Read Academic Perspective – Columbia High Schools Students Web Publication

What a great idea!! Columbia High School Students have launched a web publication. Check out their website by clicking here!

Here is a really great article about the website from the Local:

Introducing Columbia’s Newest Publication
By Ben Drucker

Students at Columbia High School have started a new Web publication, Academic Perspective. We asked Ben Drucker, the editor-in-chief, to describe it and how it came into being, and he submitted this post. You can become a fan of the publication on Facebook, and follow it on Twitter. Thanks, Ben!
Q.

What is Academic Perspective?
A.

Academic Perspective is an online news and editorial magazine written and created by high school students. We publish articles on topics ranging from politics and economics to popular culture. With a staff of over 10 writers, content is going up every day. In just over a week since its launch, Academic Perspective has become extremely popular and has grown faster than any of us could have imagined.

Q.

When did Academic Perspective start and who started it?
A.

The idea for Academic Perspective came to me about two months ago and really took off when I, along with two friends, began planning its launch in late September. I am the editor-in-chief, the site designer, and I take care of most of the administrative tasks. The two managing editors, fellow Columbia High School juniors Ben Donald and Seth Wolin, revise all our articles and help with administration. It took a lot of work to launch the site, going from a concept to a fully developed Web site in just over three weeks. But in the end, it was worth it.
Q.

What made you decide to start your site?
A.

Entering high school, our English teachers extolled to us the opportunities our high school newspaper, the Columbian, would give gifted writers. Columbia High School has an award-winning school newspaper, created by excellent journalism and design programs. But after reading the paper, I was underwhelmed by it — not by the quality of writing, but by the subject matter. The Columbian, like all school newspapers, is populated by articles lamenting a change in the cafeteria menu, detailing the daily activities of a new teacher, or discussing the latest school fashions. While these topics may have been of paramount importance to CHS students, there was no audience outside of the school. I, like a group of my peers, wanted to write about topics found in The New York Times, not about the renovation of the old bathroom on the third floor. No school club would give me this opportunity, so I decided to create it myself.
Q.

What are your hopes and goals for the site?
A.

I hope that Academic Perspective becomes a place where interested individuals can come and have intellectual discussions. I don’t believe such a place existed before, so I would love to be able to create it. Another major goal is to expand the readership of the site. In our first week, we had over 750 visits and close to 3,000 page views from 27 countries and 28 U.S. states, and 20 subscribers to our RSS feed. These are really tremendous numbers, but I want to grow even more. We also passed the 50-comment mark in our first week, but again, I want to do better. As much as the articles are important, the most important thing about Academic Perspective is that it become a community, not just a faceless blog.
Q.

What’s been the biggest challenge in starting and running Academic Perspective?
A.

The biggest challenge has definitely been administration. Ensuring that everyone on the staff knows when deadlines are has been difficult. Hopefully with experience, running the site will be easier and we can focus on the most important things: producing great content and building community.

The Columbia High School Ladybug Infestation

On Tuesday Columbia High School had an infestation of Ladybugs . At one point there were hundreds of them swarming the front entrance of the school. A number of local news organization pick up on the story and I was also able to shot some video of the event which appears in both of the stories.

Here are links to the articles:
NJ Star Ledger:
http://http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/nj_residents_report_swarms_of.html

Here is an article about it from South Orange Patch:
http://http://southorange.patch.com/articles/ladybug-swarms-descend-on-south-orange

How one librarian changed a boys life

This is a article originally from NPR Story Corps. It is an excellent story about how one librarian totally changed the life of a young boy. Enjoy!

October 2, 2009
Olly Neal grew up in Arkansas during the 1950s. He didn’t care much for high school. One day during his senior year, he cut class — and wandered into the school library.

As he told his daughter, Karama, recently, he stumbled onto a book written by African-American author Frank Yerby. And the discovery changed the life of a teenage boy who was, in Neal’s memory, “a rather troubled high school senior.”

The book was The Treasure of Pleasant Valley — and it had an alluring cover, especially for a teenage boy.

Neal remembers it being “risque — a drawing of a woman who appeared to be wearing something that was basically see-through. But the symbolism was really great for me at that age of 16.”

There was just one problem: If Neal took the book to the checkout counter, he was sure that the girls who worked on the counter would tell his friends.
“Then my reputation would be down, because I was reading books,” Neal said. “And I wanted them to know that all I could do was fight and cuss.”

Finally, Neal decided that he ought to steal the book, in order to preserve his reputation. So he did.

A week or two later, Neal had finished the book — so he brought it back to the library, careful to replace it in the same spot he had found it.

“And when I put it back, there was another book by Frank Yerby,” Neal said.

“So I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll read that, too.’ So I took it under my jacket,” Neal said.

“Later, I brought it back, and there was — by God, there was another book by Frank Yerby. So I took it.”

He read four of Yerby’s books that semester — checking out none of them.

But Neal’s sneaky behavior turned out not to have been so sneaky after all.

Attending his 13-year high school reunion, Neal ran into the school’s librarian, Mildred Grady. She had seen him trying to steal The Treasure of Pleasant Valley years ago.

“She told me that she saw me take that book when I first took it,” Neal said.

“She said, ‘My first thought was to go over there and tell him, boy, you don’t have to steal a book, you can check them out — they’re free.’

“Then she realized what my situation was — that I could not let anybody know I was reading.”

Grady told Neal she decided that if he was showing an interest in books, “she and Mrs. Saunders would drive to Memphis and find another one for me to read — and they would put it in the exact same place where the one I’d taken was.”

So, every time Neal decided to take a book home, the pair would set off to the city to find another book for him.

“You’ve got to understand that this was not an easy matter then — because this is 1957 and ‘58,” Neal said. “And black authors were not especially available, No. 1. And No. 2, Frank Yerby was not such a widely known author. And No. 3, they had to drive all the way to Memphis to find it.”

But the women’s efforts paid off: Neal went on to attend law school and later became a judge, retiring as an appellate judge of the Arkansas Court of Appeals.

When Grady died, her son asked Neal to tell everyone gathered for her funeral the story of how the librarian nurtured his reading habit as a teenager.

“I credit Mrs. Grady for getting me in the habit of enjoying reading, so that I was able to go to law school and survive,” Neal said.

AASL Best Web Sites for Teaching and Learning

From the AASL These are the Best Web Sites for Teaching and Learning

All teachers/librarians should take a look at these sites and see how they can use them in the classroom.

“The “Top 25″ Web sites foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover.

• Organizing and Managing
• Content Collaboration
• Curriculum Sharing
• Media Sharing
• Virtual Environments
• Social Networking and Communication

---

The AASL just released there best websites for teaching and learning. It is a great resource for all teachers.

Organizing and Managing

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 2.1.2 – Organize knowledge so that it is useful.
• 2.1.4 – Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize information.
• 3.1.4 – Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess.

Diigo

Need help in organizing your favorite websites? Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows users to save websites, as well as tag them, add sticky notes and annotations, and share them with other users in various groups.

Tip: Sticky notes are an effective way to start a virtual conversation among teams of students on the merits of a website.

Google Reader

Overwhelmed with all the information on the Internet? Google Reader is a tool for gathering, reading, and sharing all the relevant blogs and websites you read on the web.  This easy-to-use tool constantly checks sites (blogs, news sites, and webpages) that have been selected by you, scans them for updates and new content, and then organizes them in the Reader for easy access. Reader is a great organization tool to keep current with educational trends, research and news!

Tip: This is a great organizational tool for students to keep current on their research topics.

Simply Box

If you’re a visual learner, then this is the tool for you! Simply Box is a tool that allows users to capture, share, and organize anything found on the web into an unlimited number of “boxes” and then share with friends, groups, students, or the world. However, rather than saving lists of bookmarks, it allows users to capture just a part of a webpage, whether it’s a headline, a paragraph, a photo, or a video. Items can be saved and organized.

Tip: As students collaborate on projects, this tool makes it easy to organize, cite and keep track of the individual resources culled from various websites.

back to top

Content Collaboration

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 1.3.4 – Contribute to the exchange of ideas within a learning community.
• 3.1.2 – Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners.
• 3.1.4 – Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess.

Mindmeister

Be creative — think maps! Mindmeister and Bubbl.us are both online mapping tools:  Mindmeister is better for middle and high school students, while Bubbl.us is for younger students. Both websites allow users to think visually, collaborate, and share ideas through concept maps.

Tip: Effective tools for teams of students to collaboratively brainstorm what they know about a subject and what questions they want to research.

Polleverywhere

If you want to get learners’ attention, then ask a provocative question. Poll Everywhere is a voting platform that can be used in classrooms and libraries to gather answers to a particular question. Participants vote by sending a text message via their cell phones or by voting on the web.

Tip: Use this survey tool to involve and connect students to complex issues.

Wikispaces

This is the quintessential collaborative tool! This easy-to-use website allows anyone to write, edit and share content, depending on the permissions granted by the wiki owner.

Tip: Students can use a wiki as a research journal, documenting their progress from beginning questions to finished products, as they receive feedback directly on the wiki from their classroom teacher and librarian.

Zoho

Zoho offers an all-in-one online collaborative package; it provides online tools from mail and presentations to notebooks and wikis, with many tools in between.

Tip: Students can share their work and presentations on the web for fellow students, parents, administrators, and educators to view.

back to top

Curriculum Sharing

Guidelines for School Library Programs: Instructional Partner
“The SLMS collaborates with classroom teachers to develop assignments that are matched to academic standards and include critical thinking skills, technology and information literacy skills, and core social skills and cultural competencies. The SLMS guides instructional design by working with the classroom teacher to establish learning objectives and goals, and by implementing assessment strategies before, during and after assigned units of study.”

Curriki

Seeking new teaching strategies? If you’ve got an old lesson that you want to breathe new life into, Curriki can help. It is a free member website where educators share ideas and hear from others in the profession.

Tip: If you have a lesson that you love to teach with your students, share it with others. Everyone can be successful if we all help each other to be better teachers.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

What skills will our students need to be successful in the 21st century? Partnership for the 21st Century offers educators information, resources, and tools to understand, identify and integrate the 21st century skills of creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving skills and communication and collaboration skills.

Tip: Here’s a great resource to help educators learn how to integrate 21st Century Skills into the curriculum.

Primary Access

Capture your students’ imagination with movie narratives based on primary sources. Primary Access is an online tool that allows students and teachers to combine text, visual, and sound elements, which are then combined to convey information about their chosen historical event or time frame. A library of Primary Access movies is available through a catalog by historical time period.

Tip: Encourage active learning: have students choose a historical event or time frame to research and synthesize their information through a Primary Access movie.

SOS for Information Literacy

Learn how to effectively incorporate information literacy into your lesson plans. S.O.S. for Information Literacy is a dynamic, collaborative web-based multimedia resource for educators, K to 16. This site links lesson plans and teaching ideas for information literacy through a comprehensive quality control system to ensure that lessons are high caliber.

Tip: Create an account and build your own lessons or activities.

back to top

Media Sharing

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 2.1.4 - Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and und understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess.
• 3.3.4 - Create products that apply to authentic, real-world context
• 4.1.8 - Use creative and artistic formats to express personal learning

Animoto

Create a video in five minutes – no kidding! Using Animoto, educators and students can create videos that contain photos, graphics, music, text and more! It is only limited by your imagination.

Tip: A great resource for visual learners! Instead of the typical book report, challenge your students to create a dynamic Animoto to capture the essence of their favorite books.

Our Story

Create your story! Our Story permits users to develop and save collaborative timelines that can be personalized with annotations, photos, and videos. Stories (timelines) can be printed in book format, archived on DVD, or even sent as postcards.

Tip: Teach your students to develop content-specific timelines that are linked to the teaching of research and information literacy skills.

Teacher Tube

What could be better? You Tube – just for teachers and students! Teacher Tube offers videos solely for the field of education. Videos are created by teachers and students to be shared with other teachers and students.

Tip: A great way to have students share their work with parents and for teachers to share with other teachers, peers, and administrators, both on-campus and off.

VoiceThread

The end of the boring slide show! VoiceThread allows users to share images, documents, and videos with added narration by the authors and others.

Tip: Bring oral history to life in the classroom, as students narrate a series of images that relate to the skills and ideas they have learned in a particular lesson.

Wordle

Do you like to play with words or create visual poems? A “Wordle” enables you to create a word “cloud,” visually depicting the relationship between words based on their frequency of use. You can tweak your word “clouds” with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Tip: Teach students to create a Wordle to express their reading interests or their favorite book.

back to top

Virtual Environments

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 2.1.5 - Collaborate with others to exchange ideas, develop new understandings, make decisions, and solve problems.
• 3.1.2 - Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners
• 4.3.1 - Participate in the social exchange of ideas, both electronically and in person.

RezED

Learn about virtual worlds in a safe, supportive environment with other educators. RezED is the hub for learning about virtual worlds, providing practitioners with access to the highest quality resources and research in the field.

Tip: Check out RezEd’s monthly podcasts, online webinars, virtual chats, and discussion groups.

Second Life

Create an avatar and join other educators in Second Life to explore virtual reality, a world where you, the user, can participate in professional development, meet colleagues to explore and discover and create new understandings about learning in virtual worlds.

Tip: Meet with people from all over the world without having to leave your classroom , library, or home office.

back to top

Social Networking and Communication

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 3.1.2 – Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners
• 4.1.7 - Use social networks and information tools to gather and share information
• 4.3.1 - Participate in the social exchange of ideas, both electronically and in person.

Classroom 2.0

Do you find it difficult to keep up with the latest Web 2.0. technologies? Join Classroom 2.0 Ning, a social network for educators who are using or want to use Web 2.0 in their libraries and classrooms.

Tip: Look at the Classroom 2.0 weekly webinars, featuring leading Web 2.0 educators  – a great way to learn for both the novice and experienced educator.

Edublogs

Do you want to blog? Edublogs, created especially for educators, is a resource where teachers and librarians can create their own blogs with templates and help from other educators.

Tip: Blogging is a good strategy to help students develop their own voices in writing.

Facebook

Facebook is a popular social networking site that allows users to share with friends and colleagues. The key is sharing information and Facebook allows you to set personal and professional limits on the information you share.

Tip: Use Facebook to engage students and support the curriculum: a team of students are challenged to create a Facebook page for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Good Reads

A social network for book lovers! Members can keep track of the books they have read, make recommendations to others, vote on book lists that are posted, see what their friends are reading and recommending, and form book groups.

Tip: Teachers can develop a reading group for their students where discussions can develop, suggestions for new material can be found and lovers of particular genres can find each other.

Ning

Create your own social network for your classroom, your school group or your library. Share your ideas, pictures, and plans. Choose the features, a forum, a blog, members’ pages, RSS feeds – whatever you would like to share and collaborate and control the membership.

Tip: Classroom or library nings give students opportunities to learn how to effectively and safely be members of an online social network.

Skype

Can you hear me? Skype is a basic and easy-to-use service that offers free voice, video calls, conference calls, instant messaging and group instant messaging. Download the software; connect to the Internet and you’re good to go.

Tip: Invite an author or a content expert to Skype with your students.

Twitter

What are you doing? Twitter, a website for communication among friends and colleagues, is based on this question. Everyone who is connected to your account can know what you are doing at anytime, just send a “tweet.”  This is a way for everyone to keep track of everyone else.

Tip: Students working in research teams, designate secretaries to keep the instructor and librarian up to date on how the group is doing throughout the project.”

Congrats Class of 2009

Have a fun and safe prom tonight!  We know you will all look amazing.

On Tuesday you graduate from High School and will move on to some amazing school and other places. We at library wish you all the success in the world and remember if you ever need help with research or a paper we are always there for you.

Congrats Grads!!

Save the Words Website

Save the Words is a really great website that everyone should go to.

Here is a descriptions from the website :

“If you love words as much as we do, find room for them again is conversation and written communication. Each time you use one of these words, you are keeping it alive in the English language. “

What word did you save today?

Summer Reading List

Incoming students in Grades 9 and 10 will have the opportunity to experience award-winning, high-interest, multi-cultural, non-fiction books over the summer. Students will be required to read two engaging books and then discuss key concepts about each book with classmates when they return in the fall. One book will be from a list of suggested titles (below); the second book will be a book-of-choice (any genre, any book). Since some books may contain controversial and/or sensitive material, parents are encouraged to be a part of their son/daughter’s book selection process.

For students and parents who are looking for more guidance with the book-of-choice, we recommend you review the College Board’s website “101 Great Books Recommended for College-Bound Readers”

Students are encouraged to complete a “Bookmark” and/or graphic organizer to assist in their reading comprehension as they read their books (a sample graphic organizer and “Bookmark” follow the book lists). In September, class time will be spent discussing the key concepts in the non-fiction texts. In addition, students will construct a letter to the author of the book-of-choice as part of the “Letters About Literature” essay contest sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The contest prompts students to write a letter to the author- discussing the effect the book had on the reader. The assignment is available online here for review: In an effort to promote more independent reading during the course of the school year, a collection of the summer reading books will be housed in English classroom libraries starting in September. Students will be encouraged to read additional books based upon peer recommendations during the course of the school year. This new initiative is supported by the district administration, Words Bookstore in Maplewood, and a SOMEF grant. Although the purchase of summer reading books is recommended, summer reading books are available in the Maplewood and South Orange public libraries. Please contact me via e-mail if there is any trouble locating a summer reading title. We hope this initiative will broaden your child’s love of literature and increase his/her interest in the art of reading.

Have a great summer.

Book Selections for Incoming Columbia High School Freshmen and Sophomores

9th Grade

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Close to shore: a true story of terror in an age of innocence by Michael Capuzzo

In My Hands: memories of a Holocaust rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke

Funny in Farsi: a memoir of growing up in America by Dumas Firoozeh

The Jump: Sebastian Telfair and the high stakes business of high school ball by Ian O’Connor

Once Upon a Quinceanera: coming of age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

Shadow Divers: the true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson

7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey

10th Grade

The Glass Castle: a memoir by Jeannette Walls

Dreams from My Father: a story of race and inheritance by Barack Obama

Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson by Mitch Albom

One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

If you have any questions please speak email Gary Pankiewicz Supervisor of Secondary English Language Arts at gpankiew@somsd.k12.nj.us

For a detailed list of the books and the assignment please visit the CHS website.

Check out our Database Trials

We are doing a trial on them and would love to know your thoughts.
Should they be part of our collection?
Email us: emalespi@somsd.k12.nj.us or stop by the library and let us know.

Pop Culture Universe: http://pop.greenwood.com
The African American Experience: http://aae.greenwood.com
Daily Life Through History: http://dailylife.greenwood.com
Daily Life in America: http://dla.greenwood.com

To get remote access information talk to one of the librarians or email us.

Cohen Family Inducted into CHS Hall of Fame

Congratulations to the 2008-2009 Columbia High School Hall of Fame Inductees.

This year the Hall of Fame Committee chose an entire family to be inducted.  The Cohen family—Ben, Joan, Amy and Dan, all attended Columbia High School and went on to greater accomplishments in life.

Ben became a lawyer and was named the first General Counsel to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.  In 1981 he was appointed to serve as a Judge of the Superior Court where he presided over family court cases, criminal court cases, and civil cases.

Joan was an elementary school teacher and went on to attain a master’s degree in psychology.  While working towards her professional diploma, Joan did an internship at Columbia High School; she is a nationally certified school psychologist.  Not satisfied with these accomplishments, Joan went on to earn her counselor’s certification, which is the work she does today.

Amy competed on the girl’s gymnastics and volleyball teams while at Columbia.  She continued competing as a varsity gymnast at Brown.  When the University abolished women’s gymnastics as a varsity sport, Amy and her teammates instituted a ground-breaking Title IX lawsuit (Cohen vs. Brown) and became involved in a battle over equality for women in collegiate sports.  The lawsuit went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and decided in her favor.  Amy was named one of the Twenty Most Influential Women in Sports by “Women’s Sports and Fitness” magazine, and a Woman of the Year by “Ms. Magazine”, and was given a Woman of Distinction Award by the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders.  Amy now teaches in an international school in Costa Rica.

Dan was on the varsity wrestling team, was Student Council Treasurer, and actively involved in the TV Arts program and CCN.  This led to his decision to study communications and major in television production in college.  Dan’s full time TV career began with an opportunity to work as a production assistant on a new cable TV network that was being launched in October of 1996:  the Fox News Channel.  At Fox Dan worked on five different programs, achieving the position of Senior Coordinating Producer.  He currently works with the show “Hannity” where he oversees a team of field producers and tape producers.

Pay Library Fine with Canned Goods Extended

The food drive is going so well we decided to extend it till April break.

We already have collected over 200 canned goods items! Good job CHS!