Monday, October 28, 2013

Cyber Safety

Greetings!

Most of the parents of our kids have had computers or access to computers nearly all their lives but it is surprising how many of them do not realize that cyberspace is not a safe place for their children.

We had a program this past week for parents on keeping their children safe online and about 20 parents came. Not twenty families, 20 parents. One teacher commented that if it had been a basketball game, they all would have been there. Our principal pointed out that if we want the children to be safe online, we need to be teaching them.

If this sounds like your school, you may need to arm yourself with information. Here are some topics that we need to be teaching our children.
1. Online safety – Facebook, chat rooms, e-mail, Twitter, and more.
2. Cell phone use
3. Netiquette
4. Cyber-bullying
5. Computer safety

If you aren’t teaching or discussing these subjects with your students, please find some time to do this. Materials are available for free from the internet and books. Check with your local public schools and see what is happening there and what materials they are using. You may be able to get in on their order or they may even provide materials for you. Check with the local public library for materials.

I used this website last year when teaching this to grades 5 – 8 during library lessons. http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents I showed a couple of the videos to the kids. One was called “Tracking Teresa” and it showed how quickly and easily one can find out information about a person online. I also showed one called “You Photo Fate” about a girl who sent a ‘hot pic’ to her boyfriend and how quickly and easily the photo can travel especially to places that the girl would not want her photo to travel. We also discussed the fact that the photo was child pornography and the ramifications of having a photo like that on your phone.

I urge you to go to the Netsmartz.org website and look around. There is a ton of age appropriate information there and it is easy to present.

I also hope that if you have school or classroom computers that can access the internet that you have on file an acceptable use policy for each child that uses the computer. If you do not, please consider implementing this as soon as possible. I would be happy to send you a copy of the one we use for our school that you can use as a template.

Let’s keep our children as safe as we can online.

Audrey

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Old Books

Greetings!
If you library is anything like mine, you have a bunch of old books. Most of them look old and boring, too.

Question: So what do you do with old books?

Answer: Get them off the shelves and discard them. They aren’t being checked out anyway. They are taking up valuable real estate.

Question: BUT – what if the story is great or the book is an important one that needs to stay in the library? What can you do to promote these books?

Answer: I can think of three ways to promote old books in your classroom or library.

1. Book talk the books. Choose exciting passages and read bits of the book to the class and deliberately leave off at an exciting part. Then put the book out for students to check out.

2. Put a number of old (ugly?) books on a special display shelf or table along with a sign to promote them. Sample ideas for signs might be “Lonely Books” “Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover”, etc. Ask students to read a book and let you know if the story is good enough for the book to be kept in the library. Most students are willing to read a book to help out in this way.

3. If a book is a great story, just ugly, do your best to replace the copy with a new copy. If you cannot get a new copy, but really want to keep the book, have students who are artistic make nice book jackets for these books. Another idea is to download a nice cover and put it on a book jacket. Either cover these book jackets with a plastic cover or laminate them and tape them to the book.

Just because a book is old does not mean it should be discarded. But just because it is on your shelves, does not mean it should be kept. Use some common sense and keep what is important to your school and curriculum.

Have a great week!
Audrey

Monday, October 14, 2013

Hobbies and Activities


Greetings!

If you are like me, you have some pretty intelligent students in your school. Their interests run the gamut of activities, sports, and hobbies. If you don’t have books in your library to feed their interests, then why not? This is a great way to know what books and materials to add to your library knowing that they will be used.

Most kids I know love building a fort or hide-out. Check out the books by David Stiles. Even if students don’t actually build them, these are great fun to dream about.

Does your Pathfinder group or another group still build pinewood derby cars? I found a book about how to build one. Even if the students aren’t in Pathfinders, it still might be fun to build one of those little racing cars.

What kid does not like secret codes? Let them learn about codes and ciphers from a book in the library.

One of our teachers is a talented artist and his students love to check out the drawing books. These can be used in all grade levels, too.

Think about model trains, model airplanes, boats, and cars. If you have students that are interested in these things, put books and magazines in your library to draw them in. What about Legos? There are some great Lego books on building things with Legos.

One of our teachers had a parent come and teach crocheting, so we stocked up on books about crocheting, knitting, quilting, weaving, beading, and sewing. I’m sure you can think of other crafts that you’d like to have represented in your library.

Don’t forget other sports and outdoor activities. We have a community park with BMX racing competitions so we have some books on BMX bikes in our library. We also have the BMX magazine in the library. Our junior high students go skiing every winter, so Ski is also another magazine we include in our library.

Ask your students what sports and hobbies they would like to see in the library. Let them be a part of the selection process and they will be much more likely to use the books and magazines you purchase. Let the student who helped choose the books be first to check them out.

Ask students to bring in some of their creations to be used in a display. Put the book beside the article they made or created. Or just make a great display of all your craft and activity books.

Enjoy your hobby section!
Have a great week!

Audrey

Monday, October 7, 2013

Inappropriate Books from Home

Greetings,

This week I want to revisit the issue that some schools (OK, MOST schools) have. The problem of students bringing books from home that aren’t appropriate for your SDA school. I would advise that you have a discussion with your class about what kinds of books would be appropriate and what kinds might not. Let them discuss the issue. When you are satisfied that they probably know appropriate from inappropriate, then guide the class to make a rule/policy/guideline for your class.

So what if a student does bring a book that isn’t appropriate? What do you do?

First, how can you tell if a book isn’t appropriate?
1. Check the cover. Look for things like dragons, witches, vampires, or other worldly appearance. You can pretty much guarantee that the book is not appropriate. But, keep in mind that there may be some books out there that are really OK, but the cover is not.
2. Ask the student if the book is appropriate, but ask in a non-confrontational way. “Hey, I just got a glimpse of the cover of your book and wondered about it. From the cover it looks like it might not be something to bring to school to read. What is it about?” Let the student tell you about the book. You may be surprised.
3. If the book is indeed not something you want to be at school, this is a perfect teachable moment. The student may not have really understood what inappropriate means. But if he or she is testing you, you have not been confrontational. Remind them about the class/school policy, and offer to hold the book until school is out so they can take it home.
4. If you aren’t sure about the book, go to www.amazon.com or http://www.commonsensemedia.org/ and find more information there.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Common Sense Media site, I urge you to take a few minutes to go to the site and see how it works. Type in a book, movie, game, or other media and see how the site rates your choice. I read about a family who used the site to help decide what movie to see. The children wanted to see a particular movie, and the parents thought it was a little too old for them. The parents said, “Let’s see what age level Common Sense Media says the movie is. If they say it is for children your age, then we will see it, but if they say it is for children older, we will see another movie.” I liked that idea to help settle a dispute. It wasn’t just their parents saying a movie was too old for them, but many other parents saying the same thing.

If you have any questions you would like for me to address in this blog, please send them along to me. A few of you have emailed questions to me and I have answered your emails individually , but am always happy to find a question that might be something that others might like to know.

I hope you have a great week. Check out my blog where I post these weekly emails. Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Audrey

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Spanish Books

Greetings!

This year at Rogers we are working to include Spanish lessons daily. For a number of years we have had a Spanish word or phrase each week through our morning announcement period and the students have had a little practice in the classrooms. But this year we have taken it to a slightly higher level.

In the library I have added quite a number of Spanish books. Where did I find them? Well, I got lucky. My assistant happened to be at a thrift store and saw a lot of Spanish picture books come through and bought the lot of them for about $20.00. I got about 40 – 50 books for that price. Most of them are simple picture books such as the Clifford books, but it would be pretty easy to read them especially with just a few words. I figured that I got a pretty good deal.

I have also just received a box of 30 Spanish books from a preview company called Lookout Books*. I am not sure how many of these I am going to buy, but they are just beautiful books. The photographs illustrate the information given and they are all in Spanish. But wait! These books are also AV media enhanced and gives a fully bilingual book between English and Spanish to help with the vocabulary. When you buy the book, there is a book code on the second page. You go to the website and enter the code. If you have a smart board or a projector connected to your computer, you can display it for the whole class to see.

If you want to add a few Spanish books to your library, try looking at used bookstores or thrift stores in your area. Make friends with someone at the thrift store and ask them to let you know if any arrive.

Have a great week.

Audrey

*Preview boxes come from a number of different companies. The boxes arrive filled with books. You open the box and look at the books and decide which books you want for your library. You keep the books you want and return the rest of the books to the company. Usually a sales rep contacts you to make arrangements to send the box out to you and then to arrange for returning the box. If you don’t purchase any books, there is no charge to you. Usually there is a small shipping/handling fee if you do make a purchase. You can also get processing information for a fee.