No Shhing Here

For the record: I love FICTION eBooks. We circulate Kindles in my library (check out our program here , here and here ) -- it's a popular offering that plays an integral role in meeting our students' reading needs. My beef is with non-fiction eBooks that provide simultaneous access to titles. In the next few hundred words, when I say "eBooks" I'm talking about this type of non-fiction. These are books provided by traditional database vendors or in collections directly from the publisher designed for research (not high interest texts that kids read "for fun"). Because my school library system is in the process of developing a regional collection of eBooks, I've been thinking a lot about the subject. In the past few days I've tried out eBook options from more than eight different vendors, and out of the whole mix, only one company provides anything worth getting excited about. My biggest complaint about the vast majority of non-fiction eBoo...

I'm not neat by nature. Is that weird for a librarian? Neatness is my Achilles heel, and if wasn't for my fabulous staff, the library would be in a constant case of disarray. Luckily, there are times when a little disorganization is a good thing.  I've noticed when you send a group of kids to the stacks to find a book, they just stare blankly at the shelves with their hands in their pockets. They don't have the motivation/drive/energy/ambition to actually pull books off and look at them.  The best way to address the issue? MAKE A MESS! When I have classes that need to select novels,  I spread piles of books out on our large work tables. Usually each table has a theme (maybe organized by subject matter or genre or whatever we're studying), and the kids spend 2 or 3 minutes at each table, quickly evaluating as many books as they can. When they see one they like, they add it to their list. At the end of the activity, they rank their top 5 finds, and then as we dis...

You know you're passionate about a topic when you're willing to share dorky graduation photos with teenagers to make a point. This is totally how I feel about Cornell Notes. To refresh your memory, I'm teaching study skills to a group of 9th grade pre-AP Global Studies students. So far I've brainstormed different note-taking strategies , and taught them how to make concept maps . For the second strategy, I taught students how to use Cornell notes. I'm personally indebted to Cornell notes, as the method definitely contributed to my success as a student. When I was a know-it-all 9th grader, my mom, a study skills teacher herself, showed me how to use the strategy. Even though I rolled my eyes, and did my best to ignore her, something clicked for me. Cornell notes got me through high school, and then undergrad, and eventually my Master's degree. Out of the 140 kids I met with this month, only 2 had ever heard of it before. Here's a quick graphic t...

To recap, we're teaching an entire research project , from soup to nuts, on the iPads. As teachers, we've had mixed feelings, though as the project continues, we're seeing more of the benefits and less of the frustration.  We recently asked our kids to rate their experiences using the iPad as a tool for research. Below are their answers, via DoodleBuddy. For the most part, you'll see that they're quite positive, but some students' responses mirror the frustration we occasionally experience as educators! :)

This month we're featuring spuds and books from across the pond. Our first display is all about "Book Potatoes -- s-mashing books that have been vegetating on the shelf too long." I totally copied this display (and the original looks way better) so can't claim any of the creativity behind this idea. The display features books that have never been circulated (we own a scary number of these!) or books that haven't left the library in few years. Our circulation desk display area is dressed up as an Olde English Book Shoppe, complete with Big Ben and a British telephone booth -- props leftover from a local festival. The titles featured here were either written by English authors or the books are set in the UK.

Can you tell things got crazy 'round here? Two weeks and no posts - oops! There goes that blogging resolution! Back today with an update on our research project we're teaching exclusively on the iPads . It's been . . . interesting. I'm working with co-taught inclusion classes for this unit.  My initial thought was -- "Instruction on the iPad - great! iPads are so easy! They'll fly through this! And tons of opportunities for differentiation!" To date, things aren't running quite so smoothly. I'm pretty sure the challenges are due to a lack of proficiency and foresight on my part....so I remain hopeful! We're finding that we need to devote a good chunk of time to teaching the kids how to use the iPad itself -- this is eating into our information literacy/research instruction time. For example, when searching for database articles, not only do we need to talk about how to search a database, we also need to demonstrate how to use ReaddleDocs...

The project's paper version This fall, for the first time, we're going to attempt an entire research project, soup to nuts, on the iPads. The project itself isn't new, but all the tools we'll use to complete it are quite novel. Our 9th grade English students typically do a fabulous "Teen Issues" project where they produce informative brochure on all kinds of topics from Teen Pregnancy to Steroid Use. The brochures are laminated and prominently displayed in the library - and accessed by students ALL the time. To transition this project from paper to iPad, we had to find apps that allowed us to teach the project's different components. Even though we're moving to iPads, we're still teaching students how to: Create a Works Cited document Research using a wide variety of materials from books to databases (my teacher-partner is a fan of the index card method of research) Highlight Take notes Develop an outline Our motivation for using t...

Here's a quick roundup of the library's September bulletin boards. This bulletin board is out in our main hallway. I used it as my 9th grade orientation activity. These students are already familiar with the library, so this was the perfect refresher. Working in teams, they had to brainstorm the "best" answer to the following phrases: "In the library you can . . .", "In the library it's important to remember...", and "Our favorite thing about the library is . . ." I hung the best answers on the bulletin board in the hall -- easy-peasy. This board is in our Computer Lab. I'm always harping on the kids to respect copyright, especially when we're posting their projects online. This is my not so subtle reminder to seek out images designated with a Creative Commons license. We're pushing hard this year to get students to lock their workstations. Hopefully this reminder is obvious enough . . . This last board isn't lib...

Image From: Discovery Education's Clip Art Gallery Solving teachers' early morning technology problems is interfering with my blogging time! It's totally expected at time of the year, so I'm grateful to have a quiet morning (so far). Open House is tomorrow, and although we don't get a HUGE crowd in the library, I'd say we have at least 100 parents trickle through during the evening. It helps that our library secretary, Deb, is a total social butterfly - she knows everyone and is excellent at chatting with everyone. What do I do for Open House? Other than spiffing up the library (ekkk - I actually straighten the books on the shelves!), I show a looping PowerPoint and have two pamphlets available for parents to take. The PowerPoint and one of the pamphlets provide tips to " Keep your Teenager Reading!" Here's the quick breakdown: Set an example. Make sure there's something to read at home. Share your reading. Read a book written for...

Last June I told you that we were saying adios to the Dewey Decimal System in our non-fiction area. It was a lot of chaos squeezed into a short amount of time.  The good news: we survived! With lots of helpers, we re-catalog, re-labeled, and re-shelved almost 6,000 books in less than a week. The most difficult part was developing a manageable number of categories.  The non-fiction genres I finally arrived at work for us. They might not work for you. Remember, our collection is tailored to 8th and 9th graders and New York State Learning Standards for these grade levels. This is reflected in the categories we chose. Here's a breakdown of what we went with. The order that they're listed in reflects the order they appear on the shelves. The spine labels are also color coded as reflected below.  * Paranormal * Games and Sports * Travel * Hobbies * Cooking * Performing Arts * Fashion * Transportation  * Computers and Technology * Art & Architectu...

Last week, I attended the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference. I blogged and tweeted so much in Philly that I feel asleep every night with sore fingers. Now that I'm home, my fingers have finally recovered and I've had an opportunity to reflect on my learning. More than anything, ISTE provided great affirmation. I certainly came home with many little wisdom-seeds that will surely sprout into great things, but a majority of the sessions I attended looked and sounded awfully familiar. We're already implementing many of the ideas and technology showcased at the conference. This didn't disappoint me in the least. Rather, it made me feel warm and fuzzy - like, wow, we're doing something right. Go us! For example, when it comes to eBooks, I think we're already doing some great things. I attended the SIGMS Forum on Tuesday morning where Anita Beaman (she tweets under anitabeaman), from Illinois State University, talked about the evol...

We arrived at this session late after ditching another we weren't feeling (decided with budget constraints we would do better with free products rather than paid products). We raced around and ended up on the floor of a ballroom, listening to Tammy's Top 20 Favorite Web Tools . Below is a sampling - obviously not all twenty, as we weren't on time.  Plurk : Like Twitter, but the conversations are threaded. Need to join, and wait around to get friends, and hang in there a while to see the value in it.  BibMe : Free bibliography maker that plugs in the information for you . So search for a book by title or author, and then BibMe pulls in the information on publisher, publishing city, date, author, etc. from Amazon. You pick the format - MLA, APA, etc. Can then download into MicrosoftOffice. Random Name Picker - Allows you to select a student at random. Enter your class list into the machine, pull the handle, and watch the "fruit picker" select a student name at ra...

I'm blogging from ISTE this morning in one of the BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) sessions and I'm excited to learn about a tool called "MixedInk." You can check it out for yourself here . It's being presented by teachers from Fort Worth Country Day School in Fort Worth, Texas. My initial impression was, "Oh, a fancy wiki tool," but I'm quickly learning that it's a lot more than a wiki. MixedInk allows teachers to create virtual "classrooms" of students. Within a classroom students can collaboratively author texts in realtime (no stealing the lock, etc as multiple students can edit the SAME text simultaneously - unlike those pesky wikis). MixedInk provides authorship tracking, color coding each person's contributions so students can see who is responsible for different portions of the text. MixedInk lets students rate different versions of a text. The version with the highest rating is known as the "top version," but it ...

I'm sitting in the convention center waiting for my iPhone to charge and the first keynote to begin. And I'm overwhelmed. Initial impressions: * Unlike library conferences, there are actually men here. Gosh, that's different. * More specifically, there are also lots of teenage boys.  Which, oddly, makes this place feel even hipper. * This place is cool. And huge. * There's a battle for outlet space - everyone needs to recharge. * The keynote feels like a rock conference.  * Wow!! And now I've been here for an hour and I'm still overwhelmed. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

This week I'm headed to ISTE - the International Society for Technology in Education conference. (Thanks, OCM BOCES SLS, for the scholarship!) I can't wait! This is one conference I've never been to, but I think every single session sounds intriguing! Here are some of the sessions I'm looking forward to: * The Art of the Remix: Incorporating Collaborative Writing in the Classroom "Discover how to craft a collective essay by writing, remixing, and voting on submissions with MixedInk's free collaborative writing tool. Requires MixedInk account." I'm pumped for this session because our 8th grade English classes are held in a writing workshop format. I've never heard of MixedInk, but I'm loving the little description and hoping it's something I can utilize in the fall!   * The iPad Revolution: Innovative Learning in the Classroom "The iPad brings interactive learning and amazing resources to the fingertips of all learners. Disco...

We're saying "Adios" to Dewey. Our non-fiction collection doesn't see a lot of use other than for research projects. We've got some great stuff in there, and I want kids to pick up and explore these books for FUN! (Especially with the informational text emphasis in the new Common Core Standards.) To help stimulate increased interest in the area, we're eliminating the Dewey Decimal System and moving to genre classification -- a more "Barnes and Noble" style approach. Our kids still haven't mastered the Dewey by the time they reach 8th grade and I don't have time to reteach it. So, to make our collection more accessible, we're just going to get rid of it. Our fiction books are already shelved by genre, so doing the same in non-fiction makes sense (for us). This isn't exactly a new idea. Libraries around the country have started to move towards a Dewey-Free system. Here's a few places with this set-up already in action: Frankfort...

I'm in the begining stages of overhauling our library's web site. My reason for doing so is twofold: We're slowly making the transition from a "library" to a "learning commons." I need the new site to reflect the new name, and our slightly different mission. My current site, although visually appealing, lacks opportunities for student to interact. The new site MUST be interactive. Have I figured out how I'm going to do this yet? NOPE! But we're working on it. My current site is also difficult to keep updated. There's no easy place to post news items or links that is "obvious." Here's a screenshot of the old site. Click here to check it out in person . (Ignore the nagivation on the left hand side of the screen -- that's part of the NEW site and doesn't really exist under the current site). And here's a picture of the new site. Click here to check it out in person (though there's not much else to see right n...

In my inspection of the Common Core Standards, I'm totally stuck on the Appendix B exemplars and the emphasis on informational texts. As a result, I'm ignoring all the wonderful ways in which the Common Core align with AASL's Standards for the 21st Century Learner. Check out a standards crosswalk here. Common Core IS good news for librarians!! My initial reason for delving into the Common Core is really silly -- I just wanted to create a book display. I was hoping to give teachers examples and ideas of great high-interest non-fiction. Our English teachers were depressed by the idea of "informational texts," so I wanted to display some of the MANY great titles that I thought fell into the category in an attempt to cheer them up. Here's a little peak at my display: Above: Informational texts display with "Common Core" Apples Above: Informational texts display with high interest non-fiction Now that I've spent loads of time with the Stan...

Above: A portion of my bookshelf This is the second post in my series on the Common Core Standards. You can find the first one here .  This is a picture of my bookshelf. I was going for optimism when I labeled my binder for the Common Core Standards. Hearts and smiley faces make everything better, right? Actually, to be honest, I don't hate the standards. I know I was pretty harsh on the text exemplars in my last post , but the standards do have a lot going for them. Even though English teachers in my building are dismayed (and the word dismayed isn't hyperbole), I'm excited about certain aspects of the standards, especially the focus on informational texts. At some point, I promise I'll talk about the GOOD aspects of the standards, but first, I think some clarification is in order. In my previous post, I implied that the text exemplars weren't a prescribed reading list, citing this from Appendix B: "They expressly do not represent a a partial or c...

Lately, I've been thinking about names. What's the purpose of a name? Does a name really impact how something is viewed or perceived? More specifically, I'm contemplating name changes . When I got married a few years ago, changing my name wasn't a big deal. I know other brides agonize over losing their "identity" when dropping their maiden name, but for me it was a non-issue. In stark contrast, the name change I'm contemplating now seems like a HUGE deal - though I wasn't expecting it to cause quite so much of a stir. Our profession seems to undergo name changes on a pretty regular basis. In the first half of the twentieth century, people who did my job were "librarians." Then, in the 1970s, we became "media specialists," with the clarification of "school library" thrown in to reduce confusion. To be honest, I've always had trouble introducing myself as a "school library media specialist" -- it's a mout...