Rising Strong with Dr. Brene Brown at New Trier

Dr. Brene Brown, a best-selling author and research professor at the University of Houston, will be speaking at New Trier later this week as part of a program sponsored by FAN (Family Action Network). No-cost tickets are needed to attend and the Thursday (Sept. 3rd) evening event looks likely to be standing room only!  Dr. Brown spoke at New Trier a few years ago and Thursday’s talk coincides with the recent publication of her newest book Rising Strong. 

I found her writing in Rising Strong to be gentle and encouraging, full of stories and inspiration, and obviously written from her heart. In chapters which center around reckoning, rumble and revolution, she encourages her readers to explore their emotions, to learn from failure, to accept vulnerability.  She says, "Here's how I see the progression of my work: The Gifts of Imperfection - Be You. Daring Greatly - Be all in. Rising Strong - Fall. Get up. Try again." 

If you have not already RSVP’d for the talk at New Trier, it is likely that FAN will post some audio/video as they have for other speakers.  In the meantime, here is Dr. Brown’s 2010 TEDTalk (which already has over 21 million viewers).

And a link to her website: http://brenebrown.com/.  I expect to see faculty/staff, parents and students in the audience on Thursday, especially since the theme for IGGS this year is resilience and because as a community we work so hard to respect, share, and connect with each other's stories.

Web Reference – Revised and updated

The New Trier librarians, especially Matt and I, have been busy working on a summer grant to refresh, revise, and update our Web Reference.  

Here, again, is the NEW link on LibGuides: http://newtrier.libguides.com/webref

You may have bookmarked a former address: (WebRef previously was available at http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/page.aspx?id=8701 and you might see it clicking here).  

All of us still have work to do to improve Web Ref further – we would like to add more images and add links from the LibGuides Community.  Plus, we would like to incorporate some relevant RSS feeds and stress those specific database sources which may be helpful to our students. We know that our Web Ref was widely used in the past across a number of schools and are welcoming any input about links and topics which should be included.  Contact us with your ideas and suggestions- Thank You!

ALA on Best Web Sites for Teaching and Learning 2015

Last week the American Library Association released their Best Websites for Teaching and Learning 2015.   

Though I had heard of some (IFTTT, gooru, knowimania, etc.), I found plenty that were new to me and look forward to exploring them.  I was especially happy to several digital storyboarding ideas since we know that students struggle with outlining.  Here are all the categories:

• Media Sharing
  
• Digital Storytelling
  
• Manage & Organize
  
• Social Networking & Communication
  
• Content Resources
  
• Curriculum Collaboration
  

Note also that the ALA page (at the bottom) provides links to past recommendations from 2009 to 2014 so that readers have even more links to explore.

Tech Day Learning

Several of us had a great professional development day recently as we played with a variety of technology and explored some new additions to our toolkits for next year.

Our exploration spanned a number of areas, although my subgroup concentrated primarily on assessment.  We discussed various methods for data collection, including, for example, Socrative and Nearpod apps for use with the iPad.  Another suggested option which we will probably look at more for “flipping the classroom” is EDpuzzle.  We also looked at the LibSurveys and polling options available through LibGuides.  There, we found that the short answer questions in LibSurvey do not play especially nicely with iPads although the polling (multiple choice) option would give us a chance to share some quick results in real time with classes.  We considered Survey Monkey but were quick to return to an old favorite: Google Forms, especially when we learned that you can now insert images and then ask questions about them.

Here is a very quick example of Google Forms, using an image of a bibliographic citation. Our next step will be looking at sources for ideas for questions.  We will certainly consider input from our own experiences and local teachers’ suggestions, plus input from colleagues like Michelle Luhtala and others.  We have also started exploring nationally developed Trails, NILRC, Dominican U and other college surveys.

During part of the day we learned about the new interactive capabilities for PowerPoint with using Office Mix – you do need Office 2013 but this looks like it will be useful, too. We also looked at a new database, Statista which has some video tutorials here from Loyola University. We are excited to learn more about using this tool, especially since it will help students hone their visual literacy skills, creating and interpreting infographics. Other subgroups were looking at Explain Everything, Lynda.com, Remind and many more!  Overall, we had a great day; it was important to have the time to brainstorm ideas and share suggestions with each other across disciplines.

Added 6/14 about additional Professional Development: 50 FREE  June Webinars for Library Staff originally posted on WebJunction at OCLC.