Category Archives: General

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AASL Recommended App: Content Creation: Canva

canvaIn June 2016, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their 25 Best Apps for Teaching and Learning. The apps encourage qualities such as innovation and active participation, and are user-friendly.

The design tool Canva provides fonts, design templates, layouts, and more to use on social media or slide presentations. The app has more than a million images to choose from, and also allows you to use pictures uploaded from your camera roll. Great for use on school websites, flyers, and social media branding. The Canva site also features helpful tutorials.

Cost: Free
Level: Middle and High School
Platforms: iOS

The blog Disrupt Education has a great article about how to incorporate Canva into the classroom, with relation to teaching 21st century learning skills like succinct writing and using creative commons. Another site to visit that discusses the usefulness of Canva in schools is Ed Tech Teacher. Their article about using Canva includes examples, videos, and links to additional resources and articles.

Watch their promotional video:

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, General, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

Strategies to Simplify: Tip 5: Get it done!

“Work simply. Live fully.”  This week CMLE focuses on the following work productivity tip from Work Simply, Carson Tate’s popular book.  At CMLE, we’ve boiled down Tate’s wealth of knowledge from Work Simply to a few key points; please see the book for more detail and resources. At the bottom, see links to earlier tips in the series! Let’s all be our best selves….

This week’s activity: Implement best practices in completing your work.

Now that you’ve got your Master List of to-dos in one, easily accessible place, you can start knocking items off the list, right? Take a moment and consider these ideas from Work Simply about how to most efficiently complete your tasks, based on your Productivity Style.

Recently, you discovered your Productivity Style with a simple assessment.

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Work Simply

Find your Productivity Style for some personalized tips and tools for carrying out your tasks:

Prioritizer: Put similar tasks together in order to get more accomplished. You may like BaseCamp, a project management tool that integrates with e-mail and allows you to track tasks by project, upload files, and view calendars.

Planner: Determine in advance how much time and effort to devote to a task – and stick to it! Try Tom’s Planner, which uses Gantt chart software and allows collaboration.

Arranger: Protect yourself from the interruptions of e-mails and phone calls to keep your train of thought on track. You may find Collabtive useful, which allows groups to work together on projects and features instant messaging, time tracking, and file management.

Visualizer: Avoid the downward spiral of procrastination, and complete the quick or easy tasks first. Try LiquidPlanner, a Web-based program that helps teams collaborate by prioritizing tasks, making estimates, and managing resources and expectations.

Previous tips in this series

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ITEM Members: A call for your input!

This is a message from ITEM, asking for your input on the ESSA issues that will happen in your library! You always want YOUR voice heard in matters important to your work!!

If anyone would like to gather here at CMLE Headquarters prior to the St Cloud meeting on Oct 26, just let us know. We can meet here, have snacks to get fortified, and head over as a group. It could be a good opportunity to chat among ourselves about issues important here in CMLE, and how to best approach ESSA.

Please use the link from ITEM (below) to register for an event that is convenient for you!!

Continue reading ITEM Members: A call for your input! →

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, General, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

Celebrate Halloween at CMLE Headquarters!

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Halloween at CMLE!

At CMLE, we love holidays! We have decorated our office and are excited to celebrate Halloween.

20161005_120613If you are in the area on Monday, October 31st, stop by CMLE Headquarters located at 570 1st St. SE in St. Cloud, MN.

We would love to show you around our space, chat about books, libraries, and other fun topics, and of course, share some sweet treats!

Costumes welcome! Hope to see you then!

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Ancient library wars!

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Libraries were trophies in the ancient world

 

People generally think of librarians and other library folk as mild-mannered,  maybe even reserved, people that are passionate about books, learning, and information in general. But historically, libraries used to be a source of high competition and conflict!

This article from Atlas Obscura details how several dynasties in the ancient world had a constant rivalry with each other over which kingdom had the best library collection. The biggest competition was between the libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum (located in present-day Turkey). Kings poured their resources into preserving Greek culture and promoting scholarship, as well as acquiring ancient texts and writings to make their collections more valuable.

Of course, new ideas and interpretations of readings were important to keep libraries current and thriving. The article describes how competition to attract and keep scholars in libraries grew so fierce that the treatment of scholars became similar to today’s world of professional athletes: “Much like how athletes are drafted to rival teams in today’s sports, libraries “attracted scholars by offering one better wages than the other kings.” Sometimes, the kings took it a step further and actually put scholars in prison so they couldn’t take their intellectual pursuits to a different kingdom.

Today’s libraries may not have quite the same level of competition with each other, but they continue to be essential institutions in society, possibly because their value was discovered and preserved to such an extent in the ancient world.