Web 2.0 Summer Reading

Steve Hargadon offered a recommended reading list on 2.0 and its impact on education in the February 2010's School Library Journal.

We have recently completed purchasing of most of the titles he suggested and they are available for your perusal this summer:
Here Comes Everybody by Shirky
Why Students Don't Like School by Willingham
Disrupting Class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the World Learns By Christensen
The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education and
Born Digital by Palfrey, a subject of an earlier blog post.

Some related titles which we also own include:
Teaching the Digital Generation: No more cookie cutter high schools;
Best ideas for Teaching with Technology; and
Transforming Classroom Practice

If you have more to suggest, please post a comment below.

Bookleads Wiki

 Recently shared by the BRIGHT IDEAS blog:

Joyce Valenza blogged about this terrific wiki a few days ago.
Resources on the wiki include:

• reading suggestion portals
• book blogs
• ebook portals
• book-related podcasts
• trailers and videos
• book clubs and discussion guides
• authors who Skype
• author sites
• YA author blogs
• for librarians
• reading promotion programs
• book widgets
• elementary reading lists
• middle school reading lists
• high school reading lists
• authors who tweet
• If you liked Twilight
• fansites

Apply to join the wiki here.  I will embed RSS feeds to changes on this wiki at the top left.

No Shelf Required - Blog on ebooks

Sue Polanka is Head of Reference Instruction at Paul Laurence Dunbar Library at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. She has been exploring e-book platforms distributors and aggregators. Currently she is investigating open-access digital textbooks.
Open-access digital textbooks are protected by a Creative Commons license and are free to users who give attribution to original authors. What are the advantages?

• keeping content current and timely
• customizing content for a course
• breaking the textbook into granular pieces for instructors to personalize and adapt
• making the content portable and adaptable
• offering students free and lower-cost alternatives to print books

Polanka believes that librarians should get involved with open-access books and can become key players by investigating the offerings, checking the content against existing textbooks and state/national standards.

Options:
CK 12 Foundation (http://ck12.org)  See California Free Digital Textbooks Initiative
Connexions (http://cnx.org) Rice University - thousands of modules for social sciences and humanities (for the higher ed market)
Flatworld Knowledge (http://www.flatworldknowledge.com) 
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (Merlot) (http://ww.merlot.org) 


I placed a blog feed for No Shelf Required on this blog:  top left

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

It's Friday afternoon and during a free period, I am looking at news online and came across a follow-up article to Nicholas Carr's Atlantic Monthly piece of a few years ago titled, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".

Carr has expanded his argument into a forthcoming (June 7, 2010) book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. I particularly love this blurb from the publishers: "Nicholas Carr has written an important and timely book. See if you can stay off the web long enough to read it! (Elizabeth Kolbert)" I am going to try and am adding Carr's new title to my Summer Reading List -- watch the New Trier Library page for other Summer Reading ideas.

In the meantime, here is a recent Salon.com review of The Shallows. Read the review, think about concentrating and focus -- the author, Laura Miller, does a great job of illustrating her point.

Olive Kitteridge author coming to Wilmette

Elizabeth Strout will discuss Olive Kitteridge at 2 p.m. May 16 at the Wilmette Park District Community Recreation Center. This talk is part of the Wilmette Public Library's One Book, Everybody Reads program and tickets are required. Read more in an interview from Pioneer Press or contact the Wilmette Public Library.

Yankee Girl discussions led by New Trier students; author visits this week

Yankee Girl is one of those middle school titles that adults can learn from reading, too. The setting is Jackson, Mississippi in 1964 and a key theme is the struggle to find the moral courage to stand up for others and what you believe. Bullying is shown in numerous examples and with excerpts from contemporary newspaper accounts. The story focuses on Alice, whose FBI father is recently transferred to Jackson, and on Valerie, whose stoic ability to endure harassment while trying to be the first African American to legally integrate a 6th grade class is inspirational.

Recently, several New Trier students led book discussion groups on this title at Sunset Ridge (Northfield) and Skokie (Winnetka) schools. The New Trier students’ participation was part of the Winnetka-Northfield Public Library’s One Book-Two Villages program. This week, Yankee Girl’s author, Mary Ann Rodman, will be visiting to share her thoughts on writing this book. In addition to school visits, she will be attending a book discussion, writing workshop, book signing, and a separate luncheon with proceeds benefiting the Winnetka Alliance for Early Childhood. More details are available at the Winnetka Public Library’s web site.

During July, the One Book-Two Villages program will host Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help – if you have already read that book, pick up Yankee Girl and compare how the same time and place serves as a powerful background for younger characters struggling to understand meanness and prejudice.