The Many Hats of a School Librarian

Scholastic Book Wizard is great.  If you want to organize your classroom collection, you can choose from four leveling scales.  If you really liked a book, you can type in the title and push the “Book Alike” button and get a list of similar-themed books at that same reading level OR you can adjust the reading level easier or harder.  http://www.scholastic.com/bookwizard/

SMART Notebook 10 can change your boring PowerPoints to an interactive learning page where you can move objects right on the page, embed videos, and add customizable graphics that are difficult in other applications.  You can use a regular mouse for students to move objects on the screen, a wireless mouse if you have one - or borrow the SMARTBoard! We have a rolling SMARTBoard in the bookroom that needs some love.  If you want it in your room for a while, let me know and we’ll work out a schedule.  If you need some refresher on smart notebook, I can set up a 15 minute time with you to get you started. There is now a SMARTBoard mounted in the media center.  You may also sign out the media center space when there is not a class scheduled if you want to use it with your class. You all have SMART Notebook on your school computers, and you can also download it at home.  Email me and I will get the download info for you.

We have access to Google documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations for staff and students through Osseo. You can get there from apps.district279.org.  Students also have access to this and can take advantage of the collaborative nature of the tools.  All users login with their district username and password and can access it from any internet connection. Here's a link for some tutorials and help for using these tools. https://sites.google.com/a/apps.district279.org/osseoappspd/

You need a username and password for this, see me for yours if you don't know it.  It matches with curriculum and provides videos to show your students.  You can download them to embed in powerpoints or steam them from the site.

www.animoto.com This is the website I used to make the Kindergarten gingerbread picture video and the RIF commercial.  Import your pictures, choose a theme, and animoto does the rest.  You can make 30 second videos using about 12 pictures for free.  I did buy the upgrade for $30 for the year so I can use it personally and at CV.  You do have to view them on the web with the free version. Kids can also use it with an account  to create videos from photos.

www.crambery.net Sign up for a free account and get access to 30 flash cards per day.  You can use this projected on your big screen as a review for anything.  Browse for flashcards that are already done (addition or multiplication tables, for example) or make your own with any content you need to review. I've just quickly previewed this, but it looked pretty cool and really quick and easy to set up.  They are just flashcards, but kids will think it's a computer game.

www.diigo.com Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows you to save websites for access at home, school, or anywhere with an internet connection.  Requires you to create a login and password and is completely separate from Osseo Area Schools.  I use mine to save cool sites that I see at conferences or people share with me.  You can also use the site to share websites with colleagues and others, but I haven’t personally done that much exploring.  Using this websites instead of bookmarking in your school browser will also eliminate summer/fall headaches when the computers are re-imaged. You can also set up a teacher account and accounts for students so they can access your links, highlight, sticky note and save their own to share with you.

Both primary and intermediate.  Must be accessed from School.  Osseo has a subscription.  Search for authors, books, or lessons to bring multimedia into your reading lessons.  I like to use it for authors to read parts of their books or share experiences.  It can also be accessed from the district279.org virtual media center. http://www.teachingbooks.net

Have your students go to  http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/  to see what it would really be like to live in another country.  All kinds of information and statistics are given to compare the country to the USA.

If you have students who struggle with vocabulary or definitions of words, www.lingro.com will allow you or the student to enter a url and the webpage opens with each word hyperlinking to dictionary.com.  You can't see the links, but they are there.  You do need to make sure that your students can read the definitions, though!