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There are no facts and figures about the school library on the My Schools website, yet the library and the teacher librarian play a vital role in your child's education. So are Australian children and young people getting the best deal? ASLA research shows that a strong library program that is adequately staffed, resourced and funded can lead to higher student achievement regardless of the socioeconomic or educational levels of the adults in the community This is a 10-point checklist designed for parents to investigate if their school is investing where it counts.

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.

Teens and their parents can find similar titles to "Mockingjay" in the 2011 nominations for YALSA's Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (PPYA) booklist, particularly the What If… themed list, which highlights titles featuring alternative history and worlds, steampunk, apocalyptic fiction and cyberpunk, among other settings.

Librarians, teachers and parents have told us how hard it is for students to understand web searching. Boolify makes it easier to for students to understand their web search by illustrating the logic of their search, and by showing them how each change to their search instantly changes their results.

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler's high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros' Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.

Internet School Library Media Center (ISLMC) literature collections in online book format. This page contains links to online books in American literature, English literature, church history, history and government documents. For the convenience of foreign language teachers, some non-English sites such as French literature, are included. This page is part of the ISLMC Young Adult Literature; Middle & Secondary English page. The ISLMC is a meta-site designed for teachers, librarians, parents and students to preview selected sites.

A free monthly newsletter created by graduate school library student Michelle McGarry. Print it out and send home with students each month.