Group items tagged

Welcome to Classroom20.com, the social network for those interested in  Web 2.0, Social Media, and Participative Technologies in the classroom. We encourage you to sign up to participate in the great discussions here, to receive event notifications, and to find and connect with colleagues. We have over 66,000 members from 188 countries! Classroom 2.0 is a free, community-supported network. We especially hope that those who are "beginners" will find this a supportive comfortable place to start being part of the digital dialog. Because of spammers, we have to approve all memberships here. While your membership is pending you are still welcome to peruse the site or attend any events!

Advocacy: How can you support your school library? Make sure your school has a state-certified school librarian. Some schools have replaced librarians with aides to keep the school library doors open, diminishing the level and quality of instruction and projects afforded to students. Make sure to be involved in the budget process of the school. Ensure that school board members and school administrators know that school libraries and school librarians are a critical part of the school ecosytem.

The PSU Online Resource Hub offers a collection of the best tools and resources to support education about the Middle East at the K-12 level. Materials are organized by country and theme and categorized into three sections, background information, news & media, and teaching materials.

"There are some remarkable efforts underway in American schools to invest the next generation of students with the literacy skills needed to innovate, solve problems, and meet unprecedented challenges. Until now, there has been no way to connect these initiatives, to provide models for advancing literacy learning in every subject, to collaborate in identifying and pursuing critical research questions about literacy teaching and learning on a consistent, sustained basis. That's about to change. The National Center for Literacy Education (NCLE) is building a coalition of stakeholders representing the premiere education organizations, policy analysts, researchers, and foundations who are working together to identify and share the plans, practices, support systems, and assessments used by educator teams working to improve literacy learning. NCLE will celebrate the work of successful school teams across the country that are achieving remarkable results in advancing literacy learning, and share what is learned with education policymakers…NCLE is providing the Literacy in Learning Exchange as a free resource to all educator teams. All educators are invited to use the free site to build or further develop a team in their school, district, or across schools/districts, or in their out-of-school setting. Educators that embrace the challenge of sponsoring and supporting a team will be eligible to apply for recognition and support as Centers for Literacy Education." Does your school have (need) a literacy team? If so, hopefully library staff is involved. Centers for Literacy Education, or collaborative groups/teams working toward capacity building for literacy: http://www.literacyinlearningexchange.org/about/centers-literacy-education

Might be a good resource to follow: The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

is a unique and vital gathering place for books, ideas, and expertise in the field of children's
and young adult literature. The CCBC is a noncirculating examination, study, and research library
for Wisconsin school and public librarians, teachers, early childhood care providers, university
students, and others interested in children's and young adult literature. The CCBC is part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) School of Education (SoE), and receives additional support from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI).

Highlighting the need to improve literacy rates and provide access to educational opportunities for all children, LitWorld will host the third annual World Read Aloud Day on March 7, 2012. Last year, World Read Aloud Day united 200,000 people in 60 countries. Show your public support for this important literacy initiative and promote reading in local and global communities by participating in World Read Aloud Day. Suggested activities and other resources are available on LitWorld's website.

If you are looking for a way to get yourself writing every day, and connecting with a supportive community of other teacher-writers, I urge you to consider joining in the Slice of Life challenge. Now in its fifth year, Ruth and Stacey at Two Writing Teachers encourage you to reflect on a moment of your day - bring a small slice into focus, and consider it as a writer.

Great source for summer reading: Jokes, Silly Stories, Creature Creator, How to draw... etc: This program is a joint initiative between TD Bank Group, Toronto Public Library and Library and Archives Canada. Every year a theme is selected from suggestions made across the country. Supporting materials for the program are developed by a team of children's librarians from Toronto Public Library with the francophone component developed by librarians from Ottawa, Quebec City and Montreal.

Text-dependent questions do not require information or evidence from outside the text or texts; they establish what follows and what does not follow from the text itself. Eighty to ninety percent of the Reading Standards in each grade require text-dependent analysis; accordingly, aligned curriculum materials should have a similar percentage of text dependent questions. When examining a complex text in depth, tasks should require careful scrutiny of the text and specific references to evidence from the text itself to support responses.

Reluctant readers are those who, for whatever reason, do not like to read.
Reluctant readers are typically students who are disengaged, struggling readers, many of which are not realizing success in any aspect of their school career. Educators encounter struggling readers in the classroom every day. These students need to be engaged in reading and must be helped to develop the skills required to not only be successful in school, but to become lifelong readers and learners. All students will require advanced literacy skills regardless of their post secondary pathway, and reluctant and struggling readers need extra support in achieving this end.

Connecting K-6 Teachers With Great Books
My goal is to create a resource for teachers, home schoolers and anyone interested in quality books for children. Each title is one I have carefully evaluated and selected to support curriculum as well as your class read-alouds. Elementary school librarians are losing their jobs nationwide resulting in the loss of this valuable resource for students and teachers. I have 35 years experience working with kids and their books, so you can consider me your personal librarian!

Lesson ideas- training, google apps deployment, data migration, consulting, change management and support

Kathy Otto, an Oregon school librarian, has a blog about incorporating children's books when teaching in grades K-6. "My goal is to create a resource for teachers, home schoolers and anyone interested in quality books for children. Each title is one I have carefully evaluated and selected to support curriculum as well as your class read-alouds. Elementary school librarians are losing their jobs nationwide resulting in the loss of this valuable resource for students and teachers. I have 35 years experience working with kids and their books, so you can consider me your personal librarian!" Check it out!

"Welcome to the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards for the 21st-Century Learner Lesson Plan Database, a tool to support school librarians and other educators in teaching the essential learning skills defined in the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner." You can both utilize and contribute lesson plans. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/lessonplandatabase/lessonplandb.cfm

I can see amazing potential here for amazing resources!

Critical Thinking Consortium: created this link to lessons/resources on "thoughtful books", some books are actually available online for printing and reference. "The Thoughtful Books series makes use of exemplary children's literature to help young readers learn to read critically and to thoughtfully consider ethical matters. Each resource in this series features specific tools supporting literacy development and encouraging the deliberataion of ethical considerations. Teachers and parents are encouraged to use the suggested activities to introduce the tools and then to encourage their young children to apply them in a variety of situations overtime, until the tools are used independently, selectively, and naturally."