Get CONNECTED! during Connected Educator Month

Today we have a great line-up of Library 2.013 pre-conference sessions, all free (of course!), all dedicated to "connected librarians," and all part of the spectacular Connected Educator Month. The schedule overview is below, with more information and how to join the sessions at http://www.connectedlibrarians.com. 11:00am US-Eastern Daylight Time "Leading the Charge to Connect the Library, Classroom, and Curriculum: A View from Library Leadership" - Panel Discussion 12:00pm US-Eastern Daylight Time "The Library as Makerspace"- Kristin Fontichiaro 1:00pm US-Eastern Daylight Time "Virtual Library Instruction:Tools & Tips" - Stacy Creel "Teaching the Teachers: Integrating Technology into Library Instruction" - Amanda Nichols Hess 2:00pm US-Eastern Daylight Time "[Re]Envisioning the Role of Librarian as Educator in the Digital Information Age" - John Shank Continuing this week are the nightly "cafe" conversations with online "heroes." If you haven't joined us for one of these yet, they are turning out to be some of the most enjoyable online sessions I've ever held, as we get a chance to spend some more personal time with these folks and you get a chance to connect with them. Join me from 7:30 - 8:30pm US-Eastern Daylight Time each weeknight by going to http://bit.ly/connected_cafe. Here is our schedule for this week: Monday, October 14 Connection to Collaboration: Howard Rheingold and Shelly Terrell Tuesday, October 15 Innovating STEM and Literacy: Sylvia Martinez and Jackie Gerstein Wednesday, October 16 Making Informal PD Count: Peggy George Thursday, October 17 Personalized Learning: Gwyneth Jones and Joyce Valenza Friday, October 18 21st Century Classroom Management: Audrey Watters Here's the schedule for the rest of the month: October 21 Connected Leadership: Milton Chen, Sam Chaltain October 22 Connection to Collaboration: Julie Lindsay, Kathy Schrock, Shannon Miller, Esther Wojcicki October 23 Innovating STEM and Literacy: Yovel Badash and Jim Vanides October 24 Making Informal PD Count: Lucy Gray, Steven Anderson October 25 Personalized Learning: TBD (hopefully, connected students!) October 28 21st Century Classroom Management: Suzie Boss, Jane Nelsen October 29 Connected Leadership: Keith Krueger, Scott McLeod October 30 Connection to Collaboration: Richard Byrne, Adam Bellow October 31 Innovating STEM and Literacy: TBD Recordings of the previous cafe sessions are all at here. October 3 Connected Leadership Dean Shareski, Vicki Davis October 4 Connection to Collaboration Larry Ferlazzo, Angela Maiers October 7 Innovating STEM and Literacy Michelle Cordy October 8 Making Informal PD Count: Ira Socol, Kathleen Cushman October 9 Personalized Learning: Karl Fisch, Lee Kolbert, Will Richardson October 10 21st Century Classroom Management: Alice Keeler, Anne Mirtschin October 11 Connected Leadership: David Loertscher, Bill Brennan Visit Classroom 2.0 at: http://www.classroom20.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Do you have many questions about cataloguing digital resources that you can't answer yet?

"There is a lot to discover and learn about. If you are a teacher librarian, please make this part of your professional learning agenda for 2013. We are on the web and of the web, and our opportunities to improve the information and knowledge matrix in schools is fantastic – if we know how!" 

Strategic directions for school libraries by +Judy O'Connell 

• Please visit the link above to read all of Judy's post. I have selected a small, but important selection to hopefully encourage you to delve deeper into these issues. 

Maybe you could consider viewing and discussing some of the presentations at your next TL network meeting.

 "These very issues were highlighted at the recent SCIS ASKS Forum held in Melbourne recently.How will education libraries best serve their communities in 2015? Support for the new Australian curriculum makes it imperative that we include emerging technologies and global understanding of information organization in the knowledge matrix that we support. It’s no longer about organizing those container of information that’s important – it’s the connections and access pathways and interpersonal learning experiences that a good school library can facilitate. It is a teacher librarian’s job to empower students and teachers information access needs, and to manage systems that support this. We are very lucky in Australia that Education Services Australia, and the Schools Catalogue Information Service have their eye on this for us."    from    Strategic Directions for School Libraries

 

Strategic Directions for School Libraries from Judy O'Connell
I found the presentations below helpful: 

In 2011 SCIS produced this presentation:

MARC my e-books from SCIS
More recently

SCIS asks consultation 2012 from SCIS

Managing e-books in libraries from SCIS

You may wish to complete their Resourcing the curriculum survey 
 It does not take very long.

Help needed to understand the digital curation state-of-the-art across "LibraryLand".

Librarian Digital Curation Survey

I am hoping that by sharing this I may find some willing Teacher Librarians to help out by answering this survey from Joyce Valenza, Brenda Boyer & Della Curtis.

Please help us better understand the digital curation state-of-the-art across "LibraryLand."

We hope to share our research in various social networks as well as in an ALA Tech Source Report.

You may respond anonymously or share contact information. If you do, you will be eligible to win an Amazon gift certificate.  

In addition, please consider sharing your contact information if you'd like to be interviewed for our research.

This survey should take less than 15 minutes to complete.  

Thank you for considering helping us learn more about digital curation in libraries.

Joyce Valenza, Brenda Boyer, Della Curtis

Posters, posters & more free posters.

When Harper Collins released this beautiful poster last week I just had to go exploring the rest of their treasures. 

Harper Collins also have an entertaining KIDS section with a Book Finder, Authors & Illustrators, Games & Contests tabs.

Also available is a helpful Parents Section to share suggestions from pre-school on.

There are so many teaching & reading guides ,under the Teaching Resources tab, available on a wide range of kids books.

If you are looking for award winning books , new releases, information, including websites, audio & interviews, on various authors and illustrators you will be pleased.

I would love to see some more great posters in the future.
If you are looking for some more posters for displays check out these.They were all designed in Adobe PhotoShop CS5. (The blog formerly known as TeachFactory.com :)

A range of posters are also available at Mrs. Lion's Teacher Resources.

Maybe you would like some free technology posters for your classroom. 
I love the last one of the eight posters the most,  as it provides a clear guide to getting better search results.

You will find a variety of posters that I have pinned at on Pinterest.

Then there are these gorgeous posters- Decorate your walls with downloadable posters by author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds. These free, full-colour posters are based on the themes in The North Star book - aimed at encouraging life-long learning, diversity appreciation, creative thinking, positive school communities, and more!

BOOKWEEK sites & sounds to support learning!

The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) organises BOOKWEEK- 

Book Week is the longest running children's festival in Australia, celebrating its 68th birthday in 2013.

The CBCA states: "Each year, many schools and public libraries from all over Australia spend a week celebrating books and Australian authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians develop activities, offer competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading." 

The theme in 2013 is... Read across the universe.

There are plenty of great ideas to select from on the Read across the universe page of the Bookweek wiki.

Barbara Braxton has established a wiki particularly to support new TLs. It is a collaborative wiki which contains ideas from various teachers and TLs.

On the BOOKWEEK for Beginners -Helping new TLs celebrate Bookweek home page it states:

"This wiki has been established to support new primary school teacher librarians who are implementing Children's Book Week in their schools for the first time. Australia's experienced teacher librarians are invited to share their experience and expertise in areas such as

• promotion and celebration
• logistics and organisation
• creating displays
• activities for the shortlisted books suitable for primary
• activities to support the theme of Read Across the Universe
• linking the celebrations to literacy, literature, information literacy and other curriculum outcomes
• author visits
• integrating ICT"

DON"T MISS: The Book Chook's Collection of resources and ideas for BOOKWEEK. The Book Chook came up with an activity booklet that involves kids in thinking creatively and responding to the theme of Read across the Universe. It is available for download at her website. 

The Book Chook was asked by the Children's Book Council's Anticipate Appreciate Applaud Sub Committee (NSW) to create a presentation for librarians. 

To accompany her presentation, she made a booklet which you can download for free at her website too.  Inside the booklet, you'll find ideas from her about celebrating Children's Book Week with not just books, but lots of web resources too. 

Interactive Activities Galore @  Mrs B's Interactive Literacy and  Mrs B's 2013 Shortlist Activities

Let's SING 

Narelle Adams has recorded the song "Reading Across the Universe" 

available on Narelle Adams Edutainer Weebly 

Screenshot of Narelle Adams from Narelle Adams Edutainer Weebly 

Looking for more songs? There are a number of Space Songs available at 
Space Songs, Music and Space

MORE RESOURCES:

Children's Bookweek  from Lyn Campbell Epping Public School has many valuable resources to support teaching and learning activities during Bookweek.

Are you looking for Book Week Merchandise?

The CBCA produces a range of promotional items, including stickers for publishers to place on winning and honour books, and support materials for teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians. The range is always changing and developing. 

and the WINNERS are............NOT long to go now!!!!

The winners will be announced on Friday August 16, 2013 

(unless you live in SA but that is another story) 

Fun and games in the library

Mrs. Lodge's Library page is a valuable resource to know about.

Library Centres contains a wonderful collection a great ideas for engaging students in many various activities in the library.

Get kids playing shelve it to build their library skills.
Mrs. Lodges Library - Featuring Shelve-it!

(screenshot)

Using Dewey

 

(screenshot)

Three levels to choose from

 

(screenshot)

Using Fiction 

ALIA and the Future of the profession.

Jennifer Dyer (ALIA NSW Library Technicians Group Convenor.) has asked that this news is passed on to all interested parties.

ALIA has a major project underway to consult with industry on the

Future of the profession. Submissions can be made online but they also intend to run a series of consultations around the country. This seems a great opportunity to state an opinion on the threats and opportunities facing libraries and to hear the opinion of others in all sectors of the industry. Western Sydney Institute of TAFE, Library & Information Services, have offered to host one of the sessions to ensure that Western Sydney is represented.

ALIA has accepted the offer and the event is scheduled for:

Tuesday 30 July - 14:00 to 16:30

The venue is:

Kiranari Room (room L.1.89)

Building L

Mount Druitt College of TAFE

Mount Street and North Parade

Mount Druitt

Parking is free. The College is about 500 metres from Mt Druitt train station, heading back towards Sydney.

Details of the project and a literature review are available at

http://aliafutures.wikispaces.com

We would love to see you there and would appreciate you making this information known to your staff and to your other contacts within the industry.

There is no formal booking system but to give us an idea of numbers could you please reply to the Head Teacher, Allan.Daniel@tafensw.edu.au

 

2013 MANTLE Conference Update

MANTLE Conference 2013

Friday 17th May 2013.

 

The MANTLE Conference is the annual professional conference of all teacher librarians  in the Newcastle, Maitland, Taree, Lake Macquarie and Central Coast districts.

It is organised by a volunteer committee of local Teacher Librarians from DET, Catholic and Independent schools. The committee changes annually with half the committee being replaced by other local TLs. It truly is a collegial organisation.      

I am delighted to share some news from Lara O'Donoghue, Convenor MANTLE

"The MANTLE Committee received some much anticipated news today. We are now officially endorsed providers of professional development with the NSW Institute of Teachers.

You can download registration papers and information re accreditation on our website at www.mantle.com.au. Due date: 13th April, 2013 

You can also like us on our Facebook page for further updates at https://www.facebook.com/TheMANTLEconference

This year's conference is also catering to Library Support Staff. Looking forward to meeting your assistants and technicians in May!"

App to improve fluency

                             

     

     

I am looking forward to using this free app with our students:
i-Prompt Pro-Teleprompter 

     Students can practice reading to build fluency using the iPrompt iPad app. 
     To introduce this app I  plan to choose a familiar text. I will cut and paste the text   into the  app.
It also allows for some differentiation in that you can alter the font size and speed of delivery to meet the needs of your students. 
One student can act as a timekeeper and mentor, where required, for another child.
Thanks to Monica Burns of ClassTechTips.com


Description and Features from iTunes
Professional Tele-prompting software for your iPad.
Use your Apple iPad as a professional teleprompter for location reporting, corporate video productions, info-mercials, video blogs, podcasts and all types of public event speaking.



FEATURES:
Smooth Scrolling – in both landscape or portrait modes, with mirrored or standard text alignments.
Fast Script Download to i-Prompt software via simple email or document cut and paste text copying.
Instant Script Editing and Timing – use i-Prompt’s in-built text editor for those last minute changes to content and timing.
Control Prompting Speed - adjust the speed of your prompting script with menu driven settings or the custom wireless controller (supplied when purchasing the complete 
i-Prompter kit, go to http://www.i-prompter.com/ for further details.
Fully Customisable Prompting Screen Display - adjust the font type, font size, and on-screen text/background colours.
Only Language supported is English.

Join in 2013 World Read Aloud Day on March 6.

World Read Aloud Day is about taking action 

to show the world that 

the right to read and write belongs to all people.

It’s time to join the Global Literacy Movement

Reached 65 countries and hundreds of thousands of participants on March 7, 2012

How far can we reach in 2013???

Hello Fellow Librarians,

As in years past, I am inviting you to participate with me in World Read

Aloud Day (http://litworld.org/worldreadaloudday/.)  
On March 6th, we will celebrate World Read Aloud Day
by raising awareness about literacy around the world.
[Available on the activities page  is a packet of library printable resources,]
along with posters, certificates, bookmarks and sticker templates. 

It would be fun to share how we all participate in the day. 
I look forward to hearing from you!

Below is a letter from Pam Allyn, founding director of LitWorld and
World Read Aloud Day.

Enjoy!

Elizabeth Fernandez

Convent of the Sacred Heart

Greenwich, CT.

A message from Pam Allyn of LitWorld to School Librarians:

Imagine a world where everyone can read.On March 6th 2013, 
we will celebrate World Read Aloud Day for the fourth time, 
in over 50 states and 60 countries.  World Read Aloud Day 
is about taking action to show the world that the right to
read and write belongs to all people. It is a day motivating 
children, teens, and adults worldwide to rejoice in the power
of words, just as librarians do each and every day. 
Celebrate in your libraries by reading aloud, 
giving away a book, or taking action in any way you can to
"Read It Forward" on behalf of the 793 million people 
who cannot yet read.

As librarians, you guide your students into worlds of 
wonder and possibility.  Libraries are sanctuaries, 
where children can discover more than just books or 
technology resources-they find opportunities.  While
communities evolve and the landscape of information 
churns and shifts, you are the steady voice telling 
stories, igniting imaginations, making connections, 
and changing lives.  Your role is essential to spreading
the word and the message of World Read Aloud Day: 
that reading is a human right.

Join us as librarians from the most rural to the most 
urban parts of the world Read It Forward. 

Help us celebrate as a reading leader by engaging
your school and library program on March 6th. 
We will honor you on our social media and feature 
your pictures of your celebration in our WRAD album
on Facebook.

Register for World Read Aloud Day

Visit the World Read Aloud Blog

Make sure you visit World Read Aloud Day Activities to download 
printable resources like certificates, bookmarks and a reading tally, 
and plenty more to help celebrate the day!!
Further reading Now and Then WRAD 
                             Mr Schu Reads NOW and THEN

Do you know the rights of a reader? The ten of them?

I love this visual and have it proudly displayed in my library.
It started with a book:
RIGHTS OF THE READER

RIGHTS OF THE READER by Daniel Pennac, illustrated by Quentin Blake, 2007. "Humane, humorous and deeply felt, this is a unique book about reading."

About the authorDaniel Pennac is one of the most translated authors in France, with books including "Dog" and "Eye of the Wolf" appearing in more than thirty languages worldwide.Daniel Pennac is a French writer. He received the Prix Renaudot in 2007 for his essay Chagrin d'école. After studying in Nice he became a teacher. Wikipedia

The Rights of a Reader was written after years of teaching in challenging schools!

About the illustratorQuentin Blake is one of the best known children's author/illustrators, illustrating books by Roald Dahl, John Yeoman and Michael Rosen.Quentin has moved a lot of his art into public spaces . Love it!Source: Walker Books -  Click on the link to the left to download the PDF version.

On the Walker Books site I also discovered  lists of books by THEME!.

• from
• Adoption/Fostering...............to 
• Walker Stories
• War and everything in between.
• 
  

Find book activities by title

Need an Activity for a Book?

Here's a list of books with activities by title.  (You can also find them listed by topic or listed by author.)
Their latest post is very tasty!  Visit the link below:

3 Green Eggs and Ham Treats: Virtual Book Club for Kids

Melted white chocolate drizzled on two pretzel sticks and topped with an M&M