If you’re in an urban middle school, chances are you’ve heard of the Bluford Series.  This series of fifteen books, published by Townsend Press, follows fictional Bluford High students as they deal with many of the same issues our students experience.  It’s a very popular series here at South Side Middle.

Townsend Press very generously offered to send each of our students a copy of one of the books in the Bluford Series.  We received hundreds of copies of The Bully by Paul Langan on the condition that we read the first chapter of the book to all of our students.  In addition, the publisher asked that we photograph the reading and distribution of this book using a one-time-use camera, returning the camera to them as documentation that we completed our end of the deal.

This has been a wonderful opportunity on so many levels!  Free books are always appreciated, but even more so when the students are excited about getting them.  Having an excuse to read aloud to our students has been really fun as well.  I’ve enjoyed reading to classes and have also enjoyed watching the students as they’ve listened attentively to others read.  A Special Thanks to Mr. McCarver and Mrs. Cole for graciously agreeing to read Chapter 1 to classes in the library!

If you’d like to listen to the first chapter of The Bully, I have recorded Chapter 1 as a podcast.  It is available on the Podcasts page of my blog.

Keep reading and keep learning!

I’ve been picking up and putting down a number of books lately.  Here’s one I just finished…

The Maze of Bones (Book One of The 39 Clues Series) – by Rick Riordan

This book is the first of a series of 10 books (the second comes out in December).  I was initially alittle put off by the trading card and online game tie-in marketed with this series but then remembered that I am not their targeted reader.  Preteens, especially fans of Harry Potter and the Series of Unfortunate Events books, should enjoy following the two orphans, Amy and Dan Cahill, as they follow clues and compete with their odd relatives.  (Sound familiar?  orphans with odd relatives?)  Despite my apprehension, I enjoyed the book and have already registered on www.the39clues.com.

After answering five or six “would you rather” type questions, I was placed in one of the four branches of the Cahill family.  I entered the codes from the clue cards I received with my book and have started solving clues online.  It’s kinda cool!  If you enjoy the book, you’ll like the website… …and vice versa.

While I wouldn’t place the first book in this series on the same level as the Harry Potter or the Series of Unfortunate Events books, or even that other Rick Riordan series featuring Percy Jackson, I will read the second book when it comes out in December.

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We’re halfway through the 14th Annual MCS Technology Conference.  Thankfully, the presentation I was involved with was FIRST.  Carmen, Kimberly, and I could relax afterwards and enjoy the rest of the sessions.  There were some really great sessions but I think I’ll post about ours first because, well… ….because it was ours.  We called it Making interNETWORKING work for you!  Embracing Web 2.0 tools.  We crammed a BUNCH of information into one hour, covering blogging, RSS feeds and aggregators, wikis, some fun web resources, and touching on podcasting.  Our handouts were very detailed, though, so hopefully any questions not asked in the session can be answered in the little booklet we gave those who attended.  One down, one to go.  We present again (the same presentation) tomorrow.

By the way, all of our presentation information will be added to our new wiki mcsinternetworking.pbwiki.com.  It’s not all out there yet, but will be soon and hopefully much much more!  I’ll feature the wiki in an upcoming post.

Here’s a short FLIP video I took of Carmen and our session this morning.  Thank you, Carmen and Kimberly, for being so cool under pressure.  Y’all are great presenters and I’m grateful for the chance to work with you both on this.

Download

I’ll be at the MCS Technology Conference for the next two days, soaking in as many techie tidbits, tips, and tools as my brain will allow.  I’ll also be sharing my somewhat limited techie experiences at the conference, co-presenting with two other MCS librarians, Carmen Carr and Kimberly Sanderson.  The three of us have put together a session on blogging, wikis, podcasting, and other Web 2.0 tools called interNETWORKING.  We’re presenting at 9:00 on Thursday (today) and 10:15 on Friday.

I love the Technology Conference.  It’s a great opportunity to find out what everybody else is doing out there in the district.  I’ve found from past experience that I only remember and put into practice about 15 to 20% (that estimate may be ambitious) of the ideas I hear about at the various sessions I attend, but those ideas that have stuck have made a huge difference in how I use technology and view the internet.  I can’t wait to find out what sticks this time!

Keep reading and keep learning!