PONderings

Kathy Schrock is an authority on educational uses of the web.
She has developed two new tools to evaluate blogs and podcasts. They can be found here along with many other great web evaluation tools.
The Canadian (and bilingual) Media Awareness Network has created student activities dealing with blogs, instant messaging, text messaging, file sharing, and chat [...]

[Read more]

These online videos provide real-life examples of cyberbullying and present them in a very student-friendly manner. Topics broached include gossip, “rating” sites, and password security.
I particularly like the brevity and the student voices contained in the videos, and I would use them as discussion starters in my Info Lit classes Grades 6+.

[Read more]

I’m spending the better part of my morning here at Suds Car Wash, happily working on their internet-enabled computer. While the employees are diligently hard working on removing the smell that mice have left in my car, I am exploring Jamie McKenzie’s work particularly in the area that he calls Slam Dunk Lessons (SDLs).
Key benefits [...]

[Read more]

I just stumbled upon Joyce Valenza’s blog. In my very short time exploring her reflections, I found an interesting post entitled You know you’re a 21 century teacher- librarian if…
Among many other notable checkpoints, Joyce points out the need for educators to understand the concept of Web 2.0, a term I admittedly know little about. [...]

[Read more]

David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan published the book Ban those bird units. The intent of the book is transform research projects from activities of cutting and pasting into activities that require higher levels of critical and creative thinking.
Here’s a glimpse into the 15 proposed models.

[Read more]

Here are the videos that my colleague, Joanna, and I made during our summer session.
English Library tutorial:

FrenchLibrary tutorial:

Mastercard photo story:

Canadian symbols: the RCMP

[Read more]

http://www.youtube.com/v/0X1gpDSbr1s”> src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/0X1gpDSbr1s” mce_src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/0X1gpDSbr1s” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”600″ height=”350″>

[Read more]

Erik Erikson proposed that at certain points in a person’s life, there are a number of crises that need to be resolved. I guess I’m finding myself firmly entrenched in Stage 7: Develops interest in guiding the development of the next generation. I’m at the stage in my teaching career where I’m frequently questioning the [...]

[Read more]