the power of suggestion

originally posted here http://comics.com/frazz/2008-11-16/

Erica previews Summer Reading

Erica from the Berkeley Public library has surged forth with a voicethread about the summer reading program.......

just for example

Here is another example of a voicethread that, as you will see, was pulled together one evening because it was DUE the very next day and as usual, we had procrastinated. Now, this is not a library-related one, except that I wanted to use it to illustrate how easy it would be to pull one together to promote summer reading, and I needed to show it to the committee meeting tonight. Maybe I'll get my other one ready, using puppets to demo fun reading, but in case not, here is Mollee's birthday message:

Online terms and blogs

Here is a brief presentation about introducing blogs to a new group.

Spring Writing Prompts

The following 6 posts list the spring writing prompt per grade level. Let's help each other support the classroom teachers with their focus on writing by sharing examples of titles (or activities) for the different grade levels and genres. When reference is made to Lucy Calkins, it is referring to a set of books the classroom teachers have that they are using to guide their work on writing. I was told there might even be a set in each library. If not, please don't hesitate to ask to borrow one.

You can either scroll through the posts below, or use the blog archives listing at the right to go directly to a specific grade level.

5th grade - Persuasive

Please comment about books that would be supportive to read-aloud or booktalk for the Spring writing prompt for fifth grade:
Persuasive.

4th grade - Narrative: Strong Feelings

Please comment about books that would be supportive to read-aloud or booktalk for the Spring writing prompt for fourth grade:
Narrative: Strong Feelings. (see Lucy Calkins, book 2 section 3 for ideas)

3rd grade - Nonfiction Summary

Please comment about books that would be supportive to read-aloud or booktalk for the Spring writing prompt for third grade:
Nonfiction Summary.

2nd grade - Personal Narrative

Please comment about books that would be supportive to read-aloud or booktalk for the Spring writing prompt for second grade:
Personal Narrative. (for examples see Launching (3-5) from Lucy Calkins)

1st grade - Narrative

Please comment about books that would be supportive to read-aloud or booktalk for the Spring writing prompt for first grade:
Narrative (possibly reworking a piece already written to take a small incident and expand it into a whole story--for examples, see Lucy Calkins Book 3)

kindergarten-personal narrative

Please comment about books that would be supportive to read-aloud or booktalk for the Spring writing prompt for Kindergarten:
Personal Narrative: Draw a picture of something that happened at recess and write about it (for examples, see Lucy Calkins Small Moments, which every classroom teacher has)

bytesize science

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has created a podcast series called Bytesize Science, aimed at younger students. Now all we've go to do is get them to team up with voicethread so that they can add some images! I've only listened to one podcast, and they did an ok job interjecting some audio sound effects, but staring at a little marker indicating how far along the podcast is is not too captivating. I'll need to listen to some more, to see how they might be incorporated into a classroom setting.... then again, they're only 3ish minutes long, so where is the harm in sharpening science listening skills for 3 minutes a week?

ed.voicethread rocks!

I was intending on just going in and adding the url for the Central Media Library to the last slide of the Jizo Voicethread, below.... but somehow, got sucked further into voicethread and am I glad I did! Phew! There is now an educator version of voicethread called, you guessed it--ed.voicethread ! And it is cool.

Although the following voicethread about blogging with high school science students is too sophisticated for our 4th and 5th grade scili project, it is an excellent example of an instructional tool that seamlessly addresses ethical and copyright issues, too. This voicethread was created by Stacy Baker.


I look forward to developing our voices, students and staff alike!

voice thread trial

Everyone is asleep, so I had to do the recording very quietly. Probably I will have to rerecord tomorrow, not to mention taking out all the "ums", etc. But, let's see if it works! (2/6 update, I did have to rerecord it for more volume. Got rid of some of the ums, too.)

My first voice thread is incorporating a "Book Report In A Box" with 2.0 tools.


Crossing my fingers that it works......

Hey, it did! That is the small version. Let's see what the large version looks like:

Whoa nelly, it totally obliterates everything in its path! Like, it overlapped out past the margins, so nothing on the right side could be seen. I took it out. I'm sticking to the small version.

An even smaller version would be to just embed a link, like this:
http://voicethread.com/share/52402/
or to embed it with the title and link like this: Hats for the Jizos - a voicethread

I think this will be a gift to giving voice (pun intended) to students who might not otherwise get their book reviews published, because they could record a one minute booktalk. Any longer, and it gets a bit boring. Establishing some guidelines like 1 or 2 minutes, and the need to have a couple of objects that represent the book works on higher levels of thinking in terms of interpreting a story and transforming key elements into symbolic representations of that story. Hmmm, I didn't time mine, I'd better go back and do that. Also, an external microphone would work better--I just talked at my macbook, hoping that the built in mic would work, and it did, lucky me.

blogs to come back to

I'm not looking for blogs to read, but for some reason a couple have crept into my sights recently, so I thought I'd note them here so that I could go back to investigate a little deeper.

There is Bluebird's Classroom, a middle school science teacher (recommended off the ASCD blogwatch).

And there is Two Writing Teachers, a shared blog by, um, two writing teachers (who live in different states and jointly create this blog out of shared common interests, passions, commitments....)

growing up online

Just saw this upcoming promotion for "growing up digital", a Frontline piece, so thought I'd try embedding the "preview".

Ok let's see if it worked.....
Well, I can see it! I just thought, in light of our scili conversation about awareness of one's online presence, this might add some more dimensions to the discussion. More information about the series can be found at Frontline's site.

(2 minutes later) Hmmm, now I can't, see the embedded video, that is. Maybe once you've embedded a video and watched it, it needs to rest for awhile? Will come back later to check.

(A day later) Nope. It appears to be gone. But you can see it at Frontline's site, or also, here is today's article from the NYTimes about the show. This link, of course will only work for the next 5 days or so, retrievable later through the subscription databases of BPL and other libraries.

library 2.0 stuff

This is just a mishmash of stuff that will get edited into a better format later.....

I found learnerblogs (see post below) via Grandview Elementary School Library Blog which is in NY and seems to have been incorporating wikis and blogs with their students for quite awhile. Hmmmm.

Resource-wonder Claire forwarded me Open Wide, Look Inside, which I recommend you do (look inside, that is)! And that I do, more thoroughly!! Using poetry and children’s literature across the curriculum, Tricia Stohr-Hunt. is on the faculty at the University of Richmond. Wonderful categories, thematic book lists and general resources make this site an exciting treasure of a blog.

Voices from the Inglenook – an elementary school library blog; correction, a GREAT elementary school library blog

Hammock Reader has applied VoiceThread to promote books; I think we could do this with students. I believe VoiceThread is a free service....

Nancy J. Keane nancy@nancykeane.com
Big Book of Children's Reading Lists" (2006)
Nancy's podcasts: http://nancykeane.com/rss.html
Booktalks Page http://www.nancykeane.com/booktalks
Reading Lists wiki http://atn-reading-lists.wikispaces.com

Sidekicks - Sidekicks is specifically devoted to presenting graphic novel reviews for kids and those who work with them, including librarians, teachers, and parents. It used to be that comics were, generally, for kids -- but this is no longer true! In today's comics, the stories are most often aimed at adults and teens, and there are fewer and fewer titles for kids. Thus, the creation of this site to help you all navigate the murky waters of comic book stores and graphic novel sections to make sure you're getting what's right for you!

educating alice -- phenomenal.

Park School Library -- Laura Schlitz is the author of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! which won the Newbery this year... AND she is a school librarian of Park School!

Claire’s wiki for Emerson
And check out her collection of links on her Post-Coordinate Bliss blog

VoiceThread—posting pictures or a power point, with narration!

Blog without a library wiki -- many links, some outdated, of school library blogs

Pettus Elementary Library -- Another elementary school library blog

other blog services

I had not heard of learnerblogs. But I recently ran into a number of elementary student blogs that were using this service, so I will return to check it out further. It appears to be associated with edublogs. Another one to look into is blogmeister.

layout of images

Here is a photo of plankton from the Exploratorium's Microscope Imaging Station. This photo was actually inserted second, after the sea urchin image, below.

Here I am trying the "copy image location" option after hitting ctrl+click on my imac, which replicates the infinitely easier right-click of a pc.
This is a sea urchin embryo cell division, from the Exploratorium.

I used the blogger tool to insert an image and used the image location rather than browse my computer for a file to upload. However, I don't like that I can't control, beyond left and right, where the photo is, which is why it wound up in the upper right corner. Hmmm, let me try sticking in another photo now, here.

Ha! Look where it wound up! Up at the top! So, you really have to plan your images in advance, since they'll show up in the reverse order, if you're doing more than one image.

In fact, the only way I got this library hub image to be farther down the page is by going into the html and cutting out the code for the picture, then inserting it farther down the page. When I initially uploaded it, it appeared at the top and it appears I can't put text next to it.

Hence it would appear to me that one should make a new post for every image. There must be some non-techie way around this......

Blog guidelines for teachers

Claire (post-coordinate bliss blogger, linked in the Berkeley blogroll to the right) just alerted me to this article about Blog Rules for teachers who blog. Timely! Thank you Claire!