No Shhing Here

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 ...