Keeping+Current+Gems

Gems for December 8th:

1. A Revised Manifesto - NeverEndingSearch Blog. December 3rd, 2010. Joyce Valenza. - Joyce has edited her Manifesto that we read a few months back and offers some new advice for librarians entering the 21st Century.

2. How 'Bout Some Formative Assessment - School Library Monthly Blog. December 4th, 2010. - This blog posting goes over the importance that formative assessment makes in lessons and pushes librarians who are not using formative assessment to utilize in their lessons and teaching strategies.

3. Time to Leave the Comfort Zone: Adjusting Teaching to Student Needs - ASCD Inservice December 1st, 2010. Lella Christenbury. - This blog post urges teachers to step outside of their boundaries to meet their students' needs. According to the author, this is a sign of leadership and professionalism and earns the respect of your colleagues and students.

Gems for December 2nd:

1. What Librarians Makes. A Response to Dr. Bernstein and a homage to Taylor Hall - NeverEndingSearch Blog, November 29th, 2010. Joyce Valenza. - Warning: this is a bit lengthy and the Taylor Hall video may be a bit profane to some viewers. This is Joyce's response to Dr. Bernstein's article published in an edition of Newsweek last week suggesting to get rid of the NYS mandate to have at least one full-time librarian in secondary schools to make NYS schools more "streamlined and efficient". Joyce has posted Dr. Bernstein's previous anti-library articles from other publications as well as the various reasons why we ARE necessary for the 21st Century educational environment.

2. Where Should School Leaders Come From? - ASCD Inservice Blog. November 22nd, 2010. ASCD Bloggers. - With the recent hire by Mayor Bloomberg of Catherine Black as New York City Schools Chancellor. She doesn't posses a teaching certificate, professional certificate or even a master's degree. Many wonder if this hire will start a ripple effect of hiring individuals outside of the education field as superintendents or chancellor's of school districts. The author asks the big question about this discussion and the topic of teaching leaders: What experience/credentials should a school leader possess?

3. Free Resources: Pearson's Next-Generation Assessments Website - MultiMedia and Internet @ Schools. November 17th, 2010. - This new website by Pearson offers lots of tools for districts to use to try to develop new assessment methods throughout the next 6-12 months. What better way to be a leader in your school than to utilize these resources to help develop a fair and effective method to assess educators in your district.

Gems for November 25th:

1. Building Digital Citizens @MICDS and Beyond - NeverEndingSearch Blog, November 19th, 2010. Joyce Valenza. - This article addresses the difficulties of teaching digital leadership, something that is mentioned a lot in the 21st Century Standards and in the NETS for Students. Joyce introduces readers to a plan she found while at the MICDS Conference.

2. "Do U.S. Middle Schools Have a Wait Problem?" - ASCD Inservice Blog, November 16th, 2010. - This is an interesting post that discusses the issue of 8th and 9th graders lagging behind students in other countries in Math and Science and believing that the problem in the curriculum in U.S. middle schools. Lots of comments and debate below the posting.

3. "Proof Positive" - School Library Journal, November 2010 issue. Carole FIore and Susan Roman. - The feature article in this month's School Library Journal focuses on a new study that shows that summer reading programs combat summer learning loss and increase student acheivement.

Gems for November 18th:

1. "Very Kind Kindle Support from Buffy! (and on further celebrating our network!)" **-** School Library Journal Blog, November 14th, 2010. Joyce Valenza. - This blog post is about how Joyce utilized another colleague's experience with using Kindle's to help start her own program at her own school. Buffy Hamilton has a series of helpful documents and videos to help school librarians get their Kindle program off the ground. This is a great example of a school librarian taking the bull by the horns and making 21st Century technology widely available to their students.

2. "Assigned Reading: National Ed Tech Plan" - School Library Monthly Blog, November 9th, 2010. - This is a mandate set by the US Department of Education that is asking educators to teach students how to use technology in ways to create engaging lessons. Now, of course we aspiring school librarians already try to do this, so it's a natural fit. It is noted in the blog that this document and mandate mentions nothing about standardized testing and contradicts what the US Department of Education publicly supports in other arenas.

3. "Together We Can: Collaborating to Meet the Needs of At-Risk Students" - Library Media Connection, November/December 2010 Issue. Karen Gavigan and Stephanie Kurtts. - This issue is a hard one to try to solve. According to the authors, 1.2 million students drop out of school annually in the U.S. Gavigan and Kurtts define what at-risk students are and how we as librarians working with classroom teachers and administrators can help to keep these at-risk students in school and motivated to succeed.

Gems for November 11th:

1. **"Alfie Kohn on Motivation and Nonreaders"** - School Library Monthly Blog, November 7th, 2010. @http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/index.php/2010/11/07/alfie-kohn-on-motivation-and-nonreaders/ - This blog posting is a wonderful statement about being able to motivate non-readers in the right way.

2. "**Developing the Leaders Within" -** ASCD Inservice Blog, November 8th, 2010. Steven Anderson. @http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2010/11/developing-the-leaders-within.html - This is a great blog post by Steven Anderson, a teacher who felt lost in an unfamiliar situation in his first year of teaching and how leaders in his building helped him develop the skills he has today.

3. "**A Manifesto for Resource Sharing (Part 1)" -** Practically Paradise blog on School Library Journal online. October 31st, 2010. Diane Chen. @http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/practicallyparadise/2010/10/30/a-manifesto-for-resource-sharing/
 * -** Being a leader means knowing how to share knowledge and information with your colleagues and students. This is an informative blog posting about sharing resources in the best way to maximize student and teacher learning and productivity.

Gems for November 4th:

1. "**TRAILS Assessments: Now for Grades 3,6,9,12" -** School Library Monthly Blog, October 26th, 2010. @http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/index.php/2010/10/26/trails-assessments-now-for-grades-3-6-9-12/ - This blog posting explains that the TRAILS assessment is now available for multiple grades throughout K-12. It also has a link to the new TRAILS assessment standards.

2. "**Rothstein: One-Third Agenda Won't Close Gaps" -** ASCD Inservice blog. Posted November 1st, 2010. @http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2010/11/rothstein-one-third-agenda-wont-close-gaps.html - Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, made a keynote speech at ASCD's Conference on Teaching and Learning. His viewpoint is that all of the efforts made to improve our schools are being undermined because of the deteriorating conditions that some children live in, mostly a lack of parental supervision and guidance.

3. **"Scholastic's Reading Bill of Rights (and other inspirational stuff)"** - NeverEndingSearch blog. Posted October 27th, 2010. Joyce Valenza. @http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2010/10/27/scholastics-reading-bill-of-rights-and-other-inspirational-stuff/ - This post is about a document that Scholastic recently published as part of their global literacy campaign titled "Read Every Day. Lead A Better Life." Part of this campaign is the Reading Bill of Rights which Joyce embedded within the post. I think it's great and hones in on 21st Century literacy skills.

Gems for October 25th:

1. "**Surviving the Recession: Fostering Environments that Support School Librarians"** - School Library Monthly November 2010 issue. Ann Dutton Ewbank. - This article in the new issue of SLM addresses how to create or maintain an environment that makes a school library an essential part of the learning community.

2. "**Four Competencies for a 21st-Century Education and How to Impliment Them" -** Multimedia and Internet @ Schools. September/October 2010 issue. Dr. Rudy Crew. - Dr. Crew states the four competencies that all 21st Century students should posses: Academic, Occupational, Civic and Personal and how they can be used to meet the Standards.

3. "**Turning Skeptics into Torchbearers" -** ASCD Inservice blog. Posted October 25th, 2010. Jen Morrison and Tom Hoerr. - This isn't an article but an open ended blog post where the authors ask the educational community about what they believe turns skeptics into believers and motivated members of the staff.

Gems for October 21st:

1. "**SortFix for Searching and thinking about search" -** NeverEndingSearch Blog on School Library Journal Online. Posted on October 19th, 2010. Joyce Valena. @http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2010/10/19/sortfix-for-searching-and-thinking-about-search/ - Joyce Valenza's latest posting is about a new search engine tool, SortFix. It includes graphics to show students which words are put into different search baskets to refine search strategies.

2. "**A Thought On Elementary Fixed Schedule" -** School Library Monthly Blog. Posted on October 16th, 2010. @http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/index.php/2010/10/16/a-thought-on-elementary-fixed-schedule/ - The latest blog posting debates the impact of elementary school librarians have on student learning. It's an interesting posting.

3. "**Dividing The Sheep and Goats (1980)" -** ASCD Inservice Blog. Posted on October 13th, 2010. Ben Licciardi @http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/dividing-the-sheep-and-the-goats-1980.html - This is an interesting article that states the values that "supportive contacts" should have when dealing with new teachers. I feel that as new teachers, we should look to find mentors like these.

Gems for October 14th:

1. "**The Opportunity, and Challenge, of the Nonfiction Literacy Standard"** - Non Fiction Matters Blog on School Library Journal online. Posted on October 11th, 2010. Marc Aronson. @http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/nonfictionmatters/2010/10/11/the-opportunity-and-challenge-of-the-nonfiction-literacy-standard/ - This blog post discusses the possible challenges that librarians may face in trying to meet the nonfiction literacy standard in the Core standards.

2. "**Stemming the Tide Against Plagerism: One Educator's View" -** Library Media Connection. October 2010 issue. Kathy Lehman. @http://www.linworth.com/pdf/lmc/reviews_and_articles/featured_articles/Lehman_October2010.pdf - This is a very interesting article discussing various ways to combat plagiarism at the high school level.

3. "**The End of an Era... Falling Off a Cliff" -** School Library Monthly. September/October 2010 issue. Allison Zmuda. @http://www.schoollibrarymonthly.com/articles/Zmuda2010-v27n1p5.html - This article is about how school libraries should be at the forefront of creating a 21st Century school environment and how to make sure you and your library showcases 21st Century skills.

Gems for October 7th:

1. "**Who is Responsible for Teaching Great Search Strategies?" -** School Library Monthly Blog. Posted on October 2nd, 2010. @http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/index.php/2010/10/02/who-is-responsible-for-teaching-great-search-strategies-the-mini-series-continues/ - This article is an on-going piece where different methods of searching are examined. In this article the question is raised whether Google Scholar should be used for K-12 instruction.

2. **"Four Competencies for a 21st-Century Education and How to Implement Them" -** MultiMedia and Internet @ Schools. Sep/Oct 2010. Dr. Rudy Crew - Dr. Crew establishes four areas where 21st Century students need to excel in and the role teachers, parents and the surrounding community play in implementing them.

3. "**New Views of News" -** NeverEndingSeach Blog at School Library Journal Blog. Posted October 5th, 2010. Joyce Valenza. @http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2010/10/05/new-views-of-the-news/ - In her latest blog posting, Joyce Valenza shares her favorite new sites that she guides her students to use.

Gems for September 30th:

1. **"****Curriculum Associates Launches ‘CAMS’ and ‘STAMS’ Math Series"** - MultiMedia and Internet @ Schools Online. Posted on September 20th, 2010. @http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/News/Breaking-News/Curriculum-Associates-Launches-e28098CAMSe28099-and-e28098STAMSe28099-Math-Series--70207.aspx - This article is about Curriculum Associates' new math series programs to help diagnose students math level and proficiency and allows educators to use differentiated instruction to help lower level students gain a better understanding of concepts.

2. **"eCurriculum and eTexts"** NeverEndingSearch Blog on School Library Journal online. Posted on September 25th, 2010. @http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2010/09/25/ecurriculum-and-etexts/ - Joyce Valenza's latest post the pathfinder she created as a resource for high school librarians and teachers exploring the world of digital texts to use within their curriculum.

3. **"Can Anyone Teach?"** ASCD Teaching Blog. Posted on September 20th, 2010 by Laura Varlas. @http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2010/09/can-anyone-teach.html
 * -** A very interesting article about attracting and recruiting "top-third" graduates of colleges to teach. This practice is followed in the top three performing public school systems in the world: Singapore, Finland and South Korea.