Librarians of Summer

By Gail Junion-Metz -- School Library Journal, 6/1/1997

Thank heavens school's out! I've finally got time -- time to relax and time to catch up on all the things I didn't get around to during the school year." If you're a school librarian, you can surely relate to those sentiments. You're glad you can finally kick back and relax, but you also feel pressure to learn new skills, plan for next year, and spend time surfing the Net during summer break.

This month I'll showcase Web sites where you can learn new Internet skills and how to evaluate Web-based information. I'll also list "surfing sites" where you can explore the impact of the Web on education and libraries, connect to sites where you can bone up on Web-based reference tools, and locate new stuff for library and classroom use. So relax, enjoy those summer breezes, learn new stuff about the Net, and most of all, have fun. Surf's up!

Be Your Own Tutor

Visit a tutorial Web site this summer to learn new skills and create lesson plans for those Internet courses you want to teach in the fall. ICONnect's Online Courses, brought to you by the good folks at the American Association of School Librarians, are designed especially for school librarians. Here you'll find both basic and advanced Net courses. Check out the lessons on search tools, curriculum integration, and collaborative projects. You'll also find tutorials on Internet Use Policies, copyright, citing Net sources, and blocking software.

The InterNIC/LITA's 15 Minute Series, co-sponsored by the InterNIC (the organization that assigns domain name addresses) and the Library and Information Technology Association, contains mini-tutorials arranged conveniently by topic. Tutorials come in either HTML or PowerPoint format, so you can learn from them, save them, and use them this fall, either as Web documents or PowerPoint presentations.

For those who want or need to learn techie topics like HTML, creating Web graphics, or designing a Web page, check out the following sites. Classroom Connect's Internet Web Training Resources contains links to HTML lessons for both beginners and already-techies. LearningWeb.Sites' Educational Computing Department contains Web design resources and basic HTML lessons. The Yale C/AIM Web Style Manual will help you design attractive Web pages, graphics, and animation.

Hone Your Evaluation Skills

One of the skills you should pick up this summer is how to evaluate Web-based information, so you can be ready to teach kids how to do it next fall. Connect to Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators-Evaluation Page. It contains evaluation forms for different ages and lots of links to evaluative criteria that will help you and your students become critical consumers of Web-based information. Incidentally, Schrock's site is rich with all sorts of resources on school subjects. Check out her Internet search tutorials and reference resource links.

Finally, if you feel the need to spend more time just surfing the Net, here are some sites so chock full of great stuff you'll still be exploring them come fall. McREL's Technology Connections pages have links to everything you'll want to know about the Internet and kids. It's also full of information that school administrators will want to know, so share this Web site's URL with them before the end of the year.

David Levin's LearningWeb.Sites is so full of links on just about every educational subject that you will spend weeks just looking around and being amazed. And if you still have time, be sure to visit Teacher/Pathfinder, another big site with tons of links for teachers, librarians, and kids.

Web Addresses

• ICONnect-Online Courses
  http://www.ala.org/ICONN/onlineco.html
• InterNIC/LITA-15 Minute Series
  http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/5min
• Classroom Connect-Internet Web Training Resources
  http://www.wentworth.com/web-training.htm
• LearningWeb.Sites-Educational Computing Department
  http://www.ecnet.net/users/gdlevin/educomp.html
• Yale C/AIM Web Style Manual
  http://www.cenapad.unicamp.br/CENAPAD/Tutoriais/StyleManual
• McREL-Technology Connections
  http://www.mcrel.org/connect/tech/index.html
• Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
  http://www.capecod.net/schrockguide/index.htm
• LearningWeb.Sites
  http://www.ecnet.net/users/gdlevin/home.html
• Teacher/Pathfinder
  http://www.teacherpathfinder.org