Virtual Views is here! VV is a dynamic publication with news and updates as they happen, as well as regular features and focus articles.
NESLA members will be important contributors to the content and success of VV. So put your thinking caps on and consider sending your take on school library media programs and services to VV editors Peggy Hallisey and Susan Ballard. Details on how to do just that will be posted soon.
Below is our first VV posting — October 20, 2009
For a printer-friendly copy of this issue of Virtual Views, click here.
L4L to help AASL learning standards gain national recognition
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/learning4life/involvement/coord.cfm
Learning4Life (L4L) is a 3-5–year AASL plan to nationally implement the “Standards for the 21st-Century Learner” and other guidelines being developed for school library media programs. While the goal is implementation of the learning standards at the national level, L4L will allow learning standards to be customized for local and/or state conditions, as well as to the increasingly multicultural makeup of U.S. schools. Susan Ballard, chair of the task force responsible for creating L4L, said, “AASL is enthusiastically engaged with the development of suggestions and strategies to ensure that school library media programs and school library media specialists will have a wide variety of resources with which to implement the new learning standards and programguidelines. Face-to-face and virtual training opportunities are being planned; examples of best practice are being collected for access; and national, regional and local professional learning communities are being developed to provide opportunities for dialogue and discussion about what works. We are actively seeking the participation of some of the country’s finest practitioners, both in school libraries and the greater education community, to help facilitate and guide efforts.”
Sara Jaffarian Award
http://www.ala.org/jaffarianaward
Awarded annually, the Sara Jaffarian Award recognizes a school library or media center serving children in grades K-8 that conducted an excellent humanities program during the prior school year. The selected program will receive: a $4000.00 cash award, recognition at the 2010 ALA annual conference in Washington, D.C., and promotion of the program as a model for other school libraries. Applications are being accepted until December 15, 2009.
Connecting Boys with Books 2: Closing the Reading Gap
http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=2497
ALA Editions, the publishing imprint of the American Library Association, announced the release of the new title: “Connecting Boys with Books 2: Closing the Reading Gap” by Michael Sullivan. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience, Sullivan shows how to reinvigorate the sense of excitement that boys felt when they first heard a picture book being read aloud. The author, a 1999 Simmons MLS graduate, has been a children’s librarian and library director in public libraries for 12 years. He is currently director of the Weeks Public Library in Greenland, NH. He is a traveling storyteller and a chess instructor. He is a former president of the New Hampshire Library Association and was the 1998 New Hampshire Librarian of the Year.
S.O.S. for Information Literacy
http://www.informationliteracy.org
Visit S.O.S. to explore more than 1000 handouts, presentations, videos and other resources for enhancing the teaching of information literacy skills to K-16 students. Consider sharing a favorite lesson plan or teaching idea here with your colleagues. S.O.S. is the only national database of information literacy lesson plans endorsed by both AASL and ACRL. It is a project of Syracuse University’s Center for Digital Literacy.
Tools for Real-time Assessment of Info Literacy Skills (TRAILS)
TRAILS was developed in response to a perceived need to provide an easy way to get a snapshot of high school students’ understanding of basic information literacy concepts. The assessment items are based on the Ohio Academic Content Standards and Information Power. This Web-based system provides an easily accessible and flexible tool for library media specialists and teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students. Registration is free and privacy assurances for students, library media specialists, and schools are in place. In addition, Shannon Hosier has created http://ilfortrails9.wikispaces.com/ as a place for TRAILS users to share lesson plans and resources that support information literacy instruction.
Educators’ Spotlight Digest
Educators’ Spotlight Digest is a free, online publication of “S.O.S. for Information Literacy,” the Web-based multimedia resource for librarians and teachers. S.O.S. is funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services. In the fall/winter issue, Mari-Rae Dopke-Wilson shines the spotlight on two library media specialists who discovered a way to motivate high school students to read.
Plagiarism video
http://www.assumption.edu/dept/Library/resources/instructo.htm
Assumption College Library has produced a series of three “instructo-mericals,” written, directed and filmed entirely by students. The videos will be used as part of Assumption’s library orientation and information literacy effort. To view, click on the You Tube links on this page.
Knowledge Quest available online to AASL members
www.ala.org/aasl/knowledgequest.cfm
Articles in Knowledge Quest, the journal of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), are available to AASL members online. The site offers searchable full-text articles and access to current and archived copies of the journal. Published five times a year, Knowledge Quest is devoted to offering substantive information to assist building-level library media specialists, supervisors, library educators and other decision-makers concerned with the development of school library media programs and services.
NASA Facebook page for students
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=34760681199
NASA has a Facebook page designed for students in grades 9-12 and higher education. Facebook members can join. The page is updated daily, excluding weekends and holidays. It features information regarding competitions, feature articles, podcasts, videos and more.
Information is also posted on opportunities that have an upcoming deadline, when the space shuttle is preparing for a launch or a landing, and other significant NASA events. Just search for NASA Students @ www.nasa.gov.
