October, 2011

Blog Bits and Interesting Links

• 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning  - this is a great list of free web-based tools that are organized by application to the Standards for the 21st Century Learner
• 100 Things to Do With Books   - a very handy list of simple activities as an alternative to the traditional written book report.  Look here for some fun ideas for the upcoming Book Week!
• International Education Blogs - here is a page for you to bookmark that feeds blogs in the area of international education.  If you can suggest others, please let me know as I am seeking the best of the best for this page which is part of a LibGuide I am developing for teachers on global education.                        

Accelerated Reader Teams 

Take a look at the display in the lobby of the PS building!  The four AR teams for this year are posted there.  All students from grades two through five should be on one of the team lists.  This year we have the Fire, Earth, Water and Air teams to go along with our theme "Reading is Elemental!"  Please encourage your students to take AR quizzes on books they have read.  The quizzes need to be taken at school.

Upcoming Library Programming  

Two primary school library workshops for parents are now on the calendar:

• October 13 - The Virtual Library - Online Resources for Primary School Students (slides from the presentation are posted on the Primary School Library Moodle)

• November 1 - Multicultural Children's Literature

Each will be offered in the Library Computer Lab from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.

  

Ebook Resources Great for Smartboards

Now that Smartboards are in almost all the classrooms, our Ebook resources are hopefully even more useful for teachers.  If you have not already explored Tumblebooks, Bookflix and Sylvan Dell, please take the time to do so.  You will be glad you did!  If you have questions or would like a preview from a member of the library staff, just let us know.  We will be glad to help!

Updated Library Schedule and Curriculum

The library schedule has been tweaked in a few places and an updated schedule will be posted by the Book Return in the PS building entrance.  The full curriculum will be available on the J: drive under Faculty - Primary - Subject Areas - Library.  Library planners for each unit will be posted by the Story Room door.

Changes for This Year

• No paper overdue notices this year!!  We hope this will make life easier for you (and for us and the parents).  We now have the capability to send overdue notices by email.  You may still receive questions about overdue books via the agenda.  Please forward all inquiries on to us.

• The juvenile reference books (with the exception of some atlases and encyclopedias) are now shelved with the other nonfiction books.  This is to encourage students to use the reference books.  It does not change the fact that they remain in the library (i.e. they do not "check out").  Juvenile reference books are marked J REF on the spine label.

Meet Archie!

I am working on a new library friend, digital that is, named Archie (to go with the design of arches on the Primary School side of the library).  To see Archie, look for a link on Moodle under Library - Primary Library.  Once he is fully actualized, Archie will be multilingual and he will know A LOT about the library.

Video Tutorials on Moodle

We know that you need library info at all times of the day and during the year, not just when we are able to offer a workshop.  So we plan to provide more video tutorials on subjects related to use of the library and library resources.  Topics such as the library catalog, using the netbooks, how to schedule library time, databases and ebooks are on the list for video tutorials.  Can you suggest others that you would like to see posted on the Primary School Library Moodle?

September 2009

Library Schedule and Collaboration

Collaboration and coordination are going to be very important words this year as adjustments are made to the library schedule to see more students more frequently in the library. The goal? Enhancing student information and media literacies through instruction and practice. The method? Each student in grades 1 - 5 will come to the library once a week and participate in library programming and all classes will be on the same programming schedule. Together, let's build a stronger library program that results in higher student achievement.

Book Review Magazines in All Languages

For the second year, the library has subscribed to children's literature review magazines in French, Spanish and German and also in English from England and Australia. Find out what children are reading back home! Please stop by the library to read the current issue and recommend for purchase books that appeal to you.

Online Distance Learning for PD Credit

Professional development budgets are smaller in the current economic environment. What better time to try distance learning? You may be interested in professional and personal development through The Georgia Center for Continuing Education. Courses begin throughout the year and are offered on a wide variety of educational topics.

Blog Bit

Change is inevitable, but our approach to change may determine how successful we are in managing the process. Here are several “pivot points for change” from Seth Godin's list in his blog post "Pivot Points for Change":

Keep your customers, but change what you sell to them.
Keep your staff, but change what you do.
Keep your mission, but change your scale.
Keep your products, but change the way you market them.
Keep your technology, but use it to do something else.

To me this suggests that change doesn't necessarily mean giving up what is important, but rather adjusting your perspective. We are dealing with lots of change this year and maybe you will find the ideas in this post helpful too.

In the library, I'll be focusing on mission, products, technology. Advances in technology are moving libraries to change what they offer and how they offer it, but our mission is the same -- to support learning and we will continue to do so in many ways, large and small. Our marketing opportunities are quite different with the new website -- expect a new look and new "marketing" tools this year, all geared to help all our patrons better use the wonderful products that the school has purchased to support instruction through the library.

Recommending Books for Purchase by the Library
Recommending books for purchase by the library is now easier. All you need to do is go to the Primary School E-Bulletin Board on the Primary School Library webpage in the All-School Portal. At the E-Bulletin Board, you look for the link (on the right side of the screen) that says “Recommend Books for Library Purchase”. Open that screen, type in the information you have about the recommended book (title, author, publisher and so forth) and submit. To return to the E-Bulletin Board, simply hit the back arrow twice. Your request is automatically recorded on a purchasing list.

Tutorials on Library Electronic Resources
Here are links to online tutorials for a number of the different library electronic resources. You may want to bookmark these for future reference.

GALILEO

Britannica Elementary

Grolier Kids

BrainPOP

Bookflix

World Book Online


Teacher Book Cart
Please stop by the teacher cart in the library to see if any of the materials on the cart are useful for your classroom. Everything is free and everything must go! Many books are paperback or duplicates of titles that are already in the collection, but are otherwise great books. Check it out!

May 2009

Interesting Resources to Explore this Summer

Some interesting online resources for you to explore as you think about unit planning for next year . . .

a. World Digital Library - This new offering has primary source materials from all over the world in multiple languages. A search of the resources can be refined by date, by country and by language. Take a look at this library which is promoted by UNESCO and is sure to grow in the future. Try out the time line feature -- pretty nifty.

b. Worlds of Words- Worlds of Words is a website created to bridge cultures and borders by promoting international children's literature for curricululm and global awareness. Kathy Short, for those of you who know of her, is the director of WOW. This website is nicely organized with a wealth of information that can be searched by country, age level or subject.

c. PYP Book Lists - Looking for books that align with the PYP curriculum? Here are some resources that provide lists of books by learner profile and various inquiry areas:

Australed

PYP Library (at Wikispaces)

Library Thing PYP List

Don't Forget to Check the Teacher Cart

We are still adding materials to the teacher cart just outside Dal's office. These are books and videos that we cannot use in the library collection for various reasons. Many of these items could be useful in the classroom. Please come by and take a look! At the end of the school year, we will donate these items so I urge you to make your selections now.

Student Book Checkout Ends May 15

The last day for student book checkout will be May 15 and all library books are due by May 22. Please remind students to return their library books by that date. Also, it would be great if you could have a classroom "scavenger hunt" for library books that are checked out to students. Library books checked out to teachers are not due until the end of the school year, so please hang on to those unit books until the unit is over. LIBRARY CLASS TIMES WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR.

Summer Reading - Where and Why?

Where are the lists?: The summer reading list is now on Moodle in the separate course category of "Summer Reading". Please remind students to check Moodle for their summer reading information.

Why read over the summer?: According to research that I read through a Georgia Department of Education publication, if we can encourage our students to read 5-8 books over the summer that:

1. they are interested in, and
2. are on their Lexile level

the effects will be the same as going to summer school.

The "Find a Book with Lexiles" website can help parents and students find books that meet the two criteria above. It is helpful to have the student's Lexile score, but the Lexile number is not required. A student can choose areas of interest and the website will identify books meeting the criteria and indicate nearby public libraries where the books may be obtained.

September 2008

New School Library Standards for United States Stress Inquiry

The new school library standards from the American Association of School Librarians are strongly inquiry-based. At a recent conference, school librarians from around the world discussed the standards and remarked on the relative ease with which the standards can be incorporated in the IB curriculum. There are four components to the standards -- skills, dispositions, responsibilities and self-management.

The standards are based on the following common beliefs (which I have abbreviated somewhat for the sake of this post):

1. Reading is a window to the world.
2. Inquiry provides a framework for learning.
3. Ethical behavior in the use of information must be taught.
4. All individuals must acquire thinking skills that will enable them to learn on their own.
5. Learning has a social context.
6. School libraries are essential to the development of learning skills.
7. Technology skills are crucial for future employment needs.
8. The definition of information literacy has become more complex as resources and technologies have changed.
8. Equitable access is a key component for education.

The language of the standards is intended to provide bridges to and commonality with the standards for technology (NETS) and education.

Our AIS information literacy skills continuum is now reorganized to align with these new AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner.

Flexible Afternoon Library Blocks

Please remember to sign up for afternoon time in the library for research and library activities. The monthly sign-up sheet is posted in the Primary School Office above the sign in sheet (on the IT and Library Bulletin Board).

Book Review Journals in French, Spanish and German

This year the library is subscribing to several journals for the review of children's literature in French, German and Spanish respectively. We are also subscribing to publications which feature children's literature from the UK and Australia. We believe that these journals will help us with our collection development in the library. Hopefully they also will be of interest to you and useful for you as you contemplate purchases for your classroom and selection of summer reading list books. Please take a look at these new publications when you have time (the first issues have not yet arrived, but we will keep you posted!)

Interested in a Web 2.0 Online Workshop?

Librarians and teachers are full of great ideas to use new online social networking tools such as blogs, nings, wikis, great graphics and podcasts. When you hear "Web 2.0", think of these forms of communication and information sharing that are now available through programs on the World Wide Web. Would you like to know more? Here is a website for a self-managed online workshop that leads you each week through well known technologies in the Web 2.0 environment. Don't be left behind! Explore Web 2.0 in the safety of your own home and you'll develop the confidence to be part of this growing community of learners. Here is the website for this free online workshop sponsored by the California Library Association:

http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com

If you prefer to work through a course like this with a group of colleagues, please let me know. Shelley Paul, the leader of the IT workshop that Tom put together last spring, offers a very similar course and she encourages groups of teachers to sign up together to provide support for each other. I am taking Shelley's course right now and can let you know more about it.

Accelerated Reader and Antolin

All students currently in grades 2 - 5 are now enrolled in Accelerated Reader and can begin taking quizzes. I hope that very soon we will have the new reading "challenge" for this year lined up and will be able to share it with you. We have lots of new books with quizzes in English and Spanish. Please encourage students to take quizzes in the computer labs or the library during independent checkout times. You can also visit the library as a class to take quizzes and check out books. Please just let us know you are coming either by the FS Direct system or the sign up sheet in Primary School.

We are currently in the process of subscribing to Antolin, a German online reading quiz program. Hopefully Antolin will be available by the end of the month.