RHSD3 Media Specialists' Blog

Have you seen this article?

2009-10-08T18:45:00.001-07:00

Two gurus in our field, Joyce Valenza and Doug Johnson, teamed up together to write this very informative article. It's title discusses the changes taking place in our field and how our roles have changed. I believe it is a challenge to us. This is a must-read. http://schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6699357.html

The link in the "Intellectual Property Rights" section has really made me rethink some things dealing with fair use.

Web 2.0.....

2008-08-01T13:19:00.001-07:00

I've spent a good bit of time this summer catching up on reading some journal articles and perusing some blogs that I never got around to during the school year. I have been paying lots of attention to the Web 2.0 articles to find ways that I might effectively incorporate some 2.0 technology into my school. My questions are: Who has already been using web 2.0 technologies succesfully? What types of things are you doing? Are you the one leading the Web 2.0 bandwagon at your school or are there teachers out there working with you?

Any thoughts.........

2009 AASL Conference in Charlotte

2008-07-27T14:17:00.001-07:00

Joyce Valenza is challenging library media specialists in the area to step up and volunteer in a variety of ways that demonstrate our leadership in technology by streaming, blogging, tagging photos, and other ways. The edtech world is leading the way at their conferences and she says she does not see technology used the same way at our library conferences. She is bringing a planning team to Charlotte in mid August and would love to have as many volunteers in place as possible. You can read more here: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/410030441.html?nid=3714

Since we will have returned to school by then, perhaps we can contact her and let her know we can provide assistance.

Core Collection Advisory Group

2008-04-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

If you volunteered to serve on the elementary, middle, or high school core collection advisory committee, I will be in contact with you next week to get this ball rolling. If you were not at the meeting yesterday and would like to volunteer, please email me.

Update from the LMS Supervisor's Spring Meeting

2008-04-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

(April 22, 2008)

Special Legislative Allocation
Eleven of the Rock Hill Schools' media centers received a portion of the $1,000,000 allocation. If you did receive the allocation, it is suggested that you spend the money now to update a target area of your collection. I will be sending out an accountability report that I will need to compile and submit this summer based on how this allocation was spent. I will forward this to you as soon as I receive it from the State Department.

The 2007-2008 survey will open May 1st and will stay open until September 30th. The format is the same as last year and most said it took about 30 minutes to complete. It is essential that you mark the survey complete after the last question. Please make sure you complete this survey and print a copy for your principal as well as for yourself. Martha Alewine will not print out any reports for individual media centers.

Summer Course - Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century
This course will be offered for 3 hours of graduate credit. The cost is $40 for registration with USC. The meeting dates for this course are May 15 (online 4:30-6:30), June 16-19 (in Columbia), and September 13 (in Columbia). Some of the topics covered in the course are: media literacy, creating podcasts, blogs, and using the new Bloom's.

Summer Reading Program - No Book Left Unread
This program will recognize the most pages read at the elementary level, middle level and high school level (June 1 - August 31). The deadline to register to participate is June 1 and the program is free. A report needs to be sent to Martha Alewine by September 15th. For more information, go to www..

K-12 ICT Scope and Sequence and the Simple Four
Martha shared the K-12 ICT Scope and Sequence along with the steps of the Simple Four. The skills included were identified in the National Standards for the 21st Century Learner by AASL and by ISTE. She asked the group to look at the way the standards are arranged and would like feedback on how some of these could be combined, and where each of these standards should be introduced, reinforced in the classroom, and where students should demonstrate mastery (independent use). She would like to have this ready when school starts back. If you are interested in helping, please send any feedback to Martha.

Office of School Leadership
Online professional development modules are being created for administrators. One of them focuses on the most important things that administrators need to know about school libraries. It is called “Together We Can: Building Partnerships Leading To Student Success”. Once an administrator goes through the modules on the CD, he/she can develop an active plan to support media centers.

Certification Issues
There are many concerns with the SDE certification of media specialists through alternative certification. It was suggested that a position paper should be presented to the office of certification and/or to talk to the SDE and suggest that they identify the core courses that need to be required for certification.

Reading First and 100 Book Challenge
Many books are being purchased through these programs for classrooms baskets or resource rooms. Media specialists need to be able to collaborate with these programs so that quality books are purchased. It was suggested that media specialists set up professional development in their schools or district in order to share titles of good quality books and authors. It was suggested to share the 100 Book Selection from Martha’s list [100 Suggested Titles for Elementary Students, 100 Suggested Titles for Middle School Students, 100 Suggested Titles for High School Students].

ETV/ITV update
ITV has a new blog. http://www.sdeitv.blogspot.com/

Our district will have the new delivery system (IP streaming) in place by June. The DELC will be a valuable service to the district with this system. You will be able to sign-in with a single username and password and have access to the following: Streamline, Know It All, PBS Kids, DISCUS, PBS Teachers, Annenberg Media, and Teacher’s Domain.

2007-2008 LMS Professional Development

2007-10-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

This years’ RHSD LMS staff development will center on the development of collection maps that will support each school’s unique curriculum maps. The first session will be held on Thursday, November 29 from 2:00 – 4:00. Martha Alewine, State Media Consultant will be with us to begin this process.

Thanks to Sara Curry and Judy Garner for volunteering the media center at RHHS for the location of this meeting.

You will sign up for this via the PD Planner so that your recertification credit will be posted correctly. I will send out instructions to this later.

Update from the September 2007 SCASL Supervisors Meeting

2007-10-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

ADEPT/GBE (Kathy Meeks, state ADEPT coordinator)

LMS ADEPT standards are different from those of the classroom teacher and will remain in place until 2009 at the earliest. While the classroom teachers’ GBE requirements will change before then, those for LMS will not.
Remember that your GBE should not take the place of systemic professional development.

News from the State Department (Martha Alewine, SDE Media Consultant)

Dr. Rex is reorganizing much of the SDE.
Martha Alewine is no longer located in the office of Technology, but in the Office of Standards and Learning.
Lexiles will likely become more and more important in the future when PACT is replaced.

Instructional Role of the LMS (M. Alewine)

Becoming more of a conversation at school’s look to everyone to improve instruction
Must ask where the LMC program is fitting in the school’s direction
Action Research should guide all LMC programs (one way is to use MAP testing results to open the dialogue)
“Ten Principles that Guide a Quality Library Media Program” can be found on Martha’s website – should be read by all principals and discussed
Create collection maps to justify budget proposals and support for the classroom teachers’ initiatives
Work with Advisory Committee

New SC English/LA Standards document (Allison Norwood, SDE)

Information parallels RHSD “unpacking” and “mapping” instruction
- focus on the Bloom’s verbs for level of rigor and assessment
LMS should play a key role in support of the instruction of these standards (as well as the SS literacy elements)

Lexile Framework (David Bell, Horry Co.)

When PACT is replaced, it is likely the new assessment tool will score in Lexile ranges (as MAP testing does)
Lexiles are for instructional reading and should NOT be used with recreational reading choices
Titlewave can be a big help in selecting books with Lexile levels

Core Collection (M. Alewine)

Should relate to content areas and technology
Not by grade level or title-specific
Periodicals available through DISCUS may count up to 50% minimum
eBooks only count if there is not a bound copy in the collection
Paperbacks can be counted if they are catalogued

LMS Survey (M. Alewine)

Closes September 30
$1 million in non-recurring funds will be distributed to participating libraries

Finally A Wiki that I like

2007-05-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to find a wiki--any kind of wiki outside of Wikipedia--that serves its users well. I particularly would like to see a class wiki, but I haven't seen many that I liked or that the purpose was obvious. A lot of my friends use Moodle, which is not really a wiki or a blog, but rather a more combined approach. But most who use them have them password protected (for good reasons) since their kids openly post and comment, or edit the site in its wiki sense. (I feel like I'm speaking a foreign language.) Here is a wiki that truly makes me "get it." It gives me something to show at SLI to ensure the principals or other administrators who haven't quite grasped Web 2.0 what it is, what it's capable of, and what its potential is. Check out his wiki from Princeton Public Library.

Thanks

2007-05-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

I have decided not to come to the end of the year/Fond Farewell get together at Julia's. I have a ridiculous amount of things to do, and quite honestly I don't feel like answering a lot of questions--there's nothing to report yet anyway. All that those who support me can say is "We don't understand." No worries though because I am happy and relieved. It's just another leap of faith, and I honestly believe I will land on my feet. No, I'm not interested in the NHS job---why try to go where you been declined twice before? I'm no longer interested in being in Rock Hill anymore. And actually, I don't even know what I want, because I withdrew my name from one I had already interviewed for Monday. I guess I'm just being selective now. My five years here have made me a significantly stronger person, and for sure a better teacher librarian. I can attribute some of that growth to working with this group. Thank you. I have a good solid offer, but right now there isn't a job my husband is interested in. And it will require us to move. So I do not know for sure what I will do. But I totally have my family's support. That's a good feeling too.
My principal summed it up nicely at our end of the year get together:

In August, it will be stated with shocking accuracy that Miss Nelson is Missing
NS will miss their grant writer, collaborator, and technology with my absence
In short--everyone will miss her, because of ENN--Everybody needs Nelson (ENN is our in house news show, the Explorers Network News)

For Lucy and Susan, we will all miss your enthusiasm and grace. You know we all bring our gifts, and each you have yours. Lucy, I can remember several times my first year calling you to inquire how to do things in Follett--you were the first outside of Liz to offer me assistance. Thanks eternally for helping me adjust. I did have a difficult time making the transition. Susan thank you for being a role model for grace. You have been the most graceful person I have known. You are a great role model, and I only hope to learn to be graceful like you. It is easy to see why your teachers will greatly miss you. I will too.

I will miss the informal get together's too. You are all fun to be around. I got to know some of you better this year than any other year. Karen, check with me at conference time next spring, and maybe you can room with me again.

Please understand and support my decision, folks. And pray that wherever I am and whatever I am doing, that I am successful and happy. I have decided no matter what, its not about the money or respect, and I am not working to be paid well (though that doesn't hurt) or regarded highly for any accomplishments. I just want to feel that I make an impact and kids are better for it.

Thanks to Ebinport and Sullivan

2007-05-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I was in a dilemma over a missing box of books intended for our annual field day book give away. I emailed the group trying to find a book fair so I could purchase enough books to get us through our day. On this day every kid gets to pick put a free book, and I wanted to be sure we had enough since we were missing one whole box (roughly 100 books.) Lisa R. of Ebinport and Betty J. of Sullivan managed to sell me some books at great discounts. From Ebinport I picked out a ton of discount books ($2.00 or less) and from Sullivan we selected a good number that were buy one get one free. Thanks ladies for bailing us out for our ever important annual book give-away on field day!

Update on the missing box: They were delivered Monday, April 16, and signed for--six boxes. We later determined that box number 1 never got in the building. But because we (our office staff) signed for them, it is our loss. The box still has not shown up. My thoughts are the delivery folks would have gotten in trouble if they got back to the warehouse with an undelivered box of books, and so the box was either dumped or busted open and put in an outgoing or incoming book fair. But that's just a guess. We will probably never know, even though we paid for them....Tsk, Tsk.

Librivox

2007-03-06T18:34:00.000-08:00

LibriVox: free audiobooks

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net (via podcast and catalog). Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.

Got this off the sunlink blog today. I plan to take it back to my teachers who are using recorded books and mp3 players. Many of these classics available on this site are very high AR point getters. Nobody said our kids couldn't "listen" to the story. And who knows? Having someone to read it to them mu=ight motivate them to read ahead or wowo, even finish these long works on their own!

Please write your legislators

2007-01-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, here is some flavor to add to your letter writing to legislators regarding the Strive for 25 campaign. Recently it was shared that there is $1,00,000 in the budget for school libraries. How does that translate into how much we get for our school. This was researched by Frankie Adkins:

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, in the fall
of 2003, South Carolina had 699,198 in public schools. That would come to about
$1.40 per child, or about 2 books per class if my math is right.

This food for thought as you compose your letters. You could add your own statistics, like your collection age, the average cost of library books (+$20 a book) and what your current budget allows you to purchase. Include science test scores and correlate it to your schools' science collection age. These are all RAW facts that will bolster the case for additional funding.

We really should come together as a group for the sole purpose of addressing this campaign.

South Carolina History Resources

2007-01-04T06:01:00.000-08:00

I would love input from elementary and secondary on this topic!

Lucy and I are trying to find the readibility level for the new South Carolina Encyclopedia (Walter Edgar - published last summer). All of Edgar's resources I've used have been hard for 8th graders to understand, but this may be geared towards a younger or more general audience.

Question 1: Does anyone know if this is appropriate for 3rd grade SC History?

Question 2: What other resources have you found that might help 3rd, 8th and high school teachers with South Carolina History?

Book Bag Lunch Grant Winners - Sara and Judy!!

2006-12-19T17:39:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Sara Curry and Judy Garner of Rock Hill High. They are among 24 teachers county-wide who have been awarded grants from Family Trust Credit Union for their proposal titled “Book Bag Lunch.” Am I the only one who reads the district updates? Way to go! Now details, ladies, details!! We want to hear all about it!

Speaking of grants, the SDE Teacher Grant Program (or Unit grant if you are feeling industrious and particularly collaborative) are due VERY EARLY this year--in January as a matter of fact. The SDE grant, if you haven't looked at it lately, reads a lot like a mini grant. So if you have an idea for an innovative project---consider writing it up as a teacher grant for $2000.
http://www.ed.sc.gov/agency/offices/grants/EIATeacherGrants.html
The district office wants the grants submitted by January 12, 2007 so that appropriate signatures can be obtained in a timely manner.

A Library Jeopardy PowerPoint

2006-11-14T17:58:00.000-08:00

This is so way cool! It is created by none other than Joyce Valenza. She posted it to her blog today, and she describes how it came to be. But I can see endless possibilities here. I have created jeopardy templates to use at school before (for myself as well as other teachers) but I love the simplicity of this design. Wouldn't it be really COOL if we made a PPT like this to play the game against legislators regarding the Strive for 25?? We could sponsor an OEC Jeopardy Library Tournament of sorts, invite our legislators to come out and play, and EDUCATE them not only on the cost of equipping the 21st Centruy Library, but also what today's libraries offer. Maybe this could even be a Foundation Grant, and (on a local level) the invitations could be extended to parents, other teachers, and district administrators! I think it's a good idea anyway....

Technorati Tags: Strive for 25 ,
Joyce Valenza

Strive for 25!

2006-11-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

If you attended the OEC conference on October 9th or the AASL Leadership training in Columbia in June, then you are aware of this opportunity. We are being asked to support this by writing letters to our legislators and by making the public aware of this need - to gain monetary support for books in our media centers. Now that the elections are over we need to flood our legislators with these letters. I feel that we could easily have success in getting our faculty to write, as well. Also parents. I have wanted to pursue this for some time but have lacked the time to do this. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how this could be done so we make a united effort? We were told to be specific as to where our school's needs are, such as "new science books due to new standards", etc. Is this something we should ask Mike F. (OEC) for help with? Let's make this happen!

Web 3.0? Gimme a Break!

2006-11-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

Just as I am getting used to the idea of Web 2.0, there is an article in the newspaper this morning about the upcoming Web 3.0. Instead of giving you tons of information gathered from existing sources, it will go a step further and customize information just for you. For instance, instead of giving a hotel a 4 star rating, you can search for the hotels with specific information, such as the most comfortable bedding, etc. Education searches to seek out universities best for you or your child can be identified. Also, (and this is my favorite), you will be able to use it to customize your vacations, just like a live travel agent by specifying what price you want to pay, what kind of climate you desire, and if you have children going with you. You can do this today but you have to sift through tons of information. This will give you a vacation package planned just for you!

2006-11-08T08:17:00.000-08:00

How clever of you, Meredith, to make us post to find out information! I'm sorry I missed the informal session, but hope to attend future ones.

Just testing you....

2006-11-06T16:36:00.000-08:00

Don't forget that anyone can post a new topic! Just go to www.blogger.com and login!

I'm sure Cathy and I aren't the only ones who have been checking here lately for information, but we seem to be the only ones posting. You can respond to the posts here by clicking on "comments".

So, just to test (and tease) you, I'm going to give you only half of the new information about the November 20th meeting.....yes, it changed even as of today! Some of you may know a little more than others, but no one knows all of the details....(ha, ha, ha....)

Date: November 20th
Time: 1:30 - 3:30
Location: The Flex??? RRMS??? DO???
Topic: DISCUS??? MAPS??? Neither???
Others in attendance: ???

In order to get all of the information, we will need to have at least 16 different media specialists to comment to this post. Your comment can be short and sweet...but please comment! Good sports will get a "prize" at the meeting.

November 1st Informal LMS Meeting

2006-11-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

I think everyone who was able to attend the informal LMS meeting last week would agree it was time well spent.

The discussion Cathy Nelson led on media center webpages evolved into a great conversation involving a number of cool technology ideas and Jane Daffine gave everyone helpful information about applying for grants. If any of you took notes and want to post some of those ideas for everyone else to read, please do so!

Perhaps the group would like to do this again on a different day?

Joyce Valenza's Library Webpage Web Quest

2006-11-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/evallib.html
As promised last week, here is the Library Web Page "web quest" published by Joyce Valenza. She has many examples of what she considers "best practice." Even if you do not want to go through the webquest, you can glean tips, ideas, or useful links from the listed sites to consider as additions to yours.

Her media center website is awesome as well--definitely a best practice example for middle and high school.

Agnes Pflumm Website

2006-10-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here is the website for the Agnes Pflumm series. You may want to share with your teachers. I will be posting it on the Northside school's website and on my Teacher Technology blog (TechnoTuesday Blog). I had heard Merry Southgate 7 years ago while I was in Aiken. It was a workshop we were invited to at the Ruth Patrict Science Education Center at USC-Aiken. Merry Southgate has also attended and presented at SCASL before, so if you were thinking "I know that name from somewhere..." you probably did. If memory serves me well, Marcy Yates of one of the private prep schools (Mason Prep?) in Charleston helped Merry launch her career as a consultant. But I may be wrong on that tidbit. If you did not get to attend today, there is a second meeting planned that will cater to the artsy side of her presentation. I for one am going to request to be allowed to attend since my school is an Arts Based Curriculum (ABC) school and an identified "Distinguished Arts Program" award recipient. I would love to see that part of the presentation. Dr. Jawarowski is the reason Merry Southgate came today. I hope my principal can garner me this invitation.

K12 Online Conference

2006-10-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

http://k12onlineconference.org/
It's MUST SEE and MUST hear info. What a novel idea! An online conference (virtual in every aspect of the word) where you can actively participate through blogging, podcasting, videos, and wikis, or you can be a passive observer, and just soak up the information. You can even apply for renewal credits.

DavidWarlick's opening Keynote address was yesterday, and last evening he participated in a Firelight Chat (using Elluminate) that was incredible. It was called a "firelight" chat because we would all be illuminated by the glow from our computer screens!! This goes on for two more weeks, and is chocked full of experts and more, all sharing about Web 2.0 in education. And BEST, I was afraid it would cater to the experts and expereinced, but no, it is for even the most uncomfortable beginners. Might want to check it out.
Technorati Tag: K12onlineconference

RSS explained

2006-10-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

Chris Harris' blog "Infomancy" has a really good explaination of RSS and RSS feeds. You can read it by clicking here.

Are you fuzzy on Bloglines?

2006-10-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

David Warlick's preconference workshop and one of his sessions went over setting up yourself a Bloglines account. He has extensive handouts on his site. Here is a link to the one that helps you set yourself up for tracking the blogs you are interested in reading about, but may not have time to "visit" everyday. Bloglines will "notify" you when new material is posted. Visit his site for everyhing he talked about in Myrtle Beach.

Technorati scedtech2006

News from Library Supervisors Roundtable

2006-10-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended the LMS Leadership Roundtable and want to pass along the information.

Position shortages
The shortages of certified LMS have led to many districts filling positions with candidates going through the PACE program. PACE hire-ees (my word & I like it) no longer have to have a Masters in Library Science and the course requirement has been lowered to 24 hours (with only 9 required from USC Lib School). PACE is easier on the districts/candidates that can not afford the internship since there is no internship required nor the PRAXIS. Much discussion was held and the Roundtable as well as all LMS need to hold conversations with anyone who can create any/all of the following changes.
A. The state department - the requirements for the PACE program need to be more in line with the background and training that the job necessitates
B. The USC School of Lib. Science - this program needs to be much more flexible with indistrict internships and inschool mentoring internships
C. The state department - the office of Teacher Certification needs to recognize the growing shortage of LMS and look at accepting/promoting a Bachelor of Science degree with emphasis of Library Science

Library Supervisors Roundtable (SCASA)
Apparently SCASA recently said that there is no such entity. This roundtable was formed initially for communication and credibility. The group will continue to meet and a committee was formed to petition SCASA to recognize this group as a subgroup of SCASA.

External Review (Someone please edit this for clarification - my notes are fuzzy here - ER of what?? SACS?? NCLB??)
For the 2007-2008 year only the first 3 of the 8 target indicators will remain, but no benchmark standards will be included. The 3 indicators cover collaboration, size & age of collection, and flexible scheduling. A future concern is that the size & age target indicator will be omitted because it does not tie to legislation and is not funded. M. Alewine felt that we are fortunate to have the 3 indicators remain included and not to have lost all indicators in the wave so has not made much noise on this. Remember the whole point of ERT is to look at ways to improve student achievement.

Funding
School libraries are back in the 07-08 General Assembly budget request. The one million dollar request is not a line item, but a special allocation. It was noted that this amount will not go far statewide, but the funding was last approved in 1999.

The $25/student funding (= 1book/student) is still in discussion in the Education Oversight Committee. This money, if approved, will be specifically for print resources and not technology.

Data Collection
This will be the buzz topic for school administrators next year, especially tying data to test scores. LMS are encouraged to use MAPS scores to determine the impact their programs have/can have on student achievement.

SCASL Conference
Both the March 2007 and 2008 SCASL Conferences will be held in Columbia. The group signed a 2 year contract with the convention center.

School Advisory Committees
As more and more books are challenged, you are encouraged to develop a School Advisory Committee to work with you on collection choices.

SPATIAL - New Student Association
Apparently there used to be a student association (again help me out here someone - it sounded like schlossa??) that was parallel to FBLA or HOSA. There is interest in SCASL helping to develop SPATIAL that focuses on Information Science. The group would include student assistants and anyone interested in the field itself. A service component would be a major focus in the program. SPATIAL - Student Professional Association of Technology Information And Library Sciences

Martha Alewine's Blog
You may want to add Martha's blog to your list. www.scschoollibraries.blogspot.com

Speaking of Blogs
Remember, instead of going to each one of the blogs you like in order to check to see if anything new has been posted, have Bloglines do this for you! Bloglines will keep up with what you've viewed on ALL of the blogs you subscribe to and give you all of the updates to all of the blogs in one place. Then you just check one place ( http://www.bloglines.com/ ) to get the new stuff. If you are really sweet, maybe Cathy Nelson will share her blogroll with you - that will give you a bunch of Media Center blogs and Ed Tech blogs and you can add your favorites to them and delete the ones you don't want.

The Library Supervisors Roundtable will meet again in January.

An EASY Grant

2006-09-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

Many of you know my passion in grant writing. I stumbled across this one last week. EASY,EASY,EASY! It is located at this site
My Hometown Helper.
FAQS:
Deadline: each month by the last day of the month, through May 31, 2007. General Mills Sales, Inc. and Hamburger Helper are offering grants of up to $15,000 each month from September 1, 2006 through May 31, 2007. All requests for funding must be sponsored by a municipal or civic organization such as a public library or school.When evaluating requests, the review committee will favor organizations the meet the following criteria:
Demonstrate a need in a community;
Illustrate a helpful, creative or innovative concept that meets this need;
Clearly identify change/s that can be made as a result of receiving the award. The online application consists of a 250 word description of the grant project. Applicants can request a one time award for a minimum of $500 and a maximum of $15,000 during any single month. One example grant project on website is for computers for a library or school.To apply, visit http://myhometownhelper.com.

How to Blog

2006-09-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

I have created a weblink with directions for blogging for visitors that are new to blogging. It can be found at this site: How to Blog if you are not a Blogger
In surveying my teachers and students, I found that most just did not understand what to do in the blog, though they enjoyed reading it. So I returned to my desk and created poster-sized directions for them to hang above their classroom computers. I am hoping more will now begin to post. After further thought, I decided to make the directions available via our school website. That way anyone who is cruising through our school's website and wants to post a response, but is new to blogging can click on the links for directions. Then, after further thought, I decided to add the link of directions to the links on the blogger sites. So now it is permanently a part of the blogs themselves. I knew that one day my html coursework would come in handy. Up until now, I've only used it occasionally. If you would like a copy of this, you can visit the link from above to see what step-by step directions I made, and even download the "poster" which is really just a Powerpoint printed out and taped together. NOTE however that these directions are specific to "blogspot" sponsored blogging sites, and are geared for "non-members" for the most part. Other blogging programs will behave similarly, but there will be slight nuances to how they work. Feel free to use this, modifying it to suit your school and educational community's needs, if you so desire.

Cathy

I learned something new today

2006-09-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry I had to skip out today. I am teaching a small group of kids afterschool about digital photography, and it starts right at 2:30, so I left right at 2:00. I didn't park as Julia advised, and it took some minor pleading with a few parents to let me out of the parking lot. I got back to school JUST in time. Our photography group has a blog, and you can see it at http://nsesphoto.blogspot.com/ Hopefully there will be some links to the students' work soon. Oh--and their parents too...the K-2nd grade participants had to have a parent or older "buddy" to help them. (We only have two 1st graders, and their Moms are more than delighted to be involved and learning too.)

I have some limited experience with blogging. I do consider myself still a beginner. Today Meredith made me aware of referencing images to online sources or databanks. Up until now, I have just used ones on my hardrive. It is true that storing the images online allows for a picture to never "disappear" and so I am investigating these storage sites. I do have a Flickr account, but I am very interested in looking into photobucket and even bubbleshare.

I am glad I did not skip this meeting, because it seems Meredith and others are helping us cast a vision for our roles in the district. I keep coming back to a phrase I have heard repeatedly over the past year...If it is to be, it's up to me. I am purposefully expanding my comfort zone, and initially I was confused and uncomfortable with blogging. But that was true about many areas. Do any of you remember all my rants about Follett when I first began using it? Isn't it great that I can reflect on that and laugh at myself?

Wait until you try to edit that template for links!! Hope you remember some of that html you may have had one time. But really, it's not that bad. Anyway, it was fun to see everyone, and I just want to let you know that I'll be glad to help anyone who is struggling to understand. I am by far no expert, but I do feel "somewhat" equipped to give a helping hand.

Cathy Nelson
Northside