North Regional Library

On Harps Mill Road, on the other side of the football stadium, we have an awesome public library branch! The North Regional Branch is part of the Wake County Libraries and has the latetst books, audio books, and ebooks that you can even download from home. Go to their website and do a serach. Reserve the book and pick it up at your convenience. You can also hang out, do teen activities, study, and volunteer. They have at Teen Advisory Group (TAG), where you can help make changes to your public library. To get involved, keep an eye out for their events.

Click here for information about this month's events. For more details, email the Teen Librarian Christy Fisherfor details.

Research Toolkit for Teachers

In support of our school’s philosophy, the Ravenscroft Libraries strive to develop students as self-directed learners, complex thinkers, quality producers, collaborative workers, and community contributors.  In 2006 we worked with the Upper School English Department to create the Ravenscroft Researcher as a guide for research and citation using the framework of the Big6 methodology. In the last few years, we’ve kept the ideas the same, but now have even more tools your class can use in their next poster presentation, slide show, or research paper.

Brainstorm

Free write or collaborate with others to define the task and generate ideas for research focus. 

• Google Draw - a tool to create thought bubbles and connect ideas
• Paper – yes,  get out the colored pencils and markers!
• Prezi – prezi is a blank canvas and it is easy to add images and words, manipulate these items, and then create a path to make it into a slideshow

Research 

 Find and evaluate sources to answer your research questions. 

• Library Resources - includes our books and online databases, connecting you to thousands of scholarly and popular articles.  To find out more about available sources, read the database chapter in the Ravenscroft Researcher.

Organize Sources

Use these tools to synthesize information; take notes, organize an outline, integrate with Google Docs to create a project, and publish a works cited.   

• EasyBib - comes with lesson plans and tutorials – must create account on campus to get started
• NoodleTools - teacher resources and tutorials – also must be on campus to create account

EasyBib is good for collecting sources to create a works cited.  NoodleTools has features like notecard templates for quotes, paraphrase, and text.  Teachers can give comments on the notecards too, to open up dialogue on sources. 

Share Research

Apply knowledge by creating a presentation or writing a paper to share findings.

• Prezi - students create free accounts by giving Ravenscroft email address, see videos and rubric
• SlideRocket - logs in using Google Account, see videos here
• Google Apps - with your Google Account, you can write your paper, create a slide show or website

Evaluate Process 

• Google Apps  - use a survey to find out how the research process went for each student

For further exploring these tools, take this survey to go through each of the steps again and comment to let your librarians know what else they can do to help!

Battle of the Books - a legacy of literature!

Along with terrific author visits, book talks, and DEAR time, Joanne Donaton and Marcia Bower have taken our Middle School readers to the next level of reading – competition! Battle of the Books is a challenge for middle schoolers from North Carolina to read a wider variety of literature and read to learn about characters and plot.

Here are the photos from our BOB Reunion, held on May 15th, 2012.

The photo on this page is the 2012 team from this year.  Here is 2011, including the new Lower School Team!  The  2010 Team.  Here is the 2009 team practice and competition photos.  This year’s seniors as 7th graders, with the 2006 Team. The 2005 Team.  The 2004 Team.  The 2002-03 Team.

Finally, the first picture I can find, from 2001-2, it’s in the OLD middle school, currently Richards Hall.

Valuable Print Resources

The shelf of weeded books.

It’s time for spring cleaning in the library.  Thanks to the variety of online databases that we have available for our faculty and students, found at http://www2.ravenscroft.org/media/databases.htm,  there are many items in our non-fiction (Information) section that are redundant.

No, we will not be getting rid of all of our books.  With the Upper School Composition Research Paper and the 8th grade Global Ravens Project, there is no better way to browse for topics.  Are you thinking about the global water supply?  Go look specifically for the call number 333 and thumb through several very excellent and current books to look for research questions.  Sit and read for a while to think about where you can go with this topic.

American Literature Shelf, post-weeding.

For fun browsing, though, we want the shelves to be inviting.  They don’t all need to be brand new, but they do need to be relevant and current.  Every book needs to be a possibility for good reading or research.  We have a written policy, but it’s also like your closet, get rid of those items that are always passed over and seem to take up space for the good items.

The shelves that have been weeded have room for display books and look ready for easy pick-up, so stop by today!

Happy Hunger Games!

Outside the IMAX Theater at Marbles Museum

The turnout for our trip to see The Hunger Games was awesome!  Many thanks to all our members that joined us on their day off from school.  Based on all the smiling faces exiting the theater after the movie, a great time was had by all that attended.

With all the excitement surrounding the release of this highly anticipated movie, reporters from the News & Observer were there interviewing people that were waiting in line.  The final article was posted on the N&O website last night and it features several of our club members!

View article: "Students flock to early viewings of 'Hunger Games'"

Have you seen the movie yet?  Feel free to post your reviews in the comments below.

A Loud Library

It gets loud in here sometimes, but what can you expect? At any given time there are students reviewing flash cards with a buddy, presenting with a Prezi on the SmartBoard, typing papers on their ChromeBooks in a comfy chair, and doing group research projects around a few books. The library is more of a multi-purpose place, and we’re happy to be the hub of activity!

We have a few little white noise machines that give a dull hum to make it easier to concentrate and we’re even thinking of moving bookshelves to make little alcoves for reading and working.  Just in case, bring your headphones, you might want to listen to music while you study or edit an online video without interrupting your neighbor.

Hunger Games @ IMAX on March 23

Whether you’ve read all the books, or if you’re just a big Josh Hutcherson fan, join the Cinemature Club for the opening day of The Hunger Games.  See the details and register here to go with us to Marbles IMAX @ noon Friday.

You can register now, but the first 26 student who pay their $12 to Mrs. Thrash in the library will get the tickets. As of 3/17, only 8 seats are left! 


From the News and Observer, all about filming in NC: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/03/18/1936882/hunger-games-films-impact-immediate.html 



See the latest trailer:  http://news.moviefone.com/2012/03/02/hunger-games-clip-katniss_n_1316452.html 

Nerdfighters Tour

It is no joke that the Internet has created communities of people of common interest. When Quail Ridge Books called to see if we could help host John Green on the tour for his latest book, I was excited. I loved Looking for Alaska, and it was a Printz award winner, so I knew that he would be popular, but I had no idea of the online following that he had created.

Back in 2007, he and his brother Hank stopped talking face to face and started communicating as the Vlog Brothers, a YouTube channel. Hundreds of videos later, they have an amazing following of kids who find it okay to be nerds with a common slogan, “Don’t forget to be Awesome!”

450 tickets sold out in less than a week and students came from as far away as New Jersey to see them. Can you think of anything more fun? And yes, they were fun. Hank did his puppet show, John read from his book, and they answered questions and told silly songs with a timer on stage to set a frantic pace.

See more photos here!

After an hilarious visit, we all had our books signed on stage by the guys, and everyone read The Fault in Our Stars. John has yet again, outdone himself, creating a YA novel that is both smart and funny. Read it today, we have several signed copies!

Reach Out and Read!

We're so excited to be able to read with kids at Wake Med on MLK Service Day!

Martin Luther King Day, January 16^th 2012 from 9 AM-3 PM

@ WakeMed - Volunteer Services 3000 New Bern Ave., Raleigh NC 27610

Coordinators - Kathleen and Mariel. 

John Green Visit - January 14, 2012

You've seen authors at Ravenscroft, but on January 14th at 6 PM, join us for a whole new event - the Vlog Brothers are coming!  John Green, author of award-winning books like Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, and his musically talented brother, Hank, are coming to the Jones Theatre.

Hank and John promise lots of fun with music, videos, and a Q&A session, see this video for details, The Tour de Nerdfighting 2012.


UPDATE: This event is sold out!  If you bought your ticket and copy of The Fault in Our Stars through Quail Ridge Books, you can pick it up between Tuesday morning 1/10/12 and 3:00 PM on Saturday afternoon.  Ravens, I'll get the books during 4th period on Tuesday so you can come by the library anytime after Tuesday at lunch to pick up your book and ticket!  Otherwise, get them the night of the event, doors open at 5 PM in the Lobby, see the campus MAP here!  Seating is General Admission so come early for the best seats.

Breaking Dawn

 Our group, on opening night,
November 18th at
Six Forks Cinema!

EasyBib or NoodleTools

The Ravenscroft Researcher isn’t the only product to help you cite your paper. Our library has new online resources to help you write citations in MLA format. With these products, you’ll need to create an account while you’re on campus, but then you can access it anywhere, it will hold your data safely! We started out with EasyBib, and wow, is it easy! You can type in ISBN numbers, book titles and authors, or cut and paste from a library database when a citation is provided for you. It saves all of your work so you can print it out, already alphabetized and with a hanging indent when you’re done with the whole paper. They even have an EasyBib App for your iPhone, you can scan and email citations as needed. In fact, this has easily been one of the most exciting new products that I’ve shared with students. They were sitting in class downloading the app and clicking on all of the books they could find, just to see the citation!

NoodleTools started out as NoodleBib, but it has tools, lots of them. Yes, you can cite your work, but it’s more indepth. In order to learn all of the steps, you have to go through each step for each book. No shortcuts, no cutting and pasting. And that has been rough for the Composition students who had been using EasyBib, and are now doing NoodleTools.

Why, then? Well, NoodleTools has this awesome notecard and paper organization feature. EasyBib has this too, but doesn’t allow collaboration. NoodleTools allows your teacher to access your notecards and outlines as you work on your paper, comments will pop up in your dashboard, it’s a very smart program! The collaboration part is why we’re using NoodleTools in our Composition classes, for the paperless and timely dialogue between teacher and student.

So, if you want to learn how to cite correctly, maybe for the first paper of the year, use NoodleTools. EasyBib will make it easy to do afterwards, organizing your scanned or entered information into a beautiful Works Cited. Both integrate smoothly with Google Docs, making your paper complete and beautiful.

Ask any of our Librarians for more information on how to get started with your classes using these or any other resources!

Hunger Games Trailer

Hey Hunger Games fans!

The trailer for the upcoming Hunger Games movie was just released. Watch it at this link!

Oxford Music Online and Google Docs

Upper School Strings came in this week to learn more about the composers for the music they play. Instructor Pam Kelly and I collaborated, using our new Oxford Music Online database to get the information they needed. Try it out from our databases page, it’s new, along with Oxford Art Online!

Students worked in groups to find biographical and historical references to the composer, time period, and frame of reference. I need to clean it up to make it easier to read, but here’s a link to the Google Doc. You can open it if you’re on campus.

Quidditch - Oct. 22

Join us for our first match against Enloe @ Fletcher Park at 10:30 AM.  For this match, we will be the Basilisks, so wear BLACK!


Bring water and your broom, and come at 9:45 to warm up.

Contact Mariel for details, her number is 618-5758.

How to get there:
http://www.raleighnc.gov/arts/content/PRecRecreation/Articles/FletcherPark.html

Video Taping for NBPTS

Fun stuff! Around this time of year, I get to sit in on Upper School classes. Depending on who is a candidate for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, I learn Biology, Physics, US History, English, or Art… I set up the camera so I can see faces of students and teacher with an easy pan of the room, and I have a boundary microphone to listen in on discussions.

I’ve learned a lot by taping teachers and being a National Board Candidate myself. I really wish that someone would have told me how to best videotape from the very beginning, so I’ve made a post with the steps here.

Reimagine:ED

Most professional conferences involve sitting, listening, and taking home a new idea or two. What if you went to a conference that was all about brainstorming? Reimagine:ED was just that, a conference about ideas, thousands of ideas, held at The Lovett School in Atlanta, September 23-25. Librarians, technology specialists, administrators and visionaries worked together to imagine the future of education and specifically libraries.

What did I bring home? A “Yes, And…” attitude, because it’s all about listening and adding, and not saying “but, we can’t do that” because we all can be the future we want to see in education. I’m hoping to share more new ideas on this blog over the next few months as I review notes and stay in touch with my new colleagues virtually.

The Economist

A few of you have asked about paper copies, and others for the web subscription to The Economist, so here are the directions to get to get into The Economist issues from our library databases online. Our online access goes all the way back to June 1990, and because of this, we’ve recycled our old magazines and don’t receive the print edition.

Along the right side of the blog, choose Databases for Searching Magazines, Books, Journals, Newspapers.

Choose EBSCO – this is our biggest Database with thousands of full text articles! On campus, it will recognize your IP Address, off Campus you will need to enter our passwords. If you can’t remember the library database passwords, email library@ravenscroft.org.

Choose Academic Journals, Grade 9-12 – most of these links are taking you to the same resources, but with more user-friendly/fun icons for younger kids. Choose MAS Ultra Database, and search by date or by article title.

• If you know the exact date of the article you want, click on PUBLICATIONS in the top of the screen or Advanced Search and just search for Economist under publication. The Economist has a 21 day “rolling” publication release, so you can’t get this week’s issues, but usually, you can still get those on http://www.economist.com/

• If you know the title of the article, you need to enter the title of the magazine and title of the article: for example, Economist and Street of Shame

You can email this article to yourself or print it out. If you want to save the link back to it, don’t use the link in the top of the browser, make sure you save the “Permalink” found on the right side of the screen.

Library iPad Program!

The Ravenscroft Libraries strive to develop students as self-directed learners, complex thinkers, quality producers, collaborative workers, and community contributors. Our iPads will help us achieve this mission, through independent reading, research and group projects using the Apple iPad 2.

For our pilot program in Fall of 2011, iPads may be checked out during normal hours (Monday- Thursday 7:45-4:30 and Friday 7:45-3:45) from the main circulation desk in the Middle/Upper School library. We have set the loan period at 24 hours for faculty and staff, and one class period, common period, lunch, or afterschool session for 6-12th grade students with a requirement that devices be turned in no later than 4:20 PM each day. For student check out, the iPad must stay in the library.

For other policies, see this link, and watch for details about iPads in Winston Library later this year.

JK Rowling has announced her new project: Pottermore. Opening in October, Pottermore will be an interactive, extremely high tech website that takes you through the books as a student in Hogwarts. JK Rowling started this project to feed fan's imaginations and bring new accessibility to the coming generation who, lets face it, don't find much time to read thousand page books. The site will not only include info from the books but also brand new information about the world of Harry Potter that JK Rowling has known for years but never released. With innovative and highly particular ways of finding the correct wand (33,000 different results) and house (series of thorough questions) for each user, Pottermore guarantees a safe and unique environment for people of all ages to experience the books in a way they never thought possible.

For more information as well as a video of her announcement and press conference visit this site.