I'm Number 2!

I'm my former library media professor's number two choice for a guest spot for the online part of one of his classes this week!  It's an honor, I tell you.  I knew forwarding him those Honey Badger Don't Care videos would pay off one day.

But seriously, it'll be interesting to see how it goes.  I had an email exchange with him not long ago about Google's cool Power Searching class (which is happening right now and is totally worth it). Since he teaches course design, I thought he might find it interesting.  So I may be talking with the class about that or anything else they want to talk about. I know one of the more interesting things we did when I was working on my degree was getting the opportunity to talk to some real live working media specialists about what they do.  (Now if I could only figure out what it is I do...)

So if there's anything you think I should tell them or if you are visiting the blog because you are in Dr. Clinton's class, then post your comments and questions in the comments and I'll try to answer as many as I can!

Today, the end

So now it's 4pm and I've shut out the lights and locked up (since we have all that book fair merch).

The classes went well.  We had a few more preview classes.  There was an overlap in which a K class was not quite finished previewing (and being loud) while I was still finishing up my second Specials class and they wanted to check out.  Had to stall for a few minutes before I could give the 3rd graders directions while the noisy K kids were hustled out.

In my Specials classes, I've been reading them a GA Children's Book Award Nominee every week, then going on with an unrelated lesson.  I have a librarian friend who makes a killer website every year about the nominees and even includes some self-made read-aloud videos.  (He got me to read Moonshot this year.)  Then I usually do something with a Scholastic News article or something with one of the paid databases on the county's research site.

But this week I just wanted to share the inspiration from the Caine's Arcade site.  I'm sure you've heard of this kid.  Last year he spent the summer creating his own cardboard box arcade in his Dad's auto part shop. A customer made a short film of it that went viral.

Now there's a second film and the kick of to a foundation based on fostering the creativity of kids.  So I showed my groups both videos this week and we talked about ideas for getting involved.  We'll see if anything come of it.  They were especially knocked out by the appearance of Jack Black and the Chief Engineer of the Mars Curiosity Rover.

The cool thing was, the two books I'd set aside for this rotation's reading weeks ago fit the theme perfectly!  Dave the Potter  is about a slave who was a potter and made stuff.  When A Dragon Moves In is about using your imagination.  So connecting them to Caine's Arcade was easy and fun.

Then I helped the counselor print out some stuff for her bulletin board.  I remembered to play that Johnny Appleseed movie right a t 2!  I rang up a couple after school sales to teachers and put some more stuff on hold for them.  I ran the dismissal slides for bus call.  I introduced the new ESOL teacher to Language Masters and taught her to download and use Audacity so she can use it to record students reading aloud, then they can hear themselves and work on their fluency.

How was your day?

Have a great weekend everybody!

It Takes Flexibility!

It takes more flexibility than you know to be the school librarian.  I posted about this topic earlier in the month for my monthly GLMA post.  The past couple of days have been shining examples of this as well.

What would you do if there was an unplanned morning morning meeting that ran right up until you had to run the morning broadcast/announcements show and then you have a slight window of opportunity to set up for an incoming class but as they are walking in the door you realize you can't do the lesson you've planned because of a technical problem.  You have a class of 4th graders patiently waiting (if you're lucky) and all you have is a cart with you lesson junk on it (including last week's almanac lesson with a stack of 25 almanacs on the cart).  If you're me, then you say, "You liked that almanac lesson so much last week, I've decided to extend it!"

This is commonly referred to as making lemonade.

Now what if it's Monday afternoon and an administrator says, "You always have good ideas. We're having choice professional learning sessions TOMORROW [my emphasis] and I'm short a presenter. Could you throw something together for TOMORROW MORNING? [again, my emphasis added]." You say, "Sure, no problem!" (Probably because you are nuts.)

What would you do?  If you're me you think of the most generic librarian presentation you can (hopefully something you've seen many times) and cobble it together quickly using ideas stolen borrowed from presenters you've seen in the past.  Web 2.0 it is!  Using a pre-made Prezi template, I made this presentation which focused on Google Docs (indispensable and always more to talk about whether the audience uses it or not), Prezi itself (because PowerPoint is evil and since they're seeing it in action, it's easy to show them how to use it), and some other little fun tools.  The part on Prezi led to other creative sharing sites like Animoto and Glogster.  We also talked about Youtube's new Education site.  There were a few more.

Then I made a quick and dirty website to share the links for those interested and...Wham!  I look like I know what I'm talking about, people seem happy, and I've already had three teachers in here asking me to show them some of this stuff in more detail for certain educational applications.  And not all of the visitors were even at this morning's presentation!

Whew!

You have any examples of working on the fly like that?  I'd love to hear how you handled it.

Tweet!

On the right sidebar you'll see a link to my Twitter feed.  Google has done away with their "share" thing I was using to add links of interest to the right sidebar.  They were usually articles, posts or videos I found interesting or funny but didn't feel like working into a whole post.  Now I've added a Twitter doodad to my browser so will share links that way instead.

I'm not into the whole social networking thing.  Facebook and Google+ just didn't do anything for me.  I always sign up for stuff like that then remember that I don't have enough time for them or maybe I just don't like anybody.  Heh heh.  Twitter is good because there's a whole lot less decisions to make. It doesn't care about filters or circles or whatever.  And with their "list" feature, you can follow and unfollow more people than anyone needs to know about.  So yeah, whenever you want to see stuff I've been noticing online, that's the stuff right over there.

So now I'm on The Twitter...

...and you can follow me @library_jim.

I mentioned some of my thoughts about using this service at the GLMA blog this morning.

I think I didn't like it much the last time I tried it because I already had too many "buckets" to check. Home email, school email, feed reader, etc.  But lately I've been trimming my feed reader down to give myself more actual reading of books time and they've opened up Twitter at my school.  When I'm home I'm one of those odd ducks that likes to actually interact with their families.  But lunchtime at school?  I'd much rather see what's up on Twitter which is more like an interactive feed reader to me at this point.

Let me know of any tips you have since I've just started dipping my toe back into it.

Tuesday Morning Links

Is a Bookless Library Still a Library?

Wikipedia Aims Higher

Nine Fish With ''Hands'' Found to Be New Species

Diver Snaps First Photo of Fish Using Tools

Links, the Oxford Comma, and the Funny

I first heard of the sort of demise of the Oxford Comma from bookshelves of doom.  She was dismayed and I had a similar reaction.

But then Tim over at Baby Got Books put up this brilliant post with some hilarious tweets and a soundtrack!

Just...wow.

Enjoy.
____________
update: the Oxford comma lives!  I just love Linda Holmes.  Read it, it's great.

Do Me A Favor

Click on this link: https://etax.dor.ga.gov/TagContest.aspx and vote for any of the license plate choices that don't mention a deity.  I don't really care one way or the other which design wins, but I am just tired of people trying to squeeze their particular point of view onto stupid things like, for instance, car license plates of all things.  Buy a bumper sticker instead like everybody else.

I voted on the one pictured above because, as others have previously noted, it looks a bit like a horse's patootie.  Which cracks me up.

Thanks!

Nature's Fury - Text 90999 to Help

click image to help

Photos from The Big Picture

Photos from the AJC (I was just boating on Lake Burton a couple weeks ago!)

Text 90999 to give $10 to the Red Cross.

Friday Links

The first step to being a good critical thinker is seeing if you are wrong.  Kathryn Shultz, author of Being Wrong, now has a great TED talk on this as well.  Well, I thought it was pretty good.  But, you know,  I could very well be wrong about that.

Roger Ebert had a great essay on the idea of being "well-read."  It led to another essay by NPR's Linda Holmes,  The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything.

And I've heard a lot about the Khan Academy, but only recently started watching some of the videos.  Great stuff and worth sharing!

Laura Miller at Salon points out that while the Three Cups of Tea guy may be a liar, it's really the cheating that sucks more.

And does anyone have experience with Jump Math?  It sounds very intriguing. I'm intrigued!

Morning Linkage

Jenny, one of the most insightful classroom teacher bloggers you'll ever read at Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It generously opened up her classroom for this series of short videos on how she is using VoiceThread with her first graders!  Wow.

When I used to run the children's section at a big box bookstore I would often have parents come in and actually consider dropping eighty to a hundred bucks on nonfiction books on like Lewis and Clark for a report their kid had to do over the weekend.  I'd ask, um, what about the public library? Often they would smack themselves on the forehead V-8 style.  I don't know what it is about people forgetting about the public library, but Linda Homes over at NPRs Monkey See blog has a great post up about rediscovering the joys of the library.

Roger Ebert has really found his writing voice since losing his physical one.  Here's a TED talk that was just released about his experiences.  He "talks" about how social media has saved his sanity because it's a kind of conversation he can still participate in.  He has even "met" many other disabled people who connect this way. He mentions one blog in particular that if you can laugh with a politically incorrect disabled person that calls his blog Smart Ass Cripple, than you'll love it. Enjoy!

And did you see that if you don't mind ads on your screensavers, you can now get a Kindle for $114!?  I read a theory online (sorry, didn't keep the link) that if their price decreases keep going the way they have since the Kindle first debuted that it'll be basically free with some bundled package of ebooks or Amazon Prime by November.  Nothing surprises me anymore.

Check out the "News & Blogs" stuff I share in the right column for more continually updated fun and interesting links.

Morning Linkage

Tennessee doomed?: Antievolution bill passes in the house; Creationists notch big win in TN

Lost Dr. Seuss books to be published!

Richard Peck is awesome.  Big Kahuna Round of the battle of the books.

Global warming skeptic changes his tune - by doing the science himself: I think my favorite part of this story is  that this study was funded by the Koch brothers.  Heh, heh.

Sneak Peek at the New "Elizabeth Bird Reading App!"

See that icon on the right end there?  That's the icon for the new "Elizabeth Bird Fuse #8 Reading App!"  Yes, of course I stuck it right next to my Angry Birds app just to be silly. (Get it?  Angry Birds?  Elizabeth Bird?  Oh, never mind...)

Here's my daughter interacting with one of the graphically-enhanced read-alouds:

She enjoyed the graphics, the sound, the cartoon characters, everything.  It is definitely pitched a little younger than her age group (she'll be in third grade next year and this seemed to be just about right for preK through 2nd) but it was still fun for her.  We'll definitely recommend it to her younger cousin's family.

Be sure to check out the "Parents and OTher Grown Ups" tab.  There are many booklist, read aloud suggestions and even a KidLit Drink Mix Guide!  Ms. Bird and company have thought of simply everything!

Elizabeth Bird Fuse #8 Reading App

NPR: The Saga Continues

NPR: The Saga Continues by Bill Moyers

And even Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss told an interviewer, "You know, an awful lot of conservatives listen to NPR. It provides a very valuable service. Should we maybe think about a reduction in that? Again, I think the sacrifice is going to have to be shared by NPR as well as others. But I think total elimination of funding is probably not the wisest thing to do."

Good for you, Senator. Because without public radio, the reactionaries among us will hold a monopoly on the airwaves.

Read the whole thing.  Bill Moyers nails it as usual.

Washing Machines = Literacy!

Hans Rosling is always fascinating.  If you haven't seen them, he has many more inspiring talks on TED.

Morning Links

Why Argue? Helping Students See the Point (ScienceDaily)

     I work on this with my 4th and 5th graders as much as I can.

Richard Wiseman Paranormality Interview

     "we're going to get loads of mail"

A life lesson from a volunteer firefighter (TED)

     Inspiring!

Quote of the day:

“It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.”

Bertrand Russell 

British philosopher, mathematician

(via dailysource)

Tsunami!

It's too bad I used this as my major read-aloud a couple of weeks ago.  It would be perfect now.

That's okay.  We're in the middle of a crazy book fair and I'm not seeing all of my classes this week anyhow.  Maybe I'll read it to some of my older students and we can talk about what's been going on in Japan.

It's a truly magnificent book.  From the cover it may look like every other non-fiction disaster book for kids but it's really a perfect little tale of a wealthy rice farmer who sets his crops ablaze to save the people of his village.  He is on a mountainside tending the fields as the entire village is reveling in a celebration down on the beach.  First there is a "spongy" earthquake but then only he sees the tsunami coming.  To the horror of the grandson at his side, he begins furiously burning his valuable crops to lure the villagers up the mountain.  The scheme works and the people are save by his act of human kindness as the village is scoured from the earth below.

The illustrations are done in a fantastic mixed-media collage style the makes it feel earthy and timeless at once.  When you get to the two-page spread with the dark and ominous wave bearing down, I'm sure you'll agree that this is a powerful book that hits all the right notes.

It ends with a celebratory tone and a humanist message of people helping others.

Which reminds me: here's the place to help out Japan.

Tsunami!

Happy and Sleepy

Just got back form the GA Children's Literature conference in Athens and a good time was had by all.  I'll give a full report as soon as I can, but at the moment I'm trying to go through my email and reader and do laundry.

It's also nice to know from the comments that Mr. Buckner practically has a posse of villagers with pitchforks and torches after his butt.  Heh heh.

In the meantime, the Guardian has a new Children's Books section that looks pretty cool.  Give it a look see and we'll discuss soon.

GCBA

Guardian Children's Books

How the Internet Gets Inside Us

The Information: How the Internet gets inside us by Adam Gopnik at the New Yorker is one of the best and most sensible things I've read about that crazy force/source called the Internet.  He reviews all the major writers on the subject and boils them all down into an amazingly clear essay.  You may have read one or two of these and made a handful of observations about our relationship with the digital world, but Adam Gopnik, one of our best essayists, writers and thinkers, sums it all up so well that you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't read his thoughts on the subject before engaging in any further ruminations of your own.

Below are all the authors and books he mentions in the article.  It's practically a syllabus for an amazing and contentious media studies class, no?  Best of all, the article is bookended by an image of Hermione Granger in the stacks of the library at Hogwarts.  Enjoy and let me know your thoughts.

Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? edited by John Brockman

The Book In the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree

Supersizing the Mind by Andrew Clark

The Sixth Language by Robert K. Logan

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

Hamlet's Blackberry by William Powers

Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

Too Much to Know by Ann Blair

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander

Within the Context of No Context by George Trow

The Age of Missing Information by Bill McKibben

Boo!

Yesterday was crazy, what with our district's Reader's Rally and a bunch of other stuff going on.  But my monthly GLMA post went up and it's the second one that the Georgia Coordinator of Library Media Services has requested permission to reprint in their monthly media newsletter.  I told her, heck, feel free to just tell me what you want me to write and I'll write it!

In other news, I'll be attending the Georgia State Children's Literature Conference next month.  YOu may read about me in the papers because I plan on sneaking up behind Mary Downing Hahn and shouting "Boo!"  I'm sure she never gets tired of that joke.  Hope to see some of you there!

UPDATE: They have a new website!