Library Musings

I’ll make a valiant attempt to “clean up my language” in today’s entry.

Today, I sent in a workshop proposal to VSTE (The Virginia Society for Technology in Education). I’m hoping to present a 2 1/2 hour “bring your own laptop session” on a new teaching method that popped into my head full grown, and that I’m calling, “Circle the Laptops”. It’s a play on words from the phrase “Circle the Wagons”. (The theme of the conference is pioneering.)

I was able to type up the proposal pretty quickly. I just hope it made sense to the folks who will be reviewing it.

After a good nap, I woke up with ideas to flesh out the basic skeleton plan and wrote up Draft One of the workshop lesson plan. The structure in that draft feels solid to me, so I hope to stay with it and not make the mistake of constantly thinking I should tweak it a bit to make it just perfect.

The major work for the workshop remains to be done, of course. First, I need to locate and study the resources I’ll be using and those that I’ll be recommending to the workshop participants for possible later use, and then, I will need to create the various parts of the presentation.

I’m also hoping to work with some of my students to prepare a podcast for use in the presentation since one of the touchstones for the concept of “Circle the Laptops” is to recognize that students often (always?) are more advanced than adults in their use of technology and that by making their thoughts, experiences and knowledge an integral part of the fabric of a lesson plan (and the preparation of lessons) we can hope to stay ahead of them by mixing our knowledge of resources and research skills with their awareness of the latest and greatest of what’s out there in technology.

I think that I’ve about used up my fifteen minutes of writing time for today. I hope that you will look for my workshop if you will be attending VSTE. Also, if you want to participate in the 15 Minute Writing Challenge, be sure to go to Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog for more information.

I’m going to participate in Laurie Halse Anderson’s WFMAD challenge this year. If you’d like more details you can check the instructions from last year which also apply this year at http://halseanderson.livejournal.com/198027.html?page=1#comments. Laurie’s also on Facebook, so you could friend her there.

The challenge doesn’t actually start until August 1st, but I’m excited about it today, so thought I’d try for a practice 15 minute writing today on the topic: “Why I am excited about the WFMAD challenge”.

OK, that’s 2 minutes down. LOL

I think that the first and major reason I’m excited is because this is a project Laurie has designed. I feel like I’ve gotten to know her pretty well on Facebook so, in addition to being a big fan of her books, I admire her as a person and appreciate her as a friend.

You might think that a reason why I am participating is that I want to be an author, but that simply isn’t true. I would much rather enjoy the writings of truly gifted authors than spend time trying to hack out something myself.

I would like to post to my blog more regularly though, so I hope that this challenge will help me get into the habit of doing that.

I’m also excited because this is not a terribly daunting challenge. The rules are very flexible, and if/when you fall off the wagon it’s OK to get back on.

I’ll be starting back to work on August 10th, so I’m hoping that joining the WFMAD challenge will give me a chance to set out some of my ideas for the new school year.

And I think I’ll finish up here with a few of my current ideas for school.

Thanks to such fortunate concurrent events I have been drawn back into a project from last year where I was trying to put together lists of books for my students. (Actually, you can see the drafts of the lists in the previous entry on this blog.)

I’m designing some FAQ signs for my library in hopes that they will help to guide students in finding the most frequently needed resources on land and sea and in the depths of cyberspace. The only one I’ve got done so far is on how to locate books using Destiny. I don’t find that the name Destiny is of any help in understanding what the program is used for, so I hope that having a FAQ sign up will be of assistance.

I’ve been thinking about a cool design for a Welcome Back sign to hang above my first book display of the year. Print some simple photographic backgrounds on paper so it can be used as a sort of base stationary. (I have a good simple photo of beach sand and water that I’d like to use.) Then I could run the paper back through the printer to add one big letter per page. Debating yet how complex the letters should be. I tend to go overcomplicated, so I’ll probably just give each letter a different color.

My 15 minutes is up, so I’ll close for today. I’ll be back…

Would someone PLEASE come drag me away from the computer and make me finish cleaning house!

Callimachus has turned me on to etymonline.com. I feel like a kid in a candy store when I go there.

When you visit be sure to scroll down and look on the far right of the screen for links to sister sites and to related sites. My favorite is the comments area: Sciolist. It goes far beyond just etymology, and in fact goes in another direction all together.

BTW, this is the website I was looking for when posting about Alphabet Juice.

What are your favorite words/language sites, books, and magazine columns?

Just trying to get my blog claim on Technorati to work properly. Pay no attention.

Technorati Profile

Apologies. In my earlier post on DAW books I said that Follett didn’t carry many of them. In fact, Cheryl in customer service replied to my e-mail today to let me know they have over 200 currently in the catalog, and will keep a special eye out for future books from DAW.

I mentioned DAW books in the previous entry. Thought I’d go into more detail here.

If you read fantasy and/or sci-fi short stories you’ve probably read some DAW books whether you know it or not. Many fans of these genre collect DAW books because of their consistent quality and their frequent habit of stumbling across new authors who then become leaders in the field.

I’ve been told that DAW puts out a new anthology two or three times a month. (They’ve been in the business since 1971.) The books are always paperback, so they’re very portable. Almost as good as a Kindle, huh? LOL

Three I’m reading from right now are Fantasy Gone Wrong, Time Twisters, and Furry Fantastic. I’ve just become aware of the DAW phenomenon during this holiday, but I’ve already ordered several more from Amazon.

For an extensive list of DAW’s titles visit AsYouKnow_Bob’s list at librarything.

These books are fun reading for adults but they would also be great for YA’s. Short stories provide teens an opportunity to read in spite of being so busy, and fantasy and sci-fi are also big with them, of course. And by providing a regular stream of new anthologies it should be easy to keep the kids interested over a period of time. I’m going to buy each as I see it at the bookstore, donate it to my library, and read it. (Not necessarily in that order.)

I didn’t find much in the way of DAW books at Follett which is my regular jobber. I did send a customer service e-mail suggesting that they might want to think about offering them. If that doesn’t come to pass, I’m sure they could be special ordered.

Do give DAW a try. I think you’ll be impressed.

I’m at home with the Christmas tree lit and carols playing. Since I gave myself a Zune for Christmas I’ve been enjoying downloading songs and albums from Amazon. I highly recommend Holiday Classics by the 101 Strings. Is anyone other than me old enough to remember the 101 Strings? They are (were) an orchestra that played nice, minimally embellished, well-known tunes.

It’s not Thanksgiving, but it just occurred to me that Microsoft (or whatever programmers wherever) did a wonderful thing when they created cut/copy and paste. Can you imagine if they hadn’t thought of it and we had to copy a URL letter by letter to create a link? Not to mention the many other uses.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at LibraryThing. I am enjoying adding books to my library there (see furdog), but more than that I’m into the groups right now. Currently, I’m an active member of the 75 Books Challenge for 2009, DAW books, Fantasy Fans, Read YA Lit, Name That Book, and Disaster Buffs.

The 75 Books Challenge led me to a website I hadn’t used before: Ticker Factory.

Here’s my ticker for the challenge:

Well…I wrote a rather lengthy post here about Mortimer Adler’s essay, “How to Mark a Book” and how blogging might be used to modernize his ideas for writing comments, highlighting phrases, and so on in a print book.

And then, with a sense of great irony, I attempted to publish the post and it disappeared into cyberspace never to be seen again. The ghost of Mortimer Adler walks among us.

So, to be safe, I will make this a short post, with one final recommendation that, in addition to reading the essay, you also pick up a copy of Adler’s book titled How to Read a Book.

I’m not feeling reflective tonight, so thought I’d just post a list of some books I’m reading currently:

Replay (by Ken Grimwood)

House; A Mirror of Self

In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction

Don’t Call Me Ishmael

Futuring

On Bullshit

Blind Spots

Time Twisters

About Time: Short Stories by Jack Finney

The Time Travelers Academy

Obviously I’m very into science fiction and tales of time travel and alternate realities right now.

That meets my obligation to post daily for today.