Information Literacy Resources:

Basic Steps in the Research Process from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School: http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/

How Teens Do Research in the Digital World from the PEW Internet & Family Life Project: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Student-Research.aspx

Scoping the Search from Webhound: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/webhound/scope.html

Google Search Education: http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/index.html

Larry Ferlazzo's Best Online Resources to Teach About Plagiarism: http://bit.ly/2dD1Zv

Noodle Tools-The Ethical Researcher: http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/ethical/

Info Lit Resources from the American Library Association: http://www.ala.org/acrl/issues/infolit

The Copyright Genie: http://librarycopyright.net/resources/genie/

Guide To Web Search from Finding Dulcinea: http://bit.ly/c4L4FJ

All the Information in the Known Universe: A Kid-Friendly Research Tutorial (Elementary/Middle)
http://www.kyvl.org/kids/portal.html

Baltimore City Public School Interactive Research Tutorial (Secondary)
http://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/researchguide_sec/index.html

Doing Internet Research at the Elementary Level- Article from Edutopia:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/elementary-research-mary-beth-hertz

How to be a Webhound from the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction:
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/webhound/index.html

SweetSearch’s Ten Syeps to Better Research: http://www.sweetsearch.com/TenSteps

Top 10 Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely On Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/dw5wyR

Search Engine Alternatives:

SweetSearch: http://www.sweetsearch.com/
SweetSearch4Me: http://4me.sweetsearch.com/ (A Search Engine for Emerging Learners)

Internet Public Library: http://www.ipl.org/

Awesome Library: http://www.awesomelibrary.org/

DuckDuckGo: https://duckduckgo.com

The Mommy Blog: http://main.melindaroberts.net/

Tracy Porter Blog: http://blog.tracyporter.com/

Tongue In Cheek: http://willows95988.typepad.com/

Heather Bullard: http://heatherbullard.typepad.com/

Bizzie Living: http://www.bizzieliving.com/

Urban Bliss: http://urbanblissdesign.com/life/

100 Days of Real Food: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

Bored Mommy Blog: http://boredmommyblog.com/

The Everywhereist: http://www.everywhereist.com/

The Big Picture: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

The Pioneer Woman: http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Lip-Sticking: http://www.lipsticking.com/

Garden Rant: http://www.gardenrant.com/

Not Martha: http://www.notmartha.org/

Everyday Trash: http://everydaytrash.com/

A Year of Reading: http://readingyear.blogspot.com/

While you’re there, explore the blogrolls on these sites. You never know where the links will lead you!

Blogging Resources

Books:

Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey

The IT Girls Guide to Blogging With Moxie by Joelle Reeder and Katherine          Scoleri

Clear Blogging by Bob Walsh

Creative Blogging: Your First Steps to a Successful Blog by Heather Wright-Porto

Blogs about Blogging:

ProBlogger- http://www.problogger.net/

Blogging Tips- http://www.bloggingtips.com/

BloggingPro- http://www.bloggingpro.com/

The Blog Herald- http://www.blogherald.com/

Build a Better Blog- http://www.buildabetterblog.com/

Blogging Basics 101- http://www.bloggingbasics101.com/

Great blogs to follow:

Seth Godin’s blog- http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Read Write Web- http://www.readwriteweb.com/

MindShift- http://mindshift.kqed.org/

Daniel Pink’s blog- http://www.danpink.com/

Guy Kawasaki’s blog- http://blog.guykawasaki.com/#axzz1nKFeg3Em

A Sampling of Blogging Platforms:

Blogger- Owned by Google; free platform.

Typepad- The platform I use for my blog; hosted platform ($)

WordPress.org- Installed platform; use with a paid hosting service

WordPress.com- Basic platform features free

Free Images for Your Blog:

Photo Pin- http://photopin.com/

Wylio- http://www.wylio.com/

Ookaboo- http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/

A Blogging Basics Glossary:

Blogosphere- The blogging community on the Internet.

Blogroll- A list of and links to blogs that a blogger recommends.

Domain name- The name that identifies a website on the Internet.

Feeds (RSS feeds)- Real Simple Syndication feeds; file containing a blog’s newest posts.

Group blog- A blog with multiple contributors.

Hosting service- A company that provides space on a server to allow websites to be published to the Web.

Permalink- The permanent URL of a single post.

Plugins- Blog add-ons that offer new and useful features and improve functionality.

Post- A blog entry.

Sidebar- Columns along the side of a blog’s main page.

Tags- Keywords used to classify a post’s content.

Theme- The visual design of a blog.

Getting started:

Choosing a blog platform: http://bit.ly/IClo6

Ideas for blog posts: http://bit.ly/KqqcU

Blog design elements: http://bit.ly/A7ercW

Blogging ethics and best practices: http://bit.ly/xTrDK7

Fair use and copyright for bloggers: http://bit.ly/a8PGks

Stacy Nockowitz

Head Librarian

Reinberger Middle School Library

The Columbus Academy

Gahanna, Ohio 43230

(614) 509-2266

stacy_nockowitz@columbusacademy.org

http://somenovelideas.typepad.com

@snockowitz

Video: Think Before You Post

Electronic Resources

ThinkB4U

http://www.thinkb4u.com/

KidSMART: Digital Footprint

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/digitalfootprints/

Digital Citizenship : Using Technology Appropriately

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/

Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

“Digital Citizenship : Addressing Appropriate Technology Behavior” (Article by Mike Ribble, Gerard Bailey, and Tweed Ross from Learning & Leading with Technology

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/uploads/1stLL.pdf

Common Sense Media : Media and Technology Resources for Educators

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators

Digital Citizenship : Rights, Roles, and Responsibilities in a Digital Society (Northside Independent School District – San Antonio, TX)

http://www.nisd.net/digitalcitizen/

Digital Citizenship (California School Library Association)

http://ecitizenship.csla.net/

Digital Citizenship (Cable in the Classroom)

http://www.ciconline.org/DigitalCitizenship

“Footprints in the Digital Age” (article from Educational Leadership, November 2008, by Will Richardson

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov08/vol66/num03/Footprints-in-the-Digital-Age.aspx

Print Resources

Fodeman, Doug, and Marje Monroe. Safe Practices for Life Online : A Guide for Middle and

            High School. Eugene: International Society for Technology in Education, 2009. Print.Ribble, Mike. Raising a Digital Child : A Digital Citizenship Handbook for Parents. Eugene:

            International Society for Technology in Education, 2009. Print.Ribble, Mike, and Gerald Bailey. Digital Citizenship in Schools. Eugene: International Society for Technology in

            Education, 2007. Print.

Richardson, Will, and Rob Mancabelli. Personal Learning Networks : Using the Power of

            Connections to Transform Education. Bloomington: Solution Tree, 2011. Print.

Sherman, Josepha. Internet Safety. New York: Watts, 2003. Print. Young Adult Nonfiction

            Discusses identity theft, email problems, chat rooms, shopping, and the rules of             “netiquette”.

Wolinsky, Art. Safe Surfing on the Internet. Berkeley Heights: Enslow, 2003. Print. Young Adult

            Nonfiction - Discusses acceptable use policies, email use and abuse, etiquette, and             misuse of intellectual property of others.

Bibliography created effortlessly in NoodleTools.

Well, now I, and you, have no excuse for pretending that Web 3.0 is too difficult to understand. Click on one of the links above and you'll go to a great article from HowStuffWorks about how Web 3.0 will work. And below is a wonderful video created by Manu Sporny, President and CEO of Digital Bazaar, Inc., which explains the Semantic Web in very easy-to-understand terminology. 

No more excuses. This is important. Just watch:

Marie Lu's smart, fast-paced addition to the dystopia coterie begs for a sequel. Violent and bloody, Legend is an in-your-face commentary on how the chasm between the haves and the have-nots in our society continues to expand.

Not a YA novel, but I'm pretty sure The Magician King, the sequel to Grossman's The Magicians will show up on a lot of high school reading lists. It's Harry Potter for grown-ups, wizardry with humor and intellect. Completely unpredictable and totally original. I loved it.

Of the spate of dystopian novels from this post- Hunger Games YA literary landscape, Delirium stands out. Sure, it's set up for a sequel, but that won't interfere with your enjoyment of this story. Is a life without love a life at all? Delirium is a perfect read for those who grew up reading The Giver and now want a YA experience.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a creepy, weird, atmospheric book. I love the harsh and hearty Welsh island setting.  The odd, quirky characters remind me of a kids' version of Twin Peaks. I think the use of the old photographs is a little gimicky, and sometimes, author Ransom Rigg seems more enamored of the photos than how they actually fit into the story. But, Miss Peregrine is s curl-up in a blanket with the lights low kind of read.

Gothic and steampunky in a really cool way, Kenneth Oppel's This Dark Endeavor tells the story of how a teenage Victor Frankenstein became the grown-up mad scientist we all know and love. What I liked most about the book is that Victor reveals every flaw in his own character, laying bare his jealousies and weaknesses.

By far my favorite book of the year. Not a YA book originally, but it's now being marketed as one. Two magicians are unknowingly pitted against one another in a strange contest;  of course, they fall in love. I was so sorry to get to the last page, I read it twice. The Night Circus is magical. Really.

Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns is one of the most unusual books I've read recently. Take a reluctant princess, marry her off to a weak but kind king, sprinkle in war, palace intrigue, a vulnerable stepson, and some newfound pluck, and you've got this coming-into-her-own novel. There are a few dead spots in the plot, but the writing is beautiful and the sequel is certainly coming!

There! I got to seven! Now, there are a bunch of other books that I enjoyed this year, books that I sped through and thought were pretty interesting reads. But they aren't quite "Best Books" material: Divergent, Supernaturally, Variant, Glow, iBoy. Read any of these and you won't be disappointed. I'm hoping to be a bit more openminded in 2012, not so harsh in my criticism of most of the stuff I read. we'll see. We'll also see if I get my book written...

Well, I'm glad I got over all of that and started reading because iBoy was, in the end, a totally unexpected, very powerful book. I still think the title is goofy and that "Search-Shock-Destroy" thing is ridiculous, but I hope other readers will overlook these details just enough to give iBoy a try.

Tom Harvey lives with his grandmother in an apartment tower in the lower middle class London projects of Crow Town. He hates life in Crow Town, the violence of the gangs, the drug deals, the hopelessness that permeates each day there. So when his childhood friend Lucy asks him to come up to her apartment after school one day, Tom almost allows himself to feel happy at the prospect of reconnecting with her. But that moment of brightness is shattered when, as Tom approaches the building, someone throws an iPhone at him from the very top floor, smashing his skull and embedding pieces of the phone in his brain.

As Tom recovers from that incident, a terrifying and unimaginable realization dawns on him: he is no longer just Tom, a very average British teenager. The chips from the iPhone that have fused with his brain have given him extraordinary powers- powers to search for, find, and manipulate information; powers to influence and control; powers to make him practically invincible.

Now Tom has a choice to make. Should he use these abilities to exact revenge on the gang of boys that assaulted and horrifically violated Lucy? Tom knows the gangs have ruled by violence, so should they now die in the same way? But if he destroys them with his rage and inconceivable powers, what does that make him?

Brooks does not make the experience of iBoy an easy one for his readers. The level of violence in the novel is jarring and sickening, and it is rendered so realistically that it takes one's breath away.  The bad guys here are about as bad as humans can be, just soulless, hollow people living in futile circumstances. What makes the reader push forward is Tom, a boy who knows he's not special but who has somehow become inexplicably special. While the fights flare in Crow Town, the real battle is within Tom's own psyche, and the reader feels every one of Tom's wrenching emotions and strains with every one of Tom's impossible choices. Brooks gives Tom incredible humanity even as part of him has become inhuman.

Forgive Brooks the absurd premise of iBoy and read it. The book is both thrilling and heartbreaking in equal measure, and Tom, the haunting, haunted hero, is beautiful and tragic in equal measure, too.

Stacy Nockowitz

Head Librarian

Reinberger Middle School Library

The Columbus Academy

Gahanna, Ohio 43230

(614) 509-2266

stacy_nockowitz@columbusacademy.org

http://somenovelideas.typepad.com

Electronic Resources

KidSMART: Digital Footprint

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/digitalfootprints/

Digital Citizenship : Using Technology Appropriately

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/

Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship – Page from previous website

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

“Digital Citizenship : Addressing Appropriate Technology Behavior” (Article by Mike Ribble, Gerard Bailey, and Tweed Ross from Learning & Leading with Technology

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/uploads/1stLL.pdf

Common Sense Media : Media and Technology Resources for Educators

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators

Digital Citizenship : Rights, Roles, and Responsibilities in a Digital Society (Northside Independent School District – San Antonio, TX)

http://www.nisd.net/digitalcitizen/

Digital Citizenship and Creative Content

http://digitalcitizenshiped.com/

Digital Citizenship (California School Library Association)

http://ecitizenship.csla.net/

Digital Citizenship (Cable in the Classroom)

http://www.ciconline.org/DigitalCitizenship

Print Resources

Fodeman, Doug, and Marje Monroe. Safe Practices for Life Online : A Guide for Middle and

            High School. Eugene: International Society for Technology in Education, 2009. Print.Ribble, Mike. Raising a Digital Child : A Digital Citizenship Handbook for Parents. Eugene:

            International Society for Technology in Education, 2009. Print.Ribble, Mike, and Gerald Bailey. Digital Citizenship in Schools. Eugene: International Society for Technology in

            Education, 2007. Print.

Richardson, Will, and Rob Mancabelli. Personal Learning Networks : Using the Power of

            Connections to Transform Education. Bloomington: Solution Tree, 2011. Print.

Sherman, Josepha. Internet Safety. New York: Watts, 2003. Print. Young Adult Nonfiction

            Discusses identity theft, email problems, chat rooms, shopping, and the rules of                         “netiquette”.

Wolinsky, Art. Safe Surfing on the Internet. Berkeley Heights: Enslow, 2003. Print. Young Adult

            Nonfiction - Discusses acceptable use policies, email use and abuse, etiquette, and                         misuse of intellectual property of others.

Bibliography created effortlessly in NoodleTools.

"How do you engage students who spend more time reading from a screen—on their cell phones or computers—than they do from the printed page? With eBook and audiobook downloads.

OverDrive, the leading distributor of eBooks and more for libraries and schools, invites you to learn how to make reading cool with the devices students use every day."

Reading this made me squint pensively at the screen of my laptop. Are ebooks the only way we can "make reading cool"?

My husband and I were just commenting last night to one another about the fact that our kids, who are both teenagers, spend most of their day engaged with their phones. They do everything- literally everything- with their iPhones. They communicate with people, watch TV and movies, listen to music, surf the web, read, and more, all on their phones. Does that mean that doing these things in other ways, like reading from a printed book, is NOT cool?

When did we have to start pandering to kids to get them to read or to get them to start thinking that reading was cool? Is this the message we really want to send to kids? That we want them to engage with their screens even more?

Obviously, Overdrive has an agenda here.  They want to sell ebooks, so they're making it sound like that's the way to go. I don't blame them for that. But, is it what we (teachers, librarians, parents) want? I am not at all convinced that ebooks make reading cool. Reading makes reading cool.  It's just a cool thing to do. I think Overdrive is sending the wrong message, albeit one that is to their advantage, when they say that ebooks are what's going to make reading appealing. Shouldn't the stories be doing that? And do we want to lose our kids to their screens even more?

I'm not signing up for Overdrive's webinars.

    Goliath begins right where Behemoth left off: World War I rages on across Europe and Asia. It's Clankers vs. Darwinists in this revisionist version of the Great War. Aleksander, the heir to the Austrian throne, has just helped lead a revolution in Turkey and is back on the British airship Leviathan with his best pal, Dylan Sharp. By now, Dylan's secret- that he is, in fact, Deryn Sharp, a girl in disguise- is no longer quite so secret. People seem to be finding out or figuring it out left and right.  But as long as the crew of the Leviathan doesn't know, Deryn is fairly certain she can stay on and continue to fly, which has always been her dream. It's when Alek finds out she's not who she says she is and worse, that she's in love with him, that things get a bit wonky.

    In the meantime, the Leviathan is on a mission to Siberia to rescue the brilliant scientist Nicolas Tesla, who claims to have built a weapon so powerful that merely showing it to the world will stop the war. Anxious for peace, Alek falls in beside Mr. Tesla, against the better judgement of his advisors and friends. Alek feels that ending this war is his destiny, his great legacy, and no one can talk him out of going along with Tesla's plans.  What Alek refuses to acknowledge is that Tesla is a bit of a madman, and his motives may not be as peaceful as Alek thinks.

    As the Leviathan crisscrosses the world from Tokyo to Mexico to New York, Alek and Deryn meet a host of historical figures: Tesla, William Randolph Hearst, even Pancho Villa. How far will Tesla go with his weapon Goliath? Is he, and in turn, is Alek, willing to raze an entire city to show the weapon's power? And how can Alek, a royal heir fall for Deryn, a commoner?

    Goliath is a fit ending to Westerfeld's action-packed series.The plot zooms along, as was the case with the first two books, though the characters take more time for quiet contemplation in Goliath than in the previous volumes. His descriptions of air battles and the inner workings of the Leviathan are phenomenal. When Deryn and Alek fight to stay atop the airbeast in a driving rainstorm, the tension is palpable. The final battle scene along Long Island Sound leaves the reader breathless as the Clanker water walkers clash with Mr. Tesla's "ultimate weapon."  Keith Thompson's gorgeous illustrations put the reader right in the center of the action, too. As far as characterization, it is Alek who is really in the spotlight in Goliath. Deryn's presence is crucial, but in this book, she's more the girl waiting for her prince while Alek wrestles with his destiny. For those who loved Leviathan and Behemoth, as I did, Goliath does not disappoint. Boys may snicker at the awkward romance, but Westerfeld doesn't dwell on the kissing for too long. There's plenty of swashbuckling, steampunk-tough combat for all.

Disclaimer: I was not given any compensation, monetary or otherwise, by the publishers of Goliath for this review.