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The Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange (CMLE) is one of seven regional multitype library systems established to meet the needs of and share the resources of all types of libraries. We love libraries, and are here to support them!
Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

50 Great Mobile Apps for Librarians

The theme of the 16th annual Internet Librarian Conference this year was Transformational Power of Internet Librarians: Promise & Prospect. As the conference planners point out, Internet librarians have been revolutionizing the Net for many years, and are poised to transform their communities in exciting new ways. Technologist  keynote speaker David Weinberger said, we have to “build networks that make us smarter.” This event showcased leading-edge tools, strategies and techniques for transforming campuses, communities and organizations.  One of the presentations that might interest you was given by Richard Le, SanRafael Public Library, and Tom Duffy, San Francisco Public Library. Together they shared the 50 mobile apps most useful to them as librarians. Its always interesting to compare your favorite tools to theirs to see how many are a match.

Go to their  slideshare presentation at http://50apps.weebly.com/presentation.html and who knows, maybe you will pick up at least one new tool that perfectly suits your needs. I know I did!

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

My Report on the iOS (iPad) in the Classroom Event

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The following observations, musings, and missteps are from my perspective, and by no means capture the brilliance of the presenters or the content at this well-attended  event! Your humble reporter…..Patricia….

Sartell Middle School hosted this free, three-hour Apple event on Wednesday, November 14th (we did an earlier blog post about registration). The event was fast paced and invigorating and many people identified new learning they could apply immediately. I will share a few of the highlights, including the areas where I observed audience engagement and excitement.

Things I Learned about iOS 6

  • Once you move to iOS 6, you can’t go back
  • 200 new features
  • Can lock the device into a single app (to contain students)
  • Guided access allows you to lock parts of the screen while in an app (student control)
  • Your Google Apps will no longer crash with this operating system.

Two hours was spent on short presentations from representatives from Central MN schools. Schools  included: Becker, Sartell, Little Falls, Milaca, and St. Cloud. Presentations were modeled after the famous TED talks, and the presenters did a great job.  It was so inspirational to see a 39-year, veteran teacher (Milaca)  energized and excited about new ways of teaching the subject he loves (biology). Most districts admitted that some teachers are very engaged, others struggle more, so there is plenty of coaching and assistance still needed. A few highlights from the talks or the Q & A that followed:

  • Becker has been doing its 1:1 iPad initiative for several years now, and they are taking pause to ask teachers which apps they use the most. Then, Director of Instructional Technology Ryan Cox, hopes to help teachers develop deeper skill levels with those apps. The three apps that rose to the surface in Becker are: Socrative, Edmodo, and Showbie.
  • I have always wondered how elementary teachers share a complicated url and get their little fledglings safely to a website. Angie Kalthoff, Technology Integrationist at St. Cloud Schools shared that she uses an app called Chirp!
  • An Apple rep shared that if you are looking for an app for moving files around more easily, you may want to invest in Good Reader, the true “swiss army knife” for these tasks!
  • “Release the hounds” became a popular phrase with presenters. When trying to make this shift in education in integrating technology, the teacher cannot possibly know everything ahead of time. Teachers are masters of the subject area, but often need to challenge the students to figure out how they might use a specified app to do their subject-specific-project work. In other words, “release the hounds!” and have them report back to the class! Students love it….
  • I am going to bite the bullet, spend $10, and buy the Keynote app for doing presentations on my iPad. Enough with finding a workaround solution already.
  • Just when I thought I knew something, I learned differently. I assumed that all schools who are doing the 1:1 initiatives, were also doing flipped classrooms, when in fact, Little Falls, who has also been 1:1 for a few years, has deemed that flipped classroom will not serve their purposes! Moral of the story: Stay humble in what you think you know in any given moment!
  • Sadly, I thought I had found the app of my dreams….in a mad scrawl I wrote down, Touch Feel Go, and it was an app that enables you to take a picture of a pdf, which turns the doc into a form that you can type directly into. Then, you can email the doc, or drop it into Dropbox too. Unfortunately, I can find no such app. If you were at this event and can solve this mystery for me, please save me by typing in the comments field to this post. Thanks!
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Learnist: Like Pinterest only Different?

We can tell from our blog stats that many of you either already love or have an interest in Pinterest. Learnist is a website (app) that is similar to Pinterest and is designed for educators. Read about how English teacher Hauna Zaich uses Learnist in her eight and tenth grade classes. Zaich says, “This year, I wanted to incorporate elements of a flipped classroom into my teaching, and I found that Learnist was a great tool for that. In the classroom, I’ve used Learnist as a practical option for my lessons, and students were receptive to the Learnboards I created to teach grammar. (Here are two that I used to help teach tenth graders about passive and active voice and verb tense and verb agreement.) I think my students found the mix of reading, examples, videos and online practice activities to be helpful.” Read the full article at Edutopia.org/Hauna Zaich’s blog (11/12)

Academic, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

14 Ways Public Libraries Are Good for the Country

An oldie but a goodie, this information has been offered before in other venues. It resides on the iLoveLibraries.org site (an initiative of the American Library Association). This little list is a great source to review so you have a solid set of talking points as we move into new relationships with legislators. You always need to have your “elevator speech” ready!

It is sometimes harder (takes more time too) to explain and speak to the virtues and issues of special, school, and academic libraries, because without a full explanation about funding streams and mission, it is easy jump to a conclusion of redundancy. But most legislators fully understand public libraries, a well-loved, well understood concept. The concise little list of 14 is available at http://tinyurl.com/8ryvrfx 

*The list linked to in this post originally appeared in the Librarians Books of Lists (Chicago: ALA Editions, 2010).

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Curb Your Librarian Frustration in 8 Steps

Are you feeling a bit discouraged, negative, or hopeless in your work? It happens to the best of us from time to time, so don’t be too hard on yourself, but also take action! If you have adopted a passive “whatever” attitude, take action now. Stephen Abram’s blog post on this subject is exactly what we all need to refocus and revisit our passion. You’ve heard the saying, “teach like your hair is on fire?” Librarians are teachers, coaches, advisors, mentors…the list goes on! Can you even imagine how we could change the world if we approached our work with the passion we had when we started our careers? You are in for a treat…read Stephen’s blog post at http://tinyurl.com/b224qdj  and engage in librarianship again like your hair is on fire!