Useful sites (weekly)

• ‘Embedded Librarian’ on Twitter Served as Information Concierge for Class – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education  An interesting article about how one class uses twitter to foster greater collaboration between students and the library.  

• ARIS – Mobile Learning Experiences || Creating educational games on the iPhone ARIS is a tool for you to make mobile games, tours and interactive stories. Using the GPS and QR Codes, ARIS players will experience a virtual world of interactive characters, items and media placed in physical space. tags: iphone aris learning gaming augmented_reality apps m-learning 

• Students Solve Math Mysteries in Sackboys and the Mysterious Proof | Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning From LittleBigPlanet  

• SearchReSearch A blog about search, search skills, teaching search, learning how to search, learning how to use Google effectively, learning how to do research. It also covers a good deal of sensemaking and information foraging.  

• Internet Archive Partners With 150 Libraries to Launch an E-Book Lending Program The Internet Archive, in conjunction with 150 libraries, has rolled out a new 80,000 e-book lending collection today on OpenLibrary.org. This means that library patrons with an OpenLibrary account can check out any of these e-books. The hope is that this effort will help libraries make the move to digital book lending. “As readers go digital, so are our libraries,” says Brewster Kahle, founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive

• A School Built For Mobile Learning When administrators in the 33,000-student Keller (Texas) Independent School District needed to build a new middle school to support the district’s rapid growth, they saw a unique opportunity. “We decided to build a ‘lab school’, where we pilot and test a different school design, as well as new technologies, for the rest of the district,” says Keller ISD Chief Technology Officer Joe Griffin.

• This Library E-Book Will Self-Destruct After 26 Check Outs @RWW “imagine, if you will, a publishing company – oh, let’s say HarperCollins – telling libraries that after checking out a book a certain number of times – oh, let’s say 26 – that they’ve reached the cap on loans. The book can no longer be shared, and libraries need to return the copy or buy the book again. Sound crazy? Well, that actually is the new policy for HarperCollins, reports Library Journal, detailing the new terms for its e-book loans via OverDrive, the main e-book distributor for libraries.   

• ::: UW Libraries Digital Collections :::  This site features materials such as photographs, maps, newspapers, posters, reports and other media from the University of Washington Libraries, University of Washington Faculty and Departments, and organizations that have participated in partner projects with the UW Libraries. The collections emphasize rare and unique materials.   

• A Two-Step Approach to Integrating Technology | Edutopia   A good article that really describes giving our students the procedural knowledge first before asking them to apply it to a project.

• dougbelshaw.com/blog  Piece about how the “new, free and shiny technologies are like catnip to educators. An almost-tangible frisson of excitement cascades through Twitter, Facebook and subsequently staff rooms and TeachMeets in the hours, days and months following announcements of such products and services”. However “It’s the considered and sustainable use of technologies that make a difference”.    

• The Unhappy Place: What libraries can do to welcome kids who struggle with print   Article that begins “Libraries terrified me as a child. They were places with too many rules, with an organization system that made no sense, with intimidating counters and information stored in a form I couldn’t access….”

• Promote a Book with Twitter: Top Ten Strategies for Authors | The Official BookBuzzr Blog  Offers ten ways authors can harness the power of Twitter to promote a book: 

• Challenge Yourself to Blog Encourage your students with the students’ blogging challenge (offering a t of challenges It is a good place to go to encourage your students to blog and to become at better commenting

• BTFA Home  BTFA was created by Teresa Schauer, a district librarian in South Texas. Whilst creating book trailers she also discovered there wasn’t really a place online to find and share other free book trailers, so decided to create BTFA.  

• Worst Analogies| The Committed Sardine    Doug Johnson has come up with this entertaining list of the cringeworthy analogies found in high school essays.

• digitalrigor – home  This site was created to accompany Kristin Fontichiaro’s “2.0 or 2.Faux? Wrapping Our Heads Around Digital Assessment: An Interactive Article,” appearing in the Fall 2010 issue of Synergy, published by the School Library Association of Victoria [Australia]. Click on the scenarios as you read through the article. Please share your thoughts and comments along the way using the Discussion Tab on each page so that we can continue to improve and refine the Rigorous Learning with Technology model.  

• DAVID GARCIA STUDIO  DAVID GARCIA STUDIO is an experimental architectural platform. The Studio’s work spans through various scales, and from the social sphere to the technical, often challenging the status-quo through inventiveness and a cross-disciplinary approach. We truly believe that what exists is only a small part of what is possible, and we design driven by this principle.   

• Beth Revis The official site of author Beth Revis who writes science fiction and fantasy novels for teens. Her debut novel, Across the Universe, launched from Penguin/Razorbill on January 11, 2011. Across the Universe is the first of a trilogy. 

• Education 2.0 social network for your class – Diipo LLC  Diipo.com is a social networking sites that is set up for just teachers and students. Teachers can set up class sites where they can post announcements as well as assignments along with links and attachments for students in that particular class site. Students can be added to class rosters, upload files, post entries like a blog, contribute to other group projects, and more.There is also a Ning-like virtual teacher’s lounge where educators can interact.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.