Still talking about...

....the website for English Grammar 101. The link above will not be sufficient to get one specifically where I would like them to go. (!) As the link is deeply embedded in the U of T site, and I cannot figure out how to get the address directly - try this instead:
Hi - I am not happy with the web site that I gave to accompany the English Grammar 101 site. It is deeply embedded with the U of T Adaptive Technology Resource Centre and (speaking of being frustrated with technology!) I cannot figure out its website directly.

So:www.atrc.utoronto.ca/
then - online resources
then - External resources
scroll down page to Resources for people with Learning Disabilities (2nd from bottom)
then scroll to Grammatical Support Tools
then find English Grammar 101 on-line learning and quizzes....
It is worth the effort to locate this!

Don't miss this!

Fabulous! Did you think English Grammar was a lost skill????

Well, you would likely be right! However, this is one site that is fighting back! If you are at all interested in your ability to communicate, you must check this out. Share it with your students. Share it with other adults who (sadly) realize that their grammar and writing skills have slipped....
http://englishgrammer101.com/

The on-line quizzes are immediate in their feedback. The lessons at the top of the page are very brief, and not always simple to understand. The examples however add to understanding of the learning goal.

KitchenNerd

Hi! This is for you. I can no longer access your BLOG - but perhaps you planned it that way. I was thrilled to see your contact this month however. Let me know how I can say hi! I am working my way through Special Ed 3. I let my Library Wikki slip for a bit, but firing it back up again this week. Still reading Treasure Island with the G group.
Saw There will Be Blood Tonight and that certainly gives one food for thought. I noticed that it is based on a novel by Upton Sinclair which was very surprising. I have read two of his short stories - The Lessee was one I believe. Very old language. I am also tackling Everlyn Waugh just now: A Handful of Dust. Love it!
L

My New Year - is it really February 2008?

Hello! I am back! I am thought about BLOGGING 1002 times and would be very disappointed in myself if I just let this go. I really like to BLOG. It is one of my favourite things to do...

This is my first post of 2008 and it is already February! Workshop today on School Success and it was very worthwhile. Oprah on in the background - that too is a first for 2008! I like those words precision and focus around teaching and learning; recent message from two workshops.
Snow Days this week and Open House and Workshops and time is just flying...

Approaching December 21st, 2007...

I ventured out this eve to Chapters to purchase a few gift cards (and books!) and it was very busy. No parking and line-up to the back of the store. Students were really excited today and tomorrow will be very energetic. We have a Christmas Assembly in the morn - student talent and celebration of achievement - and then a Christmas Dance in the afternoon.
Holiday time by 2:45 p.m.
Hope all the folks are safe and healthy and warm and feeling blessed this holiday.

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol

I made a trip to the mall today. Madness. However, I think the spirit of Christmas has found me, and I am beginning to think about shopping, cards, gift cards and important people. A sure sign of Christmas is finding the couch to watch A Christmas Carol on TV.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Long Day ...

Critical thinking day.
Refine, re-edit and polish day.
Tiring day.
Happy day as son John is Home for the Holidays. (magic in that phrase)
Daughter Beverly got through a week of English ISU challenges, concept maps and music practice.
I am most proud of the new understandings constructed today - for me.
Lots of learning...

Christmas Concert 2007

There were Choirs tonight. Some were 25 voices strong, and others were 75 voices strong and ONE was over 350 voices. The music was dynamic and rehearsed and uplifting. But there was music of all sorts. Several solos. Singers. Jazz. Woodwinds. Drums. Percussion. Classics.

It was a terrific evening at the Christmas Concert. You can just imagine the hundreds of hours of practice. My spirit has been soothed and rejuvenated tonight at the Christmas Concert. Music. Sharing. Listening. Young people who believe in the power of song and voice and music.

ARTS and Literature

Monday is behind us.
9 school days until the break.
Arts Alive at the school on Wednesday night - and my daughter is playing in her Christmas Concert. The Christmas Concert is across two nights, but we have tickets and amazing seats for Thursday, and she is accompanist for a soloist on Wednesday. Such is life...
I am involved with the Cookie Decorating on Wednesday night, and so my dining room just now has bags of Sprinkles, Digestive Cookies, Icing (on sale at No Frills last Friday) Bulk Barn candies in several types ($56.00 worth), plastic snack bags and wooden craft sticks. I seem to get all the important jobs...
My husband has been talking about this daily LINK he gets information on, and although I have not had a great deal of time to check it out, it seems interesting!

www.aldaily.com

December IS such a wonderful month!

Information Literacy

I have spent the day adding to research and clarifying. Information Literacy is not going to be tamed and put in a box. No more... As a term, and as an action, and as a definition, it changes by the hour. In fact, information literacy varies by the one developing the definition and for the specific group or outcome being evaluated. Isn't that the crux of deeply understanding the term however? Information Literacy can no longer simply be defined. And the definition that may accommodate today, will no longer work by tomorrow. Perhaps there is no possibility of a definition any longer.

Information Literacy is a range of skills and understandings specific to a time, and/or place and/or people and/or problem.

This is a wonderful website. I have only briefly explored it, but the attitude and understanding is exemplary. Check it out!

International Society for Technology in Education

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Educator_Resources/YourLearningJourney/Learning_Journey_21.htm

Humming away today...

...as I battle my way through the research.
Hey! Why not join me in a Carol (or two...)

Can't remember all the words? Check this out....

http://www.christmas-carols.net/

Isn't December a wonderful month?

Where would the world be...

....without books?

Some inspiring and thought provoking quotes:

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler

"I cannot live without books." Thomas Jefferson

"A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas—a place where history comes to life." Norman Cousins

"We should not see print and electronic literature as in competition, but rather in conversation. The more voices that join in, the richer the dialogue is likely to be." N. Katherine Hayles

I will retire to read a good book.

Treasure Island

Bliss! I have begun reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island once again. I was all of thirteen the first time I read it - and likely only a few chapters here or there since. It is wonderful....
I am going to try to work with my Gifted group and read it together. I made a race out tonight and bought six copies - I am getting a start on the Group tonight. It is a fabulous story. It will be interesting to see the reaction of the Group as we begin. What will youth of ages 11, 12 and 13 make of this literature from many many decades ago?
I set up a Library Blog Wiki for the Group and was thrilled to see that two students have communicated their thoughts on Faithful Elephants that we shared last week. I gave one young fellow another copy of the URL tonight - to my query, he (honestly) replied that he had lost the sheet. Will have to track down the other two young fellows to see what song they will sing. (!!)
Shades of Treasure Island in my writing tonight...

Did you know????

.... that you can have an on-line calculator right there when you need it?

Yes. That's right! No more searching the house desperately to add up that big big big LIB3 Allan A Martin Library Reno budget!

Check it out: http://www.motionnet.com/calculator/

Reading and Math. Math and Reading. Words and Numbers. Numbers and Words.
Colour. Reading words and Math numbers in colour!

Quote for Today - City Snow

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?

J.B. Priestley

Page Flakes

I had not heard the word Page Flakes before yesterday! Checking LIB3 BLOG and it caught my attention. I have actually investigated and signed up and managed to change the weather to that of Mississauga. It strikes me that Page Flakes is definitely more energetic and active and interactive that a BLOG. It is the quieter approach to reflection that I find so attractive about Blogging. I am still trying to sort out just what the application of each is. Or does one "do" Page Flakes and another person "manages" a BLOG. You can't do it all...
Love the beauty in the phrase though .... Page Flakes

Inspirational quote for today

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image of the Librarian

...this is a fun website. Author turned librarian turned author. Holly Black.

The question is: do you have what it takes to be a librarian?

Librarians are:

Sexy
Smart
Radical
Famous
Me!

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~hblack/whylibrarian.htm

December in Mississauga...

...is also December in Afghanistan! I am continuing to research, read and working today on LIB3. This course has been a great amount of work; it has been an exciting journey however, with so much learning on so many varied fronts.
I discovered Deborah Ellis as an author several years ago. I read The Breadwinner first. Prior to reading this YA novel, I really had made no attempt to understand the situation in Afghanistan. It is a brilliant novel that has become part of some grade six core in literature in some places. Kids of all ages ( 8 - 88) love it! Don't miss this exceptional read. Follow The Breadwinner with Parvana's Journey. These two stories gave me a basic understanding of the fundamentals, and then reading The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khald Hosseini) built on that understanding.

I was musing about the state of learning in Afghanistan today. One cannot think about learning where there is none, without discussing a library. It is vital to the process. One cannot discuss the state of learning in Afghanistan without considering the treatment of females. How wonderful it is, and how telling, that the institution of library becomes the central connection.

http://www.w4wafghan.ca/fundraising/library.html

CABARET

What a treat last eve! My daughter goes to a school of the arts here in Mississauga. Every year they do a fall play - best value for $20 you ever will find! I was not familiar with the story or the play CABARET. I had never seen it in any format. The students did an outstanding job and as usual, you have to pinch your self to remember you are NOT downtown at a professional theatre. Well done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaret_(musical)

Whatever did we do without Wikipedia? Changing my tune about the knowledge of the collective of humanity...or at least those that care to post!