More Goodies from Students

Here I am grading again and enjoying a lovely Mother's Day all by myself. My daughter is at home in Portland, OR, but we talked and she is planning a visit in early June. In my honor (so she said) she paid off her library fine today. How much? I ask...$80.00. Ah well, she is using the library. I took a ride on my new toy, an electric bike that I named PeeWee. Here is the link to the distributor: http://www.rmartinbikes.com/
Mine is the E500 at the bottom of the page only mine is red, and yes, it does look like the bike in "PeeWee's Big Adventure." It is getting me up the steep hills in my neighborhood, and I plan to use it to run errands and go to work. Take that Big Oil!

Anyway, as always, I picked up some good links from students today:

• Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day, which I had seen before but not visited in a while: http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/
• Wes Fryer's Wiki, Teach Digital: http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/ I follow his blog but somehow had missed this great site.
• Board Games with Scott: http://www.boardgameswithscott.com/
• Donalyn Miller's Blog, The Book Whisperer: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/
• Paul Allison's Vlog: http://paulrallison.livejournal.com/
• Here is a good list of royalty free image sites that I just found at Wes Fryer's wiki: http://www.macworld.com/article/57935/2007/05/2407workingmacextra.html
  

Learning from my students again!

One of the best things about my job is grading papers. Yep, that's right, I enjoy it! Many times I get to know students better through their work, and I don't think I ever spend some time grading without learning something new. Today, with the weather gray and drippy outside, and sitting in the den with my dozing Dad and drowsy dog, I am happy to be occupied with grading. One of the best things I have read is that on student, after spending time exploring the ALA website, came to a better understanding of her role in matching readers with books. A first-year librarian, she is just beginning to enjoy this special part of her job, and she related a relationship she has formed with one particular student who started out by asking her the question we all get, "Where are the GOOD books." She was able to interest the girl in a book she had just finished, and now they are reading buddies. This is, of course, one of the greatest rewards of being a librarian.

Also, I picked up some new websites:

• ELGG (http://elgg.org/) is an open source social networking environment that I did not know until today. Doug Johnson shared it in his blog, and evidently it is a good one for school use.
• Truth or Fiction? (http://www.truthorfiction.com/) Like Hoaxbusters or Snopes, this site will help squelch rumors and expose hoaxes.
  
• The Loch (http://www.theloch.com/index.html) There is a whole website devoted to Paul Zindel's book The Loch and, it appears, an upcoming movie.
• The New York Times offers a treasure trove of lesson plans! Take a look: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/archive.html
• One of my students had Holocaust survivor/author Inge Aeurbacher as a guest. Here is her website: http://www.ingeauerbacher.com/default.htm