Article One: Have you read the January School Library Journal article, Partners in Success: When school and public librarians join forces, kids win? Read the story of how Leslie Yoder, a digital literacy and learning specialist with St. Paul’s public schools and Ramsey County Library teen librarian Marcus Lowry have found creative ways to work together. We know that some schools in our region already partner with their public libraries. Please consider sharing your stories with me, and I can share them more broadly through a blog post. Your colleagues really want to hear your story.
Article Two: I know this article will really irritate some folks, but the truth of the matter is that there will be more schools considering new models or possibilities for media centers, and yes, in some cases, the hardcopy books may disappear altogether! It is an important time to make sure you are at the table when important discussions about the future of your school occur. Use the comments area to share what you think about what this Minnesota school did….The article is titled School Library Thrives After Ditching Print Collection.The Digital Shift, Jan 8.
In this American Library Association (ALA) video, you will hear a special message from ALA President, Maureen Sullivan. She reinforces how libraries need to be at the forefront of issues around e-books and the digital frontier. She also mentions tools that are currently available and others that are in development. Lastly, she urges librarians to support self-publishing, and help our communities in their self publishing endeavors. Check out the e-content page on the ALA magazine site, where you will find the video too! Sullivan also mentions the availability of the ebook toolkit, which is available at http://www.ala.org/transforminglibraries/ebooktoolkit.
Coming soon….a scorecard of business models in the digital content arena!
It is quite possible that you could tell us all about your love and use of Animoto, which I hope you will do in the comments area of this blog post! In a nutshell , Animoto allows you to create video-based lessons and presentations for the classroom. And, the Animoto site claims it is easy as pie! We know that teachers in some districts regularly use this tool, but we’ve also heard that media specialists and librarians alike are creating cool book trailers using it too! Care to share a link to your book trailers in the comments area?
Did you know that Google has an instructional site for digital literacy? Google’s Search Education provides resources, lesson plans, activities and advice for students and teachers alike. Individual categories of assistance provided include: Lesson Plans and Activities aligned to Common Core Standards, free self-paced “Power Searching” tips, “Google a Day” challenges or quizzes, and live or recorded webinars. To learn more visit Google Search Education and EdTech’s article on the topic.
EdTech’s recent article What Districts Should Know About BYOD and Digital Learning by Jonathan P. Costa Sr. delves into a topic of interest to so many of us. Costa writes about the challenges most schools face as they move towards BYOD and 21st century learning environments. To combat common difficulties, Costa provides five pieces of advice to schools. The advice ranges from “Don’t sweat the small stuff”, to getting the proper infrastructure in place, to doing your homework in order to thoroughly understand upcoming changes/challenges.
Partnering with libraries for visioning, advocating, and educating
