Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.  Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.

Search tip – Add “source:life” to any Google image search and search on the LIFE photo archive.  For example: computer source:life

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.

Recently we provided a professional development in-service on Audio Podacasting.  Valissa Bevis from the middle school was the instructor and did a great job teaching us how to create a podcast and sharing how teachers at the middle school are using podcasting with their students.    Valissa has kindly provided the podcasting information and  links on her school’s website for anyone that was not able to attend.    Thank you Valissa!

Need to give a document copy to a group of students but you are out of copier copies?

Need to save a document from a library computer but you don’t have a jump drive or CD?

Need to print a document but no access to that computer’s printer?

Try Google Documents!

Check out this site for Educators.  Here you will find helpful information, a video on how to use Google documents and some real-life examples of how teachers are  using Google Docs.

We now have new audiobooks that are encoded in MP3 format and are iPod ready.  They also include a companion eBook. 

Features of the companion eBook are:

• Automatic start-up with full instructions
• Easily search and navigate through every chapter by word or name
• Popular PDF format; printable; compatible with E-Readers
• Full table of contents and index for easy cross-referencing

Titles included are Frankenstein, Sense and Sensibility, The Scarlet Letter, The strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Pride and Prejudice, and the Art of War.

If you like eBooks check out the following eBook databases for free eBooks.

• The Online Books Page - Over 30,000 eBooks from Project Gutenberg and other sources in the public domain.  FAQ page answers many eBooks questions.
• Project Gutenberg - A good source for classic texts and historical documents, such as the Constitution.
• The Internet Public Library Online Texts Collection - Over 50 links to databases of online texts in the public domain, from Aesop’s Fables to the Victorian Women’s Writing Project.
• U.S. Government Information Products - Links to online publications from the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Check this site for classroom/lesson ideas for using eBooks. 

Mrs. Porter used the program Elluminate to conduct her online interactive tutoring session.  Elluminate provides synchronous learning opportunities including voice over Internet, web cam video, instant messaging, polling, creation of breakout rooms and the ability to archive and review the sessions.

Visit the Elluminate site  to see if you might be interested in using this with your students.  If you have more questions about the application of this tool, ask Mrs. Porter.

Here are a few screen shots I took last night during the session.

The library has a new gadget available for check-out and you are going to love it!  It is the Flip video camera.   Right out of the box, it was easy to setup and work and I was shooting video within a few minutes.

What is so special about this camera?

• No tapes to purchase.
• Simple to operate because it only has a few feature buttons.
• No need for a power adapter because it uses 2 AA batteris.
• No computer cable is needed because a USB plug is hidden on the side of the camera that “flips” out when you need it.
• Comes with built in software to help you produce your videos.
• Small enough to fit in your pocket.

Visit the site below by Tom Barrett for ideas for using the Flip Video Camera in the classroom.  The site is posted in Google Documents so you will need to sign in or create an account.

   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.