Wikipedia

 

AASL Top 25 Websites for Learning

1. Animoto
2. Classroom 2.0
3. Curriki
4. Diigo
5. Edublogs
6. Good Reads
7. Google Reader
8. Mindmeister
9. Bubble.us
10. Ning
11. Our Story
12. Partnership for 21st Century Skills
13. Polleverywhere
14. Primary Access
15. RezED
16. Second Life
17. Simply Box
18. Skyype
19. SOS for Information Literacy
20. Teacher Tube
21. Twitter
22. VoiceThread
23. Wikispaces
24. Wordle
25. Zoho

Fingerplays

Fingerplays are one of the most wonderful, fun ways to interact with young children.  Mr. Wibble and Mr. Wobble is absolutely, hands down, a smile generator.  It gets the supressed energy out of the room and leaves everyone giggling just a little.  Someone taught Mr. Wibble and Mr. Wobble to me when I was an adult working in a children’s library.  Fingerplays are oral tradition, and if no one teaches them to you, you will live your life without that experience.  It’s really not something you can learn from a book or a video, it is a completely group experience. 

Here’s a great link to a whole boatload of fingerplays:

1.  
   http://www.nncc.org/Curriculum/fingerplay.html
   

Mr. Wibble and Mr. Wobble

Once, a very long time ago, there were two friends.
and their names were Mr. Wibble and Mr. Wobble.
And the both lived in the same kind of houses. 
And every night, at the very same time, they would open their doors,
go inside, close their doors and go to sleep.
One morning, Mr. Wibble woke up,
and he opened his door, went outside, and decided to visit his friend, Mr. Wobble.
So he went up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, until he reached
Mr. Wobble’s house, where
he knocked on the door (knock, knock, knock) and there was no answer, so he knocked again (knock, knock, knock) and there was still no answer, so he knocked a third time (knock, knock, knock) the there was still no answer, so he yelled ”hey Mr. Wooooooooble!”  Well, when he didn’t get a response, he decided to go home,
So he went up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, until he reached
his very own home where
he opened the door, went inside, closed the door and went back to sleep.
Well, about this time, Mr. Wobble woke up,
and he opened his door, went outside, and decided to visit his friend, Mr. Wibble.
So he went up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, until he reached
Mr. Wibble’s house, where
he knocked on the door (knock, knock, knock) and there was no answer, so he knocked again (knock, knock, knock) and there was still no answer, so he knocked a third time (knock, knock, knock) the there was still no answer, so he yelled ”hey Mr. Wiiiiiiiiiiible!”  Well, when he didn’t get a response, he decided to go home,
So he went up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, until he reached
his very own home where
he opened the door, went inside, closed the door and went back to sleep.
Well, this went on for days and days. . .three days to be exact.  And finally, one day it happened!
Both Mr. Wibble and Mr. Wobble woke up, opened their door, went out side, closed their door, and decided to visit eachother.
So they went up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, until they reached the tippy top of the highest hill. 
And what do you think they did?
They shared the news.
They shared the gossip.
They talked about hills and doors and ups and downs,
and they went yackity, yackity, yackity, yack until their yackers were all tired out.
And finally, they said goodbye.
And they started home and they went. . . up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, until they reached
their very own home where
they opened their doors, went inside, closed their doors and went back to sleep.
And the next time they wanted to talk, do you know what they used?
A cell phone.

OK. Here it is, in Beautiful Beta.

The new, improved OCLC Dewey Browser.  I love it. I love the little word cloud, I love that your choices of caption languages includes “Svenska” and “Norsk” (THAT is so signature librarian).

http://deweybrowser.oclc.org/ddcbrowser2/

Check it out.  Add your zip code once you are in World Cat, and when you rest your head on your pillow tonight, you will sleep easier just knowing that a book on the Oglala Region lives on a university library book shelf only 18 miles away from the center of your home town.  This just screams “Librarians were here!”.

Fines

Well.  I think back on the embarassment and shame that I felt when I lost a book from the library.  Do we need to hold students accountable?  Yes.  Do we need to hold them accountable for their entire career as a student?  No.  So I don’t.  I give students another chance to redeem themselves.  I mean lets face it, if a student has not returned an item for over 2 years, chances are you are not getting that item back.  Chances are you are never seeing it again.  And what is the real damage?  A taxpayer’s funds go back to the taxpayers.  Or, depending on the age of the item, you could look at it like dispersing the older material.  Perhaps the real fine for not returning an item should be that you can only take out items that were published before 1990.  Pay up or read old material. . .

What’s in Your Media Center?

What’s in Your Media Center? on Prezi

YES!

I Read It Because It’s Beautiful
by Karen Morrow Durica

Somehow a life without poetry seems…
Dismal
Empty
Flat—
Not much.

So each day in my classroom I read…
Sonnets
Haikus
Free verse—
And such.

An observer sat in my room one day…
Noted poem’s title
Evaluated delivery
Recorded “lesson” sequence—
Said dryly: “It seems

There’s no connection curricular-wise…
No anticipatory set
No vocabulary drill
No comprehension query—
Do they know what it means?”

I could have contrived a defense or two, but…
Spirits flowed with peaceful joy
Honesty prevailed
Simple truth explained—
“I read it because it’s beautiful,” I said.

She didn’t quite frown but recalled all the same, “We’ve…
Standards to meet
Timelines to keep
Pages to cover—
Important content to be read.”

I looked from her to my students’ gaze; they…
Had relished the words
Danced with the rhythm
Mused with the meaning—
Were richer in spirit than when we began.

I read it because it was beautiful. And beauty is…
Never superfluous
Never irrelevant
Always needed—
Always in my “lesson” plan.

And good for you David Brooks, The Medium is truly The Medium http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/opinion/09brooks.html?_r=2