Archive for the School Libraries Category

Hey there, all you school librarians!! Don’t miss this chance to participate in the School Library Journal’s 2.0  learning program and explore the world of 2.0 tools and learning.

The program, All Together Now: A 2.0 Learning Experience, is free and starts Monday July 21.  This is a self-guided program, but you’ll have lots of company to share your ideas and experiences with.  And Michael Stephens of Tame the Web will be offering guidance and advice throughout the program via a blog.

The program wraps up in early September, just in time for you to put your new skills and ideas to work during the school year.

7/21/08 - NOTE: To get started visit the program’s blog

Curriki is looking for content. If you have an instructional unit or course you’d like to share with the world, check out Curriki’s Summer of Content.

Do you have an instructional unit or course you’re proud of that you’d like to publish and get paid for?

Interested in earning money this summer to develop a new unit that will be shared with a global audience?

For our Summer of Content initiative, Curriki is soliciting middle
school content in ELA, math, science, and social studies, and high
school content in ELA and social studies. Apply by June 1st, 2008.

I just ran across the California 2.0 Curriculum Connections wiki. It has some great ideas for using 2.0 tools in the K-12 curriculum. The wiki is a part of the California School Library Learning 2.0 project.

Another great repository of curriculum ideas is the Classroom 2.0 wiki.

You’ll find these and a selection of other resources for school librarians in the School Library section of my wiki.

Ever wondered how to add a flickr slideshow to your website? Or a YouTube video? Or a PowerPoint slideshow? Check out this great article by Aaron Schmidt: Widgets and Widgetry for Librarians: Copy, Paste, and Relax in MultiMedia & Internet@Schools (Posted Mar 1, 2008)

Widgets pull in updated content, making your web site less static (and less boring?)

Adding a widget is easy. Usually just a short form to fill out and then a snippet of code to copy and paste to your website. You really don’t have to know anything about the code. (Though you do need to be able to edit your web pages.)

With widgets you can have your del.icio.us bookmark links updating on your page, the most recent YouTube videos, photos from your flickr account, books you’re recommending via LibraryThing and so much more.

If you want to see a whole bunch of flickr photo widgets in action, check out my flickr slide show examples page.

Go get widgety!

In the NYT tech section today, David Pogue give the simple little Flip video cam a terrific review - Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot

I bought one about 4 months ago, lured by its ’shiny new toy-ishness’. And it truly is a terrific little camera. Perfect for schools & libraries doing video projects with kids and teens (and adults). I’m thinking durable and easy to use. Is it the greatest video quality in the world? Not really. But is it good enough for fun youtube type videos? You bet!

This is the camera I’d throw in my beach bag or give to kids to use at a pool party. And I might just buy the waterproof case mentioned in the review. I think a snorkeling trip to Hawaii would be a good way to test that one out. Aloha.

Librarians who never stop!
Friday night, 10pm. School librarians who’d been working all week, then attended a Friday night, 4pm-9pm training session that was continuing all day Saturday. Yet here they are, at 10pm still playing with their computers and showing each other all the great stuff they’ve been working on. Eventually they did join us for a glass of wine in the next room, where the talking and swapping of stories and ideas continued. Wow, what a group! Thanks guys for a whirlwind of a weekend retreat. See you next time! The link to the workshop page: Inquiry meets 2.0