Professional+Websites

Professional Websites Jukes, Ian.// 21st Century Fluency Project //. n.p., 2011. Web. 23 April, 2011  This is Ian Jukes' 21st Century Fluency Project which is "geared toward making learning relevant to life in our digital age." It provides a background on the project, defines "fluencies", or critical thinking skills, and provides (or will provide) curriculum kits which will have online lesson and unit planning tools. It also provides a very nice bibliography. I think this tool could be helpful in the future. It's not complete yet, so I don't know how powerful it will be, but I predict that I will be checking back next year to see what the lesson planning tools are like. This tool was discussed in class and it looked interesting, so I remembered to bookmark it. The strengths of this tool are that it's very nicely organized and designed and his blog is great. The weaknesses are that the tool is not complete yet.

 Lamb, Annette and Larry Johnson. //[|eduScapes]//. n.p., 2010. Web. 23 April, 2011.  It's hard to sum up all that's in this site. It's really a cornucopia of resources for educators and includes pathfinders, literacy-themed lesson plans and links to articles about literacy, information about e-scrapbooking, professional development resources, and much more. I find this site a bit overwhelming, so I haven't used it this year, but I think it's such a great resource that I will definitely use it in the future for the pathfinders and articles. This tool was introduced to me in this class, but I had heard of Annette Lamb before. The strength of this website is the sheer amount of great information, but I don't like the way it's designed. It's a bit confusing and the navigation system could be improved.

 Preddy, Leslie.// Virtual School Library Media Specialist Resource Center //. Leslie B. Preddy, 2010. Web. 23 April, 2010.  This is a really useful collection of links for school librarians, including standards, Indiana resources, information marketing and advocacy, professional development, and vendors. I found this site by searching for Peddy's name in Google, and like many of these sites, it's not easy to navigate, but that is more than made up for by the quality of the resources. I used this site to help me find information about advocacy to help me with my principal presentation.

Schrock, Kathy. //Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators// //. Discovery Education, 2011. Web. 23 April, 2011.//  This is an amazing resource, and it's impossible to summarize all its parts. It has many, many resources for teachers and librarians, including lesson plans and resources for students, as well as an amazing page of resources for librarians. I've used this tool many times, especially for lesson plan ideas, and will continue to do so in the future, I'm sure. I first heard about this site in my Information Inquiry for School Teachers class. This tools strength is its amazing amount of resources, but it's a little difficult to navigate and seems dated.

//[|Essential Links: Resources for School Library Media Program Development]//. American Association of School Librarians, 2011. Web. 23 April, 2011.  This is a fabulous resource that lists resources for many aspects of school librarianship. If I have a question, this is one of the first places that I look for answers, and because it's a Wiki I can add sites that I think are great as well. I actually think I found this tool just by searching for "school library tools" in Google. Its strengths are the breadth of topics and that anyone (with an account) can add resources. I just think this is a great resource and I can't really think of any weaknesses. //International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions//. IFLA, 2009. Web. 23 April, 2011.

//<span class="wiki_link_ext">International Reading Association //. International Reading Association, 2011. Web. 23 April, 2011. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">I had not heard of this organization before, but it's an organization that is committed to global literacy. This site has information about membership, publications, research, advocacy, reading lists, and grants. I would love to become a member and attend conferences, and perhaps apply for literacy grants. I heard about this organization from Kym Kramer, and I think the site is really well-designed and easy to use.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">//Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science//. Joan M. Reitz, 2010. Web. 23 April, 2011. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> This is an awesome resource! It's exactly what it claims to be - a dictionary of library vocabulary and terminology. It's been really useful to help me understand the terminology that some of the other librarians use on LM_NET (unfortunately, I didn't learn much in the way of vocabulary in library school). I believe I first heard about this tool in my first semester of graduate school from my Collection Development teacher. The only drawback that I can see to this resource is that I'm not sure how often it's updated and the majority of its focus is on older technology.

<span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">//ReadWriteThink//. IRA/NCTE, 2011. Web. 23 April, 2011. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext">This site offers free resources to educators, including literacy lesson plans, professional development links, and activities for students. I just found this site, so I haven't used it yet, but I think the lesson plans looks really useful and this would be a great resource to pass on to teachers. I found this resource through the International Reading Association website. I think this site is very well designed and easy to use, and I don't see any obvious weaknesses.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">//[|Resources for School Librarians]//. Linda Bertland, 2011. Web. 23 April, 2011. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> This is a very useful, if unglamorous, resource. It provides links to variety of great sites about a variety of school library topics. I've used this site relatively frequently over the last few months, and I found many of the resources for this assignment on it. I first learned about it in my Information Inquiry for School Teachers class in 2009. This site is very simple and has many great links, and I really don't see any downsides.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">//Virtual Information Inquiry//. SLIS-IUPUI, 2010. Web. 23 April, 2011 <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> This is Annette Lamb's site, and it has lots of great information about inquiry models, standards, information fluency, and a variety of other information for school librarians. While this site is not great to look at and somewhat difficult to find what you're looking for, it's such a great source that I use it all the time. I used to consistently in my School Media class, and I will continue to in the future. I heard about this site in Information Inquiry for School Teachers.