All posts by Kate

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Google Cloud Print in Beta!

Printing… from your phone?! If you’re a Windows user and are lucky enough to have an iPhone or an Android smartphone, you can try out this new beta service now! Currently, your options for what to print are limited to select Google services. Additionally, it requires a special beta version of Google Chrome and will only send print jobs to printers that you’ve connected to your Google account. Review PCWorld’s article on this service, and follow the helpful steps they’ve provided to give it a whirl! Or you can bypass the PCWorld article and start directly with Google.

 Let us know how it goes in the comments area!

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

How do you measure the size of the internet?

Focus.com recently created a fantastic graphic that captures the “size of the internet”. Take a look at the graphic directly from the Focus.com site, or take a glance at Mashable.com to view the graphic and a brief analysis.

Who would’ve known that 36 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook every month?

Image: ‘Facebook Friends’  http://www.flickr.com/photos/4everyoung/2093186582/

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Minnesota Library Futures Initiative Update

On December 10th the Minnesota Library Futurists gathered at the St. Cloud Public Library to discuss the general outlook for Minnesota in 2025, with the goal of creating a common framework for the Futurist’s work in upcoming months.  In preparation for the meeting, Futurists researched current trends and outlooks for demographics, economics, education, and technology. For each of these areas, mini-SWOT analyses were performed.

 Additionally, Futurists analyzed and discussed the current political climate and how it could impact the library landscape in 2025. Ideas for how libraries will move forward into the future began to present themselves as the day came to a close.  These ideas have been recorded for further examination.

 The Futurists are also excited to announce that a website and blog are now available. The website is available at https://sites.google.com/site/mnlfi2025/home, and will be used to convey information about the MN Library Futures Initiative, the 23 Futurists, the key focus areas, future-forward bibliographies, archived recordings of guest speakers (when available), and plans for upcoming meetings. Feedback and ideas from the library community are welcome on the MNLFI blog at http://mnlfi2025.blogspot.com/?zx=4e5a215efb8b40d7. The blog will include updates from the Futurists, but the hope is that those with an interest in the future of libraries will also post to the blog. Questions, commentary, and ideas about the future are encouraged.

The group’s next meeting will take place at St. Paul Academy on Friday, January 21st. The focus for the day is technology.

School Media Specialist

Central Minnesota History Day @ SCSU Registration

 Do you have classes that are working on History Day projects at your school? If so, talk with the teacher(s) and have them sign-up for the History Day event described below by January 12th! We’d love to see you there as well! If your school registers, CMLE will contact you to determine checkout options.

 Please have the teachers use this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SCSUHistoryDay2011 for registration.

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St. Cloud State University offers help to local students with history research at Central Minnesota History Day @ SCSU

  St. Cloud – St. Cloud State University invites middle school and high school students to participate in “Central Minnesota History Day @ SCSU,” which will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22 in the James W. Miller Learning Resources Center at St. Cloud State University. Check in will begin at 10 a.m.

 St. Cloud State librarians and History Day staff have planned a day filled with research and training for all local students working on their National History Day 2011 projects. This year’s National History Day theme is “Debate and Diplomacy: Successes, Failures, Consequences.”

 St. Cloud State librarians and history and education students will help participants find books, articles and other resources in the Miller Center, write bibliographies, focus their topics, analyze and present their information, and add depth and personalized history to their projects.

 The registration deadline is January 12, 2011. All participants must register by completing the form at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SCSUHistoryDay2011.

 Teachers should register to bring their classes. Registration must include any adults who will accompany the student or group, including volunteers and parents. Students may register themselves if they are not part of a group coming with a teacher. Space is limited so register soon.

 Students participating in Central Minnesota History Day @ SCSU will learn about the resources for doing history research that are available to them in the Miller Center library at St. Cloud State, and other libraries throughout the state. They will learn to find books in the Miller Center and how to use online databases available to them at SCSU and from home. Students may also request materials from other libraries through the interlibrary loan service provided by the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange.

Students will be introduced to “Minnesota Reflections,” a growing collection of more than 55,000 digital copies of historical treasures from across Minnesota and to the collection of resources available through the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM).

 Central Minnesota History Day @ SCSU staff will make a special afternoon presentation on online collections to the adults accompanying the students.

 Lunch will be provided to registered participants. Parking in all SCSU surface lots, including the pay lot on the north of the Miller Center, is free on weekends. Parking is available on nearby streets as well. Fees apply in the parking ramp.

 Central Minnesota History Day @ SCSU is sponsored by the St. Cloud State History Department in partnership with Learning Resources & Technology Services, the College of Social Sciences, the College of Education, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange and the Minnesota Digital Library.

School Media Specialist

TIES Highlights: A CMLE Scholarship

The following was submitted by a CMLE scholarship recipient.

Submitted by: Nancy Lorentz, Becker High School Media Specialist

Monday’s speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, gave an inspirational as well as humorous keynote. He discussed the state of education in the United States, and our emphasis on standardized testing and continuing to train our young people for an industrialized economy that simply no longer exists. We need to expose students to all sorts of experiences–arts, music, movement, technology as well as academics so that they can discover where their passions and talents lay.

The most valuable sessions I attended dealt with the use and management of mobile devices in education–specifically the iPad, and putting content on-line (especially using Moodle).

Becker High School will be rolling out a one-to-one program next fall, and every student will be issued an iPad for use during the school year. One of the challenges we will face is management of over 800 devices–without any extra personnel. A seemingly great solution was presented by JAMF Software out of Minneapolis in their session titled, “Apple Mobile Device Management Using the Casper Suite.” Some of the management capabilities of the Casper Suite iOS device management software include: Remote Wipe, Remote Lock and Remove Passcode. Mail can be set up on devices remotely; configuration profiles can be pushed to devices; the App Store can be removed from student devices; LDAP groups can be used to push out content and it automates the Apple Volume Purchasing Program. Sadly, there is a cost of approximately $8 per device for this service, so there will need to be a discussion about how to pay for it.

Because of our one-to-one initiative, the other topic I was interested in at TIES is creating content for the iPad. There were several sessions about future of textbooks in our schools. With more and more content being available digitally, teachers are able to find free materials and customize them for their own courses. A California initiative (CK12.org) provides “flexbook” content free for anyone to download, although most of the content is presently math and science/engineering related. The availability of this type of digital content, the ePub capabilities in iWork, the ease of creating presentations and video on the iPad will someday (hopefully soon) make the purchasing of expensive textbooks unnecessary.

Presently, about 25% of BHS teachers use Moodle and our wiki to put their content on-line. When all of our students have access to iPads 24/7, that means they will also need access to our content 24/7. Moodle is a free and easy way for teachers to post assignments, upload worksheets, link to websites, and create lessons and quizzes that students can access any time. The blogging and forum features of Moodle and wikis also make it easy for students to communicate with their teachers and each other on a regular basis. The math department in Byron, MN has done away with textbooks completely and now have all of their content–including videos of their lessons–on Moodle. While they pay licensing fees for some resources, the rest is a blend of open education resources and teacher-created content. Wolf Creek Online High School has used Moodle as its content management system for the past three years, using forums and on-line texts and journals with students to create and foster relationships between the students and their Learning Managers, and amongst themselves. The teachers have put together learning modules to teach academics, technology, career planning and personal and social skills to their students.