Monday, March 31, 2008

Meeting minutes from 3/26/08

Opening Announcements
1. Discussed scholarships available for MLIS students:
- Carol Gordon brought up a scholarship not on the agenda: CISSL scholarship includes working about 5 hours per week as a research assistant for her or another professor in the department- email her if interested in applying (cgordon@scils.rutgers.edu)
-Al Saley Memorial Scholarships- 3 for $750; apply by May 1
(http://www.emanj.org/Awards.htm)
-Phi Beta Mu: check website (www.beta-phi-mu.org/scholarships.html)
-Executive Women of New Jersey (http://www.ewnj.org/scholarships.htm)

2. Fun Events
-NJ Children's/YA Author Panel: register online (http://www.njstatelib.org/News/news_item.php?item_id=932)
-NJLA conference: April 29-May 1; early registration ends on April
4 (then the price goes up!)
-April is School Media Month: check out the ALA website
(www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslissues/aasladvocacy/schoollibrary.cfm)

3. Elections
- Jessica Emili was elected secretary
- Treasurer position is still open

4. Scheduling and advising
-RASL Advisor Carol Gordon offered the following advice: Plan backwards! plan your last semester first so that you have less trouble distributing course work; save your elective for summer session- you will have more options because additional classes are offered through the WISE consortium; suggested electives for the school media concentration are collection development and social networking
-2 professional development courses are offered in the summer- these are online courses: 575 "Management of School Library Programs" and
592 "Field Work" are CO-requisites- plan on taking them together!
-575 is only offered in the spring- there's a possibility of getting into the online class in the fall, but don't count on it as online students have first priority in scheduling
-List of required School media courses was made available at the meeting, as well as a list of when courses are offered
(fall/spring/summer) [This will be posted on the website.]

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Elections

Anyone interested in becoming treasurer or secretary for RASL should make sure to attend tomorrow's meeting, because we are going to have elections for both officer positions. I look forward to seeing you there!

RASL meeting this week!

Wow! It's that time again already. :-) We're meeting before the colloquium, this Wednesday at 5 pm in the SCILS lounge.

On the agenda this week: Registering for Fall 2008 and Planning Your Course of Studies. Also, Carol Gordon will be speaking with us, and we'll be sharing info re: scholarships and upcoming events.

Pizza will be served. Hope to see you there!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Lesson Plans

I apologize for making you wait so long. Without further ado...

Library Sparks
This link takes you to the magazine's homepage. Here, you can subscribe or try out a free issue. There are also web resources with some lesson ideas and plenty of worksheets. You can also browse all the previous web resources. They also have indexes for previous issues, but I have been unable to find a way to order back issues. I would suggest contacting them if that is something that interests you, or applying for an ILL.

Read Write Think
This site is not a library site, but was found to be very helpful by library media specialists. Each lesson plan is very comprehensive and includes a variety of supplemental resources.

Hanover County Public Schools
There are a bunch of lessons for Kindergarten through eighth grade with occasional worksheets littered throughout. One helpful aspect about these is the inclusion of national standards (it also indicates standards for the state of Virginia).

School Library Media Activities Monthly
Not only can you get a subscription, but you can access select articles online. There is also the Activities Almanac with brief lesson ideas for specific days of the month. Into the Curriculum is a great place to build a bridge between the library and the classroom with standards driven lesson plans.

Library Media Connection
I highly recommend the print version of this source for both lesson plans and professional development. The website is lacking, but does have some things of note on their New Hot Stuff page.