Librarians

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**Sweet Search**

SweetSearch is a Search Engine for Students. It searches only Web sites that research experts like librarians and teachers have evaluated and approved.This website, developed by [|**Dulcinea Media**], helps students find credible websites. I know this is only an indirect link to SMART board use, but it is a valuable website that could be used in your classroom. Check out the Sweet Search site **Sweet Search by Content** organized by subject and academic level for students and/or teachers. No kidding, this is good stuff, folks.


 * Meet the Authors - Barnes & Noble **



The bookseller's website has close to one hundred video interviews with today's top writers.


 * Prezi **

Prezi can be an effective tool for teaching students about concepts. See a video created by one librarian.

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**Thinking and Learning Blog**

Read this librarian's blog to gain lots of ideas for ways to engage students in learning. Full of resources and ideas.


 * Digital Book Talk **

Create digital book trailers which are short, two to three minute videos that introduce the basic storyline and in which the story is re-enacted with similar artistic and creative decisions made by a movie director as to what parts of the story are presented in a film he or she is creating. The site also has trailers on books that have already been created that you could use to introduce the book.

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** 12 Expert Google Search Tips **



** Shared from the HubSpot blog, here are some Google Search Tips that can be used to develop a lesson for teaching students proper ways to search Google. A comment left on the blog said you can do a search using a Smart phone by texting 466-45. You will receive a text message back with the top result of the search. **** Another good resource for Google searches is from Google. ** ** Did you know 2/3 of searches world-wide are through Google? **


 * Wordle **

Use Wordle as a way for students to create book ads. For this and other ideas go to the wiki Reading Tech.




 * Animoto **

Animoto allows you to create videos (free version limits you to 30 second videos) to promote books. Here is an example from EducationWeekTeacher's website. Thanks to the author of the article, Patrick Ledesma. Also, check out what he has to say about VoiceThread as a tool for librarians to promote books.

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 * Word of the Day **

Use the widget from WorkNik to embed in your website. This website, WordNik, is a good resource for a different kind of dictionary. Check it out. How is it different? It gives you more than the dictionary and thesaurus features. Read what WordNik says about their site.

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 * **An example sentence**—we have tons of examples and gobs of other data for most words. But even if we've found only one sentence, we'll show it to you. And we'll show you where it came from.
 * **Related words**: not just synonyms and antonyms, but words that are used in the same contexts. //Cheeseburger//, //milkshake//, and //doughnut// aren't synonyms, but they show up in the same kinds of sentences.
 * **Images** tagged by our friends at Flickr: want to know what a //pout// looks like? We'll show you.
 * **Statistics**: how rare is //tintinnabulation//? Well, we think you'll see it only about once a year. //Smile//? You might see that word many times, every day.
 * An **audio pronunciation**—and you can record your own.
 * Something **you** tell us. Use the "Comments" pages to tell us something—anything—about a word.(You have to create an account to contribute to the site)


 * Qwiki **

Qwiki is a new site that brings an innovative twist on video experience. Because the site is new and growing the number of videos is limited right now but they are of high quality screen definition. It is a site worth getting to know and waiting for coming attractions. I like how it is set up. When you choose a video to watch, you are given a list of related videos on the site and links to Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, and Fotopedia with related content. The Contents tab above the video, when clicked on, will provide a still image and brief description of the subject of the video.