A couple things...

I of course learned about a ton of new tools at PSLA, but I just wanted to share a few that I tried out today.

Apparently I am the very last to know about the Google map phenomenon. I knew you could see things from space or whatever, but I didn't know that I could create my own map with special markers. And since I already have a Google account, it's an easy addition to my repertoire.

Also, very cool site starring Mimi from the Drew Carey Show (you won't recognize her at first--no blue eye make up or bad blond hair). It's called MrsP.com and it's a great interactive site (students from K-high school will get a kick out of it) where Mrs. P, in a British or Scottish or Irish accent (she never exactly won awards for her portrayal of Mimi, right?), reads a story to you. From Cinderella to Kate Chopin, there are a plethora of titles to choose from, and they're constantly updating. I sure hope she's getting paid well!

Shelfari!

So I just love this widget! The Shelfari site itself is awesome because you can make lists that help you keep track of what you've read, are reading, and plan to read. Great tool for librarians!

Teaching Freshmen

This semester I have been collaborating with our technology director to teach "Technology Resources." This co-teaching experiment was intended to blend technology instruction with research instruction, as well as to prepare our incoming students for the next four years of high school (and future years of college). Unfortunately, our school is on a 6-day cycle, so we see each class once a cycle, and only for the first semester.

My bright idea to give the students simple at-home assignments so that the technology portion could be done in school was a bust. I spend most of my time hunting down students to turn in their assignments, and they're learning nothing. My new approach is an in-class assignment, but it is a struggle to get any time to teach them myself since the class was traditionally a tech-only class.

I'm looking for new ideas to come to the vice principal with for next year. I'd rather not teach them at all than to waste time while they don't learn. One positive for this year is that since I'm no longer new, more teachers invite me to teach their classes for projects.

Book Club

A suggestion if ANYONE out there ever reads this...create blogs for your student clubs so that they can participate outside of meetings. For our book club, students have the opportunity to blog about their Reading Olympics books. I include a list of the books and any other helpful information. This year I've added a link to the Teens' Top Ten voting site for Teen Read Week books, plus I'll have my presidents suggest fun polls that will attract readers/club members to the blog.

BACK TO SCHOOL

September is hardly the time for a school librarian to be blogging, but I just wanted to post a quick note.

Calling all web crazy librarians! I'm looking for new web 2.0 tools to try, share, and test on my students. Join my blog or post a comment. Don't forget to visit the teacher librarians' ning if you haven't joined yet.

AmbientLibrarian Wiki

Among the many wikis I have recently visited, I thought this might be one that was missed by us school librarians. It's pretty cool, and I really like some of the blogs linked to it. Check it out, along with the teacherlibrarian wiki and the streaming video wiki (both from Joyce Valenza).

AmbientLibrarian

PollDaddy.com

Joyce Valenza pointed this tool out to us at the PSLA conference. It's really awesome. You can sign up for a free account (the accounts that cost money have some advanced options like unlimited questions, unlimited polls/month, etc.). The free account lets you ask up to 10 questions. You can do a regular poll where the users just pick one, or a multiple choice where they can check off all that they want to use. You can choose how you want your poll to look (there are 19 pre-designed poll formats or I think you can design your own).

It's great for polling students OR teachers. Students will participate if you put it in a place they visit often; they'll love the chance to make themselves heard. Teachers might be a little harder to get to take the poll; again, it should be well-placed, and it wouldn't hurt if administration told them they had to vote. Once you create the poll, the site gives you the html link, and you can paste it onto your website. Note: I had to paste it onto my weebly site because I'm not sure if my eBoard supports html (I couldn't get it to work, anyway).

Below is a poll I've created just for this blog!