The Daring Librarian

It's back to school time again! Darn those Target & Office Depot commercials! Last year around this time I blogged about using Google forms to create community conversations and decorating your library media center & classroom. This year I'd like to invite you back by popular demand to a FREE TL Virtual Cafe webinar called Back to School Special: Savvy Starts to a New Year! Join yours truly & The Mighty Little Librarian Tiff (on right) for a casual discussion to generate ideas on how to build school allies, support new teachers & become indispensable to admin & staff at the beginning of every school year. Featuring how Google tools (forms, docs, & presentation, and more!) can supercharge the library program & classroom throughout the school year. For Teacher Librarians, classroom teachers, tech teachers, admins, & well...everyone! 1. Make this the Year that You Share Shamelessly! So many times we are reluctant to share what we creat...

We need to talk. I'm seeing other people. I know I've been distant lately.  In fact, we never really talked about why I walked away from you for a while two years ago and I really feel bad about that. You wanna know why? I don't TRUST YOU! You're like that studly rockstar surfer / skatepunk boyfriend I dated briefly in college who threw those really AWEsome parties?! He was so cool but Oh so unreliable! So, I ditched him. He'd never been ditched before. Ha!   .....See? FB, you are so popular I couldn't resist you...even when I knew you were no good for me I kept overlooking your faults and taking you back. I HAD to have you but I really never liked it! You were slutty, shifty, & unreliable! ....especially with my personal information! You spilled my secrets without hardly a blink or an "I'm sorry!" I knew that. Everyone knew that. Where was my privacy? I had to keep tweaking things to feel safe around you and every other week or mont...

I admit to having a total geeky girl crush on Meme Molly of Rocketboom . What is Rocketboom? It's a "three minute daily videoblog or Vlog based in New York City. We cover and create a wide range of information and commentary from top news stories to quirky internet culture. Instead of costing millions of dollars to produce, Rocketboom is created with a consumer-level video camera, a laptop, two lights and a map with no additional overhead or costs.” This adorable English Internet Vlogging phenom & her perky gorgeousness explains in amusing & snarky pattois what's the lastest Meme and above...what Google Plus is all about & how it's different than The Twitters or The Facebooks. Fascinating history this Miss Molly Meme has...From the Wikipedias : " Molly started secretly making Youtube videos in her bedroom when she was 16 and eventually her parents found out about it. After a few years working independently in web video and a stint in Canada study...

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are far more than our abilities" - Dumbledore pg. 333 Chamber of Secrets   It's kinda silly that I'm blinking back hot tears writing this. But I'm sorta sentimental about the Harry Potter Series.  Back in 1999 I joined the Unofficial Harry Potter Fan Club started by interweb fan fiction pioneer "Jenna" (never found out her last name) and created a special bulletin board display with pages I printed (in colour!) from the website!  It was the first book I became a fangrrl for! I made sure to put the URL at the bottom of each page to teach my kids attribution. I loved Fan Fiction and even before I knew what a Mary Sue was.  It was the first book I waited, with baited breath, for even the title to be revealed, I read every "leak" and speculation online, I pre-ordered it from Amazon and when, the day that book arrived in the summer (thank you JK, for always summer!) I had a sign printe...

On the interwebs a star can rise overnight! And no... I'm not talking my old beloved friend & early Internet Meme Trogdor ....I'm talking about a cool guy from Denmark. With the advent of the new social network by the Googles called Google Plus or G+ Denmark denizen Simon Laustsen has created some of the BEST & coolest infographics for this exciting new community of learners & early adopters! They became an instant hit & according to his blog (scan the QR code, too!) " It turned out to be very popular, and so it has now been shared over 1000 times on Google+. It has been translated into several languages and the number of people following me has literally exploded from 0 to 600 and counting." Now with over 1800 followers Simon's Google+ cheat sheet has been translated into 11 different languages! (link to all at bottom) He has also graciously given me permission to post them here on this blog and he added a QR code to his profile pic after a...

So....even though I'm very transparent about my practice and profession here and on the Twitters I kept pretty mum about the fact that I was applying to the Google Teacher Academy cause I guess I didn't want to jinx it, humiliation, you know...the usual! You see, I missed my opportunity to go the Washington, DC 2009 GTA in my own backyeard with my mentor Joyce Valenza and my former student teacher the awesome Danielle Du Puis. The next one was in Australia - I didn't even try for that one...Cha Ching...Why? As one of my FB peeps said "Kathy Kaldenberg I assumed you were already a GCT! I think you'll be teaching them a thing or two."  (Yeah, right!LOL) Don't Miss It!  Ha, ha..me teach Google? One can only hope! But that's how I missed the GTA in my backyard of Wash DC -everyone assumed I was in & I missed the narrow application window! DOH! (Srsly, I can't keep up w/everything!) But I *have* been preaching the Google message since...