At least week’s MLA Conference, I had the privilege of presenting with Minnesota School of Business Librarian, Krista Jacobson, on using Pinterest to market your library. This seems to be a topic of interest to a fair number of people as the session was pretty well attended! If you’re interested in using Pinterest to market your library, you may consider viewing our conference handout materials at http://mnlibraryassociation.org/uploads/conf12/handouts/B8.pdf. Here, you’ll get a nice sampling of the topics we covered. We hope to also present on this topic at the LibTech Conference in March, so if Pinterest catches your fancy, be sure to checkout the LibTech Conference program to see if our presentation made the cut! Oh, and between you and me, I’d love to just talk about Pinterest with you too! — Kate Bessey
Tag Archives: Food for Thought
Five Tech Skills Every Student Should Possess
Recently, eSchool News asked its readers for their thoughts on the top five technology skills that all students should learn. A big part of what came through loud and clear is the ability to easily adapt to change. Tip: the comments at the end of the article are probably as interesting as the article itself. The full text of the article is available at http://tinyurl.com/ckb63x5
What do you think the top five technology skills are for students?
Macmillan Confirms E-book Pilot for Libraries
Take heart, it appears the big six publishers are hearing the outcry from libraries about their e-book policies and are making an effort to produce a workable model specifically for libraries. Although the details of Macmillan’s prototype are not yet being shared, this article does a nice job of summing up the state of affairs with the “big six” at this point in time. Go to the Digital Shift for your cliff notes on this subject….
Librarians/Media Specialists and the Common Core
An article from Education Week titled Common Core Thrusts Librarians into Leadership Role is getting a lot of press and discussion lately in libraryland … and beyond. The article highlights the important role media specialists can (and should) play as their schools usher in this new phase in education. Namely, media specialists must be prepared to provide the necessary resources and learning opportunities for implementing the Common Core State Standards in their schools. The argument is that librarians/media specialists are natural “inquiry-based” teachers and practitioners, and are perfectly suited to model this way of thinking to other professionals as well as students. Additionally, the article highlights some of the ways libraries of all types are impacted by the Common Core State Standards.
What impact do you see the Common Core State Standards having on your school and in your media center programming? Currently, Minnesota has only adopted the Common Core English Language Arts standards as a base, and has not adopted the Mathematics standards in any way. Since Minnesota has not adopted the Common Core Mathematics standards (citing our state’s superior standards and high testing performance for math), how might this separation or distinction from other states impact math education in the state? On the other hand, Minnesota has adopted the English Language Arts standards as a base, so how are you preparing for those standards in your schools? How are you taking part in this conversation, and what role are you playing in your school?
Additional information for those in the know! At this time, the NGA [National Governors Association] Center and CCSSO [Council of Chief State School Officers] will not be developing standards in other subjects and are focusing on implementing the standards in ELA and mathematics. However, other groups are working on standards in the arts, world languages, and science. To find out more, visit the section titled Why are the Common Core State Standards for just English-language arts and math? at www.corestandards.org/frequently-asked-questions.
Visit www.corestandards.org/ to learn more general information about the Common Core. Also, for a refresher on Minnesota’s K-12 Academic Standards checkout http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/EdExc/StanCurri/K-12AcademicStandards/.
Youth Should Read More Non-Fiction
Read this blog post as a reminder of the value and charm of getting kids hooked on nonfiction as well as fiction. As more schools move into 1:1 computing and away from print textbooks, it is inevitable that the role of non-fiction becomes more important. Read the post from the SmartBlog on Education, then weigh in here in Leave a Reply field below. Question: What percentage of your collection is nonfiction?