September 2013 update: Back-to-school Edition

School is back!

School is now in session and the beginning of the year has been great so far. Our students, especially the newer incoming 9th graders, have really embraced the communal spirit of the Information Commons we've established in the lower library. Over the summer, we've rearranged some of our furniture and added in more study tables to provide students with the space they need to study in a collaborative atmosphere. As always, the chess boards have garnered a lot of attention as competition continues to heat up.

The library is now on Canvas

There is now a library course on Sage Hill School’s new learning management system, Canvas. This new platform allows us to provide students and faculty with resources in a more efficient manner. We've integrated our library catalog, as well as our research databases, into Canvas which will now allow for easier access to library books, DVDs, and journal articles. We've also added some handy tutorials in the research database section so please review them if you need a refresher. If you'd like a librarian to demo a particular database for your class, please feel free to send an e-mail to set something up.

Circulation stats are up

The library has added more technological devices to our collection. As the entire school community learns to use Canvas together, students have been checking out laptops at an increased rate. The library supports educational technology and will continue to provide students with the tools they need to succeed in their classes. The books the library has added to the collection over the summer have also fared well. Some of our newer, popular additions include: Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson, Everyday by David Levithan, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Baker.

National Hispanic Heritage Month

This month, the library—along with Sage Hill School’s multicultural group, S.A.M.E.—celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month. Our display in the upper library exhibits various aspects of Hispanic heritage and history. Please stop by the upper library to learn more about a rich and fascinating culture!

Searching Effectively

Image Credit: HackCollege.

In my library orientations, I set aside a section on how to search databases (and the internet, as well as Google) effectively.

The major points include narrowing down your question to key terms and similar tips. This wonderful article at Mashable brings some material from HackCollege to incorporate this and many other tips for students.

Check it out!

Online Tools

Click "continue reading" for some great examples of free online education and collaboration tools.


Student Collaboration

VoiceThread.com - Multimedia collaboration space. Have people comment verbally or in writing on documents, images, video, etc. Can be open to anyone or only to a specific group.

WikiSpaces.com - A place to host portfolios of student work that can be seen and commented on by others in the class or grade.

PBWorks.com - Anther place to give students a place to post their work, as well as collaborate on projects. Could be used for teachers to collaborate, as well. Similar to Google Sites. Click here for more instructions, examples, and how-to videos on PBWorks.

http://www.piazza.com/? - Collaborative Q&A design interface where students can collaborate on answers and see which ones the instructor approves.

Presentation Tools

Prezzi.com - Powerpoint on steroids; take a look at the video below!



http://www.gliffy.com/ - make diagrams and flowcharts online really easily

http://animoto.com/ For putting photos into a dynamic slideshow

MyBrainShark.com - Add audio to slides, documents, or video, posting; tracking who views.

For Audio Accompaniment in or out of class:

http://www.poducateme.com/ Learn all about making podcasts for education

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Audacity is a free program for recording

http://ccmixter.org/ for Creative Commons (legal) music to accompany projects and videos

Study Tools

StudyStack.com - Make your own or use their flashcards for many subjects. Other study games too.

State of the Library: March Edition

Usage
After completing the initial draft of the library's CAIS chapter, I was able to look at our statistics from a broader perspective. In the last three years physical circulation has slowly drifted down to hover around 200 resources a month on average, while electronic circulation has steadily risen with thousands of articles being read each month. (This month, over 2300 full-text articles were accessed.) With our relatively small student population (just over a hundred students a class) our monthly physical circulation is strong, and more than justifies shelving and bound-and-paper books. Last year, physical circulation rounded out at about 5 check-outs per student. This month, 342 resources made it into student hands.

Featured Resources
This month I attended the California School Library Association's Southern Section conference, and attended a great session on web tools "for productivity, creativity, learning and inquiry." Here are a couple that jumped out at me:

•  See and listen about the Eiffel Tower. Qwiki makes encyclopedic information come alive with a combination of a computer read-aloud and slide-show images. A more interesting way to introduce a topic that creates a dynamic visual. (P.S. Do a search for 'Sage Hill School'...)
• Tripline offers the ability to tour the world from home. You can add text, pictures and multimedia to map locations. Tripline automatically assembles a video from the input. Check out The Lewis and Clark Expedition. Tripline also allows for mobile and iPhone app use, a good idea for some of those science trips, perhaps?
• Students can create online flashcard sets with Quizlet, then practice or test themselves. The best thing about the site, however, is that it archives other sets, including some language and standardized tests. How's your SAT vocab?
• Speaking of vocab, watch the way Visuwords connects words with meanings by visual relationship. Take a stroll through a dictionary.

Wellness Seminar: Internet Responsibility
Last month I was able to speak to all of our ninth graders through a seminar coordinated through Mer's P.E. wellness program. The topic was internet responsibility, and I focused very heavily on social networking and online reputations, responding to the outbreak of cyberbullying-related suicides and online incidents. After 11 suicides across the nation in last September alone, a conference was held at the White House on March 10th to focus heavily on this topic, attended by the head of Facebook security, the author of the book the movie Mean Girls was based upon, and others. (Rosalind Wiseman's follow-up book, Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads, can be found in the Educator's Library portion of our collection.) My goal, like that of this conference, was to initiate discussion and awareness of this issue among our students rather than preach my opinion.

I also discussed online safety, online reputation, and privacy issues.

The seminar began with three breakout groups, each of which received a scenario. The scenarios were each drawn from an actual incident that occurred this month, which I revealed only after I asked the students how they would handle each issue. (You can read the discussions and find linked news articles by clicking here .) I felt the students were extremely engaged and I had some wonderful discussions with many of them. During the presentation following, my hope was to get students thinking about their presence and actions online and share the consequences other teens are experiencing. (You can see my presentation on GoogleDocs by clicking here. Hit “Actions” on bottom left to pull up another window that says “Speaker Notes”; you can scroll through the presentation and see my notes at the same time as long as you can see both windows.)

Research Projects
As always, don't hesitate to contact the library to reserve research time or to collaborate on a project. I would love to visit your class, and I'll bring with me some tuned research tips to help.