Has anybody read...

My friend was telling me about a book called "The Great Dog Poop Initiative." Anyone heard of it? It sounded funny for a way to get people to see that we have to take the initiative and not only talk about the problems. I just wondered if it would be a good addition to my collection.

Making a new discovery

I have made the next step into the computer life. I can now blog with the rest of you. Thanks for all the great comment you have made in class. I look forward to seeing everyone sometime again in the future.

Congrats on the Boy

Kari, I am so excited for you. Definitely go get the football, its never to early ;) As far as names go, do your son a favor and do a normal spelling. I read the newspaper today and there were names in there that will give that kid heck forever. I think its mean. Anyway, congrats.

Hey, for every ones information, the charter school in my area is a go and we already have a third of the students signed up. We've only had one public meeting so this is very encouraging results. I will now be very busy getting a library set up. If you've done this, give me some hints.

How is everyone feeling without a wad of homework? Wahooooooo!!!!!!

IT'S A BOY!!!

Hey there, everyone! We found out that the baby is a boy! We're pretty excited. My husband is ready to buy a football already. With all of the kicking this kid is already doing, I'm not surprised that he is his daddy's son.
We're still trying to come up with names. Any suggestions? It's hard to come up with something that doesn't remind me of a student I've taught. ;-)
Hope that ya'll are doing well!
Kari

What I've been reading

This week I finished King of the Mild Frontier by Chris Crutcher (his "autobiography") and Austenland by Shannon Hale. Has anyone else read either of them? I thought King was pretty humorous, but I didn't like the way he ended it, and I was disappointed in Austenland. I guess I need to take into consideration what it is (chick lit), but I was hoping for a little more substance...... Has anyone else read anything good??????

YALSA Call to Action

From an email sent by YALSA:

Support the SKILLs Act: Urge your Senators to co-sponsor S. 1699 and your Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 2864.

On Tuesday June 26, Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) introduced the Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLs) Act that guarantees students across America will be served by highly qualified, state-certified school library media specialists and will have the library resources they need to succeed.

The SKILLs Act:

• Requires school districts, to the extent feasible, to ensure that every school within the district employs at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in each school library;
• Defines highly qualified school library media specialists as those who have a bachelor’s degree and have obtained full state certification as a school library media specialist or passed the state teacher licensing examination, with state certification in library media in such state;
• Establishes as a state goal that there be at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in every public school no later than the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year;

• Broadens the focus of training, professional development, and recruitment activities to include school library media specialists;

• Ensures that funds will serve elementary, middle, and high school students; and
• Requires books and materials to be appropriate for and engage the interest of students in all grade levels and students with special learning needs, including English language learners.

Urgent Action Needed:

This legislation is critical to the future of school library media specialists. Contact your Senators and ask them to cosponsor S. 1699. Contact your Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 2864.

Talking Points:

• Multiple studies have affirmed that there is a clear link between school library media programs that are staffed by a school library media specialist and student academic achievement. Across the United States, research has shown that students in schools with good school libraries learn more, get better grades, and score higher on standardized test scores than their peers in schools without libraries.
• Long regarded as the cornerstone of the school community, school libraries are no longer just for books. Instead, they have become sophisticated 21^st century learning environments offering a full range of print and electronic resources that provide equal learning opportunities to all students, regardless of the socio-economic or education levels of the community – but only when they are staffed by school library media specialists trained to collaborate with teachers and engage students meaningfully with information that matters to them both in the classroom and in the real world.
• Only about 60 percent of our school libraries have a full-time, state-certified school library media specialist on staff.
• With limited funding and an increased focus on school performance, administrators are trying to stretch dollars and cut funds across various programs to ensure that maximum resources are dedicated to improving student academic achievement.
• Because NCLB does not highlight the direct correlation between school library media specialists and increased student academic achievement, library resource budgets are increasingly being used to mitigate the effects of budgetary shortfalls.

Getting boys to read

Here's an interesting article about getting boys to read. The author shares favorites of her boys. Some or maybe many of the titles will be familiar to us, but you may get some new ideas, also.

http://www.calendarlive.com/books/la-bk-hamilton10jun10,0,2317796.story?coll=cl-books-features

-Stephanie

New Links

A shout out THANKS to Caryn who has sent a list of great links.

I've added most of them to the sidebar, but the AASL blog http://blogs.ala.org/aasl.php and the YALSA blog http://blogs/ala/org/index.php?blog=5 don't like being made links. They send me to a spam blocker when I post them on our page, so you'll need to bookmark them on your own computer file if you're interested in visitng those sites, or click them from this entry.

If you know of other great sites, please let me know. I'll try to add more authors links as well.

Thanks! And don't forget to respond to the inviation email.

In today's Deseret News, Marilou Sorensen has an article for great summer reads. I noticed that she mentioned the new book The Neddiad by Daniel Pinkwater. I haven't read any of his books lately, but I remember them being very humorous and off-the-wall. She also mentions Shannon Hale's new novel for adults Austenland, about a girl who goes to a Jane Austen "theme park" and finds....what else??? Love! I have them both on hold at the library!

ALAN Chat with Carl Hiaasen

For those of you who are interested in Young Adult novels, you might want to check out this upcoming chat:

The ALAN Chat hosted by C.J. Bott and David Gill is pleased to have Carl Hiaasen for its next author interview, focusing on his YA books HOOT and FLUSH. The interview will be next Wednesday, 27 June at 9:00 pm Eastern time. Just sign on to the ALAN website and follow the directions to enter the chat room. You will be asked to provide a screen name but do not need a password. Sign on anytime to preview our ALAN site.

Our past interviews have led to great discussions, and we want to welcome Carl with a good turn out. Please join us!

ALSO, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD TO OTHER YA FANS YOU KNOW AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO JOIN ALAN IF THEY ARE NOT ALREADY MEMBERS.

We survived Logan!

It was a jam-packed week, but those of us enrolled in the summer practicum at Utah State University in Logan not only survived, we also completed all the courses and paperwork to earn our Library Media Endorsements. Congrats to us all!

And now, we're ready to embark on a new collective journey. Several of us discussed the idea of a community blog where we could write about our trials and triumphs as we move along the career path toward administrating library media centers.

If you'd like to participate, we'd love to hear from you either via your response to a blog message, or we'd be happy to add you to the list of approved bloggers. Just let us know which you prefer.

Thanks for everything, and we all hope to hear from you soon. Check back often to see what everyone else has been up to.