Wanted to share 3 great resources for all grade levels….
The Interactive Place Wiki
http://theinteractiveplace.pbworks.com/
A multitude of interactive and fun web sites to use with the interactive whiteboard or not!  Great for all grade levels…..
Already categorized by subject, click on the sidebar on the right of the page to see specific, age-appropriate sites.
This will continue to be updated so come back and visit often!

 Countdown to Christmas Wiki
http://christmascountdown.wikispaces.com/
Try out some new Web 2.0 tools with your students…..
Click on December 3^rd:   He’s making a list….ideas to use Wordle in the media center or classroom.

Pete’s PowerPoint Station
http://www.pppst.com/Includes
PowerPoints as well as Interactive Activities

Esther Brenneman
North Central District Chairperson

Headline:  Train Wreck in Washington, DC, December 30, 1906

The Library of Congress has partnered with the National Endowment of the Humanities to develop a web-based searchable database of historic newspapers.  

The Chronicling America web site provides free access to more than a million pages of historic newspapers from 11 states, published between 1880 and 1922.

Topics widely covered in the American press of the time include comic strips, Bloomer Girls (women’s baseball), Ellis Island, Jack the Ripper, the race to the North Pole, the San Francisco earthquake, and more!  To find out when new things are added, sign up for Chronicling America’s weekly notification service.

In 2008, the Library of Congress began offering historical photograph collections through Flickr in order to share some of our most popular images with a new visual community. Now, its Flickr collections include illustrated and visual content from historic American newspapers.  To view the photos on Flickr, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/collections/ and select the Historic Newspapers collection. You do not need a Flickr account to view the images.

The New Media Consortium recently released the Short List of Horizon Topics for 2010 and the Horizon Report 2010 Preview.  These documents, which you can view by visiting the Horizon Report Wiki, are the result of the rounds of discussions and voting by the Advisory Board members.  The final report will be officially released on January 20, 2010.

The report preview organizes topics by “time to adoption” and  includes a description of the topic; the relevance for teaching, learning, and creative expression; examples of how the topic is being applied, and suggestions for further reading.  In addition, the preview version of the report includes a section called “Critical Challenges” as well as a section for “Key Trends.”

Consider the six final topics:

• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
  • Mobile Computing
  • Open Content
• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
  • Electronic Books
  • Simple Augmented Reality
• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
  • Gesture-Based Computing
  • Visual Data Analysis

Where are we as K12 libraries in preparing to utilize these technologies, particularly that of mobile computing and open source applications?  How can we as school librarians help lead the way for the integration of these tools not only into our libraries but also in our school classrooms?   What are K12 vendors doing to help school libraries prepare to adopt and integrate these technologies effectively?

I also find the “Critical Challenges” particularly interesting and encourage you to read the details of each challenge.

• The role of the academy—and the way we prepare students for their future lives—is changing.

• New scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching continue to emerge but appropriate metrics for evaluating them increasingly lag behind or fail to appear.

• Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key 21st century skill, but there is a widening training gap for faculty and teachers.

• Institutions increasingly focus more narrowly on key goals, as a result of shrinking budgets in the present economic climate.

These challenges leave me with many questions:

• Will it be school librarians who lead the resistance and coup d’etat, against the test driven school culture that is diametric to 21st century learning that values inquiry, creative expression, and collaboration?
• Are we teaching our students and teachers about new forms of scholarship?  How do we redefine authority and find new ways to evaluate and assess authority?
• How do we help posit new literacies (media, digital, transliteracy) as mainstream literacies for students and for teachers?
• How do we as school librarians turn budget crises into innovation?
• How do we tap into emerging technologies to create even more effective programs in the face of financially challenged circumstances?

What might happen if we as school librarians formed inquiry circles with public librarians, academic librarians, teachers, technology personnel, administrators, students, parents, and vendors to explore these questions, challenges, and trends?  How could we work together to find inventive and meaningful ways to harness the powers of these technologies?  What might learning look in both K12 and higher education if we engaged in inquiry and problem solving together?

Although these documents represent the “preview” and not the final draft of the report, please read the draft forms and put these ideas on your radar if they aren’t there already.  What is your response to the report preview?  How do you see K12 libraries meeting the challenges outlined in the draft?  How do you see the key trends impacting the 21st century school library and our practices?  I have cross-posted this entry on the AASL blog; please share your responses there as well as here.

Buffy Hamilton, Ed.S.
School Library Media Specialist
Creekview High School, Canton, Georgia

Dear GALILEO Users,

Beginning today, you will find the following custom EBSCOhost Mobile links appearing in  GALILEO:

- EBSCOhost Mobile Academic

http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbda

-EBSCOhost Mobile Espanol

http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbdb

-EBSCOhost Mobile Public Library

http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbdf

-EBSCOhost Mobile High School

http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbdc

-EBSCOhost Mobile Middle School

http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbde

Each of these interfaces has been configured to provide a direct multi-database search of EBSCOhost databases that are appropriate for the indicated audience.  For detailed information regarding which databases are included in the search, please see the “More” link that follows the database name within the Databases A-Z list.

If you have any questions about the EBSCO Mobile Interfaces, please submit a comment to GALILEO via our Contact Us form: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/contact

Thanks,

Katie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Katie Gohn

GALILEO Support Services

Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Dear Library Media Specialist/Teacher Librarian:

The ALA Public Programs Office is pleased to partner with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the seventh We the People Bookshelf project. This year’s theme, A More Perfect Union, invites reflection on the idea of the United States as a union, a One as well as Many and will complement library programs observing the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

To stimulate programming, the Bookshelf features a DVD edition of The Civil War, the award-winning documentary by Ken Burns, including the rights to show the series to public audiences.. Public and school (K-12) libraries are invited to apply online through January 29, 2010 at http://publicprograms.ala.org/bookshelf. A single application may be submitted on behalf of multiple libraries within a library system, school district or community. Individual branch and school libraries are also encouraged to apply.

In spring 2010, NEH will award 4,000 libraries a collection of 17 classic hardcover books for young readers, related to the theme, “A More Perfect Union”, as well as the option to receive Spanish translations of three titles, and bonus materials for readers of all ages. Successful applicants will also receive accompanying materials for programming, including bookplates, bookmarks and posters.

For programming ideas and tips, access to the guidelines and application, book titles, and further details, visit http://publicprograms.ala.org/bookshelf. With questions, contact publicprograms@ala.org.

Sincerely,

American Library Association Public Programs Office

50 E. Huron – Chicago, IL 60611

http://www.ala.org/publicprograms

From the Library of Congress:

Ever heard of an Exquisite Corpse? It’s not what you might think. An Exquisite Corpse is an old game in which people write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold it over to conceal part of it and pass it on to the next player to do the same. The game ends when someone finishes the story, which is then read aloud. Our “Exquisite Corpse Adventure” works this way: Jon Scieszka, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, has written the first episode, which is “pieced together out of so many parts that it is not possible to describe them all here, so go ahead and just start reading!” He has passed it on to a cast of celebrated writers and illustrators, who must eventually bring the story to an end. Every two weeks, there will be a new episode and a new illustration. The story will conclude a year from now. To get biweekly updates with new Exquisite Corpse Adventure chapters, click on the subscribe link at the top of the page. “This story starts with a train rushing through the night….” No one knows where or how it will end!

http://www.read.gov/exquisite-corpse/

from Sarah K. Steiner of the Georgia Library Association

Hello Georgia Librarians-

Very soon we’ll be launching a new section on the Georgia Library Association homepage–a “Featured Library” section. We’re borrowing the idea from the Tennessee Library Association, and you can see an example on their page: http://www.tnla.org/

Please email me if you’re interested in having your library profiled on the site. We would just need a picture and a brief 2-3 paragraph article on why your library is wonderful!

Thank you,
-Sarah
GLA Public Relations Committee Chair

~~~
Sarah K. Steiner
Assessment and Social Work Librarian
Georgia State University Library
100 Decatur Street SE
Atlanta, GA 30303

ssteiner@gsu.edu

Empowering Learners encourages to become early adopters of digital sources of information to better serve our stakeholders.  I’ve never considered myself a “tech” person but have always liked to stay relatively current and aware of the exciting and ever-changing digital landscape.  I blog, I wiki, I can hold my own in a discussion of cloud computing or mashups or whatever.  But I’ve never considered myself an early adopter.  I didn’t get a DVD player until the price came down and it was easier to rent a DVD than a VHS.   I didn’t get a Gmail until 2005.  My blog archive only goes back to 2007.  I was a late adopter (and early abandoner) of Twitter.

But now I feel all special and “early adopter”-ish with my invitation to Google’s new digital platform, Wave.

I know, I know, some of you are saying “Huh? What’s that?” and a few might be saying, “I want in!”

Well, for those who don’t know I’ll explain a bit about it and what I think it’s going to be good for, but for those desperate others, don’t get too excited just yet.

Google Wave is in “preview” mode which is even earlier than “beta.”  They say it’s their idea of what email would be like if someone were to invent email now rather than 40 years ago.  It’s part email, part chat, part wiki.

There’s good and there’s bad.

The bad is that if you get an invite you may sign in and find there’s nobody else in your contact list available to “wave” with you and it can seem like a big lonely place.  I’m sure that’ll be corrected as soon as they’ve tweaked it and are ready to roll it out to the public.  But there are ways to get into the water, as it were, and soon enough you’ll find yourself figuring things out.

The other drawback to instant domination is that it’s not as immediately intuitive as, say, blogging or most social networking sites.  With those you sign up, create a profile, and you’re off.  With Wave, you would do well to read something like this which can give you the what’s what on the best way to get around.  Yes, that’s an online book that will probably be updated constantly as the bugs in the system are worked out.  But unlike most other platforms, Wave isn’t strictly chronological, so it takes a bit of a different mindset than a straightforward up and down list of posts or emails.  At it’s best, it’s the best parts of  the powerful collaboration tools you’ve been using online.  At worst, it’s the worst parts of online chat and discussion forums.

So if you’re still reading, you’re probably asking what’s the good and why should teacher-librarians care?

The good is that when you get it going for you, you realize that this will be a fantastic collaborative tool on many levels and that’s what we are all about.  It will blow some current tools out of the water.

When you open it up, it looks kinda like an email platform.  You have an inbox and folders.  You have contacts.  You can use it like email, click on one of your contacts, type a message and send it.  They can respond.  But instead of separate emails, this “wave” can go on and on as long as you like.  And if your friend is online at the same time you are it’s like instant chat.  And I do mean instant because you can see each other type and edit live. No more “X is typing” messages as you listen to the clock tick.   But it gets better because you can start a wave with one person and start collaborating on, say, a document.  Then you can add another contact and they instantly have access to the entire wave and can immediately collaborate.  So now it’s like email and/or chat and/or online document collaboration and/or a wiki all at the same time.

You think back-channeling at the AASL conference was cool with Twitter?  Just wait until you have the ability to do a wave instead.   I don’t have a Twitter account, but I wanted to see what I’d missed so I went there and did a search on #aasl2009 and scrolled through pages and pages of interesting but incredibly repetitive tweets and retweets.  With wave a presenter could throw up a wave, and you could all collaborate, take notes, comment on and edit the entire thing live.  As it’s happening.  And keep it for future use or collaboration.   No, really.   Check out this post for more on that.

But that scenario won’t happen until Google Wave is out of Preview and at least up to Beta.   So don’t rush into it yet unless you don’t mind a little mess and confusion.   But do keep it on your radar so when it comes to you, you can be ready to catch the Wave.

Thanks,

Jim Randolph

Dear GALILEO Users,

How useful have you found the GALILEO Toolbar? Would you like to search GALILEO from  your mobile device? How would you improve GALILEO? Your answers and your students’ and patrons’ answers to these questions matter.

When you open the GALILEO website today, you will see an invitation to participate in a the annual user survey. Don’t miss this chance to provide your feedback on your experience with GALILEO and to enter the drawing to win an iPod Nano. Be sure to encourage your users to complete the survey to be entered into the drawing. The survey will be conducted November 9-15, 2009. Just click on the GALILEO User Survey link on the GALILEO home page to participate.

Thank you for taking the time to contribute your opinions and ideas and for encouraging others to participate.

If you have any questions or need more information, please use GALILEO’s Contact Us feature or contact OIIT Customer Services at helpdesk@usg.edu.

Thank you and good luck!

Karen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Karen Minton

GALILEO Support Services

Library Services

Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

2500 Daniells Bridge Road, Building 300

Athens, GA  30606-3539

Phone: (888) 875-3697   Fax: (706) 583-2294