very easy to use poll generator

The league allows students to cast votes, individually, in which they choose between two competing people, ideas or things. In a discussion on climate change, for example, they could vote for which they thought was the bigger cause of global warming: aeroplane emissions or volcanic activity - discuss! Each student chooses repeatedly from random pairs. By repeatedly casting votes, the students create a league, ranked in order of the most powerful, important, popular or influential. The results are often unexpected - students are surprised to see how their peers voted - and a good starting point for discussion. Why does this person have more power than another person? What makes this pop star more influential than that politician? How is this power used?

spanish to english translator via iphone - way cool

a tool a day for 25 days - great!

Google Maps scavenger hunt game = create your own or play games others have created

"a master list of embedding options that will hopefully spark your imagination. As you browse the list consider how you will use these embeds. While some of these work perfectly for classroom blog posts, others tend to be more effective wiki tools. Do you want students to view a video clip and then leave comments below? That's a perfect blog scenario. Or do you want students to collect data in a form? Yep, that's a wiki tool. I know your wheels will be turning to come up with great new ways to use the tools. "

Screncast for YouCanBookMe Appointment for computer lab, etc.

free download of 441 page document; also available for purchase from Amazon

"Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings-at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces. By focusing on media practices in the everyday contexts of family and peer interaction, the book views the relationship of youth and new media not simply in terms of technology trends but situated within the broader structural conditions of childhood and the negotiations with adults that frame the experience of youth in the United States. Integrating twenty-three different case studies-which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music-sharing, and online romantic breakups-in a unique collaborative authorship style, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out is distinctive for its combination of in-depth description of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis."

ideas for improving your livebinders

an archive of copyright free pictures and images available for download and use. From GIMP (image editing folks)

"This 275-page free downloadable resource contains dozens of lesson plans that implement AASL's Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in the context of the curriculum. Contributing authors include more than 30 teacher-librarians. "

Schools libraries are too often a "wasted resource" which should be brought into the mainstream of teaching, says a report. (BBC News) Full BBC article at http://twe.tc/oL "...while school libraries have a unique role in raising pupils' literacy levels, promoting reading for pleasure and improving their access to knowledge, in many schools the library is a wasted resource because it is poorly embedded in the infrastructure of the school and absent from school development plans. "

ResourceBlog Article: New from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI): new from the 7 things series

These tools motivate students to learn, share, and develop presentation and collaboration skills needed in their future careers. Teaching them how to do this now means we are preparing them for their future effectively! Rarely will a student have to fill out a bubble test for their careers, but trust me many will have to prepare presentations, brainstorm ideas, be creative, and collaborate on teams through ICTs.

SLJ - 9/2010 By Chris Harris

The potential for augmented reality in iibraries and media centers - with some ideas and sites to explore the technology Reaction to Chris Harris' SLJ article http://twe.tc/nY

New Canaan High School - This is a first intorduction to our new library catalog which includes a plethora of social features. We created this tutorial for English students selecting independent reading books. We were pretty psyched to find that independent reading selection classes were schduled with librarians on the very first full day of school this year!

Focussing on the digital revolution and ignoring the pivotal role that a good school library can play is to achieve only a percentage of what is possible - regardless of how good it seems , it's just not good enough!

"he Digizen website provides information for educators, parents, carers, and young people. It is used to strengthen their awareness and understanding of what digital citizenship is and encourages users of technology to be and become responsible DIGItal citiZENS. It shares specific advice and resources on issues such as social networking and cyberbullying and how these relate to and affect their own and other people's online experiences and behaviours. "