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

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

CNN.com: Falling asleep in class? Blame biology – study shows that starting school later would decrease the number of students sleeping in class – because they would be getting the needed 8-10 hours of sleep a night.  Hmmm, somehow, I don’t think pushing back the start of the school day would make that much of a difference, but I’m all for it – since I’m soooo not a morning person!

OnGuardOnline.gov – “… a multimedia campaign to help consumers be on guard against Internet fraud, secure their computers, and protect their personal information. …  Includes: tips, articles, games and videos in both English and Spanish. … Contains modules about … spyware, social networking, wireless access, laptop security, Internet auctions, and file-sharing…”  Created in partnership with the Federal trade Commission and other federal agencies.

BubbleComment – record a video comment on a website.  Would be a great way to direct students who were absent are homebound to areas or information on the site that you covered in class.

My friend, Fran Bullington shares “The Wally Principal” over at her Informania blog.  I’ve shared it with a few of my teachers, but think it is too good a point not to share with the rest of you!!  I agree we do our students a disservice by judging them solely by their ability to memorize facts.

My Brochure Maker – quick and simple way to create a basic brochure or flyer brought to you by DoodleLabs.  Could be a great way for your students who don’t have MS Publisher (or MS Word) at home to still create a brochure for your lovely projects!  Granted, you have limited choices and you cannot move the objects around, but sometimes, simple is better!

Suburban Journals: County library labels teen books with sexual content – Okay, this last item I debated on if I should post or not.  So I’ll just put it up and leave you with the comment, “WHAT!!!!” — Well, guess keeping my opinion to myself isn’t likely.  Hey, it’s my blog! — So if you get enough pressure from your patrons, does that mean you’re going to start labeling all of your books for each and every item they don’t like?  Too religious, too violent, crude language, promotes homosexuality, …  IMHO this is just another example of censorship – and isn’t that what libraries are AGAINST? Or am I off track here?

SignOnSanDiego.com: “Funds sliced, teacher sells ads on tests“ – I can’t remember who I got this from, but it is so apropos to our school right now.  Teachers have just been budgeted to one case of paper (for how long, I’m not sure) so this could be a creative way to offset costs.  I just don’t think our district would allow this ‘fundraiser.’

Scott McLeod – Teachlearning Blog “Teaching administrators about Wikipedia” – I must admit that when Wikipedia first made my radar I, too, was adament about my students not using it and/or treating it as an unreliable source.  Since learning more about it, especially after watching the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales TEDTalks video, I’ve changed my mind.  While I think students should be allowed to BEGIN their research on Wikipedia, just as with any encyclopedia, they shouldn’t use it as their ONLY source.  Just as with Google, it’s a way of finding out quick information or answers to questions, but students still need to judge for bias and accuracy.

Time for a Story – a Windows Live Messenger service that allows you to share storytime with your child even when you are apart.  Seems an easy enough setup – PC, Internet access, Windows Live Messenger, a webcam, and microphone.  The benefit of this method over say, Skype, is that your screen has the narration and your child’s screen shows the story/animation.  Watch the demo.  Unfortunately, I’m on a Mac and don’t think Windows Live is available for Macs.  Bummer!

Here’s one that is not really an educational or professional tidbit, but in this economic crunch, you may find it useful:  CouponMom.com Registration is free and you can print grocery coupons, resturant coupons, and request free samples.

The Christian Science Monitor: “OK, class, it’s time for YouTube: a college professor discovers that YouTube makes his class come alive” – just another example of how YouTube can facilitate student interest and learning in the classroom.  When will the powers that be begin to understand that and UNBLOCK it for schools?

The Los Angeles Times: “A ‘living’ library that opens minds” – thanks to the Library Stuff blog for pointing me to this article about the Santa Monica Public Library program where people were ‘books’ for the day and could be checked out for a 30 minute conversation.  Cool!  What an interesting way to learn about other people and cultures!

The New York Times: “Lose the Blackberry? Yes He Can, Maybe?” – article about how tech savvy President-Elect Obama will have to give up his Blackberry once he takes office.  I feel your pain!  I can’t live without my tech toys.  The article also mentions Obama’s use of YouTube to address the nation.  More about that below.

The Washington Post: “The YouTube Presidency” – President-Elect Obama will be taping his weekly Democratic address and then airing them on YouTube!  It also refers to Change.gov the website of the President-Elect where the video address can also be found.

The New York Times/Motherload: “Does Rewarding Children Backfire?” – Okay, I’m not qualified to answer the question in regards to parenting, as I’m not a parent; however, I totally agree with this passage (and it is why I have a fundamental angst with school reading programs that offer “rewards” or points based on students’ reading):

“If you reward children for reading a book, they come to see reading as something they would never want to do. Are they more “motivated” to read because you offered them a neat prize? Well, they may have more extrinsic motivation, but at the expense of the intrinsic motivation that we want them to develop.”

Joyce Valenza’s NeverEndingSearch blog: “Wordia: Getting more involved with your dictionary” – Wordia is an online dictionary that has it’s members upload a video defining their favorite words.