October
2006
Blogletter #50
SAYL Mail
October 13, 2006
GOOGLE FOR EDUCATORS/ LHH DISCOVERY / MAT SU SD INTERNET RULES / ALASKA 67 / ALA GRANT
It was good to meet Interior road system school and community librarians in Fairbanks, Healy, Anderson, Cantwell, Delta, Tok, and Northway last week. It was great to know that Nenana, Tok, and Northway all have new school library aides at a time when many of these positions are under the gun. It was also wonderful to welcome back Mary Dowling, longtime but “retired” Delta librarian, who is back as the Delta High School librarian.
Special thanks to Peggy Menke and Amanda Austin in Healy, Helen Clark and Diana Kramer in Fairbanks, Joyce McCombs in Delta, Kim Roth in Tok, and Lorraine Titus and Rose Durenburg in Northway for their hospitality and special efforts to make training possible in those communities.
GOOGLE FOR EDUCATORS
Have you seen this? Here is Google’s pitch to make Google a more classroom-friendly research tool: http://www.google.com/educators/index.html Recently launched, the site appears to be making an attempt to make an interactive site complete with lesson plans so that educators will think twice before advising students, “Now, I don’t want you to Google it,” when assigning research projects. It would be good to take a look, because they do outline some of the newer Google features and some old, but not so well known, ones. Do you know how to use Google as a calculator, spreadsheet, or calendar? Give it a look.
LIVE HOMEWORK HELP DISCOVERY
Lyn Ballam of North Pole Middle School has brought to my attention that LIVE HOMEWORK HELP no longer works with the Windows 98 interface. Tutor.com, the vendor of this service, made some changes this summer, so right now neither Windows 98 OR Macintoshes are supported.
The good news is that in a year there is supposed to be a Mac-friendly interface, but when I asked Tutor.com about the Windows 98 problem, the reply was: “Live Homework Help may or may not work with Windows 98, but we don’t support it.”
If your students ARE able to access this great service via SLED http://sled.alaska.edu at home or after school at your library, you might want some of the new posters that we received for the service. Please contact us if you’d like us to send you a poster.
MAT SU SD INTERNET RESTRICTIONS
Although Superintendent of the Mat Su School District Bob Doyle has not completely banned internet use by students, he has announced some far-reaching restrictions effective next week. To learn more about the school district’s plan, which involves restricting student internet use to purchased databases and sites ending in .edu and .gov, see the article in Friday’s Anchorage Daily News: http://www.adn.com/news/education/story/8299283p-8195472c.html
ALASKA 67
Attention high school and public librarians (and also small school libraries that collect Alaska materials for their whole communities)! A new publication called ALASKA 67 is the Alaska Historical Society’s pick of the top 67 Alaska history books for general audiences. Not all of the titles will be of interest to the high school crowd, but many of them should be of interest to teachers preparing classes for the new Alaska history requirement. Only about a third of them are still in print, so you won’t be able to order many of them as new books.
Copies are available at or online from Title Wave and Cook Inlet Books in Anchorage as well as the bookstore in Juneau. It is a locally-produced book, so does not seem to be available through the national online bookstores yet. This book would be a good measure of your Alaska history collections at the high school/adult reading levels and will be of interest to any Alaska history buffs in your clientele.
For an interesting article about how the list was formed and to also see all 67 titles, try:
http://www.adn.com/life/story/8281998p-8178469c.html
For the list itself:
http://www.adn.com/life/hometown/story/8281993p-8178468c.html
The book is an attractive softcover publication with complete annotations by the committee members, including State Librarian Kay Shelton, that would make a good reference title for collections that emphasize Alaskana history titles.
GRANT FOR ALA DC CONFERENCE TRAVEL
Here’s a message from the American Library Association:
“Members of ALA’s New Members Round Table (NMRT) can apply to receive a grant, sponsored by 3M Library Systems, which will cover expenses to attend the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. in June 2007.
Want to read about the ALA experiences of last year’s winners? Take a look at the August 2006 issue of Footnotes (http://www.ala.org/ala/nmrt/footnotes/august2006ab/August2006Footnotes.htm). You will see how professionally rewarding attending an ALA conference can be. The application form and further information about the grant is available on the NMRT website: (http://www.ala.org/ala/nmrt/applyforfunds/3mawardinformation.htm). Remember, you must be a current member of NMRT in order to apply. To join NMRT, visit the ALA website (http://ala.org) and follow the “Join/Renew ALA” link to add to your ALA membership. The deadline is December 15, 2006 “
