Monthly Archives: June 2011
Finding Lesson Plans in GALILEO
The start of school is still some time away, but if you’re already looking for ideas and resources for next school year, here are a few places in GALILEO to find lesson plans to use in your media center or to share with your teachers.
Professional Development Collection from EBSCO offers thousands of lesson plans for teachers. Just search for the topic of interest along with the terms lesson plan, lesson planning, or activity to see these.
ERIC (@EBSCOhost) and ERIC (@eric.ed.gov) provide access to the education literature in the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). To find lesson plans as well as articles on best practices in lesson planning, just search for the term “lesson plans” (you won’t need the quotation marks) along with your topic. Note that the Advanced Search in each database will let you limit by grade level if needed. Remember to check both versions of ERIC when you’re searching because the full text may appear in one but not the other.
Remember that you can use search alerts in the EBSCO resources, such as Professional Development Collection and ERIC, to receive emails when a new lesson plan has been added to the database.
The National Science Digital Library’s section for K-12 Teachers is a great sources of teacher resources for science at all grade levels. It offers lesson plans, activities, websites, and more.
The Learning Materials section of Encyclopædia Britannica includes many activities and lessons for students. The Teachers’ Resources section also offers guides and other resources to assist in lesson planning. Britannica resources are also correlated with the Georgia Performance Standards and the Common Core Standards. To find this tool, click on the orange Curriculum Standards button in Teachers’ Resources and choose your grade level and subject and then choose Georgia or click the Common Core Standards link.
You can find these resources an more in the Education Research, K-12 Curriculum, or Science and Math Education sections of GALILEO High School, or check out our previous GLMA blog post on Professional Resources in GALILEO.
If you have questions or comments or need to report a problem, please Contact Us.
Courtney McGough
GALILEO Support Services
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia
Express Links for Databases Mentioned in this Post:
Professional Development Collection
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbpd
ERIC@EBSCOhost
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zber
ERIC@eric.ed.gov
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zeri
Encyclopædia Britannica School Edition
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zebs
Encyclopædia Britannica High School
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zehs
Compton’s by Britannica (for middle school)
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zebm
Britannica Elementary
gt;http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zebk
National Science Digital Library: Resources for K-12 Teachers
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=nstr
Update: GLMA Advocacy Report
We just completed a great GLMA Summer Institute at Callaway Gardens yesterday; thanks to Susan Grigsby for coordinating it all and to everyone who presented (or helped with the logistics).
During the Institute, Judy Serritella, Coordinator of Library Media Services for the Georgia DOE, gave an update on GALILEO funding. THANKS to your efforts (with those of the public and academic librarians in the state) not only was the funding maintained for this year, but some additional monies were added. ProQuest agreed to reinstate SIRS for the amount added, so all schools will have SIRS access again next year!
Again, THANKS for all the contacts you made in the “Save GALILEO” effort this winter. Now we need you to take just a moment and write another e-mail – to thank those legislators you contacted for their support of GALILEO and request their continued acknowledgment of the tremendous value of this resource. Please do contact your local legislator – who’s likely getting fewer e-mails since the General Assembly’s not in session – but also please send a similar note to the members of the House and Senate Education Committees. (I’ve listed their names and e-mail addresses at the end of this e-mail.)
The second update is on the State Education Finance Study Commission (established by HB 192), charged with evaluating education funding at the state level, which has potential for great impact on media centers. We will seek to have representation on ad hoc committees as provided in the law to provide input on funding needs for our programs. The first commission meeting will be held on June 30, 2011; the law calls for interim recommendations to be completed by September 30, 2011, and for completion of proposed legislation for interim recommendations by December 31, 2011. If you are interested and able to attend on Thursday, June 30th, please contact me or Michelle Crider (michelle@jlh-consulting.com) so we can coordinate our efforts. Having a number of media specialists who make the effort during the summer to attend this initial meeting should help us in our effort to get a seat on one of the ad hoc committees, so please consider attending for some part of the day!
Thanks!
Nan Brown
Advocacy Chair, GLMA
Excerpts from HB 192:
20-2-331 (c) The commission may engage additional ad hoc nonvoting members as needed to address certain issues in subcommittee. This may include, but not be limited to, input from various personnel experienced in the Quality Basic Education Formula, such as counselors,? media specialists, ?.
20-2-332 (1) (d) (D) Review other areas within the QBE Act that relate to or impact school funding, such as maximum class sizes and expenditure controls, and whether local school systems should continue to be given flexibility in these areas (expenditure controls include our media materials allotments…)
Senate Appropriations Education Subcommittee Members:
Sen. Bill Heath, Chair billheath@billheath.net
Sen. Tommie Williams, Vice Chair tommie.williams@senate.ga.gov
Sen. John Bulloch jbulloch@windstream.net
Sen. Jack Murphy jack.murphy@senate.ga.gov
Sen. Chip Rogers chiprogers21@comcast.net
Sen. Horacena Tate horacena.tate@senate.ga.gov
Sen. Jack Hill, Senate Appropriations Chair jack.hill@senate.ga.gov
Sen. Fran Millar, Senate Education Committee Chair fran.millar@senate.ga.gov
House Appropriations Education Subcommittee Members:
Rep. Tom Dickson, Chair tom.dickson@house.ga.gov
Rep. Rick Austin, Secretary rick.austin@house.ga.gov
Rep. Amos Amerson amos.amerson@house.ga.gov
Rep. Kathy Ashe kathyashe56@mindspring.com
Rep. Amy Carter amy.carter@house.ga.gov
Rep. David Casas david.casas@house.ga.gov
Rep. Brooks Coleman brooks.coleman@house.ga.gov
Rep. Jan Jones jan.jones@house.ga.gov
Rep. Margaret Kaiser mkaiser2@comcast.net
Rep. Howard Maxwell howard.maxwell@house.ga.gov
Rep. Jay Neal jay.neal@house.ga.gov
Rep. Terry England, House Appropriations Chair englandhomeport2@windstream.net
The Reading Promise: A Review and an Idea
My daughter has already had a book read to her every day since she was born
Happy Father’s Day! For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been enjoying The Reading Promise: My father and the books we shared by Alice Ozma. This was such a fitting book to read as I think about my own relationship and reading life with my 18-month old daughter, but the book connected with me in so many more ways as well.
The Reading Promise is Alice Ozma’s memories of a reading streak that she achieved with her father from the time she was in 4th grade until college. Her father, an elementary librarian (see another connection?), had seen his older daughter move away from wanting to be read to, so he vowed he wouldn’t let that happen with his youngest daughter. Even though they already enjoyed reading together often, they decided to make a commitment to read together every day for 100 days. When they accomplished that, they set their sights on 1,000 days and just kept going. Alice recounts the stories of her life and how the streak seemed to come into every aspect of her life from informing her questions about growing up to coping with life topics like divorce to finding the conversations to have with her father. The book is about so much more than just the streak. It surrounds the reader with ideas and themes such as:
- a single father doing everything he can to provide for his family
- the importance of immersing yourself in the written word
- how a solid foundation in stories can inform every aspect of your life, including your successes and your struggles
- the changing roles of libraries and librarians
- the challenges of holding to a commitment
- the value of daily family time
- how literature can be a doorway to the most difficult conversations in life
- the dangers of censorship
After seeing where “the streak” took this now 22-year-old, I can’t help but think about my own life and my own students and families. What would happen if every family in my school started a streak? What would it look like? How would it change the culture of my school? How would it impact student achievement? What roles could technology play?
So much has developed since Alice Ozma experienced the streak with her father. I could imagine families using blogs, wikis, and shared documents to document their streak. Tools such as Skype or Face Time could be used stay in touch on nights when they might be away from one another. E-books and the many tools that accompany them such as highlighting, sharing, and note-taking could further support family discussions. At the same time, more traditional print books and journals could still be a valuable tool as well. I think so often there is a mindset that it’s technology or paper when in reality it’s a combination of them all. We must harness the wealth of tools at our fingertips and find ways to incorporate them into our lives.
At the end of The Reading Promise, there is a form that can be used to create an actual promise to read together as often as possible, to protect the written word in whatever format it takes, and to celebrate the joy of story. It makes me curious, and I’m thinking a lot this summer about how this idea might come to life in my school next year. I encourage you to read this book and consider this too.
Andy Plemmons
School Librarian
David C. Barrow Elementary
Athens, GA
What Are YOU Reading This Summer?
Why are you gliding through your feed reader? You should be out by the pool or beach or on the porch or deck or whatever with a cool refreshing beverage in one hand and a book or ereader or audiobook device of some sort in the other enjoying the heck out of your own summer reading! Here are some lists to help you out:
Top 10 Summer Reading Picks for Adults & Kids
What they’re reading this summer at the NYT Book Review
10 Books That Will Fry Your Brain This Summer
Crime Fiction Picks for Summertime Suspense
and, of course, How to Create and Awesome Summer Reading List
Have a great summer!
Jim Randolph
Partee Elementary Library
Snellville, GA
