School Library Journal welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be edited for clarity and length. When submitting letters, please
include a daytime telephone number. Please email letters to Phyllis Levy Mandell at pmandell@mediasourceinc.com.
Letters to SLJ | Technology Education | January 2013
By on January 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
Mobile Apps Make Student Assessment Easy and Interactive | Cool Tools
By on December 17, 2012
Regardless of what curriculum areas we teach, observing and assessing our students is something that we all do every day. Thanks to mobile devices like iPads and Android tablets, recording our informal observations and formal assessments has never been easier.
A Call for ‘Blended Funding’: Schools must pool money to support Common Core
By on December 10, 2012
How will schools pay for new CC resources, including digital? One approach is to look for existing funds within your school and district that can be redirected so that your library can purchase CC resources for the classroom. But that requires that libraries market their expertise in resource selection and collection development so that your value is obvious to others, says Christopher Harris.
Consider the Source: Two Is the Thorniest Number
By on December 3, 2012 Leave a Comment
In his latest Consider the Source column, Marc Aronson uses the recent presidential election as a jumping off point to discuss the different ways that American history is viewed.
Soapbox: Not Fast Enough
By on December 3, 2012 3 Comments
SLJ’s latest tech survey shows that school librarians need to master a new game.
Quest to Learn: A collaborative effort to design engaging game-like learning environments | Gaming Life
By on December 3, 2012 Leave a Comment
If you’ve played enough well-designed games, you know that they provide immediate feedback, are constantly challenging, promote learning by doing, and reframe failure as iteration. As most teachers already know, these are core principles of good teaching. This is a powerful relationship. When we make it explicit, and design from it, we see students engaged in playful, studious, and deep learning.
In 2009, the Institute of Play, a not-for-profit design studio founded by a group of game designers, [...]
Getting High: These incredible stories will catapult kids to surprising new heights | Nonfiction Booktalker
By on December 3, 2012 Leave a Comment
I’m not interested in extinct birds. Or Mars rovers. I’m marginally intrigued by Mohawk ironworkers. But give me a really good book on those topics, and I’m hooked.
Phillip Hoose can get me engrossed in anything, even Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 (Farrar, 2012). B95, a four-ounce red knot shorebird, was captured and tagged in 1995, and that tag became his name. Athletes would be awed by his stamina; every year B95 flies from [...]
Tech Tidbits from the Guybrarian’s Gal: Make Technology Work for You
By on December 2, 2012 Leave a Comment
A friend of mine recently forwarded me one of those emails. I’m sure you’re familiar with them: lots of cute photos, and when you scroll to the bottom, you typically see some kind of humorous statement. This particular email had several pictures, all of teenagers—at the park, in a restaurant or car, at a baseball game. And in every image, the teens wereahunched over, totally engrossed in their cell phones. The very last photo is of Albert Einstein, and it’s accompanied by a quote from him: “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
The Public Library Connection: The new standards require that public and school librarians pull together | On Common Core
By on December 1, 2012 8 Comments
Now, more than ever before, collaboration between public and school librarians is critical. As we strive to be at the center of the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in our schools, strong relationships with our local public librarians can make all the difference in the world and provide us, our students, and our school colleagues with tremendous advantages.
While public and school libraries differ, our common patron base of children gives both groups fertile ground [...]
Letters to the editor | Self-published memoirs reflect the experiences of these young people in our society | December 2012
By on November 30, 2012 1 Comment
Hope for Troubled Teens
I just wanted to say how insightful I found Amy Cheney’s article, “Time After Time” (Oct. 2012, pp. 36–39). I learned a lot from the article, including tips on what’s hot in Street Lit right now and the names of the well-known authors of the genre. I also appreciated her call to action for finding and purchasing self-published memoirs. I am really excited and inspired by her article and will try to get [...]
Behind the Best: Or what it takes for 65 books to become SLJ’s top titles of the year | Editorial
By on November 29, 2012 Leave a Comment
First, consider the numbers. Some 37,000 children’s and YA books have been published in 2012, according to Bowker. SLJ reviewed more than 6,500 of them—thanks to our corp of 300 active reviewers in the field. Of these titles, 289 earned stars. And here, in the final presentation, are the 65 that were selected as SLJ’s Best Books of 2012.
How they get identified is not a math problem, of course. Passions run high. There’s a talented team behind this list, packed [...]
A Call for Fair Ebook Pricing: Site-based pricing has small schools overcharged
By on November 26, 2012
Christopher Harris shares his thoughts on how rural districts—with an average size of 1,100 students and less than half the budget of the average New York school district—are, in effect, subsidizing the state’s large, wealthy, suburban systems, which are purchasing the same content at the same cost per building.
Consider the Source: The Mandate
By on November 20, 2012 2 Comments
In the wake of the destruction wrought by Sandy, Marc Aronson emphasizes the importance of the Common Core standards as students and teachers discuss the link between the recent hurricane and climate change.
Free Web Tools Make Classroom Management Fun
By on November 19, 2012
Web applications that make it easy to create records in appealing formats for sharing, selected by Richard Byrne, School Library Journal’s Cool Tools columnist.
Consider the Source: On the Common Core Trail
By on November 6, 2012 Leave a Comment
Here’s Marc Aronson’s latest report from Common Core land. Two weeks ago, he was on the road for four days along with Sue Bartle leading Common Core (CC) workshops. They learned a lot—much of it encouraging.
Letters to the Editor: SLJ’s new Spanish column is just what librarians and teachers need | November 1, 2012
By on November 1, 2012 Leave a Comment
Thanks SLJ for providing Tim Wadham’s new bimonthly Spanish column, “Libro por libro.” I’d love to see how we can encourage each other in our bilingual programming and also give publishers ideas for themes and stories we want to see. I’d love to find Bolivian, Colombian, and Peruvian folktales for children. I haven’t found anything published in either language for children.
We also need books that provide rhythm and rhyme in Spanish for our youngest learners, like [...]
Mum’s the Word: What to do when a pushy principal has questionable principles | Scales on Censorship
By on November 1, 2012 Leave a Comment
In addition to reading your column, what’s the best way to keep up with news about censorship?
Start by checking out the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (www.ala.org/offices/oif), which maintains a database of challenges to library materials. These challenges are reported in its Intellectual Freedom Newsletter ($50 a year), unless the person reporting the challenge asks ALA to keep the information confidential. Another helpful resource is Robert P. Doyle’s Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read [...]
The Pleasure Principle: Children (and grown-ups) tend to do what’s most fun | First Steps
By on November 1, 2012 7 Comments
First Steps began almost nine years ago, in February of 2004. Our first column was about the importance of having fun, because we believed that fun was a key element in any discussion of early literacy. We still do. Learning to read isn’t easy. It’s hard work, and children need to be motivated to put forth the effort. Like adults, they’re inclined to do what’s most enjoyable for them.
As 2013 approaches, Nell is celebrating 40 [...]
Superheroes Among Us: Librarians are the unsung tech leaders in our nation’s schools | Editorial
By on November 1, 2012 Leave a Comment
Photograph by Mark Tuchman
Action figures don’t usually weigh in on SLJ’s design, but Flash, the iconic DC Comics superhero, zipped into the story this month. He snuck his way into my purse and then onto my desk just as editors Kathy Ishizuka and Rick Margolis and I talked about our cover strategy with art director Mark Tuchman. Flash didn’t say much, but his force was unstoppable.
Our conversation about the findings of SLJ’s 2012 school library tech [...]
On Common Core | Content Over Coverage
By on November 1, 2012 1 Comment
One of the most common complaints about state or local curriculum standards is that they focus on covering a range of topics while sacrificing depth of understanding. Chances are you’ve heard your colleagues bemoan that these standards are “a mile long and an inch deep.” Are the Common Core State Standards any different?
