The Unquiet Librarian

Just a quick shout out to all the readers of my blog and a big thank you—my blog officially passed 1000 hits this week!  Thank you for taking the time to read my musings, rants, and random thoughts!

Are you wondering how to use cool new web 2.0 tools, especially blogs, in your classroom?  Are you looking for inspiration or quality examples of how to use blogs in educational settings?  Surf over and look at the nominees for the 2007 Edublog Awards!  Edublogs, a blogging site owned by Wordpress, is designed especially for educators.   Although Edublogs is “blocked” here in our district, you can override the filter by clicking the “continue” button if you wish to browse these blogs at school.  Better yet, set aside a few hours to enjoy some hot chocolate on the sofa while you explore these outstanding and exceptional blogs!  Drum roll please……and the nominees are:

1. Best individual blog

2. Best group blog

3. Best new blog

4. Best resource sharing blog

5. Most influential blog post

6. Best teacher blog

7. Best librarian / library blog

8. Best educational tech support blog

9. Best elearning / corporate education blog

10. Best educational use of audio

11. Best educational use of video / visual

12. Best educational wiki

13. Best educational use of a social networking service

14. Best educational use of a virtual world

Are you trying to create a cool, Photoshop-ish badge or logo image for your website, blog, or wiki?  Check out this cool new tool I found courtesy of Joyce Valenza:  typoGenerator.  You simply type in your text, click a button, and this magical web 2.0 tool will create a beautiful and striking image for you!  If you don’t like what it generates, you can keep repeating the “try again” button until you get something you like.  Here are some samples I created for our new 23Things@TheUnquietLibrary project.

EOCT?  GHSGT?  Do these acronyms create a sense of dread and worry for you as a teacher?  Wondering how to incorporate standardized test prep practice without resorting to “kill and drill”?  Worry no more!  You can integrate test prep activities without compromising your teaching philosophy or bowing at the altar of No Child Left Behind.  USA Test Prep has added many new fun and exciting student activities you can share with your students!  The traditional test prep materials such as printable quizzes and worksheets that you can generate as a teacher are still there, but more games in both printable and online format are now available.  New teacher features/activities for 2007-08 include:

• Wordfind puzzles (yes, kids still LOVE these even in high school!!!) for every strandon your subject area EOCT AND Georgia High School Graduation Test (with answer keys!)
• Student quiz data
• Study Guide Dojo—you can customize individual remediation activities and lessons for students
• Teacher Management Feature:  you can add yourself to the teacher roster so that students can select you when they take quizzes/practice activities/tests.  This feature will then allow you to track your students’ results more effectively.
• The USA Test Prep Blog:  use this blog to stay abreast of new features in USA Test Prep!

New activities accessible to students include:

• Online crossword puzzles for each domain area of your EOCT or GHSGT
• Online wordfind puzzles
• Super Graduation Kombat Smackdown game

If you have never used USA Test Prep with your students or have minimal experience with this subscription service and would like some help learning the teacher features, please see Mrs. Hamilton or Mrs. Fleet in the library—we would be glad to show you these new features and brainstorm ideas for integrating these tools into your instruction.  A little preparation with these activities each week will go a long way toward preparing your students for the big test days in the spring. 

B. Hamilton

Many thanks to the 42 faculty members who attended the Destiny OPAC training for teachers on Monday, November 5!  Ruth and I were thrilled by the representation of teachers from all subject areas!  Mrs. Fleet, Destiny trainer queen, did a fabulous job of showing and telling our faculty about the outstanding features available to teachers in Destiny.  Teachers especially enjoyed the Georgia Performance Standards search feature; teachers also appreciated the door prizes of gift cards from Barnes and Noble and Starbucks as well as the yummy treats!

If you could not make it to training, let us know, and we will give you a copy of our instructional handouts.  Many thanks again to every participant—your time and enthusiasm were greatly appreciated!

Exciting news today from Dr. Judy Serritella, Coordinator of Library Media Services for the state of Georgia!

****Effective immediately, the Library Media Unit of the Georgia Department of Education has moved to the Department of Standards, Instruction, and Assessment (SIA) and will be a part of the Curriculum and Instructional Services Division. Thirteen years ago (before the lottery), Library Media was a part of the Curriculum Division and we are now back in that division.

Judy Serritella

Coordinator of Library Media

Curriculum and Instructional Services

Georgia Department of Education

205 Jesse Hill Jr. Drive SE

1754 Twin Towers East

Atlanta, Georgia 30334

One university professor has decided to take Wikipedia and turn it into a teaching tool for her students in her environmental history course at the University of Washington-Bothell.  After perusing Wikipedia, Dr. Martha Groom noticed that the information was lacking in information related to topics she covers in her course.  Consequently, she decided to do away with the end of the term research paper, and instead, students are now required to write a complete entry on a course topic or to do a major edit on an existing topic related to the course syllabus.

Dr. Groom cites several benefits to this assignment:

• For her students, the Wikipedia experiment was “transformative,” and students’ writing online proved better than the average undergrad research paper.
• Knowing their work was headed for the Web, not just one harried professor’s eyes, helped students reach higher — as did the standards set by the volunteer “Wikipedians” who police entries for accuracy and neutral tone.  The exercise also gave students a taste of working in the real world of peer-reviewed research.
• Most of the articles were well received, but Groom said some students caught heat from Wikipedia editors for doing exactly what college students are trained to do: write an argumentative, critical essay.

Dr. Groom also feels that this assignment presents a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about using quality and authoritative information sources as well as evaluating information.  In addition, she believes her students have a better understanding of how to go the extra mile to do secondary research that goes beyond “surface” level research.  However, Dr. Groom is disappointed that the Wikipedia editors have been sometimes “rude” in their responses to student entries.

You can read more about Dr. Groom’s experiences by checking out these links:

• Yahoo News
• Ars Technica
• CNN Technology

I think that Dr. Groom has had a stroke of instructional genius here!  What do you as teachers think about this assignment?  I have emailed Dr. Groom to see if we can get a copy of her assignment guidelines.  If any of you are interested in collaborating with Ruth or me on this kind of research project for your students, please let us know…this assignment could be incredibly beneficial on many fronts and would definitely cover many of the Georgia Performance Standards that you are required to teach in your courses.

Buffy