The Daring Librarian

I'm shamelessly lifting & adapting from Joyce's NeverEnding Search blog this week - if you follow my Tweets you'll know we're dealing with a family emergency right now (see below) but the TL Cafe is so close to my heart I gotta give you the heads up, right!? "Time to look back at the best of 2011 in our school library/edtech world and share! At the TL Virtual Cafe on December 5th, 8PM Eastern, we’ll be hosting a Learning Tools Open Mic/Smackdown/Karaoke . And the plan is to get ready by building a crowd-souced presentation/book . Joyce & I are listed as presenter & host, but the goal here is for YOU, friends, to do the heavy lifting. Look back at 2011. What is the most exciting thing you learned? What was the most powerful teaching strategy you tried? Which instructional tools best inspired learners? Did you have an epiphany about how to do something easier, better, cooler in your library or classroom? (Classroom teacher friends are welcome...

Why Blog?  You don't start blogging for awards. You blog because you are passionate about your profession, and have ideas & content to share with potential readers. If you blog it, they will come. Eventually. It may just take a while! Don't give up! I blogged for YEARS out the aethernets and for a handful of readers! (I'm lookin at YOU dear Svetlana in Vladivostock!) And you surely don't start blogging for comments! If you are expecting comments when you start blogging you're gonna be discouraged awfully quick and give up. I get about 6 or 7 comments per blog post and most all of those are spam. That's why I treasure each and every REAL comment I get! Now, I am in NO WAY saying I'm an expert blogger, (or writer! ha!) but I do have some ideas and tips for blogging that I've gathered over the years that I'd like to share and I'd love to hear yours! Start When You're Ready, Already! I started blogging in 2006, a few months after I...

I got this compelling email from good friend and LJ/SLJ/The Horn Book publisher Ian Singer who forwarded a passionate plea to several of us to mobilize, sign the petition to Ensure all school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every day and to get out the word via Twitter. So, I immediately signed the petition and Tweeted it out now I'm posting it here to share it with you my dear to readers! DEADLINE: November 27th My friends – Good morning. I’m writing on behalf of a single voice, who has reached out to School Library Journal looking for “help and hope”. And so, I am reaching out to you individually and collectively because the time for us to act is now. While at AASL, I spoke with very many of you about this exact issue and the pressing need for us to get together and more actively to support the plight of our school libraries and librarians . . . the time for us to act is now. So let’s start somewhere, together, and help our frien...

I eagerly drank the Dropbox Koolaid last year thanks to my good friend from METC_CSD Gina Hartman - I was sold when she said "because of Dropbox I don't care if my laptop crashes" My jaw literally dropped my eyes bugged out, and I realized THIS WAS BIG!  Now I love Dropbox more every day! Dropbox brings together seamlessly all of my devices. All of my Macs (iPad, Macbook laptop, & iMac work desktop) and my Android Fascinate phone (UPDATE 11:14 - iPhone 6+) . Between Dropbox & GoogleDocs - I really don't need to carry around flashdrives (But I still do -cause networks *can* still go down!) I'm a girl scout that way. The Cloud is here! Give it a shot by joining Dropbox – Are you a teacher?  Dropbox loves schools !  After you join, if you are an educator you can also get double the credit for referrals. That's 500 MB for you per friend & an extra 250MB for them that with your special .EDU account. (Update 11:14 - not sure about this anymo...