Students Voice Their Opinion about the Inauguration

Visit VoiceThread and search for "inauguration09". You will find some VoiceThreads which have been created by students allowing them to share their discussions about Obama's inauguration. For those of you who are new to VoiceThread, this is an online, digital story-teller with the ability of adding voice, text and "doodles". The best feature of VoiceThread is it's ability to share and collaborate with users around the world. I can think of no better use of VoiceThread than this opportunity for students to share their thoughts with the world!

Inauguration Word Clouds

The New York Times has a very clever interactive time line of all American presidents' inauguration speeches. The most-used words appear as the largest. The largest of all are highlighted. Click on a word to see it in context in the president's speech. It's quite interesting to see what words stood out for each president.
Any predictions for Obama's big words? I'm putting my money on HOPE, CHANGE, WE and YOU.

Classrooms for the Future comes to New Hope

It's been quite awhile since I've posted in my blog...but for good reason! As the CFF coach for our high school, my time is now split between library media specialist and the CFF position. As our school gets ready to roll out 2 MacBook labs, I've been busy gathering resources, attending professional development workshops and preparing teachers for what is to come. On January 15, we had our first "Out-of-the Box" Apple training with Paul Tarantiles. Paul truly got us excited about how we can use this technology! Social networking, multimedia creations, immediate access to educational tools - soon our kids will be using all these great things in their classrooms.
Of course, many of these tools may be new to us, but are certainly not new to our students. A recent MacArthur study found that "learning today is becoming increasingly peer-based and networked, and this is important to consider as we begin to re-imagine education in the 21st century". It found that although students are very adept at socializing and navigating online and with digital tools, they have not successfully used all those tools in their learning. That's where we educators come in. We can learn from them so that they can better learn from us.

NHS Education Fund Makes Dreams Come True

From inside or out, our library courtyard is truly a beautiful site! Thanks to funding from the New Hope-Solebury Education Fund, our first phase of beautifying the library courtyard has been completed. Lance Landscaping did a superb job of arranging lovely plants and regrading and seeding the area. Next, they will be refurbishing our patio.

It won't be long that students will be enjoying their time out there - reading, studying and appreciating the serene environment. Thank you to NHS Education Fund president, Bill Scandone, for making it happen!

Breakfast with Books a Success!

Our Breakfast with Books openhouse was a huge success! The library was brimming with students before school who enjoyed a light breakfast as they browsed our new books. And the best news is ... 94 books were checked-out within 1/2 hour!

This was also the first day of our school-wide Inpendent Reading period which was also a great success. Our principal reports that "you could have heard a pin drop"!

Breakfast with Books!

Breakfast with Books Open House - On Sept. 17th, come join us before school in the library for a light breakfast and a display of new book arrivals! Just in time to kick-off our first Independent Reading session!

"I can hear the insects buzz..."

walk across the courtyard, towards the library.
i can hear the insects buzz and the leaves 'neath my feet...

ramble up the stairwell, into the hall of books...
since we got the interweb these hardly get used.

I heard the new song, Librarian, by My Morning Jacket this weekend on the WXPN. The above opening lyrics seem so appropriate as we continue to make plans for our new courtyard. The top soil has been delivered and seed will go down soon. Vic Lance took me around Feeney's Nursery on Friday and showed me various plants which we can consider throughout the area. Soon we will draw up the plans for the first landscape installment.
If all goes as planned, we will have plants in bloom outside our library by this coming Spring as well as patio seating.