Today I happened upon a radio talk show  about technology that was very informative.  The host of the show is Kim Komando and she also has a website.   She was talking about the wealth of information on the web and the lack of time at a particular moment to read everything that you would like or need to read.  She suggested several FREE programs that help you organize  webpages in order for you to keep up with them and read  at a later time.

Thumbtack – This program lets you organize snippets of sites in one place.  It is visual in that you can organize them like notes on a bulletin board.

Read It Later –  This program lets your quickly tag interesting reads.  You can come back to them at the touch of a button. 

Diigo – Books are often more versatile than Web pages.  In a book you can highlight important passages.  You can write notes in the margins.  This program lets you do these thing to Web site. Plus, you can share your highlighted and annotated pages with others.

Evernote – This is a great, cross-platform note-taking service.  Turn photos, audio and text into helpful reminders.  You can also turn portions of Web pages into reminders.  The Web clipper program makes this simple.  You can grab a portion of a page or the whole thing.

   Joyce Valenza shared this site on the School Library Journal blog and I want to share it with you.  Print What You Like allows you to print a web page without the ads, empty spaces, and other junk.   It is a free web page editor that gives you control of how web pages look when printed.  

• Eliminate the need to copy and paste content into a word document
• Edit any public page in your browser – no installation required!
• Change page font size and type, remove the background, and remove images
• Edit any part of the page by clicking a page element or selecting text
• Any selection can be removed, isolated or widened
• All changes are undoable
• Combine multiple web pages together – edit and print them as one document!

I have added it to all the library computers and hopefully this will help eliminate some of the ink and paper waste.   It was easy to add, click here and give it a try. 

In case you have not heard, Hueytown High now has an online Literary Magazine.  Muse is produced and managed by students in Mrs. Renfroe’s journalism class.  

The magazine features poetry, short stories, artwork, photography and other literary works by Hueytown students.   So teachers, please help support the magazine by encouraging  your students to showcase their talent.  Students can  submit their work to the journalism class for publication by e-mail  submit_muse@hotmail.com or to Mrs. Renfroe in Ivy.

This magazine will not only provide writing and leadership experience for our journalism students but also enjoyment to readers and positive recognition to those students submitting work.  Check-out the site here and leave a positive comment on a student blog.

I would like to make you aware of and promote one of our magazine subscriptions, Technology & Learning, whose mission is to provide K-12 educators with essential resources for managing, teaching, and training with technology.     There is also an online version of Technology & Learning.  The site contains considerably more than the print version does, including readers’ reports of Web tours and weekly news updates.  The site offers plenty of information, links, and resources.  One of my favorite features of the online version is the Daily Features section that includes the following: 

Site of the Day
New places to visit each day.

School Site of the Week
A new school site is selected each week.

How To: QuickFlicks
Video tech tutorials every Monday.

The IT Guy
Helpful new tech tips twice a week.

PDQ
Professional Development Quicktip twice a week.

Leaders’ Edge
Great ideas for administrators and tech leaders.

palmOne Pavilion
Handhelds and learning. 

On the sidebar I have provided links for several of these “Daily Features”  so that you can  access these web pages directly from the library blog each time you visit.

Thank you Jannelle for letting us know how you are using Google spreadsheet.

Google has so many useful tools. I just recently used the spreadsheet feature available for those who use Google mail. Prior to this year, Marrianne Coleman, Carrie Radice and I would write all the receipts for prom tickets and then one of us would have to compile a master list of all students attending the prom. This year, my husband suggested we use Google spreadsheets. I created a spreadsheet in Google that I was able to “share” with Marrianne and Carrie. Every time we sold prom tickets, we would individually update this spreadsheet from home, school, or any computer that could access the Internet. It was so convenient and operated very much like Excel.  You can also share documents and calendars. I am using the shared calendar with my students to list all homework. By making the calendar “public,” my students are able to access it from home and get their assignments. Google is so much more than a search engine. You should do some searching yourself and explore the many features!  

Jannelle Porter

This tool is the Google Notebook.

You can:

• Clip useful information- Quickly add clippings of web content (images, text and links) straight to your notebook by highlighting the content you want and clicking the “Clip” button in the mini Google Notebook.
• Organize your notes – Keep all your notes organized by creating multiple notebooks for different subjects or by dividing a single notebook into several sections.  You can also easily rearrange your notes by dragging-and-dropping them from one section or notebook to another.
• Get access from anywhere- You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.
• Publish your notebook – You can invite friends or classmates to collaborate on a notebook with you,  giving them full access to edit that notebook and add their own notes.  This would be a great way for students to collaborate on a group project.

Open the Google Search Engine

1. click on more>>
2. click on even more>>
3. under Search scroll down to find and click on “NOTEBOOK”
4. click on “take a tour”
5. click on”sign up” if you don’t have a Google Account

 Click on the Google icon for a quick tour of Google Notebook.

“For the past week and a half I have been wearing a really cool hi-tech Samsung Digital Audio Player attached to my collar with a really hi-tech paper clip!  The audio player records my classes…the paper clip is all I could find to ensure the microphone was close enough to my mouth.  With the technical help of my husband, I record my classes and copy the files to my math website.  It has been quite a challenge to teach my lesson knowing it is being recorded.  I want students to be able to access class sessions if they have been absent so I try to use more descriptive methods.  I try to teach as though I am instructing a blind student.  It is very difficult.  And if you listen to any of the recordings, you might be able to tell that I am not good at it just yet.  One of the other pitfalls is having to listen to yourself as you review the recordings.  I do no enjoy that at all!  Aside from these few hurdles, I think it is really going to be an asset to my classroom.  Students will be able to catch up/review when necessary and parents will have the opportunity to hear what is going on in class!  As a parent, I would embrace this opportunity.  To hear classroom audio, go to www.porterweb.net/math and select either precalculus or AP calculus.  Select audio.  These files take a minute or two to download as they are probably a bit too large.  My next project is to work on compressing them.  Any comments, criticisms, or corrections are welcome!”   Janelle Porter