FREE Sync YA AudioBooks

Back again this summer is SYNC, a program designed to develop young adult audiobook listeners. Each week beginning TODAY two complete digital audiobooks will be made available during that week only. One title will be a current YA title and the other will be a classic. Downloads are mp3 format hosted by OverDrive (must have OverDrive Media Console-free), both Mac and Windows compatible, with most listening devices supported. Go to the Sync Group on the AudioBook community for download links each week.

Available June 23 - June 29

Shiver by Maggie StiefvaterRomeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

Available June 30 - July 6
Little Brother by Cory DoctorowThe Trial by Franz Kafka

Available July 7 - July 13
Where the Streets Had a Name by Randa Abdel-FattahA Passage to India by E. M. Forster

Available July 14 - July 20
The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph DelaneyBeowulf by Francis B. Gummere [Trans.]

Available July 21 - July 27
Chanda's Secrets by Allan StrattonTess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Available July 28 - August 3
Ashes, Ashes by Jo TreggiariRescue: Stories of Survival From Land and Sea by Dorcas S. Miller [Ed.]

Available August 4 - August 10
Immortal by Gillian ShieldsWuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Available August 11 - August 17
Storm Runners by Roland SmithThe Cay by Theodore Taylor

Library Blogs

Salem Press sponsors the Library Blog Awards. Nominations come from the blogosphere and public voting takes place and then the judges decide which blogs are exceptional in thinking, writing, and information.

The 2011 Salem Library Blog Awards have been announced in eight different categories: General, Public, Academic, School, Local, Quirky, Newcomer, and Commercial. Here are the winners:

• General: Librarian in Black
• Public: Swiss Army Librarian
• Academic: Information Tyranosaur
• School: The Unquiet Librarian
• Local: Cecil County Public Library
• Quirky: A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette
• Newcomer: Hack Library School
• Commercial: NeverEndingSearch

The Unquiet Librarian (Buffy Hamilton) and NeverEndingSearch (Joyce Valenza) are both in my iGoogle Reader. You can find some great blogs by checking out the other nominees in each category.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/77319680@N00/2134380212

Some rights reserved by Breno Peck

Professional Development Opportunities

The first opportunity is not really PD, but it is a great "feel good" activity. Diane Ravitch, the “best living historian of education” (Washington Post) and America's “soberest, most history-minded education expert” (Wall Street Journal)," gave a speech, The Future of Public Education, that "analyzed the current state of American education—what’s broken and what are the best ways to fix it." The event was sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters on March 8, 2011. Her presentation and the Q&A session have been archived here. If you need a lift for your spirits, get a 90 minute pep talk.

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In January WEMTA's Wired Wednesday webinar was 21st Century Assessments by Naomi Harm. Wow!!! Naomi shared a wealth of online resources to help 21st century educators develop checklists, rubrics, and open-text assessments as well as a wealth of databases with many, many high quality ready-made assessments which can also be modified for personal use. This webinar is archived, but you must be a WEMTA member to access the archive and resources. I was most impressed with the 21st century teaching methods used by Naomi Harms to present this webinar. It is worthwhile just to see how professional development can be presented let alone the content that is presented.

There are two upcoming Wired Wednesday webinars: April 13th - Internet Safety & May 11th - Intellectual Freedom. Register here. Free for all WEMTA members. All previous webinars are also available in the archive.

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On March 7, 2011 the TL Virtual Cafe hosted a webinar, A Sweet Way to Search the Web. The presentors were Shannon Miller, a teacher librarian, and Mark Moran, the founder of Dulcinea Media. Dulcinea's "mission is to help change the reality that most students cannot effectively conduct research on the Internet." Several search engines known as SweetSearch have been developed to help students, teachers, and librarians find the best resources which have been evaluated and approved.

TL Virtual Cafe will be offering these upcoming webinars: Copyright Clarity, March 14th; Screenagers and the Digital Window, April 4th; Diving into Digital Books -- Adding eReaders to your School Library, May 2nd; and DIY Summer Reading List, June 6th.

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Don't Copy That 2, a webinar by Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) was presented through edWeb.net on March 8th. SIIA's updated anti-software-piracy video was screened and Q&A's followed. Here's a link to the presentation including the live chat. The video and teaching resources can be downloaded here.

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EDWEB.NEt's Invitation:If you are a teacher, administrator, librarian, or professional working in any level of education, join edWeb to create communities for collaboration - it's free.

edWeb is a great networking site for educators. There a lots of different communities for sharing, discussing, and learning from others with the same interests. The categories range from all curricular areas to higher ed to administration with everything in between. I highly recommend Using Emerging Technology to Advance Your School Library Program community, which has a monthly webinar and they are all archived. I also belong to the Exploring eBooks for K-12 community. Some days my mailbox is full of messages from the discussion forums especially after a webinar. Participating in edWeb is great way to enlarge your professional learning network.

A-Z Web Tools

photo © 2010 Joy | more info (via: Wylio)There will be a great series of blog posts by Ozge Karaoglu, an EFL teacher in Istanbul. In her blog, Ozge Karaoglu's Blog: About teaching, learning, reflecting and being a 21st century learner & teacher... she is blogging about tools available on the Internet. Her method of sharing some great tools is probably not unique, but will keep us reading for at least 36 days. You may have guessed that she is sharing tools in alphabetical order first, then numerically. She has already completed the letters A and B.

Ozge works with very young children, however, the tools she shares could be used at any age. By reading her A-Z Web Tools series, I'm sure that you will find many new tools.

You can subscribe to her blog and/or add it to your RSS aggregator.

TL Virtual Cafe Webinar

Don't miss the webinar scheduled for Monday, January 3rd at 7 pm CST. Three ISTE SIGMS leaders will present ideas on how to become instructional leaders during Creating a Community of Instructional Leaders in Your School or District

Participant Link

Scroll down to see the TL Virtual Cafe webinars scheduled for the remainder of the school year.