Twitter Slow Chat: Let’s Discuss the New AASL Standards

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  Hey, school librarians! Do you have questions about the new AASL National School Library Standards?  Want to share your ideas for implementing them?  Did you attend a formal training and now you have some insight to pass along to your peers?  Or are you just eager to connect with other librarians who are digging deeper into what the changes will look like in our schools?  If you said yes to any of these questions, please join the AASL Standards slow chat going on in the Twitterverse right now!

Each Tuesday, Amanda Kozaka (@BoomshakaKozaka) posts a question about the standards to get us thinking and planning for the upcoming school year.  We’re on Week 3 of an eight-week chat, so there’s still plenty of time to participate.  Here’s our current question:

 

The slow chat format means you have all week to tweet your replies, and if you’re a newbie who is not comfortable posting on Twitter yet, you can learn by searching for the hashtag #AASLowchat to see what others are saying about the standards.  You can also follow the hashtag #AASLstandards as well.I use Tweetdeck (free!) to set up separate feeds for the hashtags I follow; I couldn’t keep up with multiple chats and timelines without it!

 

  You can purchase a copy of the book online, and you can download the Learner Framework – which includes the Common Beliefs – for free.

Are you involved in other online discussions of the new standards?  Please leave a comment or tweet me @LibraryLoriJune and share!

 

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Back to School #TLElem Chat August 5th

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Calling all elementary librarians to join a Live Twitter Chat on Monday, August 5, 9:00 pm EST!

Our topic is Back To School, and we want to hear your best ideas for getting the new year off to a good start!

Our chat will focus on:

  • making your library a dynamic and inviting place to visit
  • preparing for Back to School night
  • student orientation and beginning-of-the-year lesson plans
  • ways you can support teachers and administrators as they begin the new year
  • anything else you want to discuss!

Newbies are always welcome at our chats; be sure to introduce yourself and make some new friends!  Those of you who are experienced chatters know that Twitter is all about SHOW and tell, so I expect you to have your photos and web links ready to share!

Remember to use the hashtag #tlelem for your tweets.  I have registered this hashtag at Twubs in the hopes that it will make it easier for participants to follow the chat, and to archive the tweets.  If you have never used Twubs, you may want to take a look at it ahead of time.

See you Monday!

 

p.s.  You can find archives of this and all our past chats at the TLElem Wiki.

 

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#TLElem Chat Leaves Me Breathless!

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The tweets were flying thick and fast last night at the #TLElem Twitter Chat!  Between trying to read, reply, locate sites, and send tweets myself I was exhausted (but exhilerated!) by the end of the chat!

The focus of our discussion was supposed to be Library Centers, but in addition to that we bird-walked through poetry, library pets, funding resources for libraries, book promotion, and much more before it was all said and done.

I’ll be adding all those interesting and innovative ideas for centers to my newly-created Library Centers wiki this week, so keep checking it for TL-tested ways to add a little independent student learning to your library!

Did you miss the chat?  You should:

  • Take a look at the archive of last night’s tweets, hosted at the TLElem Wiki.  (Thanks to @cktechtl for getting it up so quickly!)
  • Follow #TLElem on Twitter and become a part of a knowledgeable, enthusiastic, generous, hard-working, creative PLN!
  • Join us for our next #TLElem chat on Monday, April 15, 9:00 pm EST, and spread the word to your friends and colleagues
  • Add your suggestions for future chat topics to the TLElem Brainstorm
  • Share a little about the centers you’re using in your Library by leaving a comment here or tweeting #TLElem to me @LibraryLoriJune

Thanks again to everyone who participated last night!  If only all professional development was this much fun!

 

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TLElem Twitter Chat Tonight: Library Centers

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Please join us for our #TLElem Chat tonight
on Twitter as we discuss Library Centers!

Monday, March 18, 9:00 pm EST

Be ready to share your favorite ideas, photos, inspiration sites, printables, Pinterest boards, etc. as we discuss ways to incorporate different types of centers in the library!  Use the hashtag #tlelem for your tweets.

Did you miss our first #TLElem chat?  View the archived tweets (over 500 of them!) at the TLElem Wiki.

 

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Netvibes to the Rescue!

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I know lots of folks are upset about losing Google Reader as a resource for managing their RSS feeds.  If you’re looking for a replacement, you might want to consider using Netvibes.  This free service has been described as a personalized start page, and it helps you organize all your web content in one place.

I’ve been using it for about four years, mainly to manage my blog feeds, but it can do so much more.  Because Netvibes allows you to add widgets and html coding to your pages, you can embed text, photos, videos, live websites and/or thumbnail links, Flickr streams, etc.  I can check the weather, check things off my To-Do list, and check my blog stats using a Google Analytics module.  I can even read and send Tweets via my Twitter widget at school, where Twitter is blocked.  (Shhhh, don’t tell anyone!)

Take a look at my public page (Keeping An Eye On…) to get an idea of how it works.  If your district blocks shortened links like mine does, you can click here instead.

I also use Netvibes to archive the websites I’ve shared as part of my WWW program, which I wrote about in a previous blog post.  WWW stands for Weekly Wednesday Website, and I used it in the past to share a new site each week with my faculty.  (Now that I have a flexible schedule, I can work more closely with teachers to recommend sites and tools one on one, so I no longer send out those blanket weekly emails.  I do still add sites to the Netvibes archive, though, for the convenience of my teachers.)

If you think you’d like to make the switch from Google Reader to Netvibes, they’re making it easy for you.  From the Netvibes blog:

As you may have heard, Google has decided to shut down its Reader service on July the 1st. Good news: you don’t need to look for an alternative, Netvibes is the perfect home for all your RSS feeds, and more. Judging by the increase in traffic since the announcement, it’s safe to say that most of you have already make the move, and we’re grateful for that. And if you haven’t done it yet, here’s how you can easily join our community.

It goes on to provide step-by-step instructions for importing your feeds from other services so that you won’t have to start over from scratch.  Apparently a lot of people are making the switch, because there’s a banner across the top of the site today that reads: If you’re experiencing slowdowns or feed latency, please bear with us as we work hard to handle a huge amount of new users. Thank you for your patience.

Whether you choose to use Netvibes or another service, I wish you all good luck on finding a new RSS manager!

 

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#TLElem Off to a Great Start!

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500 tweets in one hour!

I’m so glad I saw Joyce Valenza’s Feb 16 blog post at Neverending Search titled #TLELEM: Starting a New Conversation.  In it she explains that the graduate course she’s currently teaching is made up of mainly elementary education students, and they suggested the #TLElem hashtag as a way to connect with other Twitter users who serve the elementary population.

The first #TLElem Live Chat was scheduled for Feb 19, and I think it succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams!  Many thanks to Laurren Kresge (@librarianmissk) and Caitlin Kordek (@cktechtl), the students who facilitated the discussion and who have archived the tweets here.  And no, that was not a misprint in the title sentence!

 

 

If you are working at the elementary level and you Tweet, I hope you’ll leave a comment with your Twitter handle so that I can start following you.  You can follow me @LibraryLoriJune

 

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Twitter Book Club Tonight

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Tonight is the Sharp-Schu Book Club chat on Twitter, featuring four early reader books:

What do you need to know to join in?

  • The chat is from 8:00-9:00 EST
  • use #SharpSchu
  • new chatters are always welcome!

 

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