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Meet Candy Carter I'm an AP Language and Comp teacher at McQueen HS in Reno, NV. My students lead very busy lives: they're in sports, band, choir, journalism, debate...and on and on. They also do not necessarily live close to one another. In past years, I had had nonfiction book groups in which students chose books from a list and completed projects and presentations on their reading. Over the years, it seems to have become increasingly difficult to find time for them to confer, and the presentations in class took too long. I needed to come up with a way for them to share their ideas in a different way, and I needed to have a way to hold them accountable for their work. I also was aware of the increasing importance of social networking sites in my students' lives. Candy's Perspective I had been introduced to Tapped In at a teacher workshop two or three years ago but had never made the time to really explore it. I was also a bit concerned that some their parents would object to them being online so I wanted to come up with an anonymous way for them to participate so that parents would not worry that their children's names were "out there" online. I hit on the idea of using Class ID numbers (which my students already use for peer reviews to ensure writers' anonymity). I was able to get all three of my classes into the system. I set up a calendar so groups could discuss online without bumping into other groups. Overall, this turned out to be a successful way for kids to share ideas about books. They enjoyed the novelty and talked about their reading in kid-speak, not just so they could impress their English teacher. Except for some technical snags (some kids are not as computer-savvy as others; they also needed to have Java on their computers, which turned out to be a problem for a few of them), this was relatively easy to monitor and manage. I loved reading what they said online--very authentic.

The 'eHow' website offers a lot of ideas and advice. Here Virginia Allain gives lots of catch phrases and great ideas for creating library displays for every month of the year. It is an American site so the themes are sometimes out of kilter with Australian seasons here

Many librarians are interested in finding new ways to encourage more students and teachers to use library materials and do high level research. Their efforts are often limited by available time or unfamiliar subject matter. For that reason, librarians should be excited about the teaching possibilities available through the Our Documents initiative. This program offers school librarians ideas and materials to improve use of their collections. Here are some suggestions for using Our Documents in a school library.

"It is essential that school leaders apply the same spirit of innovation and future focus to the re-imagination of their school library environments as they do to other aspects of both their built and virtual school environment. Library as creative collaborative makerspace is an exciting, transformative idea that warrants exploration."

Some of the new lesson plans on Canva's education page include comic book creation, a lesson on sugar in our diets, and a lesson on illustrating ideas with infographics. That last lesson plan takes advantage of Canva's new infographic design templates. To use the infographic templates or any of the other design templates in Canva simply log-in and open the design menu. Each template can be customized with your own images, fonts, and colors. You can also customize the dimensions of each template.

A New York Times article that offers some ideas for celebrating Banned Books Week with students and anyone lse who believes in having "the freedom to read."

An on-line streaming video program featuring Screen Actors Guild members reading childrens books aloud. Each book includes accompanying activities and lesson ideas.

The mission of the International Children's Digital Library Foundation is to excite and inspire the world's children to become members of the global community - children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online.

Collectively, these examples may be giving us a glimpse into what the future of children's publishing is going to look like