The Daring Librarian

  This just popped out of my mouth when I was doing the question & answer portion of my keynote last week at the AISL Baltimore conference. And I like it! What do you think? Librarians are the Key  to Information Mastery! There's a lot of talk out there that it's the end of librarianship because of Google and the Interwebs.  I know other states getting rid of their school librarians - but I gotta say Nay, Nay! Let us not give up the good fight! things are seemingly dire and bleak for our profession, what with California & Now, is when the world needs librarians the most! With SO much information out there who else better than a librarian to decode it, curate it, interpret it, organize it, authenticate it, and integrate it? Who else but the librarian is going to teach attribution and Creative Commons? Who else but the librarian is going to be able to filter through millions of research results, then curate and create a playlist of amazing resources i...

The Task: "You've moved to the upscale neighborhood of Mt. Olympus, rubbing elbows with the big shots, the wealthy, the divine - yes the Greek Gods. To fit in you better know who your neighbors are! This playlist will help you find out all about their habits, attitudes, and yes...their powers!" During testing season we have a challenge to support student research with limited access to our computer labs and mobile labs. So, teaming with my 7th grade English teachers, we've re-worked our usual Greek Mythology research unit & adding a Reality TV hook for engagement. (Confession: 2 of my 3 seventh grade English teachers & I are also all huge Bravo fans & and our shared guilty pleasure is the Real Housewives franchise) Since we didn't want to do "Real Housewives of Mt. Olympus" for fear that our guy students would be turned off by that, we thought Big Rich would do the trick! PS. This lesson also would work for our good friends in the S...