Duluth Middle School Media Newsletter August 09
Welcome Back! If you missed our Reading Resources Workshop in July, you missed a great opportunity to learn about the professional development and teacher resources available to you in the media catalog, and from GCPS. But don’t despair; we have scheduled a repeat experience for Thursday, Aug. 27, at 8 AM. You will also learn how to use the resources that are provided for the students. For example, did you know that our Media Catalog has its own website search engine? Come explore with us!
Did You Know? We have three document cameras available to check out from the Media Center. Also known as Digital Visualizers, these portable cameras allow you to display images of objects, slides, books, and even live goldfish, on a projection screen, whiteboard or monitor. Two math teachers are already planning on using these cameras to work with math related non-fiction books that they checked out from the media center. Stop by the media center, and Beth Thompson or Charmaine MacKenzie will be glad to discuss how you can use the document camera to excite your students’ interest in your lessons.
Tech Tip Have you ever been surfing on the web, looking for information and good web-sites, only to lose the web-page you started from? Learn to use the “New Tab” option when exploring on-line resources and your search will get much easier. There are two ways you can do this: 1. If you are accessing a link on a web-page that you want to continue to use, right-click on the link and select “Open in new Tab”. 2. If you need to type in the web address, and want to save the page you are still using, click on File, New Tab, and type in the web address you want.
DMS Media Center Newsletter Non Fiction + DVC = Fun Does that sound like a literary math formula? It’s much better than that! It’s a way to increase your students’ interest in reading non-fiction books, which is an important part of our school’s local goals for this year. Here’s the idea: Have your students work in groups to research non-fiction books in our media catalog that are related to their current area of study. The groups can then use the digital cameras in the media catalog to produce short book-talk videos. These videos will be shown during morning announcements, which can inspire students throughout the school to check out more non-fiction books. Do you like our idea? Then send us an email, or stop by the Media Center, Beth or Charmaine will be glad to collaborate with you and your students in developing this project.
Do you Diigo? By now you may be thinking you have read too far in this newsletter! Just one more technological resource I’d like to pass on and I’ll stop for now, I promise☺. Diigo is a bookmarking site, but it is also much more…and it offers free educator accounts. So check it out: http://www.diigo.com/index and see how Diigo can help you.
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How did you spend your summer vacation? Did you blog? Twitter? Develop your own web-site? How much time did you spend on Facebook? Did you perhaps relax on your back deck, wondering if -and how -- any social media can be used to enhance your students’ learning? I spent a week learning about new technologies available to the modern media center, and I am just reeling with all the ideas and possibilities. I created a blog: http://mediamack.edublogs.org/ And a web-site: http://www.netvibes.com/mediamack# Home I even opened up a twitter account. Please feel free to look up my blog, post something there, and explore my web-site. I have already added some good resource links to it. Let me know what you think! I hope you will send me the links to your blog, your web-site, or let me know if you tweet too. Let’s explore the possibility of meeting with our LSTC to brainstorm the uses of social media in the classroom. I look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible! Charmaine MacKenzie Media Specialist