February 2008 Newsletter

Happy February! New books! We have received two large orders of new books and audiobooks (Playaways). I wanted to post a link to a list here, but our OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) redirects everyone to a search page. Here is how you can get to the list:

1. Go to our OPAC
2. On the left, click on Resource Lists.
3. On the right, click the Public Lists tab.
4. Click on the New titles link.

Many of you may remember the short video that I showed at staff development meetings last year. The video has been edited and posted at dotsub. You can watch it below. I embedded the English subtitles version. There are interesting ideas at the end of the video.

Here is an image map of a website that looks to have some useful tools. Follow the link below or follow a link on the image map.

4Teachers : Main Page via kwout

The item below is one of literally hundreds of Google gadgets that you might choose to embed on your wiki. All you have to do is browse the gadgets, choose a gadget that you would like to use, copy the code, and add it to your wiki like you would normally add code. It is that simple. Browse all of the gadgets here.

mrk » home via kwout

I have been using Google Documents and have found it to be quite handy. Here are some of the benefits that I have found:

1. GoogleDocs is web-based, so documents are available anywhere that you have an internet connection.
2. It is easy to embed documents in your wiki. When you edit them in GoogleDocs, changes re reflected on your wiki when you refresh the page.
3. Collaboration: GoogleDocs allows you to share files easily - no more attachments. If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to follow document changes.
4. It is FREE!
5. I think that this would be useful for students, who would be able to access their work from anywhere. They wouldn't be limited to being at a district computer to accesss their files.

Here is a brief video about GoogleDocs: