2012-2013 Top 25 Websites for Educators

The list is in and here are the top 25 just in time for the 2012-2013 school year! 
Straight from the AASL website...

Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning   

The "Top 25" Websites foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover.

Click on the categories above to see amazing tools for you and your students this year!(All PAST lists of Top 25 Websites are also available on the AASL site!)

Teachers @ Your Library

(Original video by MVMeeks)
Teachers and administrators share why they love their school library. Fun music and great shots of students engaging in exciting library activities. Marsh Middle School library demonstrates how school libraries directly impact student success!  



Student Research Using the Information Search Process

Persuasive Presentation on Prezi

Find a Collaboration Partner @Your Library

Dedication to Collaboration on Prezi

Making Teachers Nerdy: Top 20 Websites for the School Year

"Top 20 Websites No Teacher Should Start the Year Without"

This is a MUST visit blog from "Making Teachers Nerdy." I love it. Click to see the top technology tools for the school year! Scroll through the list and choose ONE to try this semester!

From "Making Teachers Nerdy" Blog at http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/Top-20-Websites-Teacher-Should-Start-2010-2011-Year-Without-9213932

ALA Top 25 websites

ALA.org
"Best Websites for Teaching and Learning

Top 25 2010 Best Websites for Teaching and LearningTop 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning   "


I browsed the "Top 25" websites for 2010 and could not select just one to recommend. This is an amazing, innovative collection of cutting-edge sites that help bring technology immediately into the classroom in easy-to use ways that both teacher and student will love. According to the ALA website, "The 'Top 25' Websites foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover."
Click on any of the above topics to access the top websites in these areas. 


I really enjoyed the "media sharing" tools and "manage and organize" sites such as MuseumBox which is fabulous at allowing students to use technology to organize, present, and share their knowledge in various formats. No more boring powerpoint projects. "So what does museumbox do? Museumbox provides the tools (that) allow you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. You can display anything from a text file to a movie. You can also view the museum boxes submitted by other people and comment on the contents" (from museumbox.com). Trust me. This is really worth seeing and using. (Easy to assess with a good rubric, too.) And this is just ONE site of the 25. 


All information, images, and links taken from ALA Website http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsitestop25.cfm 

A Vision of 21st Century Teachers

Today's Digital Age students speak the language of technology. To help our students achieve information literacy and be competitive in the 21st century, we must intentionally connect multi-media use and technology with classroom learning.
This short video featuring eighteen  21st Century teachers was created to compliment the short video "A Vision of K-12 Students Today"  which offered a look at the technology needs of our 21st Century learners. This video is an encouraging look at what some teachers are doing practically with technology in the classroom.



A Vision of 21st Century Teachers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4g5M06YyVw

Social Media Revolution 2


Social Media Revolution 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng&feature=related

For those of us who are tempted to think that social networking is just a fad, here's a look at the concept of "Socialnomics," what some are calling the greatest shift since the industrial revolution. If this is how our students and the world now communicate, what must we do as teachers to help connect our content with this form of communication? Check out the statistics.

For serious researchers: Four ways to search databases!

http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/KidsSearchInterface.html
Click here Kids Search tutorial on EBSCOhost to take a look at KidsSearch database on EBSCOhost.

Learning to use databases is an invaluable and critical research tool for students and teachers. Students need to be turning in research obtained from databases frequently. Databases are designed for the youngest age users (Ex: KidsSearch and Searchasaurus on EBSCOhost) up through the highest levels of academia. They are growing increasingly user-friendly and usually have excellent tutorials. The school librarian can collaborate with teachers on units to teach and reinforce database searching skills. Students adapt to these quickly when asked to use them!


In order to try out a few academic databases and different search strategies, I decided to conduct 4 different type searches on 4 different databases. Some of these databases are available through your school district or local public library. 

MY TOPIC: As a school librarian, I desire to find useful Web 2.0 technology for teachers to utilize to enhance student achievement in meeting content area standards.
SEARCH #1: ERIC/EBSCOhost            STRATEGY: Building Block
Search Terms: I narrowed my query down to the following search terms and entered each term or string:
s1=School librarian or school librar* or school media specialist             Results: 8477 hits
s2=teacher or educator                                                                                      Results: 405, 032 hits
s3=Web 2.0                                                                                                         Results: 348 hits
Search: When I combined each of these search terms or strings together with the Boolean connecter AND, the end result was 8 hits. s1 AND s2 AND s3 =8 hits
The second article looked particularly useful for my topic: Student Inquiry and Web 2.0 By: Berger, Pam. School Library Monthly, v26 n5 p14-17 Jan 2010. (EJ874143)

Feeling I may need to broaden my search topic a bit, I decided that Web 2.0 may be too specific. I broadened the search by adding “social network*” which expanded the results to 20 hits. Several of these looked like very useful sources.

Database Searching in LibLit

SEARCH #2: LibLit          STRATEGY: Citation Pearl Growing (Snowballing)

SEARCH STRATEGY: Find another article like this one: Student Inquiry and Web 2.0 By: Berger, Pam. School Library Monthly, v26 n5 p14-17 Jan 2010. (EJ874143)

In this search, I took an article I liked from the building block search and decided to try “snowballing” a search from something very specific. When I located the article on LibLit database, the following subject terms were attached to the article: Web 2.0 which had 243 articles; Technology and youth which had 24 articles; and Computer-assisted instruction which had 1585 hits.

In the articles under the “technology and youth” subject heading, I found a relevant and interesting article:  Teen Tech Takeover: Using Web 2.0's Experts to Create Your Content. By Chris Shoemaker Voice of Youth Advocates v. 32 no. 6 (February 2010) p. 471. 

Also, a new subject was attached to the article: Web 2.0/Library Applications which led me to 355 articles that were the best so far for my topic. I was surprised at how pertinent these were. I remember now that LibLit is already oriented to library related articles which certainly was an asset in this snowball search. I could continue to modify this search by adding some limiters now or simply browse and choose the articles I like.

Database Searching in Muse

SEARCH #3: Project Muse              STRATEGY: Specific Facet First
SEARCH TERMS: I selected three facets for the search, and tried each in the “Advanced Article Search” on Project Muse.
Librarian resulted in 3178 hits
Instruction resulted in 10, 801 hits
Web 2.0 resulted in 558 hits
None of these returns were useful as they were too broad.

SEARCH: These large returns did not surprise me, and did not help me in my query. I decided to try the search with all three facets librarian AND instruction AND Web 2.0 which resulted in 35 hits that were of marginal relevance one of which is titled Academic Libraries, Facebook and MySpace, and Student Outreach: A Survey of Student Opinion, Ruth Sara Connell portal: Libraries and the Academy, Volume 9, Number 1, January 2009, pp. 25-36 (Article)

Database Searching in Academic Search Complete

SEARCH #4: Academic Search Complete   STRATEGY: Successive Fractions
SEARCH TERMS: I decided to stay with the three facets from the last search on this last database. A quick test to find the broadest to narrowest facets resulted in:
Instruction                        179, 642 hits
Librarian                         45, 711 hits
Web 2.0                        2248 hits

SEARCH: Combining the largest facet instruction AND next largest facet librarian results in 2221 hits. Narrowing was needed, so I applied the next facet “Web 2.0” to the above search which resulted in 18 hits one of which is an article titled Web 2.0 Integration in Information Literacy Instruction: An Overview. By: Luo, Lili. Journal of Academic Librarianship, Jan2010, Vol. 36 Issue 1, p32-40, 9p; (AN 48407822)

Conclusion: The success of the query for information seemed to rest primarily on the search terms selected and the type of database utilized for the search. All 4 of these databases were user friendly and had help sections as well. Just to prove to myself that database hits were more relevant, pertinent, and reliable, I plugged these same search terms into a Google search. With over 1,460,000 results, I did a quick scan through the first two pages of hits and found myself having to skip over many unhelpful hits. The databases are certainly the way to find reliable information for study or research questions.

Check this out at Librarything!

After setting up an account on LibraryThing.com, I began to browse "tags" for books related to technology use in the classroom and school media center. The tags "school media center" and "technology" ultimately led me to a fantastic book called Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson.


The book was published in March 2010 and has been receiving rave reviews by teachers and library media specialists. (Check out all the reviews on Amazon.com!) Some schools are even utilizing the book for staff development. For those of us who are looking for instant ways to integrate technology into the classroom for this tech-savvy generation, this book is an insightful must-read. Even teachers who are not particularly tech savvy have reported how understandable and and user friendly the book is. Students will rejoice over getting to integrate FaceBook and Twitter as well as blogging and RSS feeds into their academic world.



My first-choice for an RSS feed: ALA TechSource

RSS is a format that stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and enables me to subscribe to "feeds" that will let me know when a site I have subscribed to has been updated. Many people like their favorite sites to “feed” into one place instead of having to visit several websites to check for updates.This is a true service in the daily information explosion in which we live.
While I have found that much of the technology information on ALA’s TechSource is over my head, the frequent updates and cutting edge research applications are useful for a regular glance-through each week. TechSource is a publishing arm of the American Library Association and produces Library Technology Reports, Smart Libraries Newsletter and the ALA TechSource Blog.
Check out the RSS feed on the right to see the latest news from TechSource.

A Fable for Teachers






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs2YPGTEWGU&feature=related




I am a sucker for stories. The podcast link above will take you to a short, 3-minute fable about the Heffalump teachers that despaired and resisted a new mode of learning that the young Heffalumps found more intriguing than memorization and recitation. Though told tongue-in-cheek, the story reminds those of us seeking to be successful educators that change is the only constant in the world of technology. Not a new idea, but a cleverly-told reminder rather to lay hold of the best parts of technology and make it work for us rather than throwing up our hands in despair.
(Located and accessed on YouTube 6/18/10)

Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google


http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/03/25/young-learners-need-librarians-not-just-google/
 The following blog snippet resonated with me today. The title certainly caught my eye. "Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google." Sounds like my mantra with my high school English students.The blog is from a fantastic daily blog newsletter called Resource Shelf.com specifically written for educators, journalists and information professionals. I found the site through the technorati.com blog search engine. Numerous up-to-the hour blogs caught my eye today on info related topics. (I told my husband that Starbucks is finally going free July 1st with its WiFi. Whoo-hoo!)
The March 25, 2010 blog discusses an article written by Dulcinea Media CEO Mark Moran in Forbes last year after a NY librarian was acknowledged by the NYTimes as being a " web curator and information literacy specialist." While this sounds like positive affirmation for information specialists, the article continues...
"Cut to the present, and librarian blogs tell a different story. Many absolutely clueless administrators still believe that a search engine is an adequate substitute for a trained research teacher. With the nation’s schools budget-strapped, librarians–and even libraries–are being cut from coast to coast.
To use the Internet as a library you need new research skills: the ability to pick out reliable sources from an overwhelming heap of misinformation, to find relevant material amid an infinite array of options…
[Snip] 
And as the founder of a company whose mission is to teach the effective use of the Internet, I have pored through dozens of studies, and recently oversaw one myself, that all came to the same conclusion: Students do not know how to find or evaluate the information they need on the Internet." ("Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google," ResourceShelf.com, 3/25/10)
Librarians and teachers must arm ourselves with the tools necessary to equip our young learners how to find reliable information effectively. Oh, and we must be prepared to defend this role to those who see Google as the answer to budget woes.


(To read the original article, Access the Complete Forbes Column here.)

Libraries, Schools and Technology..Oh, my


Computers at the Wilmington College Library
(Image from Flickr photos Computers at the Wilmington College Library, originally uploaded by Andrew|W. )

Technology evolves faster than teen fashion trends. Those of us who attended school before the Networked Era of the 1990s can find the ever-changing wave of technology a bit overwhelming. Give me e-mail, internet, and cell phone, and I feel tech savvy enough. 
However, as educators, we are poised to be disseminators of information in an era where information can be disseminated from many, many sources and devices. We cannot afford to just drift on the wave, sticking our toes in occasionally and hoping we don't get slammed by too much. We need to embrace it, ride it, and teach others how to get up on their boards and ride it, too.
My desire is to embrace the technological wave (the kids have already) and harness its power in the school library setting. This site is for you and for me. Together we will:
  • Explore current trends and mindsets toward technology in the school and library.
  • Examine specific technology and media tools for teacher and student use in content areas.
  • Share practical and immediately usable ideas on how to use technology in the school library and classroom to enhance units of study and attract those educators who are only dipping their toes in the wave.
As part of the Master's in Library Science graduate program, the Information and Retrieval class requires that I create postings on my topic utilizing various media formats that include blog links, podcasts, RSS feeds, tagging, database and internet articles, and other forms of multimedia. My desire to is serve other educators, students, and their families as a school librarian in elementary, middle or high school. My heart is wide-open to all ages. I will share what I learn as we go in hopes that all of us will benefit from the amazing technology at our fingertips.


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