This site is wonderful for teacher librarians to find out more about integrating information literacy skills into the curriculum and thus facilitate and encourage the development of information literate students.
"Google Books can be a good research tool for students if they are aware of it and know how to use it. These are activities to teach students and others about the features of Google Books.
1. Search for a book by using the "researching a topic?" search box.
2. Use the advanced search menu to refine your search to "full view only" books.
3. Use the advanced search menu to refine a search by date, author, or publisher.
4. Search within a book for a name or phrase.
5. Download a free ebook.
6. Share an ebook via the link provided or by embedding it into a blog post.
7. Create a bookshelf in your Google Books account and add some books to it.
8. Share your bookshelf with someone else. "
Pinterest is a digital pinboard application which started just last year but has quickly become one of the top 10 most trafficked social networking websites according to Hitwise. During the second week in December the website had over 11 million visitors. This is pretty impressive considering that the site is still in the invite-only stage.
"Canva is a nice tool for designing infographics, collages, flyers, and slides in your web browser or on your iPad. I've been a fan of the service since it launched. In fact, I like it so much that I became an unpaid advisor to them when they started thinking about developing resources specifically for teachers." ~ Richard Byrne
AASL has just posted the NEW infographic developed by the AASL Legislative Committee chaired by Connie Hamner Williams! The graphic artist is one of her HS sophomores. It's an educational, positive depiction of the value of school librarians and libraries.
The Common Core Standards (CCS) are at hand! They are often referred to as National Standards and they carry impact for student learning, teaching, and school librarians. But how? What is the real story?
"I used to think being trendy was a bad thing-a sign of someone who lacks individuality or perhaps is fickle. But in a world of rapid change where people are more and more aware of the latest technology, news, and innovation, being trendy-or at least knowing what's trendy-is almost essential." (Figueroa)
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
Joyce Valenca confesses "I don't think we can really rock every aspect of our jobs at once, however much we aspire to do it". If you're interested in planning and goal setting this is a useful read.
Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute, and Google's top rated Futurist Speaker. Unlike most speakers, Thomas works closely with his Board of Visionaries to develop original research studies. This enables him to speak on unusual topics and translate trends into unique business opportunities.
"The DiRT Directory is a registry of digital research tools for scholarly use. DiRT makes it easy for digital humanists and others conducting digital research to find and compare resources ranging from content management systems to music OCR, statistical analysis packages to mindmapping software."