Group items tagged

Good to keep track of when someone asks what you want for a gift!

Ebook limitations, humor/reality

So a few weeks ago, I had this idea.  What if my 7th grade English students staged a flash mob poetry event at the food court of our local mall?  I kind of fell in love with this idea, even though I had no idea how to plan such a thing.  I was pretty sure the school and mall would never approve it anyway, so I figured, "Why not ask?"

To me, one of more difficult things about being a reader is explaining why I didn't like a novel without sounding like a) a jerk, b) a passive-aggressive dweeb, or c) a small-minded fool. The rub is thus: You want to be discerning, without sounding douchey. But that's so much easier said than done. What follows is a tip sheet I've developed based on my own reading, and as a connoisseur of book reviews. I hope it'll help.

Let's put our hands together for SLJ blogger Betsy Bird who spent the last six weeks sorting through 200 titles to bring you the Top 100 Picture Books and Chapter Books of all time. Dying to know who topped the lists? Maurice Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are made best picture book, while E. B. White's Charlotte's Web ranked the best chapter book.

One of the things that has surprised me lately is the number of emails I get with questions about Pinterest. I thought it might be handy to put some tips together. I know I am not the first librarian to write about Pinterest, by any means! I hope this helps someone out there though.

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.

The Giving Tree Narrated by Shel Silverstein

One of the things that has surprised me lately is the number of emails I get with questions about Pinterest. I thought it might be handy to put some tips together. I know I am not the first librarian to write about Pinterest, by any means! I hope this helps someone out there though.

How do I use Pinterest? 
There is a pretty good help page. You can email me if you want an invite, and I'll try to send one on. If you have any questions, I will try to answer them, but I am a librarian not a Pinterest staffer. It is also important to remember that Pinterest is still a start-up and is somewhat prone to crashing. A victim of its own popularity, if you will.

a great page to start your search that breaks down many of the types of searches on Google into separate search boxes; good way to demonstrate to students the many things one can search on Google

collection of teacher-created tips, ideas, and resources on things from assessment to substitutes and everything in-between!

"Publishers have spent a lot of time and money building their own company Web sites with fresh information on their books and authors. The trouble is, very few book buyers visit them. In search of an alternative, three major publishers said on Friday that they would create a new venture, called Bookish.com, which is expected to make its debut late this summer. The site intends to provide information for all things literary: suggestions on what books to buy, reviews of books, excerpts from books and news about authors. Visitors will also be able to buy books directly from the site or from other retailers and write recommendations and reviews for other readers." As of early August 16 2011, the site is not ready. However, you can enter your email address to be notified when it goes live. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/books/publishers-plan-a-joint-one-stop-book-site.html?_r=1&src=recg

This is from the website's About page: "The world is now more social. We share, we like, we tweet, retweet, link and generally exchange information on the social web. But how do you keep track of the things you like? Trunk.ly takes care of that for you. By connecting into your social networks, Trunk.ly monitors and collects the links that you find interesting across the social web. More importantly, it indexes the web pages these links point to and builds a personal search engine, so you never have to tag or describe a link again, you just search and Trunk.ly will find it again for you."