New discoveries

Found these while surfing the net...

K-2 Interactives
http://www.uen.org/k-2interactives/my_world.shtml

3-6 Interactives
http://www.uen.org/3-6interactives/social_studies.shtml

7-12 Interactives
http://www.uen.org/3-6interactives/social_studies.shtml

Periodic Table of the Internet

I love it!

Librarian 2.0 - Keep Informed

I have been following a blog called "School Library Media Activities Monthly" since we started looking at blogs. As I have been exploring previous posts I have discovered some great links to sites I would never had the time to find otherwise. Activities like the one found at National Geographic where kids (or adults!) can make their own wildlife film. (http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/filmmaker.html )

You can find the blog at:
http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com

Read Books Online

Where can I send the kids to read books online? This is one of my biggest requests from teachers and I usually have the old stanby's like tumblebooks.com and lookybooks (which just closed up shop), but today I have found a new one called Big Universe. It can be found at http://www.biguniverse.com/

It has both paid and free membership access. They have many current fiction and non-fiction books online that you can access with both memberships, but the free access limits you to about 3/4 of the book. Not ideal if reading fiction, but I found some really great non-fiction titles that I was able to read almost all of. Another great feature that is accessible with the free membership is the ability to create your own books online. They also have a library of the books created by other members, some of which are very good!

Another great site for primary students is Storyline Online(www.storylineonline.net) which is put together by the Screen Actors Guild. Here children can see the pictures and listen to some quite famous actors read the story to them. I have always had great feedback about this site.

Be The Change - Webquests

This year our school has become extremely envolved in the "Me to We" campaign started by Craig Kielburger's Free the Children organization. As part of that we are looking for ways to educate the students of our school on the issues surrounding this important cause. OSLA has started its own educational organization called "Be the Change" and has included a number of great webquests.

They can be found at:
http://www.accessola.com/osla/bethechange/webquests.html

What's the big deal about blogs??

More webquests!

After a couple of weeks struggling to recover from the worst flu I've ever experienced... I am finally back online exploring the world of webquests. I came across this site that posts links to webquests under four different headings: ages 5-8, 9-12, 13-15, and 15-18. There are some great ones here! One that peaked my interest first was a Halloween Safety webquest. In the culminating task students are required to create a powerpoint point to be shown to other students. What a great idea!
Here is the link:
http://www.nelliemuller.com/WebQuests_Up_to_Grade_three.htm

Webquests

Right now we are examining webquests in my Part 3 library course. I consider myself pretty techie, but I have yet to fully explore this type of resource. Last year I ran a class of Grade 3's through an amazing pioneer webquest which can be found at:
http://www.projects.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/pioneer/home_eng.htm

I had every intention of exploring them more, but somehow it just fell to the wayside. Now that I am at a new school I hope to have more students go through them. They can be difficult to convince teachers to use as they can be time consuming, but the students really enjoy them.

I have stumbled upon another collection of webquests from the Yukon that seem to be pretty good. The one about Bears (aimed at Grade One) even has student project examples at the end using Kidspiration. I know our Grade ones do a research project in May, and this gave me an idea about approaching the teachers about a different way to present. Here is the link:
http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/wes/webquest_collection.html

Great Media Literacy/Character Education Resource

The Foundation for a better life website has great tv spots they use to demonstrate character traits. We have been using them for media literacy with the primaries for them to try and identify the message being shown. We have also been making use of them at our Junior and Intermediate assemblies. Each month a different character trait is chosen and the class in charge of that month's assembly must showcase taht trait for the rest of the division.

They can be found at:
http://www.values.com/

Interesting New Ban on Books In U.S.

I just heard about a new law in the U.S. regarding lead testing of children's products and banning the sale of anything that contains more than 600 parts per million (should note it has been deferred a year in light of the confusion surrounding used items). How does this affect librarians??? Turns out lead was used in the production of books prior to 1985! So now enter the confusion of many on how to deal with all these books??? The government has sinced clarified that used items being resold will not be required to be proven to have a safe lead content... but still makes you wonder! I recently took over in a library where I would say half (maybe more!)of the resources are prior 1990, should I be concerned? I think this is probably one of those things that is good to know, but we shouldn't over react. All I know is I have been trying very hard since July to weed materials from a library collection that has not been weeded in over 15 years and have met quite a bit of resistance from the staff... looks like I may have some new ammo to throw their way when they complain about our 1970 encyclopedia set being removed!!! (As if misinformation, the fact they aren't being touched and the inch thick layer of dust on them wasn't enough!)

Changing role in Library - New York Times

The New York Times has been doing a series about looking at how the internet is changing the way we read. This is the third in the series and looks at the changing role of the school librarian. I find I can really relate to this librarian!



Here is the link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16libr.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

Did You Know 2.0

Great Book Resource

Last week Durham had it's annual TL conference and I went to one session by the bookstore "Magic Suitcase". It's owner, Judy Halpern, presented a great session called "Show and Tell: Visual Literacy in Picture Books" where she featured picture books that could be used to launch many units (especially in the area of Science). As an added bonus she presented her online book store where she has categorized her books by curriculum area. I have found her site to be a great resource when looking to pull books for units I am teaching, or when a teacher asks me to pull materials for them. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I find sometimes when I search my own database, books that could be used for various topic areas are not listed, even though they fit. I am also not able to search by writing traits or comprehension strategies, areas she has resources listed. I usually find a couple of titles on her list that I have in my own library, and many more on my list of "want to haves"!! You can find her at:
www.magicsuitcase.ca

David Warlick on Technology in the Classroom

These are four clips from a speech given by David Warlick

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:

Ministry announces Funding!

There aren't many details yet... but I am very excited to hear about the funding the Ontario Ministry of Education has given to elementary school libraries accross Ontario. Hopefully we will know soon how much each means for each school. I don't know what it is like for other schools, but at this point I have exhausted almost my whole budget!

Here is the link to the Ministry's announcement:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/nr/09.01/nr0120.html

Teaching Technology

This is one of my favourite videos on the topic of teaching technology.

My First Attempt

I am a Teacher-Librarian at a fairly large elementary school north of Toronto. This is my first attempt at blogging and I hope to share (and hear!) about some great things happening in elementary school libraries. I am really interested in how technology can be integrated into the curriculum. One of the big reasons I was hired at my current school was to help increase the use of technology with students.
This blog started as an assignment for my Librarian Specialist course, but I can see how it may become addicting!!! I will be posting some of my ideas and look forward to learning lots in the months to come!