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Have you ever wondered?

2005-10-31T14:27:00.000-06:00

Have you ever wondered how computers actually work? I mean what makes them tick? What are they made of? Well, if you are like me and like to dig deeper, Boy! do I have some sites for you!! I found some pretty cool sites that help explain what computers are made of and some tips on care & maintenance.

Sandy?s Classroom ? Computer Tutorials http://www.compukiss.com/sandyclassroom/tutorials.cfm - Great links to short tips on computer basics, care & maintenance, hardware, Internet, trouble shooting
How computers work http://www.how-computers-work.com - Parts of a computer, buying tips, etc.
Hardware Device Listing http://www.computerhope.com/ahardwre.htm
How Computers Work http://www.geocities.com/howcompworks/index.htm - Detailed, technical info on CPUs, monitors, etc.

Additionally, I am including a link to the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators website. It provides you with "Web Showcase Winners" which provides you with a list and links to "exemplary" Websites and "honorable mention" Websites. I am using this to come up with some inspiration for our website assignment. You can also view the conference presenters up to three years back. What's cool is that some of these also provide the actual handouts given out during the conference in adobe or link to their websites. There is much more so I encourage you to check it out!!!

Illinois Technology Conference - February 28-March 3, 2006 http://www.il-tce.org/home/home.asp

See you guys on Saturday!!

Have You Had Enough Yet?

2005-10-31T14:08:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody!!

I hope everybody has a safe and fun halloween. I for one will not be dressing up but my five year old is dressing up as Darth Vader, my three month old is going to be a "pea in the pod", and my husband is dressing up as a zombie from "Day of the Dead". Then again I may just change my mind and dress up as the "Lonely Librarian". I won't have to do much except maybe put on my "studious-looking" glasses. This is a role I have assigned to myself ever since I became the librarian at Cristo Rey and are playing right now as we speak. I have been the only librarian and staff for that matter ever since I started. It didn't seem like such a big deal at first but am feeling it right now. I am falling behind on many things and much of it is due to the fact that I have too many projects going on right now such as inventoring 5000 titles, processing them, obtaining quotes for a security system, managing a grant that consists of a portable lab, conducting several meetings with the designer going over some "last minute" issues that need to be addressed before the furniture comes in (which is scheduled to come in in three weeks), and feeling the pressure from my "bosses" to get the show on the road. Oh! and did I mention I am doing this all on my own?

I guess you can tell I am feeling a little bit of pressure right about .....now.

Well enough about me and more about you. I am including a few resources on copyright (hence the title of this particular post) I ran across while doing some research for a teacher (Oh, did I forget to mention that I am also working on the curriculum and working with teachers?). I thought some of you aspiring school media specialist would be interested. Well here they go...enjoy!

Copyright for Educatorshttp://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/copy.htmLinks to great sites
Copyright and Fair Use from Stanford Universityhttp://fairuse.stanford.edu/
Copyright Permissionhttp://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/permissn.htm

Some Cool Web Sites

2005-10-21T09:50:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody, it is Friday!!!! Hopefully everybody enjoys their weekend. As for me I am going to work Saturday. I am putting in some extra hours so that we could try to make our deadline. I have set a date for our "Grand Opening". My vision is to have an opening ceremony and celebration on the first day after Christmas break(cutting of a ribbon and all). I can't wait to see the reaction on the student's and faculty's faces when we do the grand reveal!!!

I will be meeting with the designer and our technology coordinator today so that we can discuss how we will be integrating technology into the floor plan layout. Basically, the designer is going to instruct us where to run the "cable/wiring" for the computers. The new library will be a blending of the old and new. Meaning, that anywhere you look you will see books and computers. I feel that a library should not have one without the other.

Well, I have a few websites that I would like to share with you all. They are some resources I was using last year for teaching information literacy skills.
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/fournets.htm this site teaches students how to improve their search, with examples of the following tips: start narrow, find exact phrases, trim back the URL, and look for similar pages.
http://www.anovember.com/ Tips from author Alan November on understanding how to validate a Web site by looking for clues in the Web address or URL, plus links to lesson plans, a quiz, and other information literacy tips and tools.

Enjoy!!

Surfing the web

2005-10-18T14:06:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody!! I hope you are all doing well. Well, I mentioned in my last log that I had started working last week. You never really do quite realize how much work can pile up after being gone for a couple of months. I am in the process of inventoring a shipment of approximately 5,000 books. This will be our opening day collection. I just do not look forward to manually stamping all of those books, I already feel my wrists starting to hurt with the thought. Well enough of my wining. I actually am very excited because within a couple of months the students, staff, and faculty at Cristo Rey will finally have access to a desperately needed library. When I started I just could not understand how a College-Prep school could have made it through ten years without a library! Research skills are invaluable assets to have in college. But I guess the saying "Money talks" is appropriate in our case. It has truly been interesting to find out how much it actually costs to begin a library. I think many people tend to take for granted the libraries we use, I know I have, but not anymore. From now on everytime I go to my local public library I will treat the books as if they were made of gold and I will no longer stick gum under the study tables ....Just Kidding!!

Well as I was going through some magazine donations today I discovered a website that offers many cool blogs. Check it out!!! the link is www.businessweek.com I found the Blog entitled The Tech Beat quite interesting and amusing.

Talk to you soon.

Finally!!!

2005-10-14T19:52:00.000-05:00

This is the second post to my blog. All I can say is it's about time!!!

I just started working this week. I was on maternity leave for two months and although I am feeling a bit sleep deprived I am excited to be back.

Allow me to give you a brief rundown of where I work and what I am doing. I am the School Library Media Specialist for Cristo Rey Jesuit High School http://www.cristorey.net I was hired last year to create a library from scratch. I literally had an empty room with four walls to work with. I spent all of last year working with a designer to create a vision for what the library will become with a zero budget.

I will be creating a web page for the library media center as part of this class and I cannot wait. I spoke to the technology coordinator at the high school about my plans of creating a website and he said something that I would like to get clarification from my professor. Basically, he said that there are programs available that allow a person to create a web page without having to learn coding. In other words, these programs translate whatever text we type up into html code. Is this true? If so, I wonder whether we will learn about this in class. Furthermore, if there are such programs what are the benefits of learning HTML coding?

I do not know if the content of this post is appropriate for my class assignment, but I felt that I would enjoy blogging more if I could use this blog for entries that are not necessarily related to the evaluation of other blogs.

I look forward to blogging with you again!!

This is my first post!!!

2005-09-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that I am actually blogging!! This is pretty cool. Doing this as part of my LIS 753 Dominican University class. Over the next six weeks I will be posting five entries about libraries, the web, and technology.