Well, since my current job is being posted online as a vacancy (APPLY!!), I guess I should share my news. I am leaving Hamden Hall at the end of the current school year. I will be starting at the Ethel Walker School this summer as their Dean of Digital and Library Services.
It’s really hard for me to write about leaving Hamden Hall without getting too emotional. I am very, very sad about leaving. I am going to miss my colleagues and my students terribly. I feel as though I’ve grown so much as an educator in my three years there, due in great part to the mentorship and friendship of Lorri Carroll. But really, so many people there have touched me in various ways, both professionally and personally. I have been so lucky to be a part of that warm, supportive, and student-centered community.
I am SO excited, though, to be joining Walker’s. It’s a beautiful school with a stunning library, and everyone I’ve met has been so kind and positive. I am moving on campus–into a dorm!–with my family, and we couldn’t be happier to be rejoining a residential school. I have very fond memories of my time as a dorm parent at Wilbraham & Monson in western Massachusetts, and I know this will be an equally amazing experience.
This will be a chance for me to continue to grow as a librarian, and to push myself even further as an educator. I can’t wait to give my all to this exemplary school, and to help further the Walker’s mission through developing a 21st century library program that supports student learning and exploration. Thank you, Walker’s, for giving me this incredible opportunity!
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Skills We Can’t Teach: Facilitating Authentic Experiences with Digital Citizenship
I have never been comfortable with the scare tactics that I sometimes see in courseware for Internet education. I nevertheless find myself resorting to them at times to get students to understand the seriousness of the topic. Partly because I’m short of time. These lessons often get mashed into two or three days out of a students’ academic year. That’s not enough. These lessons need to be woven right into the curriculum. Any time students are asked to do online research or create a digital product, their teacher reminds them of their expectations: use fair-use images only. Credit all media, not just text. Represent our school well. Take a moment to analyze the source of your information.
Here are the slides from my March 9th presentation at the CASL/CLC Mini Conference at Chase Collegiate School.
image via evernote
Click Happy with Bookmarklets and Extensions
“Stop being so click-happy!” a teacher at my school sometimes tells her students. She is referring to their habit of clicking the mouse, rapid-fire, while waiting for a page to load or a program to open. It’s a good habit to break, that’s for sure. But I’m “click happy” in a different way: with bookmarklets and extensions.
After making my last bimonthly newsletter in Word (ugh), using Smore was a revelation. Plus, it helped me pare down the information I was sharing, and really think about what was essential.
Smore is free! Thanks to my friend Jaime Hammond for alerting me to this site.
Swain Library November/December Newsletter
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,800 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.
