Monthly Archives: October 2011
GALILEO at GaETC 2011
Come visit GALILEO staff at the exhibit booth at the 24th Annual Georgia Educational Technology Conference at the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) in Atlanta, Georgia! We will be in the exhibit hall with bookmarks, posters, and handouts, and staff will be ready to answer any questions you may have about GALILEO and GALILEO resources.
There will also be GALILEO-related presentations for anyone interested:
Wednesday, November 2, 3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Creating Your Story: Tips for Using GALILEO in Student Multimedia Projects – Salon 2
Thursday, November 3, 9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Civil War Sesquicentennial: Digital Resources in GALILEO – German 3-4
Enhancing History Education with Digitized Maps – German 1-2
Thursday, November 3, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Supporting and Customizing GALILEO for Your School – German 3-4
If you missed AASL 2011…there’s still time to learn and take action!
I just had the great fortune of traveling to Minneapolis to the attend the American Association of School Librarians National Conference. I’ve made it a professional goal for myself to attend this conference that occurs every two years because it’s an opportunity to network with librarians from around the world. The aspect of the conference that I love the most is that there are so many ways to get involved with the conference as a whole whether you are attending in person or learning from afar.
Georgia Librarians @AASL Minneapolis/photo source: theunquietlibrarian
As the conference comes to a close, it’s not too late for you to connect with the conversations that were started in Minneapolis. In fact, I think it’s necessary that you find at least one avenue to not only connect with the conversations from Minneapolis, but also use them to take action within your own practice, your school culture, and the education community as a whole. It’s not an excuse to say, “My school doesn’t have funding to travel to Minneapolis”. From the comfort of your own home, you can learn, reflect, and contribute well after the close of the conference.
The main message that I took away from AASL is that we are in a time of opportunity and transition. Now more than ever, we must all take on a leadership role not only within our schools, but also within the education community and beyond. We must be innovative, creative, and daring listeners, teachers, and collaborators. We must harness the resources that are available in the world and work with our students and teachers to use these evolving resources to both consume information and create new content. We must be transparent about the work that we do and digitally document our practice to not only support one another as librarians, but also to send a message to the world about the importance of our role as teachers in our profession.
What might you do to connect to the conversations at AASL:
1. Download the new ebook School Libraries: What’s Now, What’s Next, and What’s Yet to Come?, which was crowdsourced by more than 50 authors. I started reading the book on my flight to Minneapolis, and every essay spoke to issues that I am currently wrestling with in my own practice and in my district. I love how each essay is short and concise and that I don’t learn who the author is until after I finish reading the text. This book can be a springboard for current and future conversations about libraries. However, it should be more than a springboard for conversation; it should be an invitation to take action and move forward with the transforming nature of our work. Here are just a few of the quotes that spoke to me.
School Libraries: What's now? What's next? What's yet to Come?
“New technologies do not create or fill some new need; they allow us all to express needs that have existed for generations.” ~Sara Kelley-Mudie
“The only constant is change. More than anything else, perhaps, that change is exemplified in the future librarian herself: a highly skilled teacher who is an instructional chameleon.” ~Jennifer LaGarde
“As what it means to educate the 21st-century learner evolves, school librarians have the opportunity to claim our place as instructional leaders in this new educational landscape. Today’s students cannot afford to wait for the ‘future librarian’.” ~Jennifer LaGarde
“I am a storyteller, information curator, database expert, extended essay supervisor, book group coordinator, wiki specialist, transliteracy coach, interdisciplinary-information literacy collaborator, approaches-to-learning leader, guided inquiry mentor, curriculum team member, open-access advocate, one-to-one and mobile device promoter, reading champion, and accreditation team member.” ~Beth Guorley
“We cannot simply support the curriculum anymore. We cannot wait for people to see our worth. Yes, part of our job is to support the staff and students, but we can also teach them and improve student learning directly.” ~Heather Hersey
“There is a good chance that the school librarian or library media specialist, as one of the school’s technology leaders, has the most organic understanding of how content and technology are most effectively co-mingled to the benefit of the student and to best help the teacher.” ~Evan St. Lifer
“What we cannot afford is to let students forget to love to read. What we cannot afford is a generation of people who forgot how to think, to imagine, to care.” ~Jesse Karp
“Libraries should not shrink as physical collections shrink; they should grow as opportunities for collaboration and cooperative learning grow.” ~Len Bryan
“As we look to the future of school libraries, I see us as a run-on sentence of sorts. People outside librarianship are often so anxious to box us in, to define us. They want to apply their grammar to the library – a place that is, at its heart, artful, authentic, and inquiring.” ~Elizabeth Friese
2. Join the twitter conversation by search for the hashtag #aasl11 and reading through the extensive documentation and reflection of hundreds of people attending in person and from afar. Contribute to the conversation by adding your own tweets and responding to tweets. Be sure to tag your new tweets with #aasl11 as well.
3. View the wealth of slidecasts, wikis, and videos from the Learning Commons. Sessions on topics such as the bookstore model, play in the library, inviting participation in the library, the image of the school librarian, iPad apps, advocacy, reimagining libraries, and more can be found on the pages of this wiki.
Andy Plemmons presenting on participation in the library/photo source: theunquietlibrarian
4. Register for the virtual conference. For as low as $99 for AASL members, you can get access to the recordings of the opening and closing sessions as well as 8 concurrent sessions. You’ll also have access to the handouts and slidecasts uploaded by presenters of other sessions. Some of the archived sessions include Buffy Hamilton’s Libraries as Sponsors of Transliteracy, Doug Johson’s Cloud Computing, a panel on what kinds of books we need in K-12 libraries, and Dr. Violet Harada’s Assessment in the library.
5. Join the conference Ning. Get connected with people who attended the conference, continue conversations from before/during/after the conference, and view feeds of tweets and photos from the conference.
In one of the sessions I attended, a leader within ALA stated that she would like to see all librarians being transformative, transparent leaders within the next 3 years. How will you get connected and take action?
Andy Plemmons
School Librarian
David C. Barrow Elementary
Athens, GA
GALILEO Resources for Native American Heritage Month
November is Native American Heritage Month. If you would like to find resources to celebrate the history and traditions of Native Americans, take a look at these GALILEO resources.
SIRS Discoverer and SIRS Issues Researcher each include a wonderful spotlight on National American Indian Heritage Month that highlights articles, government documents, primary sources, images, and websites. To access this spotlight in SIRS Issues Researcher (for high school), click on the Database Features tab and then choose Spotlight on… On November 1, the spotlight will change to Native American history, but you can view the 2010 Archive (lower left corner) to get a head start. In SIRS Discoverer (for elementary and middle school), click the Spotlight of the Month at the bottom of the screen. As with SIRS Issues Researcher, the spotlight will change on November 1, but you can see the 2010 Spotlight Archives (lower right corner) to get an idea of what will be appearing. Students can also search SIRS resources for events (e.g., Trail of Tears, Battle of Little Bighorn), tribal names (e.g., Cherokee, Seminoles), or names (e.g., Sequoyah, Sitting Bull) to find a variety of resources for projects and papers.
Encyclopædia Britannica includes an article along with many great images, maps, and editorially-selected websites for all grade levels. Just search for Native Americans or Native American in your grade level of Britannica to see the main article, or search for an individual’s name, tribal name, or event to find more. In addition, Annals of American History offers many primary source documents. Just search for Native American to see documents.
History Reference Center offers articles, biographical information, primary source documents, and historical images. Search for Indians of North America or by event or name to find more. From the main search page, students can limit their search to a particular time period by choosing it in the Timeline section, and they can also limit to their reading level by choosing their grade range in the Lexile Reading Level section.
To find literary criticism, biographical information, reviews, and much more on Native American authors and their works, take a look at Literary Reference Center. Search for a name, book title, or theme, or you can search for Indians of North American for a broad search. Here’s a tip: if you go to Advanced Search, leave the search box blank, and limit to Native American in the Literary Author’s Cultural Identity, you’ll be able to see all results from Native American authors without having to choose an author name, title, or theme.
To find fiction book recommendations, search NoveList or NoveList K-8 for Indians of North America and then limit to an age range to find books for your students. See the Advanced Search to limit by grade level or Lexile reading level. To find Native American authors, use the Advanced Search, leave the search box blank, and choose Native American in the Author’s Cultural Identity field.
For information about Native Americans in Georgia, the New Georgia Encyclopedia offers quite a few articles about Native American history and culture. Read about the read about the Creek Indians and their leaders, including Tomochichi and Mary Musgrove, or read about about the Cherokee Indians and their removal. You can also browse to the History and Archaeology section and see articles under Archaeology and Early History to learn about the Native Americans in Georgia’s early history. The Digital Library of Georgia includes the Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842 collection, which contains approximately 2,000 documents and images relating to the Native American population of the Southeastern United States. Finally, GeorgiaInfo provides links to resources about Native Americans in Georgia.
Please Contact Us if you have questions or comments or if you need to report problems.
Courtney McGough
GALILEO Support Services
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia
Image from Encyclopædia Britannica
Some links may not work off site. Log in to GALILEO first for access.
Express Links for Databases Mentioned in this Post:
SIRS Discoverer
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zssd
SIRS Issues Researcher
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zsks
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
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zebk
History Reference Center
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbhr
Annals of American History
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zeba
Literary Reference Center
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zblr
NoveList
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zknl
NoveList K-8
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zkne
New Georgia Encyclopedia
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=ngen
Digital Library of Georgia
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=dlg1
GeorgiaInfo
http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=gnfo
Storytelling App
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Disclaimer: If you read this post earlier and couldn’t find the sock puppet app in the iTunes store, it is now back, so go to the iTunes store and get it while you can 
Today as part of our storybook celebration, students who came to the media center had a chance to try out an app on our 10 iPads called Sock Puppets. The sock puppet app allows students to choose up to 4 sock puppet characters, multiple props (some moveable, some not), and multiple interchangeable backgrounds. Students use the selections to create a 30-second puppet show. They simply press record and then begin moving the various objects and puppets around on the screen. Each time a puppet is touched, the iPad places an arrow above that puppet’s head so that the students know which voice to record. After 30 seconds or when the students press stop, the app scrubs up students’ voices to make them more sock puppet-like.
Today, students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades tried out this app. Instead of taking them step by step through the process of making a puppet show, I simply said: “Go to the sock puppet app and use it to create a 30 second story.” In a matter of minutes, students were figuring out how the app worked. Of course there was lots of silliness, but in this time of exploration, students had permission to play and have fun without worries of being right or wrong. Even though students were doing impromptu puppet shows, they created some very creative and humorous pieces. I only wish that I had student access to Youtube so I could share some of them with you. At the close of each session, we talked about how we might use this app in the future, and students were excited about the possibility of writing 30-second scripts that would make their puppet shows more cohesive. I wonder if that same excitement would have existed if I had made the students start with writing scripts or watching me make a complete sock puppet show on the smart board before they had time to explore?
I think this free app has a lot of creative potential, and I’m glad that I was able to offer a space for students have time to play.
There are many examples of sock puppet videos on Youtube. Here’s an example.
Andy Plemmons
School Librarian
David C. Barrow Elementary
Athens, GA
AASL 2011: Enjoy the Conference Experience from Afar and Face to Face
Good afternoon!
If you aren’t able to make it to Minneapolis for AASL 2011, there are several ways you can still experience the conference and enjoy from afar:
- Follow the conference hashtag of #aasl11 on Twitter; we will also be tagging videos on YouTube and Flickr photos with aasl11 as well; the Tweet archive is available at http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/AASL11 .
- Join the AASL 2011 Conference Ning! This is a virtual network where people can engage in conversations, share conference materials and reflections, and network with other librarians. You do not have to pay to join the Ning, nor do you need to be a registered participant to be part of the conversations for learning. Join today at http://aasl11.ning.com/ .
- We hope to be streaming and/or filming some of the sessions from the Learning Commons—this is a space where people can do mini-presentations and/or simply lead a conversation about any issue/topic in librarianship. See the lineup in progress for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as well as our teaser video at http://aasl2011learningcommons.wikispaces.com/ . If you’re coming to Minneapolis, come join us at the Learning Commons for a diverse group of librarians who will be presenting on a wide range of topics!
- AASL Virtual Conference is an alternative option for those who can’t attend in person in Minneapolis. Virtual conference details and registration fees are available at http://www.aasl11.org/virtual/ .
Questions? Please feel free to contact me at buffy.hamilton at gmail.com . Thank you!
Buffy Hamilton, Ed.S.
AASL 2011 National Conference Committee Social Media Chair
School Librarian
Creekview High School
1550 Owens Store Road
Canton, GA 30115
770-720-7600, x 253
770-720-7644, fax
