Linking Libraries and Academic Achievement

Your chance to respond:

I recently received an email from a librarian from a small conservative area of the state who was concerned about the growing number of young adult novels that contain language and topics that are often graphic and explicit. She wants to offer a well-rounded collection of titles to meet the needs of her students but feels that many of the topics would not pass the scrutiny of the morals of her community. She wondered how others were dealing with this issue.

Your thoughts…..

Professional Reading

This month’s issue of Teacher Librarian is a must read! Our own Gail Dickinson has an article entitled, “The Spirit of Inquiry in Information Literacy”. The focus of the issue is on the Teacher-Librarian as a Learning Leader.

Annual DOE Educational Technology Leadership Conference

Once again, VEMA was included in the sessions offered to the over 1100 conference attendees. John Osterhout, Kathy Lehman, Lori Papa, and Margaret Flanagan presented sessions highlighting the work of school libraries and technology integration.

Internet Safety Update

The DOE recently released a guidance document on guidelines for meeting the state mandated Internet Safety Instruction. The document may be downloaded at http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Technology/OET/internet-safety-guidelines.shtml

     There were several sessions at the recent technology conference. If you or your school is doing something to communicate to parents, teachers, students, etc., please share your ideas with us. We would love to hear from you!

     Several sites of interest may be found by going to Trackstar, http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/;jsessionid=3150CA77EB3F03F16DF2E41F07D9A469 A simple search will provide you with lots of information. To access the one created by Charlie Makela, the password is ALMS.

‘Tis the Season of Lights:  Sites to Explore on the Winter Solstice

1. Web Feet

http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm

2. From Encyclopaedia Britannica

http://school.eb.com/all/search?query=December+Celebrations

http://school.eb.com/all/eb/topic?idxStructId=645665&typeId=13

3. From eLibrary http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/libweb/elib/do/results?firsttime=y&set=search&referer=&edition=&sortResultsBy=TopicRelevance

4. EBSCO Host

http://web.ebscohost.com/src/detail?vid=5&hid=105&sid=1fc53c33-5d3b-45aa-a5b3-8bba5a6e55e0%40sessionmgr104

5.  SIRS

http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-sub-display?id=SVC00146-0-6865&method=date&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=N&keyno=0000078545&0000078545=Y&auth_checked=Y

6.  Thompson Gale

http://find.galegroup.com/ips/infomark.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&docType=IAC&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A154690970&userGroupName=va_s_007_0162&version=1.0&searchType=BasicSearchForm&source=gale

Media Literacy Through Hoax Sites— from WebFeet Spotlight

The Internet is an outstanding source for information; however, not all Web sites should be trusted. Some sites may appear legitimate, but in fact are jokes or deliberate hoaxes. These sites fall into that category. They are excellent examples for educators who are teaching students how to identify bogus information–a useful skill, especially when citing sources in a research paper.

Britain for Americans
http://www.brookview.karoo.net/BFA/

BuyDehydratedWater.com
http://www.buydehydratedwater.com/

Cloning of George Washington Reported
http://www.angelfire.com/la/jfled/george2.html

Dog Island
http://www.thedogisland.com/

Case Analysis of a Historic Killer Tornado Event in Kansas on 10 June 1938
http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~doswell/Conference_papers/SELS96/WoO.html

Feline Reactions to Bearded Men
http://www.improb.com/airchives/classical/cat/cat.html

First Genetics
http://www.firstgenetics.com/

Godsend Institute
http://www.godsendinstitute.org/home.html

Mechanical Marvels of the Nineteenth Century
http://bigredhair.com/robots/

University of Santa Anita : The True But Little Known Facts About Women and AIDS
http://ithaca.edu/library/research/AIDSFACTS.htm

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
http://www.vhemt.org/

Lacuna, Inc.
http://www.lacunainc.com/home.html

McWhortle Enterprises, Inc.
http://www.mcwhortle.com/

The Dangers of Bread
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/bread.html

Mike Sandman … Chicago’s Telecom Expert: Telco Powered Products
http://www.sandman.com/telco.html

Miskatonic University
http://www.miskatonic.net/

MoonBeam Enterprises and the Lunar Travel Agency
http://www.dreamweaverstudios.com/moonbeam/moon.htm

Ninja Burger
http://www.ninjaburger.com/

NonprofitableTech
http://www2.nonprofitabletech.com/

The Ova Prima Foundation
http://www.ovaprima.org/

Oxford Open University
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/EmirMohammed/university.html

Republic of Molossia
http://www.molossia.org/countryeng.html

RYT Hospital: Dwayne Medical Center: GenoChoice: Create Your Own Genetically Healthy Child Online!
http://www.genochoice.com/

RYT Hospital: Dwayne Medical Center: POP!: The First Male Pregnancy
http://www.malepregnancy.com/

Sellafield Zoo
http://www.brookview.karoo.net/Sellafield_Zoo/

The Time Travel Fund
http://www.timetravelfund.com/

California’s Velcro Crop Under Challenge (1993)
http://www.umbachconsulting.com/miscellany/velcro.html

DHMO.org: Dihydrogen Monoxide: Research Division
http://www.dhmo.org/

AFDB: Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus.html

Thumbshots Ranking

This is a cool site, http://ranking.thumbshots.com/ that can be used to help students understand the need to search more than one search engine. Put in the search terms, select two search engines to compare and it will graphically display the overlapping links, unique links, and the total number of links found. It also displays the link ranking for each page and compares where it falls within the selected search engine.

May you celebrate the Holidays with joy and love.

Admiral Charlie

This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 1:57 pm Filed under Instruction, Uncategorized and. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.