Author: James Allen (James Allen)

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Messy sketch notes from the 2023 SLJ Summit in Atlanta
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SLJ Summit 2023

The School Library Journal Summit in Atlanta this past weekend was an incredible opportunity for inspiration, collaboration, and growth! Library leaders from across the country converged to soak in new ideas, effective strategies, and passion for our profession. Some of my favorites talks were from Cicely Lewis, Tom Bober, and Amanda Jones. There was no...

School Library Infographic
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School Library Infographic

I saw a great question on a Facebook school library group. This person was wanting a template for an infographic similar to this one from the Framingham Public Library. I decided to refresh my memory on a few design tools so I recreated it in Canva, Genially, Adobe Express, Google Slides, PowerPoint, and Adobe Illustrator.

light beams
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AI Issues

Hey everyone! If you aren’t aware of AI (artificial intelligence) applications, now is a good time to give them at least a cursory look. As information, media, and technology specialists in our schools, we need to be aware of how powerful these tools are becoming. We also need to be able to support our teachers,...

a portion of the United States constitution
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Primary Sources

Tom Bober Tom Bober, school librarian in Missouri, is an expert on this topic. He has a podcast on this topic here. He also has written a book on it: Elementary Educator’s Guide to Primary Sources, Strategies for Teaching. He has a whole series of posts on this for AASL KnowledgeQuest: Picture Books and Primary...

books on a shelf photo
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Reading & KAS for Library Media

The question about how reading is an important part of the standards is one that I feel strongly about, and I’ve had many conversations with folks on this recently. Please remember that every single indicator in the standards can be wrapped in the practice of reading. The standards-writing team of 30 Kentucky school librarians chose...

Library Media Updates
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Library Media Updates

Good morning! I hope you are all doing well. Here are a few library media updates for you. #KyLChat Please join us TONIGHT for #KyLChat. We will be talking about ways to support nurture our readers. December 8, 7 PM Central, 8 PM Eastern. #KyLChat is super-easy to join. Here are some directions if you...

New year, new times…
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New year, new times…

Greetings! I hope you have had a great summer (or at least as great as possible in these weird times) and had some time to rest and recharge for this new 2020/2021 school year. First… as it is happening tonight, we are having our first #KyLChat of the school year! This one was organized in...

Friday
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Friday

Greetings everyone! I hope you are hanging in there and taking care of your students, teachers, and yourself during this bizarre time. I don’t want to overwhelm anyone, but I wanted to share a few of my favorite finds from the listserv and Twitter in the last few days. Please reach out to me if...

AASL Logo
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KY Library Leaders AASL19

Here is a list of Kentucky school librarians presenting at the American Association of School Librarians National Conference, here in Louisville! If I’m missing your session, please add it here. Your browser does not support iframes.

screenshot of presetnation school library digital citizenship
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KyDigCit

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screenshot of genially portfolio
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Genially Portfolio

These are some of the creations I’ve made for our school, the Kentucky Association of School Librarians, and others. (function (d) { var js, id = “genially-embed-js”, ref = d.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) { return; } js = d.createElement(“script”); js.id = id; js.async = true; js.src = “https://view.genial.ly/static/embed/embed.js”; ref.parentNode.insertBefore(js, ref); }(document));

ISTElib Webinar
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ISTElib Webinar

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Yesterday I had the pleasure of being part of an ISTE Librarians Network webinar. I presented an introduction to Google Geo tools. Thank you, Donnie Piercey, for your resources. The recorded webinar is below as well as slides. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/EWfmonQA-n0″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_raw_html]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[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Google Sites and Drive Folders
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Google Sites and Drive Folders

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Although I love for students and teachers to improve their search and database skills, sometimes that is not the focus of a given lesson. For these cases, I’ve been experimenting with curating Kentucky Virtual Library and other web resources on our EDhub Hub (school library website). There are so many great publications that have full-text...

Compilation of images from year
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Reflect

I was going through some photos and videos this morning. It really got me thinking. It’s crazy how many things happen at school in just a few months. Sometimes it feels like not much is happening, but these videos help remind me. This hastily compiled compilation are only things that have happened since January, 2018,...