Blogging off -- on holidays!

The wonders of learning: This is Parent Night.

A primary student brings her family to show the Smartboard

work she and classmates have done under Michele F's direction.

C'est merveilleux, oui? It was also TL Studio night.

Blogworthy Resources:

• Alan Z sends this great online resource: The Encyclopedia of Earth
  
• Karen C (recently retired - yeah, right!) sends Olympics educational information from this issue of the EdInfo Digest: check Canadian School Portal For the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and the new Canadian Olympic School Program that includes learning resources for students, Grades 2 to 12, and a new website for teachers and students with lesson plans, athlete videos, polls, puzzles and information surrounding the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games.
  
• Meredyth K has just sent the Hot Topics in Literacy (2008) "picks" from the International Reading Association ... and guess what, phonics aren't on this list! But hottest topics include adolescent literacy; check the International Reading Association's position statement on Adolescent Literacy which I have always thought a great paper and see other IRA related resources. [Hey, Meredyth and Gwen, maybe we need to get a life -- it's late on the Friday night that starts Spring Break! Meredyth is sending email, I'm blogging, and Gwen is marking wikis. Just so you all know ... ]
  
• The Coquitlam SD #43 Teacher-Librarian information page has lots of information that is worth having a look at. Love the fact that this page links to this very blog, don't you! This great page is created by BCTLA co-president Heather Daly. Anyone wanting to take on the defence of school libraries against the challenge to our relevance and the argument that school libraries are "redundancies" might want to look at Heather's posting for 26/02/2008.
  
• Greg's Top 10 SS Sites for March are available. Here's a sample -- check out the portal that celebrates Samuel de Champlain's founding of Quebec City 400 years ago in 1608 -- see also the student activities. Greg also picks the Historica professional development site, and a paper: The Purposes of Teaching Canadian History, by Peter Seixas. If you have a keen history or social studies colleague, anything Peter is writing about is worth keeping up with -- it's cutting-edge and interesting stuff.

CLA Announcement: CLA Children's Book of the Year Award Finalists

The Canadian Association of Children's Librarians (CLA/ACB) has announced the shortlist for the 2008 Book of the Year Award for Children. This award recognizes a Canadian author of an outstanding book published in Canada in 2007, for children to age 12. Look for the winners to be announced prior to the CLA/ACB National Conference & Tradeshow, Vancouver, May 21 -24, and the award will be presented there on May 22. The finalists are:

• Becca at Sea by Deidre Baker (Groundwood Books)
• Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic Canada)
• Jakeman by Deborah Ellis (Fitzhenry and Whiteside)
• Baboon by David Jones (Annick Press)
• Schooled by Gordon Korman (Scholastic Canada)
• Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel (HarperCollins Canada)
• Eye of the Crow by Shane Peacock (Tundra Books)
• A Perfect Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson (Penguin)
• Porcupine by Meg Tilly (Tundra Books)
• Rex Zero King of Nothing by Tim Wynne-Jones (Groundwood Books)
  

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• The Writers' Festival is a wonderful "resource" for those of us who live and teach in the Lower Mainland. Anyone interested in an evening of Extraordinary Canadians with award winner David Adams Richards, historian and author Charlotte Gray, and acclaimed novelist Lewis deSoto? Hal Wake will moderate as the guests speak of their recent works on a series about the extraordinary Emily Carr, Lord Beaverbrook, and Nellie McClung. If you are interested in getting a group together, give me a call or email. 7:30 pm, Thursday April 17, H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver. Tickets: $15/$13.
  
• TL Courses for the Summer: Word from Marlene at UBC

Department of Language & Literacy Education
On-Campus Summer 2008 Courses in Teacher Librarianship

LIBE 477A/951: School Library 2.0 *
(July 2-18, Monday-Friday, 1:30-4:00 p.m., 3 credits)
Instructors: James Henri and Sandra Lee

Course Description - Web 2.0 is a metaphor for a spectrum of emerging novel Internet applications. Examples of these are blogs, wikis, social spaces and casting. These innovations are not just novel applications; they provide new ways of understanding the Internet. In this context, Web 2.0 is often seen as a“paradigm shift” to a new level of human understanding and expectations of the Internet and associated technologies.This course is designed to introduce teachers and teacher librarians to a variety of Web 2.0 tools and to facilitate an exploration of how these might be applied to enhance productive student and information-centered pedagogies in K-12 schools.

LIBE 463: Selection of Learning Resources I
(July 2-18, Monday-Friday, 8:00-10:30 a.m., 3 credits)
Instructor: Sandra Lee

Course Description: To select learning materials for school library resource centres, teacher-librarians learn to apply good selection practices to build an effective school library program. They establish a sound program for collection development, assess school and its collection requirements, create effective development and selection policies, understand and apply accepted principles in acquiring resources, and select print, non print and digital resources for a school library, using accepted selection aids. They also weed the school library collection using accepted practices. They understand issues related to Canadian copyright legislation, as well as to censorship concerns expressed by members of the school community.

Biographical Notes on Instructors James Henri and Sandra Lee

James Henri was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong and Sub Dean responsible for teacher librarianship and information literacy at Charles Sturt University in Australia. James previously taught a summer graduate course at UBC regarding the information literate school community. James is President of the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) and the author of more than 250 papers. His most recent publication is a Scarecrow Press title co-authored with LesleyFarmer, "Information literacy assessment in K-12 settings."

Sandra Lee teaches the more technical courses in the UBC LIBE program, including Information Services. She taught at the University of Hong Kong with James Henri. Her research and teaching interests have included information literacy, information policy, information retrieval, cataloging and children's literature. Sandra lives in Victoria and is the librarian at University Canada West. She also works for the BC Network for Aging Research at the University of Victoria.

* Gwen and I took the course James offered the last time he was a visiting summer instructor and would recommend this as an excellent opportunity to learn with an internationally known authority on information literacy. I have gotten to know Sandra since she has come to BC and think that course with her would be great too.

Check the link here for further information about these courses and a complete schedule of summer 2008 courses from the Department of Language and Literacy Education.

__________________________________________

"Captured" photographically recently were Betty-Ruth Dragon and some of my co-workers. B-R was later observed being stuffed unceremoniously into a blue bin. This, after weeks of dragonly duty on display here in the lobby. That there was some talk about ransom may be mere rumour. I hope she makes it to the right place. Check your blue bin carefully. She is hoping to reach her HappyRock Home.

Have a wonderful Spring Break.

READ, REST, and RELAX -- this is what I would like to do!

(Maybe I can do this after my four days of knitting at the Hyatt Hotel
downtown where I will be serving for the 12th year as a local delegate
at the BCTF AGM -- so how's that for a holiday!)