Spotlight

I came across this new widget, Shelfari. What a great way to share books with your classroom students, or for your library to post what is new to the collection. Scroll down a bit and you will find my Shelfari on the left.
I showed it to our librarian who is putting it on the library page. She is listing the new Newberry Award winning books she recently purchased. Down the road she is going to add another shelf with "student picks". There are great uses for this throughout the school:

• -summer reading lists
• -teacher reading suggestions for class
• -subject specific books
• -tutorials available in the school
• -sharing what teachers are reading

I know people will find many more uses for this simple/FREE tool for their page and I am sure many of you will adapt it to your purposes!

Follow the links to good information about the show "Growing Up Online" by PBS. You can watch the show online, chat with producers and learn more about how and what teens are doing with their online activities.

Read this article about how some schools are motivating their students to be more environmentally conscious. There are many great things going on around the country in schools. Educating our students may inspire them to begin to take care of their future world! Start small by recycling in your classroom. Then dream big!

If you can not decide which candidate's view are aligned with yours, don't fret, you can take this quiz to find out! Take it again later when the field is narrowed.
Here is another candidate match from the Washington Post.
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For a small cost of $100 teachers can have an online experience with people from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. There is a variety of workshops offered for the online program, but even more you can do in person at the Hall. There is also a summer institute for those hard core learners!

Two new sites from Microsoft offer educators some resources for planning learning activities:
Innovative Teachers Network
Microsoft Partners in Learning

Both are free and offer places for teachers to post, learn tutorials, and education programs.

Everyone has a list of favorites and her is another one to check out. I don't think there are any new surprises here, but it is nice to have them in one list.

Don't have time to watch the whole 90 minutes of Steve Jobs speech at MacWorld? Then you can watch this 60 second version! Short sweet and to the point.

I came across this great list of links for elementary teachers grades K-3. Enjoy!

Look over this list to find math, practice skills, inventions, contests, citations, dinosaur resources, and translation sites. There are over 15 great sites listed here.

From the website: "Students collect information, solve problems and make choices as they build a 3D home against a budget, then review credit applications and sell to the buyer of their choice." The web page provides lesson plans for high school and middle school students including benchmarks. I just received my copy in the mail. Sorry Mac people, just PC version.

Today we started a magazine recycling program at our school. Teachers were invited to bring in magazines that they were finished reading to share with others. A large box sits in our faculty lunch room and people can add to or borrow from a wide variety of choices. Already I noticed magazines from Oprah to Reader's Digest fill the box. There was a great response from the staff, who gladly wanted to participate! Start one at your school too. As a matter of fact, I am reading my current AAA World magazine and the first article challenges readers to recycle this very issue when finished reading.