Tag Archives: Resources

School Media Specialist

Laura Bush Grants

 

Grants Enhance K-12 School Libraries

Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries
The goal of the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries is to provide print books to the school libraries and students that most need them. Grants of up to $6,000 are made to update, extend, and diversify the book collections of school libraries throughout the United States. Preference is given to elementary, middle, or high schools in which 90% or more of the school population receives free or reduced lunch. Funds are available only for library books and magazine/serial copies, and subscriptions; requests for staffing, shelving, furniture, equipment, software, videos, classroom book sets, or exams are not eligible. All grants are made to individual schools rather than to school districts, foundations, or other entities. The application deadline is December 31, 2008. Online application information is available on the website listed above.

Academic, Public, School Media Specialist

PBS Launches New Online Community for Educators

PBS has unveiled a new online community for preK-12 educators that aims to support the advancement of digital media content in education. “PBS Teachers Connect” provides Web 2.0 tools and opportunities for teachers, school library media specialists, technology coordinators, early childhood educators, and other education professionals to share ideas, collaborate, and support the effective use of technology to enhance learning. The new online community is built around PBS Teachers, the web portal to the wide-ranging multimedia instructional resources and professional development services that PBS offers preK-12 educators. At no cost, educators can search more than 3,000 standards-based classroom activities, lesson plans, interactive resources, and other materials on the PBS Teachers web site, then easily bookmark, annotate, share, and manage their tagged content within the PBS Teachers Connect community. The site also enables educators to form shared-interest groups online. The community features a personalized home page for each user, enhanced user profiles, a searchable database of resources and community members, bookmarking tools, and discussion threads. Additional components, such as private messaging, community feeds, friend feeds, online events, and a digital media gallery, will be available this fall, PBS said.

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect

Check this out:

Picturing America Grants

Schools and public libraries are invited to apply online for the second round of Picturing America, which will ship in March 2009. Picturing America is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) designed to bring masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide.

Online applications will be accepted through  October 31, 2008. The images in the Picturing America collection will remain the same; eligible institutions which applied during the first round will receive their Picturing America awards in fall 2008 and will not be eligible for a second award, In May 2008, 26,300 schools and public libraries were selected to received the first round of the award. ,

http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/educators.php?subPage=edu_apply

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

New WebJunction!

WebJunction, the online learning community for librarians and library staff, has launched a new social and learning experience in close collaboration with partners in 15 state libraries. The new site builds on the deep repository of helpful content, relevant courses and active discussions that have been the hallmark of WebJunction since 2003.

The new capabilities make it easier for librarians and staff to:

  • Connect with friends, peers and colleagues from across the library community using powerful new social tools such as friends, public profiles, groups, discussions, tagging and recommendations;
  • Create their own content, conversations and spontaneous communities with fast, fun and easy-to-use tools;
  • Learn the skills they need to thrive in their careers with new and more flexible online courses covering general business, technical and library skills, complimented by powerful social and learning management tools that add depth to the experience.

Originally launched in 2003 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, OCLC and partners from across the library community, WebJunction has grown to over 30,000 registered members, delivered thousands of courses and become a vibrant partner and community.