I am thankful for...

... All the great stories and resources available to me!  This includes my family, all the wonderful people in my PLN, the many fun and helpful web 2.0 tools and the oodles of great reads out there!

We had a pre-Thanksgiving gathering last night it was wonderful to discuss all sorts of topics with four generations of my family:  great-Nana and Papa-John, Grannie, myself and my husband and our two children.  It was great to have intelligent conversations, from a variety of viewpoints.  And one of the best parts is, we get to continue the conversation tonight over turkey and a post-dinner game of dominoes!

Of course, I'll be taking pictures and videos of all the happenings this holiday.  I love using Animoto and Photostory to create videos to share our Thanksgiving memories and Shutterfly to create beautiful photo arrangements and photo books.  My iPad is the easiest way to capture photos and video.  I love that I can email photo and videos right away, without having to convert anything or download them.  I can instantly share with family members who couldn't make it in person.

Through Twitter I've gathered lots of great teaching ideas for Thanksgiving.  I was able to use some this year with my students and have saved some for next year.  Those that I follow are always sharing great websites, apps and tools.  It's one of the first places I check for new ideas.  Now, to keep up with my goal this year of compiling and organizing these resources, so I can easily find them when I need them!  I've created a Weebly site (very, very easy to use) to help with that....www.onegalllibrary.weebly.com.

Finally, I needed something good to read during these couple of days off of work, so I turned to a cool website I found for a little help.  http://www.ujhs.com/booktalk/historical_fiction.html is setup along a timeline and helps you find post-Civil War historical fiction.  A second website I use for finding historical fiction is http://dawcl.com/search.asp.  You can tailor your search to find just the right time period, character ethnicity and more.  Take a look and find your next great read.

So, I am very thankful for many things.  I am off to relax with a warm cup of coffee and a good book. A little quiet time before the Thanksgiving meal and talk-fest!

Happy Thanksgiving!

International Children's Digital Library (ICDL)

 URL:  www.childrenslibrary.org

This powerful website provides access to thousands of digital books!  Take a look today and see how you can integrate this awesome resource into your classroom.

The mission of the ICDL Foundation is "to promote tolerance and respect for diverse cultures by providing access to the best of children's literature from around the world."

Whether you are reading for pleasure or sharing a digital book with your class, this digital library can support your diverse needs.  The ICDL collection includes over 4,600 titles, in 61 different languages!

You can use this awesome resource for free.  You are able to register and setup an account if you'd like. Some of the benefits of having an account include:  create a personal bookshelf; the last page read is saved, so you can pick up where you left off; and you can setup your language(s) preference.

Possible classroom use:

• If you have an interactive whiteboard in your classroom, you can show these digital books to your class. The benefits are that the pictures and text are larger, for all to see, and these titles are available anytime (no need to check them out or find that they are already checked out by someone else) and from anywhere you have internet connectivity.
• These books could also be used with small groups or individuals. If you do stations in your classroom, this could be a, ‘independent reading station.’ Students would be given the website address and directions on the title they should read or students could be given the selection criteria for finding a book they could read independently (or in small groups).

This is screen shot of the simple search feature (accessed by clicking “Read Books” from the main page). As you can see, you have many options for your search: By language, age, types of characters, picture vs. chapter book, length of book, Search by Collections (which gives you many additional options, like genre) and Browse Exhibition (books grouped by theme). They even have a search by the color of the cover (not sure what you might use that for??). In short, there are many ways to search and browse this expansive collection.



The ICDL also has an ipad and iphone app, as well as an app called StoryKit, for creating your own electronic storybook.