LA Times online free

Here’s another free resource for your classes, the LA Times online seven days a week. The library has reserved 40 student accounts per period.

On any computer, at school or anywhere else, go to this web address: http://eedition.latimes.com/cgi-bin/cie.cgi . To try it out yourself first, under Student Login type Teachers Username: edlevin and Class Password: gosuns1. Then click on the picture of the newspaper to open the e-Edition of today’s LA Times, courtesy of the Times in Education Program and its sponsors.

If you want to use them in your class let me know, so that we can set up more accounts for other classes.

(Image from San Francisco Sentinal.com 2/4/2011)

Great History Resource

I just received 56 beautiful new Salem Press History reference books FREE from LAUSD Library Services. Please come in and take a look. But those 56 volumes are just the tip of the iceberg of what is AVAILABLE TO YOU FREE online from the same publisher. Because LAUSD subscribes, anybody who logs on to the Internet from a computer on this (or any other) campus, has free full-text access to a wider range of Salem Press databases, all searchable from one simple screen. EVERY TEACHER OF HISTORY, ENGLISH, BUSINESS or other related field should take a look online, for resources for your lesson planning, or for having your students access specific material from school.
It’s online as part of the LAUSD Digital Library. Once you’re there click on Salem Press History. If you’re not already familiar with Digital Library, you can access it two ways:

1. Go to downtownmagnets.org->Academics->Library->LAUSD Digital Library, or

2. Go to lausd.net and click on Resources->Instructional Resources->Digital Library.

For now, here's the direct link to Salem History: http://history.salempress.com/

Once you are at Salem Press History you will see a list of “Reference set(s) currently available”. Note that there is a “+” to the left of each heading. Click on each plus to see which lists expand into multiple reference sets.

THE “FIND” BOX SEARCHES ACROSS ALL THESE RESOURCES WITH ONE KEY STROKE. If you get too many hits, you can also do carefully targeted searches using the Advanced Search.

Let me know what you find.

(By the way, I took the picture of the new reference books on the cart with the camera on my phone).

Statistical Abstract of the US

Social Studies, Science, Business, Math (and other) teachers may be interested in the 2011 online Statistical Abstract of the US, released yesterday, Thursday, January 6.  Let me know if you use it in your lesson planning.

http://bit.ly/eRsvqu

YouTube Unblocked (somewhat)

Teachers -

Have you ever found an amazing video resource you wanted to use in your class but couldn't because it was only on YouTube and was blocked by the LAUSD filter?  Well, I learned from Mr. Sanchez today (who learned it from Mr. Ifergan) that you can now access YouTube (and many other media resource sites) from school for 15 minutes at a time.  You will be prompted to start an Authorized Override Session by entering your LAUSD Single Sign On password, obviously so ITD can have a record of what videos you watched.  But hey, if you're using it for appropriate instruction in the classroom, this should be no problem.  It also works for other sites they classify as Streaming Media or  Media Sharing.  It seems like a step in the right direction to me.  If you try it, let us know.

New Free Resources

Welcome to the first day of the new school year.

1.  Poetry 180 is a wonderful resource that I found out about last week. The Library of Congress delivers “A Poem a Day for American High Schools”.  Sign up at http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180   Everybody can click “Subscribe” and “Poetry 180”.

2. Karen Magee was looking for a social networking site that would be safe and secure to use with her classes.  She found Edmodo (http://www.edmodo.com/), and says it really looks good.  Try it out.

3.  And, if you use RSS, consider subscribing to this blog (DMHS Library Update) for the latest on what's happening around the library and the school.  If you don't know how, here's the Common Craft video introduction to RSS. http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Enjoy!

And don't forget to post a comment.

Welcome!

Welcome students, teachers, parents,

administrators, staff, and Internet friends!

2010-2011 promises to be an exciting year at DMHS with so much to explore and so much happening, and of course the Library is no exception.  As a library we always promote books and reading, and I'll be featuring some initiatives on that front shortly.  For today, here are some powerful Internet and video resources I'd like to share with you:

1.  As an International Baccalaureate Candidate School, how can we create a successful IB community?  An innovative possibility is the development of Knowledge Building Centers for each classroom.  Here's my initial draft.  (The template is a public domain gift from Dr. David Loertscher). Using this template, the classroom teacher, his or her students, and the TL can collaborate on building knowledge about any topic they are working on, in their classroom, or from home or school.  Note the link in the middle of the page, to share comments, questions, and tips about the assignment.  I also have Dr. Loertscher's three books that provide background on how to implement Knowledge Building Centers.

2.  Students are swimming in technology, but we don't yet have an organized way to guide them into these Internet-age Web 2.0 skills.  Here's a wonderful, robust student tutorial from the California School Library Association that we could use . 

3. But, realistically now, how many of us have been able to keep up with the emerging technology ourselves?  Here's the CSLA self-paced tutorial for educators.  It is a great schoolwide professional development opportunity.  One of the many things I learned from it is how to build what is being called a Professional Learning Network. I stay informed about professional topics in education and technology using RSS subscriptions (Google Reader), online bookmarking (Delicious), and social networking (Twitter)   Feels like a real "21st Century" way to learn and grow.

4.  Another rich resource is the set of Research Skills DVDs for high school students I just received.   You can see the product description of the six topics taught at http://tinyurl.com/2et64vw .

I look forward to exploring and implementing these resources (and many more to come) with you this year.  My watchwords for the new year:  enthusiasm, focus, and dedication.

Curent overview of the DMHS Research Process

After the WASC visit on March 9-10 I'll be presenting an overview of the Research Initiative to the faculty, by Magnet. Go to http://dmhs.pbworks.com/ and click on the link for the "Current overview of project" in the bottom left corner of the page to see the PowerPoint presentation.