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Happy Banned Books Week! Banned Books Week is celebrated during the last week of September. This awareness campaign for protecting and exercising our 1st Amendment rights is sponsored by many professional organizations including the American Library Association. If you look on the left side navigation bar, and click on Ideas and Resources, you will find many free downloads including brochures, images, PSA's and lesson plan ideas. Take a look at the books that have been banned or challenged over the years. I think you will be surprised!

This site looks like a lot of fun for younger learners. On this site, kids, parents, teachers, librarians can create, share, and access reading logs, have access to a digital dictionary, and practice spelling and vocabulary. It appears like you can even use this tool for online or hybrid book clubs. Share this with your librarian.

Have you tried Second Life yet? Are you afraid to do so? This link with a auto vide on the home page may either entice you to try it or scare the heck out of you. I am revising Second Life for my new role in ISTE. I ceated an avatar about a year ago (I am Maureen Mocha, they give you a list of sur name options and because of my coffee habit, well you get it...). Look me up if you try second life. I have been lurking around on the ISTE island. You should check that out too. There is a lot of free virtual professional development going on there. To participate in Second Life, you will need to download the viewer onto your computer. It is free. Go ahead and give it a try. I dare you :-).

I have found a new favorite podcast "how to" site. I learned about this a few weeks ago and have been going through a lot of their videos. Common Craft take the old fashioned "paper doll" or puppet theater methodology and basically creates a podcast out of it. Instead of a children's story, they try to explain more difficult concepts. \n\nThe one on Twitter is still their most hit podcast, and it is really great too.\n\nI liked to the podcast on RSS feeds because of my webinar. I was looking for quick ways to get across the concept of RSS feeds and personal learning portals. This podcast helped me to do that. Enjoy!

If you can get this site unblocked at your school, you an convert any media file, including audio and video. For example, this is helpful if you have all windows media tools but need to use a quick time file at work.