Extra 3-21-2014: NYPL Children's Books

 

A group of librarians from The New York Public Library read more than a thousand titles this year, shared countless stories with the children who visit their branches, and compiled Children's Books 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2013.

 

This list includes the titles NYPL’s librarians thought to be the very best children's books for toddlers through sixth graders. 

 

 

Many of the stories focus on classic, timeless themes, stories that reveal feats of bravery, quests for justice and redemption, friendships lost and found. In these books, "heroes and heroines find ways to slay dragons, right wrongs, and prevail against all odds. They offer reassurance and inspiration in a world that can sometimes seem strange and dangerous."

 

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Featured 3-20-2014: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

America's first presidential library is the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum  It is also the only one used by a sitting president, built under President Roosevelt's direction and opened to the public in 1941.

 

The mission of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum is "to foster research and education on the life and times of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and their continuing impact on contemporary life.”

 

 

The education division of the FDR museum offers a number of both on- and off-site professional development workshops that take advantage of the rich resources and knowledgeable staff available there. Teachers can sharpen their skills, renew their enthusiasm, and earn PD credit by participating in a variety of workshops.

 

Comprehensive curriculum guides introduce students (ages 8-17) to key topics of the Roosevelt era. The guides are designed for use by teachers of civics, citizenship, government, economics, geography, fine arts, history, writing, and journalism. Included in the guides are primary source documents, photographs, study questions, and other resources from the library archives.

 

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day is an interactive chronology documenting Franklin Roosevelt’s daily schedule as President, from March 1933 to April 1945. Here you will find digitized original calendars and schedules tracing FDR’s appointments, travel schedule, social events, guests, and more.You can search the chronology by keyword and date. Day by Day also includes an interactive timeline of additional materials from the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum to place each day’s calendar into larger historical context.

 

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Featured: 11-4-2013 ArtBabble

ArtBabble showcases high quality art-related video content from more than fifty cultural institutions from around the world.

ArtBabble brings art content from different places and perspectives together, where it can be easily found and accessed. People who love and are interested in art may find ArtBabble a unique and engaging place to explore and learn.

ArtBabble may prove particularly advantageous to educators who can use it as a way to support their classroom activities. The For Educators page helps teachers quickly and easily find what they are looking for.

Browse by Theme, Medium, Period & Style, Location, People, and more, or search by keyword.

Created in 2009, ArtBabble is the product of a cross-departmental collection of individuals at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

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Featured: 9-18-2013 LearnBIG

 

LearnBIG is a tool to facilitate searching for online educational resources. Access tens of thousands of online courses, educational games, videos, and more.

Filter LearnBIG searches by subject, level, media, device, and even learning style, helping you find exactly what meets your needs.

LearnBIG resources are user-rated. You have a community of teachers, parents, and learners sharing their experiences with the best tools out there. Registered users can review resources as well as share their favorites on LearnBIG.

 See how LearnBIG works

Based in Seattle, WA, LearnBIG is made up of educators, parents, grandparents, and students.

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Featured: 6-27-2013 Macaulay Library

The Macaulay Library is the world's largest and oldest scientific archive of bird, animal, and other natural audio and video recordings.

The Macaulay Library's mission is to "collect and preserve recordings of each species' behavior and natural history, to facilitate the ability of others to collect and preserve such recordings, and to actively promote the use of these recordings for diverse purposes spanning scientific research, education, conservation, and the arts."

Teachers can use the accurate depictions of nature from the Macaulay Library to illustrate the natural world and create exciting interactive learning activities.

Lessons for elementary, middle, and high school use rich media including sounds and videos from the Macaulay Library to spark student interest in understanding biological adaptations. Teachers can download individual lessons or units addressing science standards about waves, forces, and motion.

 Watch a sampling of Macaulay Library video

The Macaulay Library provides training, equipment, and resources to help document the diversity of nature with sound and video. Field techniques and the technical knowledge required to record the behavior of birds and other animals in the wild are taught through workshops and informal training sessions.

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Featured: 6-20-2013 OpenEd

 

The largest online catalog of educational videos aligned to Common Core and other standards is available at OpenEd.

Choose a standard group such as Math or Language Arts, followed by a category like Congruence or Speaking and Listening. Then select a standard and you will see resources related to it. You can filter by grade (K-12). Optionally, search for resources by keyword instead of by standard.

Registered users can also create courses on OpenEd.

Founded in 2012, Open Education Institute strives to enable teachers to have access to the best educational resources (videos, games, and exercises) for their students, especially resources tied to Common Core standards.

OpenEd is committed to providing this access free to all teachers worldwide. Most of the site's software (including the catalog itself) is open source.

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Featured: 6-18-2013 National Science Digital Library

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) provides links to quality educational resources for teaching and learning online, with emphasis on the STEM disciplines.

NSDL provides structured, descriptive information about web-based educational resources located on other sites. The providers contribute this metadata to NSDL where it is organized into a searchable resource.

Browse national educational standards, including the Common Core Math Standards and find NSDL resources that are associated with key learning goals. View the distribution of NSDL resources in graphical form and browse by education level, resource type, subject, and audience.

Although some resources are restricted to provider site membership, or may have a cost associated with them, most resources in the library adhere to principles of free Open Educational Resource (OER) access.

Partners in the National Science Digital Library network include STEM education organizations and institutions providing digital resource collections, services, partnering opportunities, and connections to communities over a full range of education levels and disciplines.

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Borrowing Ebooks with Overdrive

Increasingly, local libraries are adding online digital catalogs of books available for borrowing. Many libraries are choosing OverDrive Digital Downloads to deliver and manage the lending process. Currently, OverDrive is tied into 18,000 libraries with millions of readers.



The first thing you need to do is become a member of a library participating in the Overdrive digital lending program. Then you will need a library card number and a 4-digit pin code to identify you as a borrower and regulate the number of ebooks you can have checked out.

OverDrive supplies ebooks to libraries in two popular formats, PDF ebooks and industry standard EPUB ebooks. Depending on your library, most of the titles available on OverDrive can be read with all major desktop and mobile platforms, including Windows and Mac computers, iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry smartphones using an OverDrive e-reader client, and ebook readers including Sony Reader and Kindle.



You will select a book to borrow by browsing the online library with your browser. You can place holds on books that are not available, have a wish list, and look for books they currently have available. To look for books that are available, click on ‘Advanced’ next to the search bar. This will pull up a new menu that will give you a number of options such as ISBN, Author, Title and others. Check the box on the bottom that says ‘Only Show Titles Available.’ If you place a hold on a book, you will be notified by email when it is available. Each library is limited to a predetermined number of copies that they can lend out.

If you are using an OverDrive e-reader client, you will download the file directly to your e-reader. If you are using an Amazon Kindle e-reader or app, you will have to log on and register your library account with Amazon, and check the book out directly to your Amazon account. As soon as you check out the ebook it will be available on any of your devices. Reading an ebook that you borrowed from the library is the same Kindle experience as with any other book, including syncing across all of your devices.

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I would also like to mention Overdrive for K-12 Schools.

Your school library can give your students access to digital books and more 24/7 with School Download Library. Students can check out titles online, and read or listen offline on PC or Mac, smartphones, MP3 players, and ebook readers including Sony Reader and Kindle (US only). You can build this digital collection based on grade level or school curriculum with digital titles available in virtually every subject.

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Featured: 1/28/2013 GETideas.org [Community]

Education leaders can develop their professional learning networks at GETideas.org.



The people at GETideas.org see it "as a professional idea generator – a place where education leaders can be inspired to make change happen in their school, district, or university." Their goal is to facilitate the exchange of ideas toward solving education challenges.

Benefits of participation in the GETideas.org community:

• Professional development customized to the needs of education leaders.
• Trusted, timely news about hot topics and events in education aggregated in one place.
• Profiles of exemplar educational institutions.
• Thematically curated collections of information on topics important to education leaders.
• Rich multimedia content provided by respected thought leaders.
• Opportunities to engage with forward-thinking leaders during real-time events focused on best practices in education.

The GETideas.org online community of practice is geared toward system-level education leaders at all levels. They can identify resources that will help them inform professional practices, network with other leaders, and share their ideas for improving education.

Visit the GETideasYouTube channel

GETIdeas.org is a Corporate Social Responsibility project of Cisco.

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Featured: 11/12/2012 Library of Congress Teachers Resources [Standards]

The Library of Congress Teachers Resources provides primary source-based, ready-to-use resources for teachers. Find lesson plans and other materials that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.

Search the Library of Congress Teachers Resources classroom materials for resources aligned to Common Core, state, or organizational standards. Refine your query by selecting your state, grade level, and subject. Once you’ve found a lesson plan or primary source content that you’d like to use, one click will show you which standards that particular item addresses.

Ready-to-use materials created by teachers provide easy ways to incorporate the LoC’s primary sources into your instruction.
 Classroom materials that align with Common Core state standards include:

• Lesson Plans-Teacher-created lesson plans using LoC primary sources.
• Themed Resources-One-stop access to the best exhibitions, activities, primary sources, and lesson plans on popular curricular themes.
• Primary Source Sets-Sets of selected primary sources on specific topics, available in PDF format, as well as background information, teaching ideas, and tools to guide student analysis.
• Presentations and Activities-Media-rich historical context or interactive opportunities for exploration to both teachers and students.
• Collection Connections-Historical context and ideas for teaching with specific LoC primary source collections.

The Library of Congress Teachers Resources offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the LoC's huge digital collections.

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COD - 8/28/2012 - Knowmia [Video]

Knowmia is a learning website featuring short video lessons from real teachers. It is a personal, affordable, and efficient way to find what you need to be successful in high school.

Knowmia crowdsources and organizes video lessons from actual teachers and makes it easy to find what you need. Knowmia can help you prepare for an upcoming test or new course, understand challenging topics, and find the right teacher for your learning style.

Currently Knowmia is in a beta version, but users can already find more than 7,000 free video lessons with more being added daily. Coming soon are KnowmiaMini-Courses − teacher-curated sets of lessons of less than one hour, sourced from Knowmia's library, that include teacher comments and quizzes to measure progress.

Registered credentialed teachers may post their video lessons on Knowmia at no cost. They also get access to the free Knowmia Teach iPad app to create their lessons.

Ariel Braunstein and Scott Kabat,two leaders from the team that launched the familiar Flip Video pocket camcorders, have joined forces to create Knowmia.

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COD - 8/7/2012 - Web English Teacher [ELA]

Web English Teacher is a library of K-12 English Language Arts teaching resources such as lesson plans, videos, e-texts, technology integration, and classroom activities.

Started by Carla Beard in June of 2000, Web English Teacher can be thought of "as the faculty library and faculty workroom on a global scale." At Web English Teacher educators can share ideas and benefit from the work of others. While beginning teachers can find guidance, experienced teachers can find inspiration. 

The plethora of English-teaching resources at Web English Teacher has been organized into more than twenty categories including topics such as Grammar, Journalism, Poetry, Vocabulary, Writing, etc.

The Web English Teacher newsletter, ConnectEng, comes out once or twice a month.

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COD - 6/20/2012 - Jump$tart [Economics]

Jump$tart is a national coalition of organizations dedicated to improving the financial literacy of pre-kindergarten through college-age youth by providing advocacy, research, standards, and educational resources. Jump$tart strives to prepare youth for life-long successful financial decision-making.

Founded in 1995, Jump$tart is now a partnership of about 150 national organizations and entities from the corporate, non-profit, academic, government, and other sectors. These coalition partners include such familiar organizations as Bank of America, Capital One, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Equifax, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Education Association, and many more. These partner organizations generally conduct and/or support financial education or offer financial education tools and materials.

Jump$tart also includes a network of 49 affiliated state coalitions.  Each state coalition is an independently governed and operated non-profit organization, united with the national Jump$tart Coalition through an affiliation agreement and a desire to advance Jump$tart’s mission of financial astuteness for students. Jump$tart's state coalitions are operated predominately by volunteers.

Jump$tart’s strategic role is to provide resources that complement and enhance the individual and collective work of its partners and to take on activities that advance the financial literacy effort on behalf of all of its partners. Jump$tart’s online Clearinghouse is the nation’s most comprehensive collection of financial education resources suitable for students in pre-K through college, reviewed for appropriateness, and based on the National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance Education.

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COD - 5/8/2012 - ReadCube [Research]

ReadCube is a tool designed to help researchers be organized and save time, while discovering more.

Import PDFs in a single step. ReadCube creates your article library instantly with one-click download of related articles from PubMed, Google Scholar™, or publisher web sites. ReadCube will automatically identify the author, title, and journal citation information of every article you download.

All your articles are organized in one place. They’re full-text searchable and can include your own highlights and sticky notes. Go directly to the articles referenced in the paper you are reading with clickable references. Easily view articles that cite the paper you are reading, or articles related to it.

ReadCube automatically recommends relevant articles every day to help you stay on top of the latest research.

Watch a video introduction to ReadCube.

ReadCube is a free public beta app for Mac or Windows.

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COD - 3/5/2012 - Fifty Sneakers [Tools]

Fifty Sneakers is the sequel to the web-based tool, Quizinator, which appeared in a previous post nearly two years ago. Quizinator was an online resource library that could be used to organize and manage collections of questions and answers.

Fifty Sneakers includes all of Quizinator's features, but adds enhanced and expanded content management, networking, and sharing capabilities.

Principle features of Fifty Sneakers:

• Build documents or online tests from content libraries.
• Review automatically graded test results.
• Track student scores and performance.
• Form communities to share resources.

You create a document in Fifty Sneakers by selecting items from your Content Library and placing them anywhere you choose and in whatever format you need. If you change a content item in your library, that change is automatically pushed everywhere that content is being used. Information used in multiple locations will always be up to date everywhere.

As well as all the formatting options you have with documents, you also have numerous options for formatting tests and quizzes. For example, display question values, identify answers with letters or numbers, or set the document to randomize questions within each section.

The free Fifty Sneakers plan gives you up to 250 items in your content library and 10 PDF documents. Paid plans start at $5.99 (US) monthly. You can earn a premium level plan for free by sharing your work with the Fifty Sneakers Global Community. There are no setup or cancellation fees, and there are no contracts to sign.

You can make your document available for public download by sharing a link that Fifty Sneakers generates for you. Fifty Sneakers is available in English and Spanish.

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COD - 2/13/2012 - WatchKnowLearn [Videos]

The WatchKnowLearn plan is to deliver free educational videos over the Internet that can be viewed any time, anywhere, so that everyone can have the same opportunity to learn.

WatchKnowLearn believes the best way to make this happen is by organizing the hundreds of thousands of good videos currently available on the Internet into one super directory.

To this end WatchKnowLearn invites educators to suggest videos for inclusion into their directory, and then to review, approve, and assign those videos into appropriate categories. The videos are high quality and cover all major topics from elementary to secondary schools. WatchKnowLearn has so far indexed over 20,000 educational videos into a directory including over 3,000 categories.

No registration or fees are required of teachers in order to use the videos in the classroom or for students to use them at home 24/7. Users can browse the directory or search WatchKnowLearn by subject and age level.

The WatchKnowLearn website invites participation in a wiki system guided by teachers. Video titles, descriptions, age level information, and ratings are all edited for usefulness.

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