Info Literacy

Madi W. knows what it’s like to be hounded by death threats, nasty phone calls, and racist jibes. Four years ago, kids from her middle school in suburban Maryland started attacking her by cellphone, text messages, and on social media sites.
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Continued demand for a 'compelling library interface';Federated search hasn't lived up to its promiseKey to content today is indexes, not databasesRoughly 400 attendees joined library technology pundits Marshall Breeding and Eric Lease Morgan August 18 More...

RefWorks launched RefMobile interfaceAcademic selects Relais ILL Hosted ServiceWestern Michiganto beta Serials Solutions SummonWorld Book adds 'How To Do Research,'; online toolRefWorks has launched RefMobile, a new interface that enables students and researchers to use More...

SLJ talks to Rick Riordan about his latest bestseller 'The Red Pyramid,' book one of the Kane Chronicles. More...

With serious trepidation, I entered my 15-year-old son's room. Would he be doing his homework, as promised?The good news: he was researching his paper on the history of the Roman Empire, following a Roman road More...

Google invites K–12 public and private students to pick up a pen, pencil, paintbrush, or mouse between now and March 31, 2010, to create an illustration that best expresses this year's Doodle 4 Google theme: More...

There's a good reason why more than 350 school and public libraries have participated in the Great Scavenger Hunt Contest: it's a blast! Created by YA author Kay Cassidy, the online program is a great More...

Photo by Tanjila (www.flickr.com/photos/tanj). Forget all that malarky about digital natives and immigrants. It never did work to describe the reality of technology adoption. I've been using computers all of my life. But am I More...

It's 2010. Do you know where your personal information is? Unless you rang in the New Year from some off-the-grid cave, much of your digital identity is out there floating freely around the Net. Going More...

The Calgary Board of Education (CBE) in Canada is revamping the role school libraries play in the lives of students by unveiling a learning commons, where books and other resources are combined with the latest More...

A long time ago, I gave up on Google Chrome after using it for two days. Why? I missed my Firefox add-ons and extensions too much. But recently, I decided to give Chrome a second More...

Frances Jacobson Harris, Joyce Valenza, and Harold Rheingold believe librarians are on the front lines in teaching students how to evaluate which sources are relevant and which are not. 'Crap detection,'; as the three panelists More...

Libraries of the future will primarily manage digital repositories of information rather than warehouse physical books. A more functional method geared toward easy browsing will replace the Dewey Decimal system. And computers will surpass human More...

Over the past few years, Google has changed the way we search. Later this year, the search giant is going to reinvent how we communicate and share online with its new Google Wave application. To More...

NECC, the big National Educational Computing Conference, has come and gone, but attendees, both in person and virtual, are still basking in the glow of all that sharing. School librarians Keisa Williams of Monarch Academy, More...

www.loc.gov/teachersMost of us know the excitement that primary sources can bring to teaching. Photographs, maps, correspondence, and other original records that have survived from the past spark the imagination, and a staggering 13 million of More...

Also in this article:Timeanddate.comGoogle CalendarDoodleWeb-based telephony, desktop video conferencing, and other digital tools make it easy to connect with people in real time. Virtual meetings have become standard fare, and the once arcane task of More...

A recent firestorm on Twitter involved media specialists and education technology experts who considered whether librarians who don't engage in social media are jeopardizing their careers not to mention student learning.'Can a media specialist do More...

Also in this article:Choosing a webcamPractice makes perfectVideo Chat in 1-2-3Illustration by John S. Dykes It was the sort of exchange that could only happen on a field trip. One of my students, noticing the More...

Cracking Dante's Inferno is a tough row to hoe for any high school student-but what if the reading assignment was conducted via Twitter?The exercise 'Twitter in Hell'; was handed to some lucky seniors at University More...

For those of you wondering how the American Association of School Librarians'(AASL) new learning standards are being incorporated into school library programs, the wait is over. AASL has just released Standards for the 21st-Century Learner More...

While no stranger to business partnerships, Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools (FCPS) has befriended one of the biggest, inking a new deal with Google to start this year. FCPS, the 12th largest system in the More...

Here's one more way to help prove the value of your jobs. The Library of Michigan and Michigan Department of Education have unveiled a new videothat highlights the need for fully stocked media centers led More...

Illustration by Wesley Bedrosian. YouTube, Facebook, blogs, and text messages. Today's youth have access to an extraordinary amount of news sources, but how can they discern the accuracy of this information?A revolution in media has More...

Country singer Reba McEntire is teaming up with PBS's Reading Rockets to host a new show about how to make the most of the years before a child starts school. 'Toddling Toward Reading'; is the More...

Jumpstart's third annual Read for the Record event, which it bills as 'the world's largest shared reading experience,'; is set to take place October 2. It aims to bring national attention to the importance of More...

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Although they love technology, 75 percent of kids ages five to 17 say they still want to read books, says a new study.'The Kids & Family Reading Report'; (www.scholastic.com/readingreport) also says that 62 percent of More...

There's more evidence that reading aloud to young children-especially in an engaging manner-promotes emergent literacy and language development and better prepares them for school.'Reading aloud to children: the evidence'; says the practice promotes a love More...

Do summer reading programs really work? That's what Dominican University's Graduate School Library and Information Science (GSLIS) is hoping to find out. It's launching phase two of a three year research project studying the impact More...

Scottish writer Ian Rankin, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels, will head a government commission to explore the declining standards of literacy in Scottish schools.The Edinburgh-based author will investigate why thousands of pupils fail More...

Although more than half of California's little ones attend preschool, those who have the most to gain from the program are the least likely to participate, says a new study from the RAND Corporation.Researchers at More...

The rumors of books' demise have been greatly exaggerated. A new study finds that 75 percent of kids ages five to 17 say that although they love technology, they still want to read books.'The Kids More...

Are your students struggling to come up with kid-appropriate pictures? Have you ever scrambled to find that perfect image for a presentation? Well, there's no shortage of search engines that'll help you do the job, More...

Librarians across the country will be asking students to step up to the plate with a new program that encourages sports fans of all ages to test their knowledge of baseball trivia while improving their More...

Also in this article:Where to Shop for a Search ToolSure, there are a lot of nifty tools on the Web, all those social applications, and the like. Still most of us go online for one More...

Who says kids don't like to read? A new study from the United Kingdom says the majority of young people enjoy reading and rate themselves as proficient readers.In fact, kids are quite proud to be More...

What is evidence-based practice, and how can media specialists use it to show that school libraries boost student achievement? Those were the main questions behind School Library Journal's 2007 Leadership Summit at the Arizona Biltmore More...

It seems like everyone has a blog these days. But can this tool be used to improve literacy and enhance collaborative learning? You bet, says Diane Penrod, a professor of Writing Arts at New Jersey's More...

Forget the title "media specialist"-Dave Fontaine calls himself an "Internet librarian." This full-time librarian spends his days at Middletown High School in Rhode Island. But many of you may know him as the adjunct at More...

After just one year in operation, UC Online Academy, a virtual high school operated by the University of California, has shut down.The online academy had envisioned enrolling up to 125 full-time ninth-graders but ended up More...

Keep an eye out for one more Colorado Study, the third in a series of studies by the Library Research Service (LRS), which proves that school libraries have a direct link to student achievement. This More...

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has launched a wiki to get more media specialists involved in drafting new learning standards for school library media programs.Since last year, the AASL Learning Standards Rewrite Task More...

You probably use Google for most of your Web searches, and you’ve likely “googled” old boyfriends or girlfriends. Now the search engine is offering users a Google certification.That’s right. The Google Teacher Academy is inviting More...

More than half of all student-computing devices will be mobile by 2011 and online learning will grow by at least 26 percent annually over the next five years, says a recent survey of the top More...

North Carolina governor Mike Easley, eager to make his state’s schools prepare students for the global economy, has established a center to promote the infusion of information and communication technology (ICT) literacy and other skills More...

April 14 was opening day for “Join the Major Leagues @ your library,” a joint effort of the American Library Association (ALA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) to promote libraries, 21st-century information-literacy skills, and baseball. More...

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has recently partnered with the educational organization Partnership for 21st Century Skills to promote information and media literacy skills. “The mission of the partnership in advocating for information More...

A growing number of people are starting to doubt the credibility of information found on the Web. That’s the conclusion of a 140-page report by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for the Digital More...

The Ottawa Public Library (OPL) in Ontario, Canada, has launched its “Every Kid a Card” campaign, which encourages youngsters under the age of 16 to apply for or renew a library card.Staples Business Depot, the More...

More than 1,000 students at Hays (KS) High School received Apple iBooks when they enrolled in August, thanks to the Hays Public School Board, which approved a $1 million initiative to provide each student with More...

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In this era of high-stakes testing, few librarians have time to teach art. That's why the Cincinnati Art Museum created a curriculum designed to engage young students in the subject-and improve their literacy skills.'Through a More...

It's nice to have friends in high places. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), a longtime supporter of school libraries, and Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) recently introduced a bill that would include media specialists in the 'highly More...

Every day, librarians around the world turn to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as the definitive resource. This trusted authority, however, has a shocking secret—the venerable OED began life as a wiki. Well, sort of. More...

Keep an eye out for one more Colorado Study, the third in a series of studies by the Library Research Service (LRS), which proves that school libraries have a direct link to student achievement. This More...

Bill Gates believes that when it comes to education, all the technological bells and whistles remain dependent on one thing: how they are used in a classroom environment. And “that the role of the teachers More...

Chances are that many of today's kids won't have decent jobs or earn livable wages unless we improve reading and math skills and close the achievement gap, warns a new report by the Educational Testing More...

Also in this article:Join the Party They Even Deliver Working Together Blogs, wikis, and other nifty Web-based tools, ones that enable us to create and distribute content like never before, get all the glory, it More...

Poor Pluto. Just as the school year began, the International Astronomical Union officially defined what a planet was for the first time—and Pluto didn’t make the cut. It meets only two of the three requirements: More...

Standing in line at the supermarket, next to a rack of celebrity- obsessed magazines, I’m treated to a barrage of headlines about pregnancy. Is she “showing”? asks one popular publication. “When is she due?” inquire More...

Sleepovers can be fun, but imagine the excitement of having one at the public library? Our Brownie Sleepover program started 10 years ago when two local Brownie leaders approached Mary Kennedy, the former head of More...

It’s a sunny spring morning, and Tom Brennan’s history class is in the Middletown (NJ) High School South library, researching the Cold War. But you won’t find his kids turning to Google as their main More...

Despite cuts being made to education technology budgets, the Department of Education's new ed-tech chief says the Internet will play an even larger role in education going forward—with media specialists at the forefront.“Accessing course work More...

Also in this article:The National Picture Off the Political Radar Bridging the Divide This year, 2006, marks the 10th anniversary of the advent of the digital divide—a major societal challenge that, sadly, has been pushed More...

Also in this article:Diminishing ReturnsIt's 10 a.m. and Kate Elder's ninth-grade English class is in the library researching early 19th-century Paris, the setting of Victor Hugo's classic Les Miserables. In her first attempt to learn More...

While most people are abuzz over Amazon’s plan to sell individual pages and chapters of books online, school librarians are responding with mixed feelings.There’s no denying that the proposed service is a brilliant business plan, More...

One day, while reading Anne and Harlow Rockwell’s classic picture book, The Toolbox (Macmillan, 1971), it occurred to me that any good nonfiction book is filled with tools. Tables of contents, indexes, captions, charts, and More...

All librarians—well, almost all—rejoice when they hear that historical documents, like their local newspaper, are being digitized and made freely available on the Web. It’s not because we hate print (microform is another matter). It’s More...

Now all of Alabama’s students can find free—and live—homework help with just a click of their mouse.HomeworkAlabama.org, an online site started for students in Shelby County three years ago, launched statewide earlier this month after More...

To provide students with the information skills needed to compete in today's global economy, North Carolina will launch the first-ever Center for 21st Century Skills.The first state initiative to implement the Partnership for 21st Century More...

Born in Lebanon, educated in the U. S., and awarded a grant to study in Egypt, Dania Bilal is a multilingual associate professor who's long been fascinated with cyberspace.For the past seven years, Bilal has More...

Despite the investment of millions of dollars in computers and other technology, Maryland public school students and teachers are not using these tools for higher-level analytical or problem-solving activities, according to a recent study by More...

I received a letter recently from Kendall Heide, a library media specialist and School Library Journal reader from Maize, KS. His letter brought to mind an interesting challenge: How do we change our schools from More...

Are your students fearful of scientific information and data? Then take advantage of the recent craze over popular TV series such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Crossing Jordan. I did so last semester by More...

Internet users are far too cocky about their online search abilities, but in reality, most don't know the origin or validity of the content they find, says a recent study by the Pew Internet & More...

Due to time constraints and much focus on No Child Left Behind, I've had a hard time teaching in-depth research skills to my middle school students. So last fall, I approached my principal with an More...

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) is rolling out a new test for college students, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Literacy assessment, to measure their proficiency in evaluating the importance of information from various sources, More...

With so many middle and high school students using subscription databases and the Web to complete assignments, there's a lot more cutting and pasting taking place than we'd like to see. And while it's understandable More...

Also in this article:If You Build It, Keep in Mind…A little over a year ago, my Internet–savvy brother called to say his daughter was having a tough time completing a middle school assignment. He knew More...

The library community has been discussing, planning, lamenting and, yes, obsessing over this moment for years. In case you haven't heard, Google, flush with more than $1 billion after a stratospheric initial public offering, has More...

Cybliography. That's a legitimate word, right? Well, it will be if librarian Laurie Murrell and her students at Fieldstone Middle School in Montvale, NJ, have anything to say about it. They are trying to get More...

It all started with a classroom argument. Susan Stagnitta, a librarian at Liverpool (NY) High School, recalls her students debating the merits of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia created and edited entirely by volunteer contributors. More...

Who would have thought that standardizing a school districts online databases would lead to a successful collaboration among media specialists, students, and parents? That's what happened in the summer of 2003, when the Evergreen School More...

Understanding precisely how young people search for online information is both easy and frustrating. It's a snap because we can easily observe kids sitting down at a computer, going straight to Google, typing in one More...

When I arrived at Ben Davis High School four years ago, I imagined classes coming to the library at the start of each semester to learn about information-literacy skills. But after three years of trying More...

www.esmslibrary.com East Side Middle School library's site looks like a professional resource, built by someone who knows how to organize information. Vicki Builta (vickicb@acsc.net), East Side's librarian and the site's creator, says she's developed the More...

Commenton this articleTwo of the nation's most influential educational technology organizations have created a new Web site to encourage educators to lobby legislators for adequate school technology funding. The Ed Tech Action Network (www.edtechactionnetwork.org) was More...

Google has two faces. It seems, at time, like A librarian's best friend—quickly locating lots of helpful information for the students we serve. Other times, it's our worst enemy, since many kids believe that they More...