A new app for the iPad and Android devices uses a highly visual format to provide a different search experience for the tablet user. More than just a pretty interface, Izik—which debuted last month as the top reference app in iTunes—is based on Blekko, the search engine that boasts higher quality results based on human curation.

Enter a search term and Izik surfaces a stack of results based on category. The query “Black History Month” provided a “Quick Answer” up top, followed by related images, recent news, and categories, in this case, “African American,” “Black History,” and “American History.”

Navigation is optimized for the tablet format. So cutting down on keystrokes, users can swipe horizontally to view more results within the categories or swipe vertically to reveal more categories related to your search topic. Pinch to expand a result and share it via Facebook or Twitter directly from the search page.

Gary Price, editor of INFOdocket, cited Blekko, along with Duck Duck Go, as a viable alternative to Google. (“Wary of Google? Try These Alternative Search Tools”)

What distinguishes Blekko is a search tool known as slashtags. This feature enables users to refine results and build curated collections of select Web pages and then search and share those resources with others. So create a collection of Web resources, then share the slashtag with students, suggests Price. “Now, the only sites they’ll be searching are the ones you’ve selected,” he writes.

For a deeper dive into slashtags, creating custom slashtags and even embedding them on your website, check out Blekko’s search tutorial.

“It’s the one thing we can all agree on,” an unconference attendee told this reporter.  Indeed, the concept of hands-on programming in libraries—school, academic, or public—appeals to the broad spectrum of information professionals, from techy geeks at one end to traditional handcrafters at the other.  After all, “we’ve been doing this in children’s programming for years,” she said.

Put to a vote among unconference participants, “Creative Spaces” won out as the topic of choice (beating by a wide margin digital relevancy, advocacy, and budgeting).

Attendees shared ideas, with an emphasis on low-cost, practical ways to implement “Maker” activities in the library.  Much of the conversation urged partnering with other organizations, including:

Then there are Maker Kits. MAKE magazine is starting with a beta group of libraries, retrofitting their commercially available MAKE kits for checkout by patrons, from grade school kids to adults. The kits include “Getting Started with Arduino,” “Squishy Circuits,” and “Spinbots.”

For teens, there’s Maker Camp, a six-week online summer experience with how-to instruction for completing 30 projects in 30 days. This year, Maker Camp runs from July 8 to August 16. To register and see the projects from the 2012 Camp, visit  the page “Maker Camp on Google +”

For information about MAKE’s library initiative, email library@makermedia.com.

]]> http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/k-12/libraries-share-ideas-on-maker-spaces/feed/ 0 http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/k-12/annotate-the-web-with-popcorn-maker-screencast-tutorial/ http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/k-12/annotate-the-web-with-popcorn-maker-screencast-tutorial/#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:24:54 +0000 Kathy Ishizuka http://www.thedigitalshift.com/?p=14239 ]]> http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/k-12/annotate-the-web-with-popcorn-maker-screencast-tutorial/feed/ 0 http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/ebooks/school-library-journal-2012-a-year-in-review/ http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/ebooks/school-library-journal-2012-a-year-in-review/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:15:31 +0000 Kathy Ishizuka http://www.thedigitalshift.com/?p=13991 [<a href="//storify.com/kishizuka/slj-s-year-in-review-2013" target="_blank">View the story "School Library Journal 2012 | A Year in Review " on Storify</a>]]]> http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/ebooks/school-library-journal-2012-a-year-in-review/feed/ 0 http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/k-12/the-cheap-and-cheerful-librarian-melissa-techman-shares-tips-on-pinterest/ http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/k-12/the-cheap-and-cheerful-librarian-melissa-techman-shares-tips-on-pinterest/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:50:22 +0000 Kathy Ishizuka http://www.thedigitalshift.com/?p=13800 ]]> http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/k-12/the-cheap-and-cheerful-librarian-melissa-techman-shares-tips-on-pinterest/feed/ 0 http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/k-12/four-tools-for-determining-web-cred-joyce-valenzas-neverendingsearch/ http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/k-12/four-tools-for-determining-web-cred-joyce-valenzas-neverendingsearch/#comments Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:28:35 +0000 Kathy Ishizuka http://www.thedigitalshift.com/?p=13736 ]]> http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/k-12/four-tools-for-determining-web-cred-joyce-valenzas-neverendingsearch/feed/ 0 http://www.slj.com/2012/11/careers/slj-seeks-news-editor/ http://www.slj.com/2012/11/careers/slj-seeks-news-editor/#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 13:52:24 +0000 Kathy Ishizuka http://www.slj.com/?p=21770  

School Library Journal (SLJ) is looking for a reporter/editor to write, assign, and edit news for our website, e-newsletters and award-winning magazine. If you have serious journalist chops, with an interest in covering libraries, education, and publishing, we’d be interested in hearing from you.

What we’re looking for

First, you’ve got to bring the skills, with demonstrated experience in reporting and editing (clips and references, please). You’ve got excellent news sense and can work independently, making quick decisions around news, able to turn around polished stories on deadline. You’re fastidious when it comes to copy and can handily craft a lede and a headline. Experience with social networking in a journalistic context and multimedia tools: a plus.

You’ll be covering K–12 schools, including legislation, policy, funding, and reform issues; public libraries; education technology; news in kids and YA (young adult) publishing, including authors; and industry initiatives, as well as cornerstone issues, including literacy, copyright, intellectual freedom, and privacy.

It’s a wide-ranging, eclectic beat and one of the challenges of the position. And we’d expect you to dive in fully, with the spirit of a learner, establishing contacts in these fields—from big associations and vendors to on-the-ground librarians and educators—getting up to speed on the issues (e.g. ebooks, Common Core, etc.), tapping into the insight of your colleagues, unafraid to ask dumb questions.

Passion for the subject is essential to the job—without a true interest in education and libraries, you won’t grasp the larger issues or be motivated to pursue the details to provide the depth of coverage necessary to serve our users.

What the job entails

Per the formal job posting: “The news editor will write and report stories, overseeing news flow to the website, e-newsletters, and print magazine, and assign and edit stories by freelancers and in-house staff.” That means you’ll take point on determining and executing stories posted daily to our site and set the lineup for our newsletters. You’ll also build a stable of freelancer reporters. And we’ll tap you to edit and write the occasional feature story and edit columns. (Our standards, for the feature well in particular, are high—take a look, if you haven’t already, to really get to know our content across the board, print to Web.)

You’re nimble and responsive around what’s going on in the field and look to provide the very best news coverage to inform and engage our users, primarily school/public librarians and information professionals who work with kids and young adults, and by extension their teacher peers and related institutions. You want to do good as well as do a good job.

How to apply

Review the listing in our Job Zone, which has the requirements and the rundown of benefits for this fulltime position at our offices located at the western edge of Soho in Manhattan. Then follow the link to begin the application process.

Photo by Roger H. Goun 

Author Seymour Simon talks to kids via Skype.

Seymour Simon is not your typical start-up hopeful. At 81, he’s already had a long and prolific career as an award-winning author of science books for children. But like the researchers and explorers that he’s written about for more than three decades, he’s all about looking ahead to what’s next.

Simon and his partner, Liz Nealon, have created StarWalk Kids, a digital content streaming service that’s available by subscription. Launched last month, the current catalog of 148 ebooks—expected to grow to 400 by the end of the 2012–2013 school year—emphasizes nonfiction. The list includes 53 of Simon’s own books, updated and reformatted for a new generation of readers.

While there are original ebooks on the list (eventually 10 to 15 a year, according to Nealon), StarWalk has a unique focus on revising out-of-print works by well-known authors, such as Kathleen Krull, Doreen Rappaport, and Laura Vaccaro Seeger. “There are wonderful books, which, through no fault of their own, have become out of print,” says Simon, who personally approached his author friends about giving new digital life to their works.

“We are getting the best out-of-print books and making them better,” he says. “And the authors are absolutely delighted with what we’re doing.”

Available via the browser-based StarWalk Reader, the books can be read via desktop and laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, and interactive whiteboards. And the new service features anytime access—students with an account can log in from home or anywhere they have an Internet connection. And multiple users and whole classes can read the same title simultaneously.

Nealon, Sesame Street’s former creative director, says, “We think this is the future of digital media for schools, because it’s device neutral and offers simultaneous access.”

Without naming names, Simon recalls being turned down by publishers when he approached them about digitizing his titles. “A legacy publisher has to defend its print list,” he explains. “StarWalk has no legacy. Our core business is digital.”

StarWalk’s collection, about 60 percent nonfiction and geared for kids in grades PreK to eight, ranges from the “Zoo Animals” nonfiction series for younger children by Caroline Arnold and the “Riverside Kids” chapter book series by Johanna Hurwitz to Days of the Dead and Surtsey: The Newest Place on Earth, two photo-essay titles by Kathryn Lasky. Newly revised and redesigned, each StarWalk edition is narrated, offering the user a “Read to Me” option.

Designed for classroom use, the books accommodate note taking and highlighting. Educators can search for books by author, title, keyword, subject, Lexile level, alphabetic reading level, and Common Core (CC) State Standards links. An especially handy feature for younger users is the ability to navigate by thumbnail images of each page, which appear along the bottom of the Reader. “Teaching Links” match each title to relevant CC standards and provide suggested activities.

“I’m delighted by the fact that the book can survive from printed form to the new generation of digital,” says Simon, who adds that both have a place and he doesn’t think that print will go away. “I’ve always kept up with computers,” he says, reminiscing about the “Atari days.” “And I’m invigorated by the future.”

School Library Journal (SLJ) is looking for a reporter/editor to write, assign, and edit news for our website, e-newsletters and award-winning magazine. If you have serious journalist chops, with an interest in covering libraries, education, and publishing, we’d be interested in hearing from you.

What we’re looking for

First, you’ve got to bring the skills, with demonstrated experience in reporting and editing (clips and references, please). You’ve got excellent news sense and can work independently, making quick decisions around news, able to turn around polished stories on deadline. You’re fastidious when it comes to copy and can handily craft a lede and a headline. Experience with social networking in a journalistic context and multimedia tools: a plus.

You’ll be covering K–12 schools, including legislation, policy, funding, and reform issues; public libraries; education technology; news in kids and YA (young adult) publishing, including authors; and industry initiatives, as well as cornerstone issues, including literacy, copyright, intellectual freedom, and privacy.

It’s a wide-ranging, eclectic beat and one of the challenges of the position. And we’d expect you to dive in fully, with the spirit of a learner, establishing contacts in these fields—from big associations and vendors to on-the-ground librarians and educators—getting up to speed on the issues (e.g. ebooks, Common Core, etc.), tapping into the insight of your colleagues, unafraid to ask dumb questions.

Passion for the subject is essential to the job—without a true interest in education and libraries, you won’t grasp the larger issues or be motivated to pursue the details to provide the depth of coverage necessary to serve our users.

What the job entails

Per the formal job posting: “The news editor will write and report stories, overseeing news flow to the website, e-newsletters, and print magazine, and assign and edit stories by freelancers and in-house staff.” That means you’ll take point on determining and executing stories posted daily to our site and set the lineup for our newsletters. You’ll also build a stable of freelancer reporters. And we’ll tap you to edit and write the occasional feature story and edit columns. (Our standards, for the feature well in particular, are high—take a look, if you haven’t already, to really get to know our content across the board, print to Web.)

You’re nimble and responsive around what’s going on in the field and look to provide the very best news coverage to inform and engage our users, primarily school/public librarians and information professionals who work with kids and young adults, and by extension their teacher peers and related institutions. You want to do good as well as do a good job.

How to apply

Review the listing on Job Zone, which has the requirements and the rundown of benefits for this fulltime position at our offices located at the western edge of Soho in Manhattan. Then follow the link to begin the application process.

Photo by Roger H. Goun 

These were our top stories of the week on our Twitter feed. Dewey, no surprise, heads the list.

Are Dewey’s Days Numbered?: Libraries Nationwide Are Ditching the Old Classification System

New York approves a new school librarian evaluation rubric  NeverEndingSearch

 Movie Review: Fat Kid Rules the World 

Looking for some books to display for Halloween? Search no more! Nail-biters: Gripping Tales 

There is only one science book in the entire Newbery canon. Maybe that will change this year. Heavy Medal

Best Websites for Teaching the Presidential Election - The Digital Shift

Recommended Comics for Schools: Uncle Scrooge, Papyrus, The Loxleys/Crogan’s Loyalty, Hammer and Anvil Connect the Pop

So. Many. Books. Someday My Printz Will Come

Our October cover story has generated some deep discussion and the conversation continues on a Twitter chat:

Thursday, October 11

9 pm ET, 6 pm PT

hashtag: #sljdewey

Host: Kiera Parrott, Head of Children’s Services, Darien (CT) Library

Participants: Sue Giffard, Tali Balas Kaplan and Jennifer Still-Schiff, all of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City and co-authors of the feature story