I recently created an account on LibraryThing to “catalog” what I am reading and/or what is on my TBR (too be read) shelf.  There are other virtual bookshelf programs out there, such as Shelfari, but I chose to use LibraryThing (probably because it has library in it’s name) for my blog.  I loved that I could add a widget from my LibraryThing catalog onto my blog (it’s over there on the left column!)

I’m planning on making book reviews a regular segment on the blog – depending upon if I actually can get any reading done, so don’t be surprised if the book reviews are few and far between – amazingly, over the last two months, I’ve actually been able to read a few YA novels so here goes the first one:

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Eighteen year old Lia’s ex-best friend Cassie was found dead in a motel room of an apparent suicide.  The night she died, Cassie left 33 messages on Lia’s cell phone – calls Lia refused to take.  You see, Lia and Cassie haven’t been friends since Lia passed out behind the wheel and crashed into a guardrail.  The two girls had made a pact to be the skinniest girls in school – Cassie turned to binging and purging, while Lia starves herself, causing the blackout. Cassie was ordered to stay away from Lia and Cassie also doesn’t want her own eating problem to be discovered so she severs all ties to Lia. At least she did until Cassie’s death and the 33 voicemails.  Now Lia is back under the microscope, making it harder to hide that her two stints in rehab at New Season’s didn’t take.  Wintergirls is a powerful look into the mind of a teenager struggling with body/self-image and the damage anorexia takes not only on the body but on the spirit and on ones family and friends.  This is definitely a must read that I’ll be highly recommending.

Rating: 5 Stars

Category: contemporary fiction

Tags: anorexia, contemporary, fiction, self-image, rehab, YAlit, suicide, eating-disorders

Additional Resources:

Wintergirls website – read an exerpt, download the teacher’s guide, additional resources on eating disorders

Laurie Halse Anderson – the official web site for Laurie Halse Anderson

Penguin.com – watch a booktrailer and an interview with Laurie Halse Anderson

Amazon.com – read reviews and watch an interview with Laurie Halse Anderson

National Eating Disorders Association – a place to find information and support about eating disorders

For the past three or more weeks I have been working with our school leadership team, and specifically one phenomenal English teacher, to write our schools External Review report.  This involved scanning hundreds of documents, writing narratives, and inserting the scanned documentation into the report.  This process has so totally consumed my life that I’ve even begun having nightmares about the report – scanning errors, loss of data, arguing with my coworkers over it, etc.  Because of the amount of work involved, my library has been closed more in the past three weeks than it has been open.  Add collaborating with the English II teacher whose student began their research papers last week into the mix and you can understand that I’ve been stressed to the point of wanting to quit, hole up in my room, and shut out the world.

But as of 6pm last night, the process is FINALLY finished.  I gave my principal the magic thumb drive for him to personally mail to the powers that be.  The drive contains 387 files in 127 folders and includes our 158 page report with a 15 page master list of our documentation. Whew!!

It was so nice going into work today and not having to worry over our ERT documentation.  To top it off, it was a Teacher Workday and I got to spend part of that with other media specialists at an Aiken County Media Educators (ACME) meeting.

Now I can get back to doing things I love – reading, blogging, corresponding with family/friends, and devote more focus & time with our drama club to direct our submission for the Garcia Theatre Project One-Act Play Festival in May.  We’re producing “A Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.  We’ve (myself and that phenomenal English teacher I mentioned above) had to adapt the story ourselves and we’ve got some awesome ideas on the script/direction and an amazing group of teens committed to giving us their best.  Wish us luck!  Oh, and keep your fingers crossed for us that our ERT documentation is accepted.  Thanks!

Photo Credit: “more energy mas happy” by gezelle on Flickr

A couple of recent posts by Linda Braun and Scott McLeod have got me thinking (not always a good thing) about the concept of the ‘digital divide’ in my school/community and how that impacts my library program as well as student learning.

Typically when people discuss the issue of the ‘digital divide’ they are referring to rural vs. urban access to computers and the Internet.   In Linda Braun’s post, “The Other Digital Divide,” she refers also to the ‘digital divide’ in software access (typically MSOffice products) between what is available at school (or not) and in students homes. She makes the argument that these technologies and access should be made available, not limited or eliminated, in our libraries BECAUSE they aren’t available to teens at home – this includes access to social networking sites like Facebook, to iPods/mp3 players, and to audiobooks/electronic materials!

Scott McLeod’s post asks “would you send your child to school with a laptop from home?“  His concern seems to be would the child feel awkward if they were the only one with a laptop?  Which is a high probability in my school!  Comments on the post are mixed and bring up interesting points.  The ones that caught my attention:

• laptops are/can be a distraction and detract from student participation in class
• puts the responsibility and care of the technology on the student/parents instead on the school for up keep and reduces tech cost to the school
• concerns for damage/theft/liability
• teacher buy-in and training on how to integrate the tech in the classroom
• educating students in the appropriate use of the tech during school
• if it’s just one more thing in a kids backpack it’s just another burden – however, if all of his/her textbooks were on it instead of hardcopy – how cool would that be!
• wireless access?  server security issues?

While most of the comments seem to bring up more concerns than positives, I have to say I lean on the side of why not let them bring them to school?  Of course the point is pretty much irrelevant in regards to my school, since we are a very rural and low socio-economic community – desktop computers and dial-up are are the norms.  I would be more interested in our district/schools developing policies/guidelines for using cell phones in the classroom – as I believe that the vast majority of our students have those mini computing devices instead!  Add iPods & MP3s in the mix and now we’re talkin’!  Unfortunately, all personal electronics are verboten.

Still what I take away from these discussions are that I need to push for technology, no transformative access for my students.  I need to look into the possibilities of iPods/MP3 players and downloadable materials, audiobooks/Playaways, relevant software, online access or cloud computing alternatives, filter overrides/unblocking of resources, etc. be made available in our school library.  Maybe I’m out of touch with my students and their needs.  Maybe it’s time for me to run a student tech and interest survey?!  Shoot, I should have done this last month before Teen Tech Week!  *sigh*

Photo Credit: “Laptop” by laRuth on Flickr

This is just a quick post to announce the winners for the 2009 SC Book Award Winners.

Picture Book Award – Hero Cat by Eileen Spinelli.  There were 243 schools participating with 54,971 students who voted.  Hero Cat won by 8,291 votes.

Children’s Book Award – How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor.  There were 184 participating schools with 10,495 students who voted.  How to Steal a Dog won by 1,330 votes.

Junior Book Award – Cracker!: the Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata.  There were 98 schools participating with 6,210 students who voted.  Cracker! won by 850 votes.

Young Adult Book Award – New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.  There were 73 participating schools with 2,024 students who voted.  New Moon won by 487 votes.

Updated 3/12/08 to add additional links and photo credits that I forgot.  Forgive me, it was late and I was in a hurry to get something posted! – Heather

Today marked the beginning of the 2009 SCASL annual conference in Greenville.  I am fortunate enough to have been allowed by my principal to attend,   Many of my fellow colleagues in the library world haven’t been as lucky.

Once again, I’ll be sharing my notes and thoughts from my experiences at conference.

I drove up to Greenville yesterday – after a side trip to Charlotte, NC.  I had to stop by the Apple Store to get a replacement battery for my Macbook.  Thankfully, it was covered under my warranty!  I couldn’t attend conference without my laptop!  But it sure made for a LONG trip – a little over 4 hours in total.  Anyway, here are the sessions I attended today:

Storytelling Through Pictures – Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Presented by Donna Goldsmith, Tim Van Heule, and Cathy Arnold – This pre-conference session was an all day experience beginning with a morning ride on the trolley to the Greenville Zoo.  We were met by a zoo guide who provided a very enjoyable and informational explanation of the animals: how they came to the zoo; their care and feeding; endangered species renewal plans; mated pare matching, etc.  Throughout the tour we were given the task of taking photographs to be used in our digital storytelling session in the afternoon.  In addition to my taking photos for the session, I also agreed to be a Roving Reporter for the SCASL IT Committee – I agreed to take photos and video interviews from our group to be shared with the folks who couldn’t make it to conference this year.  We are using the SCASL Ning to share information and live streaming of some sessions from conference.

After returning to the convention center and a boxed lunch, we met back up and were introduced to various storytelling tools.  See the presenters website for the tools they discussed: Flickr, Glogster, Photostory, etc.  After uploading our photos to Flickr, we were to use one of the tools they covered and create our own digital story of out trip.  Sorry, I don’t have one to share as I didn’t get to that part – I was too busy talking and going through others photos!  I kinda got sidetracked by all of the giraffe photos everyone took.  I love the giraffe.  I don’t know if you can see it in this photo, but the female giraffe is resting her head on the male giraffe’s back.  How sweet is that?  Another highlight of the giraffe segment of our trip was watching the little kids try to throw crackers to the giraffes – not an easy feat.  We learned that a zoo worker would go out later in the day and collect all of the crackers that didn’t make it to the giraffes and then feed them to the pair.  It was interesting, if someone sad, to see how the giraffes had to contort to reach the crackers on the ground.  

Can We Work Together?  Using Collaborative Tools

Presented by Cathy Nelson and Fran Bullington – As a member of the IT Committee, I assisted Cathy, Fran and Anne Lemieux with streaming the session using UstreamTV.  This was one of our efforts to include folks who couldn’t make it to conference this year.  I was in charge of the camera and chat room (once we figured it out!)  I am by no means an expert and I apologize for the poor camera work.

The session focused on using Wikis and Google Documents to collaborate with teachers and/or students to collaborate on group projects.  If/When I get the links to the session, I’ll update this post with them.

Reflections

While I truly enjoyed both sessions – the Zoo and the picture perfect, beautiful day were wonderful and I had fun working the camera for Cathy and Fran’s session – I must say the highlight of the day was having dinner with Cathy, Fran, Anne, and Doug Johnson! Fran took us to Flat Rock where I had a tasty meal and we shared fabulous conversations and laughs together.  I bet we were the highlight of our waiter’s evening!  Doug is a HOOT and a witty fellow!  I’m looking forward to attending one or two of his sessions, as well as his keynote, tomorrow.

Well, its getting late and the first session starts at 7:45 tomorrow morning and I want to make it there on time, so gonna hit the sack.

Photo Credit:

Greetings from SCASL 2.0: Experience the Journey @ your library.

DSC01317 by Greenville Instructional Technology – FlickrCC

DSC01315 by Greenville Instructional Technology – FlickrCC