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!

wild world of wikis advice

From the Edublogs awards, a couple of great tips. This first one is from the Teacher Blog of the Year, The Tempered Radical. He has an entry that discusses his guidelines that he's developed with his students over the past four years that have addressed the administrative fears of inappropriate postings and subsequent fallout.

I was also amazed to see that a middle school teacher took her class into Second Life! I haven't explored what they did, so can't speak to its usefulness, and it's not the direction I'm heading, but it was interesting to see that it had happened.

Since I'm running out of steam, I don't actually have more tips from the awards, but wanted to remind myself to go back and look a little deeper. Actually the wiki award for an AP Econ class looked killer, though I leapt away from it quickly as the rap music automatically comes on (kinda loud) and I didn't want to wake my family. I'm just grateful that Joyce Valenza is as resourceful and communicative as she is, and that I had a chance to catch up on some of her posts (gotta go back for those student-produced math videos) which is what alerted me to the edublog awards in the first place.

whoa, authors views and science!

Here's a great clip, well, I mean, a link to a 2 minute video on AuthorsViews about Diane Swanson, author of Nibbling on Einstein's Brain and A Crash of Rhinos, A Party of Jays. I really like the part where she talks about how she marvels at the intriguing real characters that nature creates, and that's part of why she loves writing nonfiction books about the natural world.

Also, nonscientifically, I strongly recommend Allan Stratton's video about Chanda's Secrets, which is about the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Well actually it's about family and cultural taboos and love and integrity, and also AIDS.