser. It is truly annoying to have to sign in and out to share things across the web. From the Official Gmail Blog:

Simply click the link next to "Multiple sign-in. "After you sign into your first account, you can sign in with up to two additional accounts from the new accounts menu in the upper right hand corner of Gmail, then easily toggle back and forth between them. You can even open multiple Gmail tabs — one for each of your accounts."

This is currently available only for desktop browsers and not all Google services support multiple account sign in yet.

New Trier Library

TED Talk called “Defend Our Freedom To Share (Or Why SOPA is a Bad Idea)

Learn more about digital rights management and privacy issues

Save the Date

Looking to Expand Your Personal Learning Network

Open Mic Night with Joyce Valenza & Moderator Gwyneth A. Jones - The Daring Librarian

New Trier Library proudly supports the projects of Integrated Global Studies School

Collaborative Document Editing

Goodnight, iPad

17,849 and counting

Michael Stephens Keynote: Hyperlinked Library Services @Library 2.011

Kindle Lending Library details = limitations

Stephen Abram's Keynote: How do we move to the next step? @ Library2.011

TEDxNYED with Will Richardson: What is Your Definition of Better?

Library 2.011 Virtual Conference

Mother Nature and College Applications

We Have an Author in the House at New Trier Library

Available Ebook reading formats:

Dropbox - Pogue and our students agree

Afghanistan Resources

I made my own 'flippin book' with FlipSnack

Web Tool Mashup

Audio-Visual from NASA

"Purposeful Play" - theme of K-12 Online Conference

2011 K-12 Online Conference Post By Wesley Fryer ⋅ August 26, 2011

New York Times on Banned Sites

More on Vizualize Me!

Kindle Fire on Order

Seems Like QR Codes are Still Alive and Well

Want Your Resume to Pop? Try Vizualize.me

Are QR Codes obsolete with the new Google Wallet?

Kindle Downloads and Returns on Overdrive

A Few Tools Shared at NICE: Or Why You Should Attend Next Month

Kindle Books from your local library

Thinglink - an interactive graphic tool to enhance blogging

Some PREZI tips

Click.to

Teacher Librarian Virtual Cafe for September 12

Teaching Sept 11 ideas from Teachers

We must try this new we tool

More Sept. 11 resources

'TL Virtual Cafe - Back to School Special' on TLNing!

Teaching September 11

Amazon Alters Rules for Kindles in School Libraries

Things I learned on Twitter today

Creaza: Cool New Tool for Digital Storytelling

Webdoc brings you rich expression on the web

Some Government money is not wasted: Primary Sources and Worthwhile Reference Guides

Alcove 9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites--All of these websites have components that are free and available to the public; some might require user registration, or may have links to fee-based services.

SUBJECT INDEX

A new social network: Google Plus

Rode the Wave and Buzzed the Tower: Now I am +for Ed

Arne Duncan teaching summer school ...

Salem Press Announces Library Blog Winners

Summer Options

Information Just Wants to Be Free....more open access

Introducing Flavors.me

YouTube's new Creative Commons remix feature in its video editor!

Information Just Wants to Be Free

Sir Ken Robinson to speak on creativity

More Digital Content Than Ever

Seth Godin Has Librarians All Fired Up Again

National Jukebox

What a Difference 10 Years Makes!

How the Social Web Reflected on Bin Laden’s Death

Diving into Digital Books - fire up Elluminate for Webinar Monday Night

From the TL Virtual Cafe:

Be sure to attend: Diving into Digital Books

40 Years of E-books [Infographic]

Google Search screened by reading levels

National Library Week and Gale

New Trier Day of Silence: April 14

Recent find: Classtools.net

QR codes in the library - an information literacy issue!

Technology great : But libraries and books remain even more important today .

Facing History website

Resources from Teaching about Japan - Earthquake and Tsunami

A Way to Organize Your 'To Do' Lists

Click to Call: New Gmail Feature

Firefox 4: What You Need to Know

2011 K-12 Online Conference
Post By Wesley Fryer ⋅ August 26, 2011

Be sure to attend:
Diving into Digital Books