Saturday, December 20, 2008
Santa Ana Unified Re-Ups City After-School Library Services
For the second year, Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) has entered into a cooperative agreement with the Santa Ana Public Library (SAPL) to provide library services at three school libraries after regular school hours, expanding services to area students, their families and community members beyond the city’s main branch location. The participating schools include Century High School (1401 S. Grand Ave.), Saddleback High School (2802 S. Flower St.) and Valley High School (1801 S. Greenville St.), with operating hours of 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday.
The Santa Ana Public Library bookmobile provides services at Valley High School, while the two other libraries house small collections of K-8th Grade books donated by SAPL for checkout by community members. All facilities provide students with a supervised environment where they have books, resources, research and reference materials and computers at their reach.
Expanded after-hour services will be offered through May 29, 2009. For more information about the city’s library services log on to www.santa-ana.org/library.
The Santa Ana Public Library bookmobile provides services at Valley High School, while the two other libraries house small collections of K-8th Grade books donated by SAPL for checkout by community members. All facilities provide students with a supervised environment where they have books, resources, research and reference materials and computers at their reach.
Expanded after-hour services will be offered through May 29, 2009. For more information about the city’s library services log on to www.santa-ana.org/library.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
DO YOUR SENIOR EXIT PORTFOLIO WORK AT THE LIBRARY
All Centurions begin participation in the Senior Exit Portfolio process in their freshmen year. It begins with the Senior Exit Portfolio Guide. This informative booklet encourages students to begin saving research, major writing assignments, and class projects from the freshmen year through the senior year. The Senior Exit Portfolio Guide is updated each year and distributed to all underclassmen and seniors.
This student-focused process allows Centurions to reflect on their work, culminating in the demonstration of each student’s academic growth over four years. Nine projects will be selected by each Centurion to place in the student’s Senior Exit Portfolio. Students receive positive feedback on their final product from staff and community members. Students also practice the interview process for real-world application. The portfolio focuses on students’ strengths. It also helps students to begin a life-long process of reflection and service. Finally, the Senior Exit Portfolio connects student work to post-secondary goals.
There are two common obstacles to creating an excellent portfolio. The first is procrastination. It is very important to get started early. The completed portfolio should be a reflection of a long process—a few late nights. So, getting started as soon as possible avoids procrastination. Another common obstacle is not having enough work to include in the portfolio. The best way out of this one is for students to save their work. All freshmen, sophomores, and juniors should be careful to save important projects and papers. Teachers know which projects are important to save. Students simply need to pay attention to recommendations from their content area teachers.
It is very important for seniors to make sure they are managing their resources well so that the portfolio is completed in a timely manner. Waiting until the last moment will cause stress. The aim of the Senior Exit Portfolio Guide is to support all Centurions’ efforts to create outstanding portfolios.
This student-focused process allows Centurions to reflect on their work, culminating in the demonstration of each student’s academic growth over four years. Nine projects will be selected by each Centurion to place in the student’s Senior Exit Portfolio. Students receive positive feedback on their final product from staff and community members. Students also practice the interview process for real-world application. The portfolio focuses on students’ strengths. It also helps students to begin a life-long process of reflection and service. Finally, the Senior Exit Portfolio connects student work to post-secondary goals.
There are two common obstacles to creating an excellent portfolio. The first is procrastination. It is very important to get started early. The completed portfolio should be a reflection of a long process—a few late nights. So, getting started as soon as possible avoids procrastination. Another common obstacle is not having enough work to include in the portfolio. The best way out of this one is for students to save their work. All freshmen, sophomores, and juniors should be careful to save important projects and papers. Teachers know which projects are important to save. Students simply need to pay attention to recommendations from their content area teachers.
It is very important for seniors to make sure they are managing their resources well so that the portfolio is completed in a timely manner. Waiting until the last moment will cause stress. The aim of the Senior Exit Portfolio Guide is to support all Centurions’ efforts to create outstanding portfolios.
Friday, September 26, 2008
LIBRARY HOSTS PEER COURT AT CENTURY
Peer Court returns to Century for its 14th consecutive year. For new staff and students, this is a community service program in which our students get to serve as "jurors" doling out punishment to teens from across the county. Run in conjunction with the Probation Department of Orange County, it seeks to give second chances to first time offenders while helping all students understand the consequences of their actions.
The dates scheduled for this year:
October 8th
November 19th
March 25th
May 7th.
All sessions will occur in our library (ISC) from 2:30 - 5:00. Student sign-ups are forthcoming as we get closer to the October session.
The dates scheduled for this year:
October 8th
November 19th
March 25th
May 7th.
All sessions will occur in our library (ISC) from 2:30 - 5:00. Student sign-ups are forthcoming as we get closer to the October session.
BOOK FAIR at LIBRARY on BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT
The library hosted a Book Fair during Back to School Night and during school hours, Wednesday, September 24 through Friday, September 26, 2008.
Every sale of $10.00 minimum before tax, included an ENTRY into a DAILY DRAWING for one free book fair item up to $10.00 in value.
Watch the Inside Scoop Broadcast all next week to see if your raffle ticket was a winner!
Every sale of $10.00 minimum before tax, included an ENTRY into a DAILY DRAWING for one free book fair item up to $10.00 in value.
Watch the Inside Scoop Broadcast all next week to see if your raffle ticket was a winner!
ABOUT RSS FEEDS
RSS FEEDS
RSS feeds help librarians develop professionally by allowing quick access to information via subscription to RSS feeds at sites such as Libraryjournal.com and School Library Journal.
Teaching students how to research using RSS feed would allow teachers to supply links to accepted content area web sites, aggregated and accessible via an RSS feed. The library RSS feed to research methods, like the Big 6 to name one, would work in concert with the content area teacher’s selections to help students complete their research.
RSS feeds can be useful for students to keep updated on upcoming library events and programs posted on the library web page. For example, last year we had the Orange County Mexican American Historical Society (OCMAHS) host and present a photo history of Mexican-American life in Santa Ana at our library in the evening. Our evening classes participated in the event. Also, our Social Studies and Foreign Language departments signed up to bring students to the lectures for the two days OCMAHS hosted the presentations during school hours.
RSS feeds help librarians develop professionally by allowing quick access to information via subscription to RSS feeds at sites such as Libraryjournal.com and School Library Journal.
Teaching students how to research using RSS feed would allow teachers to supply links to accepted content area web sites, aggregated and accessible via an RSS feed. The library RSS feed to research methods, like the Big 6 to name one, would work in concert with the content area teacher’s selections to help students complete their research.
RSS feeds can be useful for students to keep updated on upcoming library events and programs posted on the library web page. For example, last year we had the Orange County Mexican American Historical Society (OCMAHS) host and present a photo history of Mexican-American life in Santa Ana at our library in the evening. Our evening classes participated in the event. Also, our Social Studies and Foreign Language departments signed up to bring students to the lectures for the two days OCMAHS hosted the presentations during school hours.
ABOUT BLOGGING
The most obvious use of a blog for the Teacher Librarian would be to do book previews and book reviews. Student aides could be enlisted to read and then blog about their favorites and/or their assigned Dewey/Fiction sections. Posting a webliography of useful research sites for students could also work well in a blog format since it is difficult to upload through a school webmaster and would make it easier to do quick changes for teachers and students (or alternatively a link to Delicious and/or Favthumbs).
A classroom teacher could use a reading/research assignment, for example, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and have each student blog their daily findings. This particular assignment from one teacher, requires the students to research the various professions represented in The Canterbury Tales. The students spend time researching the backgrounds of their respective characters, had they actually lived and performed those jobs. The blogging for this class would help students to share their findings of their daily research with their teacher, and help the teacher to see which students need extra attention when they visit the library. The teacher could also give blog feedback along the way to the students making good progress independently.
A classroom teacher could use a reading/research assignment, for example, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and have each student blog their daily findings. This particular assignment from one teacher, requires the students to research the various professions represented in The Canterbury Tales. The students spend time researching the backgrounds of their respective characters, had they actually lived and performed those jobs. The blogging for this class would help students to share their findings of their daily research with their teacher, and help the teacher to see which students need extra attention when they visit the library. The teacher could also give blog feedback along the way to the students making good progress independently.
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