Community Outreach to the MAX!

Wow! What an amazing example of effective community outreach! This gives me so many ideas! Kudos to Starkville, Mississippi's schools!

Starkville School District "Believe" from Broadcast Media Group on Vimeo.

Biblioburro an Inspiration

Thanks to a colleague, I found this wonderful story from CNN's Heroes series. It fits so perfectly with one of our Bluebonnet Nominee books for 2010-2011, That Book Woman by Heather Henson & David Small! This story is current & contemporary though, and will bring this story full circle to our kids.

Luis Soriano is a teacher and evangelist for education and the power of literacy for children and adults in rural Columbia. Twice a week, he saddles his 2 burros, Alpha and Beto (LOL), and carries 120 children's books, to the far reaches of his region--a journey of up to 8 hours a trip! Not only does he deliver books for these young minds to devour, but he teaches lessons he's prepared, and supports the adults in these families as some of them learn to read as well.

What a mission, and what a man! Thanks CNN for bringing his story, his integrity and his passion for the power of literacy to us all!

From the CNN web site:
Want to get involved? E-mail Luis Soriano at eldoctosoriano@hotmail.com

Too Late to Apologize: A Digital Storytelling WOW!

Thanks to the amazing Joyce Valenza for pointing out this video. From her blog post:

E-book creators, Soomo Publishing describes Too Late To Apologize: a Declaration by Tim Alden Grant, as

our first satirical video project and is part of our ongoing effort to facilitate learning in creative, innovative ways.

It was that brilliant music video remix of the Timbaland song that drew me into their e-book site.

What an amazing piece of storytelling. I'm working w/ our oldest students on the idea of telling a story with images--great example! And it even fits their curriculum!

View in full screen w/ students to get the lyrics scrolled across bottom. Wow!

Good Libraries

Wow!
Doug Johnson did it again! His post today is right on the money! In these times, when so many of us are fighting for our libraries to stay open, professionally staffed, and even nominally funded, Doug has given us some crucial advocacy tools.

What Does a Good Library Tell You About a School?

It's a must-read and a great post to share widely!

Great Advocacy Tips To Consider

An interesting presentation full of school library advocacy tips appeared in my Google Reader this morning. It is shared on docstoc , and created by some Canadian colleagues, I believe. Frankly, I do not know how the person who shared it on docstoc is associated with the creators, and assume that it was meant, by the creators (Sharon Armstrong & Valerie Bureau), to be shared. I hope that Armstrong or Bureau will notify me here if this was not their intention.

This presentation outlines dozens of interesting ways to advocate for your school library program--practical ways to use data, schedule creatively, and meet student needs in the less-than-perfect situations that many of us find is our reality! Well worth a look!


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