Archive for February, 2009

Advocating for Free Stuff During a Tough Economy

February 11th, 2009

Check out the article from ALA (as well as great coverage from MSNBC) as to why cutting libraries is a bad idea.

Guidelines for Blogging/Online Community Assignments

February 10th, 2009

Angela Kemp, one of our 8th grade English teachers, is using part of the library’s Moodle environment to have students discuss more in depth The Diary of Anne Frank. I just started following along and the student insights are amazing. I know that this does not come by accident but by laying out your expectations ahead of time.

Here are her guidelines, reprinted without her permission:

Anne Frank’s legendary diary didn’t start out that way; in fact, its purpose was merely to record the thoughts and feelings of someone who was once just an ordinary teenage girl. Anne Frank had no idea that the sentences she scribbled in her diary would become famous.

The purpose of this project is for you to take some time to explore the world around you in the written word. Instead of writing these thoughts in our journals, I’d like to give you the opportunity to communicate with your peers- especially some of those peers that you normally do not converse with in or out of school.

Before you being your blogging, please take note of some important assignment guidelines:

1) You should be prepared to respond to each prompt in well-developed paragraphs. Please try to elaborate your answers in at least two full paragraphs (5-7 complete sentences) in order to earn a grade of 10 points.

2) “Texting” language is completely unacceptable. Uz it n i will not grade ur work! K?

3) After you have answered a question (in two paragraphs) you are welcome to respond to your classmates. When responding to others, you do not have to write in complete sentences. You may add short comments or questions. For example: “Good point.”

4) Please keep all responses appropriate and respectful. Anything that would not be acceptable in class is unacceptable here.

5) Be brave! I know some of you are nervous about sharing your thoughts in a forum, but just remember that your input is valuable! I am always impressed with the amazing ideas in your journals; this is your chance to share that brilliance with the people you have sat with in class for the last six months!

Handouts for tonight’s class

February 9th, 2009

Tonight we’ll be talking about I Heart You, You Haunt Me. Next session we’ll be discussing The Dangerous Days of Daniel X.

Remember: the handouts can be found here.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

February 6th, 2009

At first I thought this was a pretty gutsy choice for the Newbery (and some of me still says that) but The Graveyard Book is awesome. It’s inspired by many classic works, like The Jungle Book and Robinson Crusoe.

The premise is that Nobody Owens escaped from a killer and was orphaned at 18 months old. He is raised by the denizens of the graveyard who adopt him. What makes it work is that as we’re reading about death, life is observed. There are some great quotes:

Bod had allowed himself no friends among the living. That way, he had realized back during his short-lived schooldays, lay only trouble.

Really…if you couldn’t trust a poet to offer sensible advice, who could you trust?

But if I Unfade for one person, it makes it easier for other people to see me…

“You didn’t kill them?”
“Of course not.” Bod sad, “This is my home. Why would I want them hanging around for the rest of time?”

There was a smile dancing on his lips, although it was a wary smile, for the world is a bigger place than a little graveyard on a hill…

Love it.

Newseum

February 6th, 2009

A Science teacher brought this in today, but it could apply to any discipline. Newseum searches the majority of the front pages of newspapers across the country. It reads the RSS feeds from multiple newspaper websites. The nice thing is that it’s the front page at a glance. You don’t have to log in, but if you do want to read more you’ll have to click on the ‘Web Site’ link.

Future Professionals Contest #2

February 4th, 2009

The perfect iPhone application can be found by clicking here.

Demoing an interactive whiteboard

February 3rd, 2009

We got two SmartBoards donated to us and I demoed one quickly this morning. Our drama teacher said it looked very much like this.