President's Column
|  I'm a believer... Many years ago when I moved to Michigan, I thought it was unique to celebrate March is Reading Month. As a school librarian, why would I want to celebrate reading only in March? Well, of course we support reading all of the time and tout its virtues to parents, children, colleagues and pretty much anyone who will listen. And, we believe it! With so much emphasis on technology, ebooks and the ereaders, sometimes the simple act of reading gets lost in the shuffle. Just before Winter Break, the three middle schools in my district rolled out a Mock Newbery Reading Promotion, simply to encourage reading. This, being the second year, we expanded the program to 6-8th grades. You never know how it will go, but, the reception has far excelled my hopes. When I left on February 17th, the book cart was empty, with students hunting down titles at the Public Library. It was so exciting to see a crowd of students gathered around that cart, talking about how much they enjoyed the books, what they had read, and what they wanted to read next. It was a librarian's dream come true. As quaint as it may sound, just keep reading, you won't be sorry. Sue Lay, MAME President |
From MAME Headquarters
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As many of you have no doubt heard by now, my wife and I will be moving to Mumbai, India this summer where I have taken a school librarian position with the American School of Bombay. I am excited about the opportunity to return to my roots as librarian and teacher after many years involved in administration, though I am also just a little worried because I will actually have to put into practice all the things I have been talking about for years. The American School of Bombay is a high-tech international school with a great reputation. Some Information about the school can be found here: http://www.asbindia.org/
While I am excited to be returning to hands on work as a librarian with students and teachers, I will greatly miss working with MAME as your Executive Director. I would like to say a great big "Thank You" to all the wonderful MAME members who have made our organization a great group to be involved with. While I will miss my involvement in MAME leadership, I am, however, greatly encouraged by the dedicated leadership of the current MAME board, especially the members of the executive board: Sue, Tom, Rachel, Gwenn, Julie, Jeanna, Lynn, and Bruce. As our organization moves forward into a new reality, I am comforted knowing that they will make good decisions about the various options available to us, and will be supported by the MAME membership as a whole. Over the next few months, they will be meeting with the board and with other important partners to explore how best to configure our organization.
I will continue to be involved in MAME in the future in a number of ways, as well as continuing long distance involvement with ISTE and MACUL. I am especially looking forward to benefiting from the MAME listserve, sharing ideas and looking for answers to big and little issues.
My last day as Executive Director of MAME will be June 30, 2012.
Tim Staal, Executive Director
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Region Corner
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 New Region Representative! Welcome Bettina Graber, our newest MAME Board member as Region Rep, covering regions 1, 21, and 22 in the Upper Peninsula.
Gwenn Marchesano VP Regions & SIGS |
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AASL: New Position Statements
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The statement on Flexible Scheduling stresses the role of the school library program as a fully integrated part of the educational program so that students, teachers and school librarians become partners in learning. To be fully integrated, classes need to be flexibly scheduled into the library on an as needed basis to facilitate research, training and utilization of technology with the guidance of the subject specialist, the teacher, and the process specialist, the librarian. Now revised, this position statement integrates the concepts set forth by AASL's learning standards and program guidelines.
The statement on the Role of the School Librarian stresses the crucial role the school library program plays in preparing students to become active, contributing members of the 21st century. The statement not only looks at the role of the library program, but the role of the school librarian as an instructional partner, thus integrating the concepts set forth by AASL's learning standards and program guidelines.
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App of the Month!
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A Word A Day by IMAPP
Android
Free
A Word A Day uses the Merriam-Webster dictionary for word selection and definition. You get the usual: definition, examples of how the word is used in sentences and a bit of history. The extras are nice: downloadable podcast on the word of the day (you can also go backwards to catch words you missed), practice (using Google Voice), translate which actually translates the page with history, etc., and not just the word. I did not see this specific app in iTunes or in the Blackberry app market but both have other word a day apps.
If you would like to suggest a app, please email your idea to: Judy Hauser, judy.hauser@oakland.k12.mi.us .
Any app will be considered whether it is for productivity, utility, or fun.
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Cheers & Tears
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 Susan Pickering reports great news!!
"This has been a big "cheer" in my life and job. I am honored to have been selected to represent the outstanding teachers of Troy as Teacher of the Year in Oakland School's Outstanding Educator program. I am blessed to work with motivated students and staff. It is especially rewarding to be a media specialist and realize that in spite of recent reductions in media specialist positions and program cutbacks in the Troy School District that the school community still embraces and values quality media service and education. I share this award in good part with the nine other TSD media specialists. I am thankful to them for their creativity, collaboration (both vertically and horizontally), counsel, and dedication."
Read the Troy news item about Susan's award here. Also, check out the video here of Susan being surprised with the award while teaching a class. [The video also shows Susan being presented with a free year car lease as part of the award!]
Congratulations to Susan!!!
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 Watch for the Quick Tips column in Booklist Online, by our own MAMEster, Julie Green. Each month, Julie takes one of the Common Core Standards, beginning at elementary, and follows it through to middle school. She chooses 2-3 books for each level and offers up suggestions on how those can be used to implement the standards. Check it out!
Read the first column from February 2012 here and the March 2012 column here.
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 In Plymouth-Canton schools, the latest book reconsideration committee voted to keep Graham Swift's Waterland for use in AP English classes.
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 MAME Member, Cathy Marine, has written a book, No Dead Fish for Ginger! The Story of a Sarasota Bay Dolphin. It is non-fiction for grades 3 - 7. The book is correlated to Sunshine State Standards -- similar to Michigan Science Standards: Grade 3 - water; structures of life; 4 - environments; 5-variables (cause & effect, interaction & dependencies); 6 - ecology; species adaptation and survival; 7 - earth's waters; and of course non-fiction reading & writing at all grades). Reading level is grades 4-5.
Cathy is coming to Michigan in May and will do school presentations in Troy School District and other Detroit area districts. The presentation will be a 45 minute Powerpoint about the Dolphin & Whale Hospital at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota where she volunteers. She will talk about patients (Winter and Panama from Dolphin Tale stayed at Mote while their tank was being renovated); how they use technology to improve their knowledge of sea life, and the importance of oceans to the survival of humankind on earth. Cathy did presentations in Troy in 2009 (before the book!) and the kids loved it. Cathy says you are welcome to contact Troy media specialists for recommendations.
Cathy is available on May 1, 3, 7, 9, 11. If you or someone you know is interested, please have them email Cathy at cjmarinefl@yahoo.com. ____________________________________________________ If you know of an event in a MAME member's life (marriage, birth, death, change in job, award, etc.) that you would like to have included in a future Cheers & Tears section, please forward the information to the Media Matters Editors at:
mediamatters.mame@gmail.com
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| Media Matters! Editor
MAME Executive Director
Database Manager |
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Happy St. Patrick's Day!
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| Happy St. Patrick's Day!
May all our libraries find a wee bit o' the gold at the end of the rainbow! |
Spring Workshop
Please Join Us!! | |
Don't Forget to Sign Up!
MAME Spring Leadership Conference
MAME U
will be held at:
University of Michigan
School of Information
on
Saturday
March 17th
8:30am-3:30pm.
What a great opportunity to collaborate with professionals and have fun doing it. More information is available on the MAME website and there are still openings! Register now at the MAME website: www.mimame.org . |
WANTED:
Media Spectrum
Co-Chairs
and
Column Contributors
| WANTED
Media Spectrum Co-Editors: 1-2 MAME members with journalism interests. Position involves soliciting articles for the Media Spectrum, published twice annually.
WANTED
Column Contributors:
looking for contributors to regular columns in the Media Spectrum.
Please contact: Sue Lay, MAME President |
Fall Conference
MAME 39
Survey
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We hope that you can join MAME in Lansing for the
MAME 39 Fall Conference!
Mark your calendars for
Oct 31 - Nov 2!
MAME 39
Enter Here and Learn
Please take a few minutes to respond to a survey at this
link
regarding topics of interest for the conference which helps us plan for presenters.
Thank You!!
Karen Becknell
Julie Harris
MAME 39 Program Chairs
mame39programs@mimame.org
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Staffing Survey
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Please help MAME collect information about current staffing in Library Media Centers within your school district by responding to our staffing survey.
The survey, located at:
http://tinyurl.com/mediacentersurvey
consists of 12 questions and should take no more than 5 minutes.
Even if you have no school library media centers in your district, it would be helpful to us if you could indicate that and still submit the survey. If you choose to provide an email address, we will send the results of the survey once they are compiled, which you can then share with others in your district regarding school library staffing throughout the state.
Please respond to the survey by April 15, 2012.
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| ALA Elections |
If you are an ALA member, please vote in the ALA elections. Help represent the School Librarian voice. Polls open March 19 and votes must be received by April 27. For more details and candidate biographies visit the AASL election website.
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Upcoming Events
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March 15, 2012
School Libraries Count
Survey Deadline
March 16, 2012
Freedom of Information Day
March 17, 2012
MAME Spring Workshop
MAME U
Ann Arbor, Michigan
UoM School of Information
April 2012
June 22, 2012
Michigan Joint Education Conference
Eastern Michigan Univ
June 21-26, 2012
ALA 2012 Annual Conference
Anaheim, California
June 24-27, 2012
ISTE 2012
San Diego, California
San Diego Convention Center
Oct 31-Nov 2, 2012
MAME Fall Conference
Radisson, Lansing
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| What's on your Mind? | |
What great things are going on in your media center?
Has a journal article or book recently inspired you?
Found a shortcut, great website, new and improved techie tool?
...Or just have a funny story to share?
We love to hear from our readers! | |
Send your newsletter contributions to
Kathy Lester
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| Our Sponsors | Thank you to our
2010/2011 sponsors and vendors!
MEEMIC Insurance
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ABDO Publishing Company
AVI - SPL
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The Book Farm
Books Galore
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Bound to Stay Bound
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Capstone Publishers
Chelsea House
Cornucopia Books
Crabtree Books
Davidson Titles
Facts on File
Fennell Subscription Service
Follett Library Resources
Follett Software
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Garrett Book Company
Gumdrop Books
Heinemann-Raintree
Junior Library Guild
Learn Israel.org
Learn 360
Library of Michigan
Lowry Books
Midwest Collaborative for Libraries
Norwood House Press
Perma-Bound Books
ProQuest
Scholastic Library Group
Scott Electric
Sehi Computer
Usborne Books & More
World Book, Inc.
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Media Matter Archives
| Looking for a previous issue of the MAME Media Matters newsletter?
You can find the archives at the MAME Website Publications Page.
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