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!