BBC News: “Gizmo puts cold callers on hold” - “A device which claims to alleviate the problem of cold calling has been launched by two British inventors.  The TrueCall device acts as a buffer between the phone and the outside world and learns to distinguish between welcome and unwelcome callers.”  Sounds interesting.  If this is a on-time purchase and not a monthly service fee, I would be interested just to stop the phone ringing all the time.  However, if costs each month, I’ll stick with my answering machine – BTW, if you call me at home, start talking after the beep.  If you’re someone I want to talk to, I’ll pick up.  Otherwise, just leave a message or hang up, please!  Why should I pay for caller ID when a good ol’ fashioned answering machine can do the same thing for a one-time fee?  Am I cheap?

School Library Media Monthly Blog: “Election Resource – Match-o-Matic” – “ABC News interactive site Match-O-Matic, …  where you choose between two different positions on a political issue.  At the conclusion, the site tells you which candidate better aligns with your beliefs.”

Dan Meyer over at the dy/dan blog posted all of his Geometry lessons online.  See: Geometry: The Supplement

Chris Betcher over at the Betchablog defends the idea of students using cell phones, ipods and other electronic methods to assist in findng answers to class assignments/test while in class.  Read the original article from The Sydnie Morning Herald: Phone a friend in exams.  I have to admit I agree with the idea of students using these methods and gaining true 21st Centry skills (information literacy skills!) in class.  My only concern is that students aren’t mature enough to only use the tools for classwork and not to text/socialize during class or take revealing photos of classmates/teachers.  If they could do that, I’d be all for cellphones being used in the classroom.

SCASL Thing #8: RSS and Newsreaders – the task is to find our rss reader shared link and provide it to our public.  So here is my Google Reader shared link.  However, I must tell you that I’ve not used it up until today.  I went and put a couple of the posts that I starred in there just so something would be in there.  I’ll have to remember to “share” what I star from now on!

SCASL Thing #9: Finding Interesting Blogs – the first part of the task is to use search tools to locate interesting blog feeds.  Okay, I COULD do this, but I already have way to many feed to get through now! See also my previous post All Together Now – Think#2.  I currently have 185 subscriptions in my Google Reader.

The second part of the task was to blog about the experience of finding feeds.  That I will do!  Most of the feeds I’ve subscribe to were found in 4 ways:

1) Following the leader:  I started by following the blogs Cathy Nelson listed in her blog roll or that she specifically told me to check out.  Then I followed the ones those folks followed, and just kept doing this.  You’d think that would be way too many, but you’ll find that the groups tend to follow the same blogs.

2) Professional readings:  there are more and more blog links showing up in the professional journals and websites I already visit.

3) Personal interests:  Most of these were news, entertainment, or author/book sites that I visited often, but now the content comes to me instead of me going out to find it!

4) Recommendations/Mentions:  If a blog I follow mentions or links to a blog, I’ll usually go check it out.  If I like what I see/read, I’ll add it to my reader.

I ran across this article from BBC News – “The revolution of paperless paper” that has me kinda intrigued.  Paperless paper isn’t a new idea.  Many ebook readers have been using e-ink technology for a while now.  I personally have a Sony Digital Reader and am quite happy with it.  [I just wish they'd make it Mac compatible!]

The “revolution” here is that the Plastic Logic reader is all plastic, including the screen, so that the size and weight of it is about the size and weight of a magazine.  My one complaint with my Sony Reader is that it is a little on the heavy side leading to the fear that I’ll drop/break it.  The article says Plastic Logic’s paperless reader won’t be out until sometime next year.  It will be interesting to see what the cost and additional feature are for their reader.

While I have been purchasing more of my reading selections on ebook, the ebook doesn’t replace the joy of reading a “real” book. I’ll still purchase my favorite authors in paper formats.  ‘Cause lets be real, books lining the shelves of a bookcase still make me happy!  But, packing one ebook reader for a trip vs. an armload of books sure makes the suitcase a lot lighter.  Decisions, decisions.

BTW: This is SCASL 2.0’s Think #7.

I was going through my drafts and realized I hadn’t posted this one yet.  I wrote it back on Sept. 21st.

At the end of the last school year, our district media specialists met with our Superintendent to share the results of an analysis on the state of our library collections (both individual school data as well as the district as a whole).  As you can imagine, the data wasn’t pretty.  Basically, we all have to greatly weed our collections and some major money has to be allocated to allow us to purchase new materials.  Not a shocker.

The Superintended WAS shocked and promptly shared this information with the school board and area superintendents, which in turn trickled down to our principals.  Cool! My new principal came to me at the beginning of the school year and wanted a plan of action from me on how I was going to weed and discard the books indicated by the analysis.  He also wants a library needs assessment.  Fabulous!  I hadn’t yet begun to hit him up for money for the library yet!  Of course, there is no additional funding at this time, but hey, we can’t fix this problem overnight and the fact that he came to me at all is wonderful.

Anyhoo, my library analysis says that my overall collection age is 1991 and that I need to weed 1,796 books and add ZERO to raise my overall collection age to 1994 and reach our states “Emerging” status.  To reach “Proficient” status, I need to weed 2,172 books and add 918 more books to reach a collection age of 1997.  Of course, what the analysis doesn’t say is that when I took over the library six years ago, the average collection age was 1979.   I’ve already removed a couple (or three) thousand outdated books.

But the fact that the powers that be don’t realize what I’ve already accomplished isn’t why I’m discouraged.  What bothers me is the “figures” that the analysis show.  By saying I “only” need to add 918 books, it limits what I’ll potentially receive in additional funding.  Plus, those numbers are based upon an average book cost of around $25, which anyone in library purchasing will tell you is not nearly enough when you’re buying non-fiction and reference titles.  In addition, what bugs me the most is that these numbers are based solely upon the number of students at my school….the school should have x number of books per student.  Well, la, te, da.  It doesn’t matter how many students my school has enrolled.  I still need the SAME books as every other high school in the district.  Even though I only have 355 students, I still need the same sets of reference books to cover all of those research papers and projects that the big high schools do!

Whining aside, here is what I plan to do: I plan to bring this topic up at our high school media specialist meeting to see if we, as a group, can raise the issue with our parent organization and in turn with the Superintendent.  You see, it’s not just my high school that this short sightedness will effect.  The other high school in my area, also a rural school, only has 250 students, so she’ll probably be receiving even less money than us.  I’m hoping that we can come up with a core collection list that all high schools should have then fight for the funding that will allow each school to receive that collection.

I know that there is no quick fix for me or the rest of our school libraries.  The state of our libraries is abysmal and a ton of money will need to be allocated.  With the budgeting shortfall in the district and across the state, nothing is likely to happen in the near future.  But just the fact that the powers that be are aware of the problem and are making steps in the right direction gives me hope.

Update 10/16/08: I found out this week that the library budgets have been halved!  And I haven’t even begun to spend mine so I’ll loose almost all of my funding.  Usually, I’ve spent most of it by the end of August, just for this reason.  Since the June meeting and the way my principal came to me, I let my guard down and wasn’t in as big a hurry to spend the money.  Guess that will teach me! *sigh*

So, for the last two weeks I’ve been having fluttering in my chest.  I’d not told anyone, as I know it’s just stress and anxiety from stretching myself to thin.  However, things came to a head last Friday.  I was feeling particularly awful and went to the school nurse’s office to have her check my blood pressure…I thought it might be low as I’ve been very tired and felt run down.  I do have a history of borderline high blood pressure and am taking a low dose blood pressure pill that also helps control my migraines.

The nurse wasn’t there, but the safety monitor, Mrs. M, was filling in for her and took my blood pressure. Though while not truly high, it was high enough for her to tell me I needed to go home. She threatened to tell the principal on me if I didn’t.  (She’s had experience with heart problems herself).  So after making an appointment to see the doctor (on Tuesday) I went home.  No sooner had I finished lunch then I fell asleep in my lazyboy!

Tuesday: I go to the doctor, my EKG is fine, but I’m still feeling pressure and twinges of pain now so to be on the safe side he orders a stress test, which I took today.  Bringing me to the title “something I never want to do again.”

As far as I know, everything is fine with my heart.  I assume.  My appointment was at 12:45 (did I mention that I took the day off from school! Whoohoo!)  I get to the SC Heart Center in Columbia (an hour drive away) at 12:00 just in case there is a lot of paperwork.  I’m only in the waiting room for about 15 minutes when I get called back….and learn that this test will take about THREE HOURS! What!????

First they shoot me up with radioactive something or other and take a scan of my heart.  Then they send me to the waiting room for 45 minutes to let it work its way through my system before taking a more intensive scan of my heart.  This scan requires me to lie down for the 10 minute scan – can anyone say NAP TIME!  Scan done, I’m sent back to the waiting room for another 45 minutes before they call me back to walk the treadmill.

This is where I say I never, never, never, want to have to go through that again!  You know you’re in trouble when the technician says “You’re going to hate me before we’re through” and she seemed like such a sweet lady.  But she was right.  She hooks up a dozen or so electrodes to me, records an EKG reading, takes my blood pressure (which is good: 134 over 76), and starts up the treadmill at a pretty sedate pace.  Then she takes my blood pressure again (and an EKG reading) and speeds up the treadmill – that’s when it starts getting harder.  For those of you who know me in person, you know I’m nowhere near physically fit.  I could stand to loose more than a few pounds, and I don’t exercise.  I immediately get the beginnings of a cramp in my right calf.  She takes my blood pressure/EKG again and up goes the speed of the treadmill.  Now, I’m huffing and puffing.  She gets the scanner thingy mabob in place and does the picture/scanning again.

BUT SHE DOESN”T LET ME QUIT!

I have to keep going another 30 seconds, which feels like 30 minutes.   By now I’m really huffing, puffing, and wheezing and it feels like I’m ready to die.  She takes one more blood pressure/EKG reading and then slows it down – eventually to a stop.  I can only stand there, holding onto the bars, wheezing away, praying I don’t upchuck the Fig Newton bar I had an hour ago.  The truly sad thing is that this whole process probably took no more than 15 minutes!

She unhooks me from the EKG machine and helps me over to the bed.  I can barely lift my legs to step up they’re so shaky.  She takes my blood pressure one more time then starts removing the electrodes, all but three that will be used for the last scan.  Then I’m sent to the waiting room – again.   BTW, all of the EKG readings and the blood pressure scans were good.

I sit there for about 10 minutes and get called back to be scanned again, but unlike the time before, instead of taking a nap I’m too busy trying not to cough or breath too heavily so as not to mess up the scans.  Finally, I’m finished, but it’s BACK to the waiting room one more time so the guy can look over all my scans.  I’m assuming nothing was wrong as he didn’t say anything and he didn’t act like I was going to keel over or anything and he let me leave.  Of course, the near $400 bill I had to pay nearly did give me a heart attack.

Now it’s back to work tomorrow!