SPONSORED BY: Britannica Digital Learning and School Library Journal
EVENT DATE AND TIME: Monday, May 6, 2013, 3:00 – 4:00 PM ET/12:00 – 1:00 PM PT

School librarians play a key role in ensuring that students have the tools and knowledge to succeed. Now, in light of the Common Core’s increased emphasis on college, career, and world readiness, is your school library equipped with the right next-generation digital resources for mastering 21st century skills? What criteria should librarians use to evaluate the digital resources available to students? And how can you best coach students to look at the resources they encounter online with the same discerning eye?

Using examples from Britannica Digital Learning’s exciting portfolio of digital solutions, this webinar will illustrate valuable criteria that school librarians can apply when evaluating online resources to support digital literacy development. Participants also will learn a new approach, using a third-party rubric, for guiding students through the objective assessment of resources they find when reading or researching online.

Archive now available!

Presenters:

Sara Torpey-Curriculum Specialist, Britannica Digital Learning

Wendy Stephens- Librarian, Cullman High School, Cullman, AL

Moderator:

Daryl Grabarek- Librarian, PS 89/IS 289, New York, NY

Editor, Curriculum Connections, School Library Journal

Didn’t make it on May 6th? No problem! The archive is now available for on-demand viewing at your convenience!

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Digital imprint: HarperTeen Impulse, a new digital imprint from HarperCollins focusing on young adult short stories and novellas, debuted on December 4. The first titles released include Breathless by Sophie Jordan, a companion novella to her “Firelight” fantasy series, and Stupid Perfect World, a futuristic novella by Scott Westerfeld. Four new titles will be available on the first Tuesday of every month through ebook retailers. Among the forthcoming titles are The Get Over by Walter Dean Myers, Cruisin’ by Sarah Mynowski, and Kiera Kass’s The Prince.

You Have to Be in It….

Book giveaway: Time is running out to enter The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance’s (NCBLA)  book giveaway. You have until December 10 to Like their Facebook page and automatically be entered to win a collection of fiction and nonfiction titles, picture books, and novels for young people of all ages worth more than $500. Some of the titles have even been signed by the authors. The collection includes works by award-winning authors and illustrators such as William Alexander, Natalie Babbitt, Calef Brown, Susan Cooper, Kate DiCamillo, Jack Gantos, Nikki Grimes, Steven Kellogg, Patricia MacLachlan, Patricia McKissack, Katherine Paterson, Lesa Cline-Ransome, James Ransome, Chris Raschka, Chris Van Dusen, and others. The randomly chosen winner will be announced on December 12.

Digital audio: Live Oak Media’s audio productions are being made available in digital format. There are more than 50 eReadalongs available, and additional titles will continue to be added to the list. An app that will allow access to eReadalongs from iPads will be offered in the near future.

Monkey business: Curious George Says Thank You and Curious George in the Big City, the first two titles in the “Curious George Multi-Touch Storybook and Activities Series” for the iPad, have been released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Special features include embedded slideshows and animation, touch-responsive puzzles, and activities. Bonus activities include digital mazes and word puzzles. Every month for the next six months two new titles featuring the beloved monkey will be released. The titles are available in the Apple iBookstore for $3.99 each. “We wanted to create a digital storybook that didn’t distract children from the narrative, but instead allowed them to help the story along by completing activities that are closely tied to the plot,” said Cheryl Toto, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Planning. “Whether it’s helping George add stickers to his thank-you cards or helping him find his way back to the man with the yellow hat, these widgets bring his adventures to life and pull children directly into the story.”

On Exhibit

Charlotte: To celebrate illustrator Garth Williams 100th birthday and the 60th anniversary of E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, will feature an exhibition of Williams’s artwork— “Some Book! Some Art!: Selected Drawings by Garth Williams for Charlotte’s Web”—from December 11 to April 22. The exhibition will feature 20 of William’s finished drawing and a selection of preliminary sketches. “There will also be a subset of works that explore the representation of Charlotte from the book to the initial animated film to the recent live-action film,” according to a press release from the Museum. HarperCollins Children’s Books provided support for the exhibit.

Call for Applications

Programming awards: Applications are being accepted through February 4 for the 2013 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards. Sponsored by The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the award is open to “after-school and out-of-school time arts and humanities programs sponsored by museums, libraries, performing arts organizations, educational institutions, arts centers, community service organizations, businesses, and eligible government entities. The program must be run for children and youth outside of the school day, but after-school, weekend, or summer programs may have a school-based component or use school space.” The primary participants in the program should be underserved children and youth, and the program must have been operational since January 2009 for a minimum of five years. Be sure to check out all the eligibility requirements. Completed applications will only be accepted online. The 12 winning programs will each be awarded $10,000 by First Lady Michelle Obama at a ceremony at the White House in the summer of 2013.

Library Opening Supports Childhood Literacy

Books for low-income kids: The Homewood Suites Books for Kids Library at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning–North Lawndale in Chicago is a new library that has opened as the result of collaboration between Homewood Suites by Hilton and The Books for Kids Foundation, an early childhood education non-profit organization. The library was opened to “ensure that all of the more than 235 at-risk children from low-income and mostly single family homes served by the center will have access and regular exposure to new, age-appropriate books regardless of their parents’ or guardians’ schedules or means.”

“Reading aloud to young students, starting when they are pre-schoolers, plays an important role in helping these children develop fundamental language, listening, learning and literacy skills,” noted Dawn Koenig Vice President for Brand Support, Homewood Suites. “Our library at the Carole Robertson Center will provide a valuable resource for the community, which we hope will provide more children with the tools needed to improve literacy levels across the board.” During the past two years, Books for Kids libraries have been opened by Homewood Suites in Memphis, TN (2 libraries); Washington, DC; Irving, TX; and Phoenix, AZ.

The mission of the Books for Kids Foundation is “to promote literacy among all children with a special emphasis on low-income and at-risk preschool-aged children. Books for Kids creates libraries, donates books, and partners with literacy programs to develop the critical early foundation and skills which young children need to be successful in life.”

Rather than focusing on a book’s format or where it’s shelved, his teacher should concentrate on getting the right title into your son’s hands. There’s nothing wrong with asking her to explain her rationale. Is she attempting to control her students’ reading choices? Let her know that you’re willing to experiment with any format that’ll help your son. Perhaps she isn’t aware that many of the school library’s books are also available in digital form, and may be found at the public library. I’ve heard many censorship cases that deal with the content of library materials, but this is the first I’ve encountered in which a book’s format has been censored. The teacher needs to enter the 21st century. Show her some articles about schools that are successfully using iPads and ereaders with their students, such as September 2012 SLJ cover story, “Travis’s Excellent Adventure”.

Our library’s technology manager told me that under CIPA we’re required to block all social networking sites. Is that true?

No. CIPA requires libraries that receive E-rate funding to teach students about cyberbullying and the appropriate use of social networking sites. There are various ways to do that, including offering programs for children and teens or weekend programs aimed at families. Dori Hillestad Butler’s The Truth about Truman School (Albert Whitman, 2008) is a perfect book to help kids understand the perils of online bullying.

One of our social studies teachers requires her eighth graders to read a book of their choice about the Holocaust. After one of them chose Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, she got a complaint from his mother, who told her that theliteratemother.org had recommended the book for older teens because of its language and violence. Now our principal wants me to remove it from our collection. When I explained that the parent needed to file a formal complaint and then the case would go before a reconsideration committee, he told me to skip that step. What should I do?

Sites that rate books are popping up everywhere, and they’re causing librarians a lot of grief. I visited “The Literate Mother” and discovered that it’s using the same criteria as Common Sense Media. I wouldn’t call anyone “literate” who takes words and scenes out of context like these sites do. If you do your homework, you’ll find that none of these sites use professional reviewers. It’s also not uncommon for them to take a simple kiss out of context and then point out that a book has sexual content. Remind your principal that students should be offered choices, and any book set during the Holocaust is bound to contain violence. This is a case in which a teacher is expected to teach, but a parent, and even the principal, doesn’t want students to learn. Stick to your guns. It sounds as if your district has a formal process for dealing with book challenges, and you should stick to that, too.

Our elementary school library’s parent volunteers don’t understand the importance of confidentiality. In fact, one of them even told her fifth-grade daughter that a particular classmate wasn’t a good reader and still checked out Beverly Cleary books. Any advice?

Parent volunteers can be invaluable, especially when you’re short-staffed, but it’s important that they understand their role. At the beginning of the school year, offer a workshop for your volunteers. Tell them that library records are confidential, and you’d prefer to do all of the reader guidance yourself, since you understand students’ reading preferences. Keep the problematic parent on your radar screen and give her a job that doesn’t require interaction with students—there are always books to be shelved.