MzMolly's blog

Monday Molly Musings - October 4, 2010 - Define Appropriate

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:24:00 -0600

Procrastination can really bite you in the behind sometimes. During Library Camp OTF this summer, we had an incredible presenter, Karen Beulter, talk to the group about interactive whiteboard technology. The presentation itself was awesome, as she modeled a three-part congress lesson structure and incorporated differentiated instruction in her tasks. (For those of you who are not teachers, please forgive the edu-babble.) Back then, I planned to create a spectacular Smartboard file on something very practical for teacher-librarians: a lesson on how to choose appropriate books for themselves. Fast forward two months and here I sit, the night before I want to actually teach the lesson, and not only is the file uncreated, I can no longer find the notes I scribbled with the plans of how to craft it.

Monday Molly Musings - September 27, 2010 - Reasons Riordan Rocks

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:22:50 -0600

My house is full of books. This is likely to happen in a family "led" by a writer/father and a teacher-librarian/mother. The habit of reading aloud to each other had its beginnings even before we had children, when my husband and I used to take turns reading the Harry Potter series books to each other, a chapter at a time, to ensure that neither one of us read ahead of the other. Bedtime reading is a special time. For my son, he prefers the Time Warp Trio novels. My daughter likes novels a bit longer than those. After she and I were finished reading the Harry Potter novels (me for the second time, she for the first), we wanted to find a new series that three of us could enjoy together. My friend Rum, author of the blog booksinthespotlight.blogspot.com, highly recommended the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. In very atypical fashion, we actually watched the movie before reading the books. I can say with all sincerity that the movie was a horrible adaptation of the book, second in its awfulness only to the Spiderwick Chronicles film (which my daughter, husband and I also read together and enjoyed immensely). The Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan are awesome, and here's just a few reasons why.

Monday Molly Musings - September 20, 2010 - Sitting in a Silo

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:21:46 -0600

Today was the first day of my annual book fair. Thank goodness my mother (who has been volunteering at school libraries since I was in junior kindergarten 34 years ago and hasn't stopped) will be coming the entire week to run it. I couldn't do it without her. I'm also lucky to have a former student, a stellar librarian-in-the-making, traveling to help after school.

Despite all these people around me, I was feeling a bit alone in my role. Our board has a new electronic communcation system and the conferences where I used to virtually meet my fellow teacher-librarians is due to close. In the past, if I needed a book to borrow from another library or a question to ask (as I did about Google Educational Accounts), I'd send a quick note and several people would reply with advice or directions on where to find answers. In my attempt to wean myself off the old system, I've avoided logging on there, and I'm unaccustomed to this lack of immediate connections. I got the chance to talk on the phone with a colleague and it was so rewarding that I'm sure I talked longer than I usually do.

Monday Molly Musings - September 13, 2010 - The Prodigal Student

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:20:48 -0600

This is a blog primarily about school librarianship. (Really, I should put that somewhere in the title banner or somewhere prominent, so people aren't misled.) However, like most things, the other elements of my life influence what I write about.

I try hard to make just one post a week. Ideally, I try to make it on a Monday (ergo the name of the blog) but as long as I get it close to the day, I'm satisfied.

Monday Molly Musings - September 6, 2010 - Wall Wishing experiments

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:36:08 -0600

I'm writing this a day late, but *shrugs*, that's better than missing the week! (Note: this blog post also appears on mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com)

Today was the first day of school, and at my place of work, we no longer have a "day 0" where prep coverage is postponed. This meant that we started right away with library prep classes and collaborative ICT slots with classrooms. The ICT bit is a bit of an experiment, an attempt to integrate ICT with the regular curriculum, use it for differentiated instruction, and provide in-school PD for the staff. The idea is to collaboratively plan with the other teachers for this period but since it was the first day and first week, we were pretty flexible about our itinerary. Code of Online conduct, lab rules, password creation hints, and that sort of housekeeping business was the typical request. However, I wanted to make sure there was some "wow-new" stuff so I introduced Wall Wisher as well.

Q for regular LNG users - where did August 9 go?

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:52:58 -0600

Greetings regular LNG users.
When I was making my weekly Monday Molly Musings update, I was surprised to see that my last post was August 2. I could've sworn I posted the week of August 9. When I checked my email notifications, I found out that I did create a blog entry for August 9 but it disappeared. Does anyone have any idea how my blog entry could've vanished? And how can I get it back?

Monday Molly Musings - August 30, 2010 - Democracy and Demophobia

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:48:31 -0600

Little known fact - I am slightly demophobic. As my husband, who loves words, will tell you, demos is a Greek word meaning mob. Crowds freak me out, especially when I am crammed into hostile lines with strangers. My control of my fear was put to the test on Saturday when I attended Fan Expo Canada with my daughter. Reports claim that 60 000 people attended the three day convention. Even if those figures are inaccurate, there were definitely a lot of people at the Metro Convention Centre. It took us an hour to get in (and that was with deluxe pre-purchased passes) and the place was crammed to the hilt with fans of all stripes. We checked out the sales booths and artists alley, attended two sessions (one by Stan Lee and the other by two anime voice actors) and participated in the masquerade. My daughter enjoyed the masquerade the best - it was her second time competing and the costumes there were absolutely incredible. Search for footage on YouTube and you'll see how elaborate and accurate these fashion tributes are to the source material. It was neat to talk with an illustrator from Archie Comics, who has been working with the company for 16 years, and hear about how iconic characters (like Betty & Veronica, or the X Men) came about and continue to thrive. Some characters speak to a generation of fans strongly.

Monday Molly Musings - August 2, 2010 - Channel the love

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:59:48 -0600

This past weekend, I attended a Twilight convention. Before you roll your eyes and begin muttering "crazy fanatic" under your breath, let me reassure you. There actually was a wide range of people in attendance (from teens to much older people) and although there were definitely more women there, there were some male fans present. The majority of the people I met at the event were polite and pleasant. (I only met two women that were obnoxious and vulgar that made me ashamed - thankfully I didn't have to be near them for long.) There were people around that were primarily book fans and others who focused more on the movies, and the company that ran this convention (Creation Entertainment) did an excellent job of catering to as many different interests as possible. They had celebrity guests, trivia contests, merchandise auctions, a few panels by some devoted and delightful people (The Hillywood Show and The Twilight Lexicon), karaoke and a fancy dance. I had feared (based on past experience at another convention) that it would be chaos, but the event was well run, with short, manageable lines and clear rules.

Monday Molly Musings - July 26, 2010 - We Want You! and Listen to Me!

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:39:40 -0600

Everything clamors for our attention. Bloggers want people to read their posts. (I confess even I glance at the number of reads each of my entries receives.) Bloggers will go to a lot of work to get people to follow them. My friend has a newish blog she started and to entice new readers, she's offering as a prize a copy of Mockingjay.
Yes, Mockingjay.
I have been anxiously anticipating the third installment of the Hunger Games series for months and months. In usual blog contests, you get points based on how you spread the word - one point if you start to follow the blog, one if you mention it on Twitter, etc. I wrote up a comment for her (yeah, because it's worth 4 points in her contest) but I thought it was school library-ish enough to post here.

Monday Molly Musings - July 19, 2010 - Is it possible to know too much?

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:13:42 -0600

Sorry I've been less-than-punctual with my posts. Last week was actually quite full with Library Camp OTF and a guest appearance at a Library AQ course. I met some absolutely delightful people while I was there, and I hope many of them take the hints I was throwing their way and consider writing some articles or volunteering on some OSLA committees. They would make a great addition to the team.

Monday Molly Musings - June 28, 2010 - Cell Phone Film Directors, at an event near you!

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:26:37 -0600

School is now over (insert sigh of relief here!) and I can catch up a bit on my sleep, my movie watching (yes, of course I've watched Eclipse already - I saw it at midnight on the opening day), and my scrap booking. The grade 8 students graduated recently and there are many individuals from that group that I will definitely miss. It's a high-spirited, close-knit group of students that make you scream or smile.

Monday Molly Musings - June 14, 2010 - How did a bully become a "joyous voice of dissent"?

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:28:35 -0600

I can't comment too specifically on this issue, because it involves individuals. In our board's online forum spaces, there's some heated discussion, often on the topic of the social web. One particular person takes a rather extremist and contrary viewpoint, but that is not my beef with the person - it is the way this person responds in derogatory, rude and insulting ways. The moderators have reminded everyone to permit dissent but write in a respectful fashion, and this has led a couple of people to post that they did not consider certain people to be crossing the line. It puzzles me how this lack of kindness is dismissed by some people. I asked my husband about it and he said there's a mistaken belief that dissent in of itself is praiseworthy and that some think a gadfly is good, regardless of the basis of their claims. I do like examining some of my strongly held opinions, but I don't like putting people down to do it.

Monday Molly Musings - June 7, 2010 - Now the Twittering's a melody

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:50:17 -0600

I just returned from a great few days at the Treasure Mountain Canada think tank for school libraries and the Canadian Library Association's annual conference in Edmonton. My brain is full to bursting with new contacts, new (and not so new) thoughts, and new plans. I have lots of suggestions for the next TMC retreat, scheduled for two years from now, but in the meantime, I need to digest what I heard and the conversations I had. Helping that process involved my relatively recently created Twitter account.

Monday Molly Musings - May 31, 2010 - And the twitchy one in the middle ...

Sun, 30 May 2010 22:26:41 -0600

I've been negligent in keeping up with my blog. Life's flashing by and other things (oh, like family) have taken priority over writing. I've also been busy, as the below link will hopefully show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULqg9qsbg7o

One thing I learned from this experience is that in real life, you try to make eye contact with everyone that you are speaking with, but on TV, it's only necessary to look at the host, otherwise you end up looking like you have ants in your pants. I hope the message came through - that it shouldn't be an either/or situation when it comes to computers/books, but opening school libraries up to many options.

Monday Molly Musings - May 3, 2010 - Based on the symptoms, here's the diagnosis

Tue, 04 May 2010 19:01:50 -0600

May is a very busy month. Just this week, I have my school's Spring Concert, my own children's Spring Concert, and the regional Heritage/History Fair. I'm also busy preparing for our local area Forest of Reading celebration and my presentation at the Atlantic Provinces Library Association's annual conference. My topic is "A Prescription for Twilight Fever" and I was chatting with a fellow teacher and Twilight fan about how to approach the "symptoms" section of my presentation.