Searchology

Will Richardson (who works with the George Lucas Foundation and spoke at our campus in February)  sent a question to us for our students –and your answers just might be included in Edutopia Magazine!

 Here’s the question–

“What technology do you use outside of school that would be good for the classroom? Why? How would that work?”

They’d love examples of how you see that technology working in the classroom or how it could benefit you at school, because they know students are so tech savvy!

They also are interested in ideas students have for using technology gadgets at school–for example, gadgets you normally use at home or outside of school.

Share your ideas here along with your name and we’ll send the whole list back to Edutopia, and your ideas may get published!

   Want to explore how connected we are to places around the globe? 

Want to win $10,000 and a trip to New York?

Create a video, animation or written piece about a connection we have with another place in the world and enter in the Goldman Sachs Prize for Excellence in International Education!

Entries are due by July 11.  Come by the library for more information or help with your project!

  Today is the National Day of Silence.  Find out more here.

It’s National Library Week and to celebrate, we’d like to know your favorite books!

What books made a big impression on you or have influenced your life?

In thinking back to high school, I think some of my favorites had to be Catcher in the Rye, Farewell to Arms, and Slaughterhouse Five.  I also really liked the Pigman by Paul Zindel.

What are your favorites?   Post your list here!  Or come by the library and help us build our display and put your favorite book out!

At a conference yesterday, I got to hear Melissa de la Cruz(author of the Blue Blood books) and Stephanie Meyer(Twilight and New Moon) talk about their writing and their new books. 

So here’s a little of the “inside scoop”!   

Stephanie Meyer is working on Book 4, and has to finish by June so it will come out in August of 2008.  She’s working on two projects at once, so she’s hoping she can finish it in time.  She talked about how covers for the books are chosen by the editors, and so it’s hard for the author when the cover is designed and the author doesn’t “love” it.  She wished that New Moon had a cover more appealing to guys than a flower. 

Melissa de la Cruz is also working on her next book, Revelations, which is set in Brazil, and another entitled Apocalypse.  She shared a funny inside story about her book covers.  The book cover on Blue Buzz is her editor’s neck, and the cover of her new book Masquerade features her art director’s eyes.

We also heard Isabel Allende, author of Paula, House of Spirits and Ines of my Soul.  She was surprisingly funny, though she did talk poignantly about her daughter Paula and about leaving Chile.   I haven’t read Paula yet–have you?   After hearing her talk about her experiences after Paula’s death and how writing the book was a healing process for her, I’d like to read it.

In honor of spring arriving, here’s a link to the WWF’s Time for Change site, where you can tell them what commitment you can make to help the environment.   Earth Day is in 22 days! 

I just finished reading Around the Bloc, and started Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. Reading Lolita is a challenging book, but it’s fascinating to read about the author’s experiences living in Iran when the country began changing and cracking down on intellectual freedom. 

Around the Bloc is the account of an American (and Austin) college student who lived in Russia, China and Cuba a few years ago.  She talks to young students there to see how they feel about human rights and opportunities in their countries, and it’s interesting to read about her experiences.

What’s on your bookshelf?

Want to be on the cover of Wired Magazine?  Create your own cover here!

This video about how the web is changing was created by a professor at Kansas State University for a course called Digital Ethnography  and is a very cool demonstration of how web 2.0 is changing our world.   What thoughts does it bring up for you?

I was lucky enough to win free wristbands to SXSW music this week!(very lucky!)   We heard several bands  last night, and I was thinking how cool it was because it is so global.

We saw bands from Liverpool, and a Texan living in Liverpool, L.A., and South Africa.  And now, with all the great internet tools, we can easily listen to their music, watch videos of performances, hear podcasts of interviews, visit their websites, etc.   I was also reading how SXSW is using software called Twitter which allows people to have instantaneous updates of what their friends are doing, which at SXSW, lets people meet up with their friends easily.  (If you want to read more about it, check out my post on my technology blog).

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with too much information or do you like having all this easily available?  Or both?? (put me in the last category–I like it but sometimes it’s too much!)