Group items tagged

Do parents really know what their children are doing online? (Have parents ever really known what their children are doing?)  The McAfee report reveals the importance of maintaining the conversation between parents and children. 

Schools need to make parents aware of what bullying is and how to detect it.

The end of the school year can be a nervous time for students, especially those that will be making the jump into elementary school, middle school, high school or college next fall. These transitioning students are left with a variety of questions -- from curiosities about academic rigor to managing a social life and coursework, to worries about using a combination lock. (It took me more than a couple tries.) Fortunately, there are plenty of resources on the Web that offer useful information for all stakeholders -- parents, students, educators and administrators -- that will help ensure successful transition. Here are a few for each major stepping stone in the K-12 pipeline.

Other apps are being used to prevent parents seeing Facebook information.

"Young people also need guidance and adult assistance to learn how to safely navigate the virtual environments of the 21st Century. Schools must be proactive, rather than merely defensive, in helping students acquire the skills of digital citizenship needed today and in the future. Simply banning read/write web tools on school networks is an inadequate response: Educators must strive to learn alongside students and parents how these technologies can be safely and powerfully used to communicate and collaborate."

resources and links provided - from a workshop to schol library media spcialists (and others) by Wesley Fryer

When is it cheating? When is it collaboration? This thoughtful article from Common Sense Media provides fine advice for parents (or teachers) on how to talk to kids about digital media and ethics.  

Four pages of links to websites looking at education systems around the world and how they compare.

"Librarians are uniquely qualified to curate. School librarians are perhaps most ripe for this function, because they understand the curriculum and the specific needs and interests of their own communities of teachers, administrators, learners, and parents."

A site worth using with students and parents re social networking.

It's time for school librarians to speak out about how they help students meet learning standards. This advocacy kit provides templates and talking points for meetings with students, teachers, administrators, school boards and parents.

Like academic libraries, school libraries rely primarily on their parent institution for financial support. The latest nation-wide expenditures figures for school library media centers in public schools comes from Characteristics of Public Elementary and Secondary School Library Media Centers in the United States: Results From the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey published in August 2013. The "Selected Findings" summary in the beginning of the Adobe Reader PDF version notes -- -- During the 2010-11 school year, public school library media centers spent an average of $9,340 for all information resources [Information resources include such items as books, periodicals, audio/visual materials, database licensing, and software. They do not include salaries, computer hardware, or audio/visual equipment.] (table 4). This includes an average of $6,010 for the purchase of books and $490 for the purchase of audio/video materials [Includes all copies of any tape, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray]. -- The number of holdings in public library media centers per 100 students was 2,188 for book titles and 81 for audio/video materials at the end of the 2010-11 school year (table 5).