tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72191004141235017962012-02-09T08:02:25.542-05:00This blog is for the staff, students and parents of the International Academy. It will be a showcase for the International Academy Media Center to demonstrate the collaboration that occurs on a daily basis and how our library fits into the IB curriculum as a whole. It will also give our community a glimpse into our lives here at the IA: daily student life, the humor, the hard work and sometimes the daily chaos.Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.comBlogger731100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-73647100725414884252012-02-09T08:01:00.002-05:002012-02-09T08:02:25.557-05:00

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-2083346449849537902012-01-15T19:47:00.003-05:002012-01-15T20:32:59.202-05:00

Reviewer’s Name:  Klaudia Janek School:  International Academy Author (Last name first):  Harrington, Kim Title of the Book: Clarity Publisher:  Point and imprint of Scholastic Date of Publication:  2011 ISBN# 978-0-545-23050-6 Price:  $16.99        Grade Level: S (Grades 9-12)     Number of Pages: 242 VOYA Rating: 4Q4P Highly Recommended    Clarity “Clare” Fern has psychic

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-76476530704996892822012-01-12T15:21:00.002-05:002012-01-12T15:23:46.357-05:00

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Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-16839888197983557902011-12-13T13:48:00.001-05:002011-12-13T13:48:14.609-05:00

I led my 1st IB Extended Essay Workshop in Mexico City!  It was stressful, but successful :)  A lot of planning and organizing to make sure things went smoothly.  The teachers and administrators at the school were great!  I wish I would have had an extra couple of days to stay with them. I did get to extend my stay to visit with friends and do some sightseeing.  I have over 300 pictures.  I may

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-25280447449860550722011-11-29T15:20:00.001-05:002011-11-29T15:20:31.536-05:00

Some new and not so new Educational Technology.  I just shared this with my staff.Across the curriculum:Diigo http://diigo.com/ - online bookmarking serviceInternational-mindedness in a nutshell via the global wombat? Just for fun. http://www.globalcommunity.org/flash/wombat.shtml40 interesting ways to use QR Codes http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Heather_at_Oxford-1214900-

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-34562638511126953652011-10-14T10:44:00.004-04:002011-10-14T10:44:45.433-04:00

What People Don't Get About Working in a Library http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/what-people-dont-get-about-working-in-a-library/243258/?channel=Eloqua&elq_mid=895&elq_cid=293834 I like it!

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-90302622682730270302011-09-16T13:16:00.001-04:002011-09-16T13:16:07.524-04:00

Do you love to knit AND read???  Check out "A Knitter's Home Companion"  It's making waves in the book world.  http://mcbookwords.blogspot.com/2011/09/michelle-edwards-knitters-home.html Get SB-CEU's through Michigan LearnPort http://www.learnport.org/ Our new Destiny Quest access point for all 3 campuses!!!  Search the IA libraries from anywhere.  http://www.iatoday.org/

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-11740844006330723792011-09-07T16:18:00.002-04:002011-09-07T16:18:40.461-04:00

Great article!  I feel like I work pretty hard to let students know that I am there to help them with research.  I do a lot of communicating by email and I think that helps.  But it's hard to do research like this in a public high school...  What Students Don't Know

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-58092691699380282482011-09-07T11:06:00.002-04:002011-09-07T11:06:56.696-04:00

Here is another graphic that all teachers of Shakespeare will love!  It's been in my inbox forever and I thought today would be a good day to share :)

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-22240541419196151512011-09-07T09:15:00.003-04:002011-09-07T09:15:58.830-04:00

This image and link was shared by one of our IB Language A teachers.  I am a fan of Science Fiction and I am pretty impressed by this drawing.  I figured it was worth sharing. Here is the original link for the image.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-44715523103833677692011-08-26T13:52:00.003-04:002011-08-26T14:00:52.125-04:00

Last night was our New Parent Orientation from 6pm -7pm and then we had Open House from 7pm - 9pm. We welcomed the new parents and tried to answer all their questions. I gave them the run down of joining the parent list-serv, logging onto Zangle and using the IA Amazon store. I also gave a brief introduction to the library with some vital stats and how to access our resources. As Open House

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-50031698616037312992011-08-26T13:17:00.006-04:002011-08-26T13:42:44.217-04:00

We are finishing up week 2 at the IA *gasp* and so far...things are good. I have gotten to work 9 classes of freshmen and I'll work with the last 3 at our West campus next week. Since our students come from so many districts, I start with the basics so that all of our students are starting at the same place. Their first library lesson was Website Evaluation. My guiding question for the lesson

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-34627482110217805422011-08-26T12:19:00.003-04:002011-08-26T13:14:52.980-04:00

A few days before we started school on August 16, we held a new teacher orientation to welcome new teachers to our staff. It's usually a 4-5 hour day that ends up being information overload. There is so much information to convey in terms of IB Philosophy, IA curriculum, policies & procedures, not to mention the technology. We have about 1-2 hours to introduce Zangle, Moodle, Gale Databases,

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-41064990831313235182011-05-20T13:46:00.004-04:002011-08-26T13:50:46.428-04:00

<!--StartFragment--> Just finished reviewing this book today. It was a fun read!Godbersen, Anna Bright Young Things Harper 2010 978-0-06-196266-0 $17.99 Grade Level: S Number of Pages: 389 VOYA Rating: 4Q 4P Highly Recommended The story begins in small town Ohio, with two girls having a dream of living in New York City.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-37347851032727590602011-04-19T16:15:00.001-04:002011-04-19T16:18:50.951-04:00

Author (Last name first): White, KierstenTitle of the Book: ParanormalcyPublisher: HarperTeen Date of Publication: 2010 ISBN# 978-0-06-198584-3Price: $16.99 Grade Level: M/S (Grade 8 up) Number of Pages: 335VOYA Rating: 3Q 2PEvie, 16, has been working for the International Paranormal Containment Agency (IPCA) since she can remember. Evie’s best friend is a mermaid named Alisha, who

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-28183144397606012812011-04-19T13:24:00.000-04:002011-04-19T13:25:12.718-04:00

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-6964775353340527812011-04-19T10:14:00.000-04:002011-04-19T10:15:56.501-04:00

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <!--[endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-2947039641914233862011-02-25T15:59:00.001-05:002011-02-25T16:01:11.510-05:00

I agree with everything that Doug Johnson says :) Here is his post.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-91289551303835140352011-02-18T13:20:00.001-05:002011-02-18T13:21:51.915-05:00

I LOVE this idea for school! I need to get some Idea Paint for my library. The walls are really drab anyway. Now to find money...http://www.ideapaint.com/school/ideapaint

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-41177564060781958692011-02-17T11:28:00.004-05:002011-02-17T11:31:16.366-05:00

It's not often that I get excited about Science sites...probably due to my humanities based brain...but this site is cool. http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/ I just shared it with my Science Department figuring that if I got excited about it, some non-science students might get excited about it :)

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-76970848807697775392011-02-09T08:21:00.004-05:002011-02-09T14:11:10.081-05:00

Let me preface my response by saying that I don't normally comment on articles because it takes up work time that I use for doing other things. I have a HUGE stack of professional journals that I plan on getting through...someday...I'll post a picture of it sometime soon...:) I'm going to be honest here and say that "soon" usually ends up being a few months. The only reason I picked up the

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-47449447171958048542011-02-09T08:14:00.002-05:002011-02-09T08:19:58.446-05:00

So, being in a tv studio was a new experience for me. I didn't really know what to expect, but I left really impressed with the quality and professionalism of the Bloomfield Community TV Studio. I was nervous about the whole thing, but all in all, I think it turned out well and I hope that it give viewers an idea of what it is like to be a school librarian.International Academy from Bloomfield

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-89349552471282954282010-12-16T13:46:00.002-05:002010-12-16T13:54:27.867-05:00

So, I subscribe to a ton of listervs and I don't always get to read them when I want to. So my mission for today was to clean out my inbox and email teachers with all of the great info I have been meaning to send them. Most of this is from LM_NET. This is what I came up with:Here is a running World Clock that has all sorts of updating statistics:http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swfFunny

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-11170566956352816842010-12-16T09:49:00.003-05:002010-12-16T09:54:55.822-05:00

I've been sharing Joyce Valenza's Manifesto for 21st Century School Librarians with my school and district. I agree with what she writes...but, I also keep thinking that is quite the job description! I work on it and I try to make things happen in my library....Definitely worth the read:http://www.voya.com/2010/09/15/tag-team-tech-october-2010/

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-68111899122197047182010-12-14T12:45:00.020-05:002010-12-14T13:16:37.027-05:00

These blogs are up for theBest Librarian / Library Edublog 2010 Awards. Since I have some time on this 2nd Snow Day...this is what I am reading. I think these are great examples of what librarians do on a daily basis. AND that schools cannot cut school librarians if they want to integrate technology into their curriculum.Blogs nominated in alphabetical order! (I cut and paste from here)1.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-49369875300244484742010-12-10T16:07:00.002-05:002010-12-10T16:13:16.009-05:00

Author (Last name first): Smith-Ready, JeriTitle of the Book: ShadePublisher: Simon Pulse Date of Publication: May 2010 ISBN# 978-1-4169-9406-0Price: $17.99 Grade Level: S VOYA Rating: 4Q4PRecommended I was hooked after the first few paragraphs. We are introduced to Logan and Aura and their budding high school relationship. Logan is in a band, they have the performance

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-76285817656359405392010-12-10T13:36:00.003-05:002010-12-10T13:47:33.187-05:00

So, I started doing book reviews with a professional book review group. In return, my school library gets to keep the book (well, actually, I get to keep it...but I donate it to the school). Here is my first one. I can officially add "book reviewer" to my resume ;)Johnson, MaureenScarlett FeverPublisher: Point, and imprint of Scholastic 2010 ISBN#: 978-0-439-89928-4Price: $16.99 Grade Level:

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-44093362991774826302010-12-10T11:22:00.003-05:002010-12-10T11:28:09.660-05:00

I probably don't talk about it enough, but we have an AMAZING staff at my school. One of our science teachers is exploring collaborative software and applying it to her science classroom. In trying to create a collaborative environment in her classroom, she started using diigo. The kids got so into it and the teacher was so excited about it...a blog was born. Here it is:http://

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-10880121937191457272010-12-10T11:10:00.004-05:002010-12-10T11:15:37.241-05:00

One of my big pushes this year has been the AccessMyLibrary: School Edition app for iPhones. When I did my big database presentation at the beginning of the year, I showed all the kids how to use the app. I think it's pretty impressive that you can have ALL of our school research databases on a phone. I think kids are pretty impressed with it too...but Gale needs to develop some other apps and

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-49217598789713322152010-12-10T11:04:00.002-05:002010-12-10T11:06:38.622-05:00

It's been ages since I've done a work blog post. I'm going to try to focus on it again because there is so much going on around here in terms of educational technology. It's pretty overwhelming. But I will attempt the effort since people are still accessing this blog. I've gotten up to over 7,000 views...so here we go...

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-4650527953331721552009-11-13T09:51:00.002-05:002009-11-13T09:53:40.910-05:00

I just got back this week from the AASL conference in Charlotte, NC. It was my first national school librarian conference. I'm going to be posting thoughts and clips about what I brought back from the conference as I process it (there is such a thing as information overload). I can't remember who showed it, but I like this video. I still think the original by Michael Wesch is the most

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-34901854210514887682009-06-11T10:07:00.003-04:002010-12-10T15:12:00.288-05:00

I've pondered this on my own...but I had never really participated in a debate in the print vs. non-print requirements for students. There are some projects that we do which require students to use a print source. My reasoning for this is that some topics are better served by detailed information written by a credible person. I know that if I wrote a book, I would not post it on the internet

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-79480476106504103942009-06-11T09:39:00.001-04:002009-06-11T09:42:22.219-04:00

The 08-09 school year was a whirlwind of activity for the IA East library. First, several summer months were spent creating a library appropriate for the 9th grade International Academy curriculum. Books were ready for circulation a couple of weeks into the school year. A non-fiction collection was established to support classroom teachers. A fiction collection was established to reflect

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-20221798144854098852008-11-06T13:46:00.003-05:002008-11-06T16:00:28.138-05:00

The MAME conference opened with Dr. Ross Todd as the keynote speaker. I definitely left the session with things to think about and happy with some of the things that I already do with students in the classroom.The major point of his session was about teacher-librarian collaboration with classroom teachers. He mentioned that there are 3 levels of interaction between librarians and teachers:

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-73608066722187314732008-11-06T11:10:00.003-05:002008-11-06T13:46:19.149-05:00

It's been a while since I have had to time to work on this blog. This is not to say that I have not been doing anything...rather the opposite. I've been splitting my time between 3 IB campuses and working on the things I normally work on. At this point, I have taught 9th graders at all 3 campuses how to do website evaluation, MLA format & plagiarism, what databases are and how to use them. WHEW!

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-11789444964704561972008-08-18T18:55:00.001-04:002008-08-18T18:57:13.996-04:00

Since I am a big user of pbwiki, I am doing a bit of advertising for their Back to School Challenge. It's a great way for new wiki users to earn a premium wiki. It's worth it :)

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-31840585492534437952008-08-06T14:04:00.002-04:002008-08-06T14:07:56.894-04:00

I needed some markers for orientation. We went ahead and ordered 192 Mr. Sketch scented markers for the whole school to use. It's probably the coolest order I got all year :) Who doesn't love scented markers. I made sure that all 12 of the colors still smell like they used to. They do.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-41706001172586535002008-08-04T12:32:00.006-04:002008-10-06T13:36:53.229-04:00

So, I decided to sign up to become a pbwiki mentor over the summer. I've used that site a lot for creating collaborative assignments and I figured why not? So, I set up a bio page, listed some of the sites I have worked on. Then I got an email asking me to help present a webinar. Eeks! My first one ever....lots of people (100+) and I was feeling some pressure to make sure it was good. But I

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-26443760086598363422008-06-25T15:29:00.003-04:002008-06-25T15:43:48.447-04:00

How awesome does this conference location look? The 8:00am to 3:30pm sessions were most informative. I received my IB Level 2 training certificate :) Evenings were spent networking with other IB teachers and librarians. Good food, amazing conversations and overall one of the most fun conferences I've ever been too. It's amazing how much IB teachers all over the nation have in common. I'll

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-22428844428905924102008-06-21T21:16:00.002-04:002008-06-21T21:33:33.193-04:00

Made it to St. Petersburg all safe and sound.  Found my way to the hotel, the conference center and attended the first plenary session at 5:oopm.  So far, it seems to be well organized and there are over 500 people here from about 32 countries.  That is pretty impressive.  It's hosted by the Florida League of IB Schools (FLIBS) and so far so good.Got a quick overview of IB: Diploma, Middle Years

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-53364982540965816112008-06-21T21:07:00.005-04:002008-06-26T08:46:23.384-04:00

I found something new on the Internet. I can see a few ways this can be integrated into the classroom. Kind of a concept map. I like it. http://wordle.net/

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-31232080178082050212008-06-19T00:36:00.002-04:002008-06-19T00:43:36.402-04:00

It's summer vacation...but I'm still working :o Actually, it's not really work....it's somewhat vacation like. I'm chaperoning a enrichment trip to Stratford, ONT. It's a theatre enrichment. We got to see Cabaret, Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew. Tomorrow we get a tour of the costume warehouse. The students seem to be having a good time, the food is good, the plays are amazing, hotel is nice

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-64014214640493399472008-05-21T14:23:00.004-04:002008-05-21T17:53:53.008-04:00

I got a phone call this morning which ended up being my reminder to post our big news. We made Newsweek's list of top high schools again! WooHoo. We've dropped a bit :) But #12 is still a pretty good spot on Newsweek's list.Here is the article in the Detroit Free Press.Here is the actual Newsweek site.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-63495616811989747502008-05-20T12:47:00.004-04:002008-05-20T12:58:06.689-04:00

Just started playing with PicLens today. It's pretty cool...but it doesn't work with all my stuff just yet. AND the viewer has to have it installed. Fun for me, but it doesn't really translate to much in the classroom.Readthewords.com is also a pretty cool site. This site will take your documents (pages and pages) read them, create a MP3 audio file to embed into a webpage, blog, email, etc.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-60187863525053664992008-04-18T12:22:00.003-04:002008-04-18T12:31:31.920-04:00

Some of our American History classes started a digital story project on the US Home Front during WWII.Our entire project is on a wiki found at http://ww2homefront.pbwiki.com/ . Students will be using either Windows Movie Maker or Windows Photostory3. They will be using propaganda posters, photos, narration and music to teach us about the role of minorities, women, industry, agriculture, war bonds

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-71273544702538624682008-04-08T10:07:00.002-04:002008-04-08T10:12:02.313-04:00

10th Grade American History students came down to take a test on Blackboard. It was a 50 point True/False test that students REALLY had to study for. Mr. deZwaan and I worked together in coming up with the questions. While most of the time on our part was coming up with the questions, the grading part was a breeze! It's nice to have automatic scoring and students got instant feedback. Here are

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-4983836418375248972008-03-13T08:45:00.006-04:002008-03-13T09:49:02.591-04:00

We tried out something new today in a 10th grade American Studies class. I had the kids take a poll where they voted by cell phone. In the 1st block, only about 12 out of 30 students had brought their phones since they are banned during the day. The students that did participate really enjoyed it! It was something new and they were pretty excited about not getting in trouble for using their

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-21806839419495099462008-03-11T11:58:00.003-04:002008-03-11T12:21:40.128-04:00

I spent March 5-7 at the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning conference in Grand Rapids, MI. The Keynote Speaker was Mary Cullinane, from Microsoft who was part of the School of the Future project in Philidelphia. Definitely very inspiring and it was a great conference kickoff. (thanks to Michael Porter for a nice photo on his MACUL Flickr site). Steve Dembo from Discovery

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-15727839793617152952008-03-03T09:44:00.003-05:002008-03-03T09:47:34.183-05:00

Our staff is starting to explore the IB Community Theme online, just unveiled by the IBO. It's open to students and the rest of our IB community (parents, neighbors and those interested in the IB philosophy).Take a look.http://communitytheme.ibo.org/

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-69993601651630266962008-01-31T15:04:00.000-05:002008-01-31T15:11:20.665-05:00

It was a busy day today in the lab! Just a few of the different things we had going on today...Mr. E's 9th grade microeconomics students took their first quiz on Blackboard. All in all, it went pretty smoothly and the students got immediate feedback when they were done with their quiz. When the whole class was done, they went back to the classroom to review their answers.At the same time, 11th

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-12506389420117594402008-01-25T14:01:00.000-05:002008-01-25T14:11:38.291-05:00

This week our 9th graders have begun to explore the "Cultural Diffusion of China's Technology". Students are working in groups and have topics such as firearms, silk, ceramics, acupuncture, kites, etc. They need to integrate the movement theme from the 5 themes of Geography. They are also expected to have 3 book sources, use the sources in Blackboard and find an article in one of our Gale

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-40457988944969510752008-01-11T12:10:00.000-05:002008-01-11T14:10:42.572-05:00

We've been discussing putting more emphasis on the concept of academic integrity here at the IA. For the past several years we have had a turnitin.com account for all of our students. We've also had a few professional development sessions discussing plagiarism and academic integrity.We were given a suggestion to read "Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-4189666626510338172008-01-11T11:59:00.000-05:002008-01-11T12:05:32.180-05:00

Happy New Year!I had to blog about this right away. A 9th grade history class came in a few minutes ago. They all sat down and the first thing they did was to navigate to our Database page and start using the History Resource Center all on their own. 9th graders!!!! I'm impressed and thrilled to see them being such advanced users of our databases. My lessons must have sunk in...or perhaps

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-23296251871961612282007-12-11T14:28:00.000-05:002007-12-11T14:35:14.118-05:00

We just made America's Top Public High Schools list again. WooHoo!Here is the ranking list on Newsweek's site

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-72885074415603188962007-12-11T12:10:00.000-05:002007-12-11T12:13:33.949-05:00

Businesses That Don't Exist, But ShouldPart of article:"...Take Ajay Gopalakrishna and Alex Myong, both 17, of International Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who envision a nanotechnology-based medicine used to treat fatty-liver disease.International Academy's Kala Groscurth, 17, wants to help the speech-disabled with a machine that reads the lips of its owners--without requiring them to make

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-76181928618470695882007-12-06T10:06:00.000-05:002007-12-06T10:07:43.448-05:00

An article about the International Academy in the Free Press:http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071206/NEWS05/712060372

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-71950211324513779922007-12-05T15:04:00.000-05:002007-12-05T15:15:00.748-05:00

Our 9th Grade World Studies students who have Mr. Stibitz or Mr. Uhelski are working on a Oil Blog, but using a Wiki...complicated I know. We decided it was easier to group students on a Wiki and enable the comments section so they could respond to each others comments. I think this is our 9th graders first experience with Wiki's and they seemed to enjoy it. Mrs. Miner did all the work to set up

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-42721085523883476732007-12-05T08:18:00.000-05:002007-12-05T08:32:27.628-05:00

It's not often the Wall Street Journal takes notice of us. While we didn't make their article, we did make their chart ;) Interesting read.How To Get Into HarvardHow the Schools Stack Up

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-5142970408398788712007-12-04T15:47:00.000-05:002007-12-05T08:17:56.930-05:00

I've spent a couple of hours the past 2 days working on a library bulletin board. It's kind of hard to come up with a promotional bulletin board considering it should be high school-like. Oh, and the bulletin board is HUGE (8ft. x 8ft.). It takes a lot of paper and I am also not the most artistic person in the world. Most of my creative stuff is computer assisted. Many of the good ideas out there

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-214449616670637102007-11-29T13:57:00.001-05:002007-11-29T14:23:32.924-05:00

Our 11th graders are beginning their IB History Internal Assessment. I've been collaborating with the History Department for several years and we've been fine tuning the whole research process. This year we tried something new....A Book Feast! I don't know how else to describe it, it does kind of need a better name, but it DID turn out to be a great activity.Basically, for IB History Internal

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-13801262177996741482007-11-26T11:44:00.000-05:002007-11-26T12:28:54.321-05:00

All of the Media Specialists in the Bloomfield Hills School District meet about once a month to share what we do, learn new things, have training, etc. In between meetings, we keep in touch with email. I've been getting lots of great articles from other Media Specialists and I thought I would post them here.Young People Seen Losing Love of Reading from Education Week60 Minutes segment on the "

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-15514327978743626912007-11-26T11:15:00.000-05:002007-11-26T11:25:06.773-05:00

I've spent part of the day getting ready to provide resources to our Spanish 10 students. They are going to do an eco-tourism project for Mexico and Central/South America. They get to pick a country and research places to travel that are off the beaten path. We have quite a few travel books to offer them. These are handy to know about and how to use them if one plans on traveling abroad ;)

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-9252001407285602962007-11-20T14:14:00.000-05:002007-11-20T14:30:46.459-05:00

One would think that the day before a long holiday weekend, the kids would be bouncing off the walls. Fortunately, teachers had all kinds of exciting stuff planned for our students ;) 9th Grade Bio was investigating factors that influence photosynthesis through a virtual laboratory. (whew! that's a mouthful). My newspaper students were doing online courses through the Poynter Institute on their

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-85749654961349887012007-11-16T14:04:00.000-05:002007-11-16T14:07:03.031-05:00

We used this video for a staff professional development before we did some Blackboard Training. This video is a great discussion starter. It was created by a Professor at Kansas State University for a Cultural Anthropology class. It's worth a watch.

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-25046198053913366262007-11-16T10:39:00.001-05:002007-11-16T15:17:51.565-05:00

I don't normally host non-research related events in the library, but today we had a former violinist from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra coming in to work with our 1st and 2nd violins. So of course, I let them practice in here. What a great opportunity!So, 2nd hour today was orchestra day ;) I think the kids got some worthwhile tips and techniques and it was something different for

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-46990211802033608202007-11-16T08:54:00.000-05:002007-11-16T09:20:54.995-05:00

I am totally and completely blown away by the amount of new databases that have been added by the Michigan eLibrary. Every single resident of Michigan has access to some of the best research available. I'm just afraid that not enough people know about it and don't take advantage of it. I make it a huge part of my library instruction to make sure that our students understand the idea that

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-13032578271771577802007-11-15T15:33:00.000-05:002007-11-15T15:49:40.836-05:00

Today we had some visitors from Assumption College High School in Windsor, ONT. and Lenawee ISD. They got to spend 30 minutes in the Media Center while we presented how we integrate technology/research into the IB curriculum across all subjects here.I discuss the value of database research and show them the Gale Databases that we use most with our students. Then we show them how teachers are

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-7302887079374753302007-11-15T15:21:00.000-05:002007-11-15T15:29:51.121-05:00

Just recently I had a student ask me for historical fiction that deals with a topic that might be on the IB History exam (ie. WWI, WWII, Cold War, etc.). Her idea was to "study" for the exams by reading historically accurate fiction books. This inspired me to put up a display with a variety of historical fiction tied in to IB History topics. It's been surprisingly popular with our 11th and 12th

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-41931209426103611372007-11-13T14:30:00.000-05:002007-11-13T14:34:02.522-05:00

In my "spare" time, I have been doing some ELL (English Language Learners) training. I have 6 official credits on my transcript and 2 workshops at Oakland Schools. After the first training I went to, we got a huge binder of resources. I decided to make a wiki of all the websites and articles so that it would be accessible electronically. These resources are probably most useful to teachers,

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-63936001112359131142007-11-13T10:22:00.000-05:002007-11-13T11:08:57.371-05:00

There is a 74 page IB guide to the Mathematics Internal Assessment which is rather complicated. (Eeks! I just took a look at it) It's a rare thing to see students so focused and quiet in the Media Center, but it always happens close the IB Internal/External Assessment deadlines. When the math students come down to use our Media Center resources, they mostly use Geometer Sketchpad, TI-85 Graphing

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-54027317448030946182007-11-12T13:34:00.000-05:002007-11-12T13:56:54.800-05:00

Every other day, my newspaper class comes in to work on the student newspaper. Newspaper is one of our Product Teams here at the IA, so we do not actually have a journalism program. Once last year, we tried to use Adobe InDesign for doing layouts...but quickly realized that InDesign needed to be its own class. We've been using Microsoft Publisher ever since. Students get the hang of it pretty

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-79404655384310694332007-11-12T13:25:00.000-05:002007-11-12T13:58:11.011-05:00

November 27, 2006 at 11:59:00 am The IA's first wiki went live and we have been going strong ever since.We've got a pretty impressive list of student wikis. We've found that they are a great way to integrate technology in pretty much all classes. A traditional project can easily be turned into a wiki and become more collaborative. Especially if it was a group project to begin with.The wikis

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219100414123501796.post-71667061635193108892007-11-12T11:12:00.000-05:002007-11-12T11:17:45.877-05:00

I've been thinking about starting a library blog for a long time now, so I finally did it! Mostly because I need a showcase for the amazing things that students accomplish in here. Partly because I need to document the collaborative effort that goes into the integrating a media center with the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum. Lastly, I think that our parents and the rest of the

Klaudia Janekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06902063689182004814noreply@blogger.com0