Evernote for Teachers

(hat tip to Educational Technology Guy for this one!)

I've read about Evernote and it's been on my list of things to try for some time now.  For someone like me who is constantly bookmarking sites, clipping articles and just randomly storing bits of knowledge, this FREE service is a God-send!  Evernote allows you to save workspaces from your PC, Smartphone or through their website.  You can access these notes from the same items as well.  So if I'm on a field trip with students and want to take notes, I can do so on my cell phone and then access them from the computer back at school to make quizzes or such.  I've also used the site to bookmark favorite crafts that I'd like to try with my son someday.  I am also trying to explore using this for lesson planning to keep resources together.  I'm still playing around with it, but know that its worth a look at for you too!

Black History Month Resources

February is Black History Month and many schools have various celebrations to honor the achievements and contributions of African Americans.  One of my goals is to broaden students' perspectives when it comes to Black History Month.  Many students default to certain well known figures.  I encourage them to study lesser known figures to widen their knowledge base.  How about Elijah McCoy (from whom we get the term "the real McCoy)?  There are a number of great resources out there, here are just a few of them:

(image from africaontheblog.com)

Biography.com has a section devoted to biographies of historic African Americans here.

Library of Congress' website is geared more towards advanced readers.

Garden of Praise has many biographies for kids, including many African Americans.

History.com's Black History Month page is here.

Infoplease has many resources that I have used and modified for different ages.

Be a Beam, not a wall...

If you don't know who Shelly Terrell is, you SHOULD!  She is the queen of Twitter and quite the inspiration!  She is the creator of the 30 Goals, a program that aims to achieve 30 small goals over the course of February and March.  I love this idea simply because small steps can truly lead to great change.  You don't need to move the mountain in one day; take it one bucket at a time...
Today's goal was to be a beam: support someone in a hidden way.  Just as a beam supports a structure internally and is not "out there" for all to see, we as teachers, librarians and education professionals need to be that beam for each other.  Let's face it, education right now is a hot topic and fingers are constantly being pointed (many times at us!).  If we are just isolating ourselves, we are adding to that conflict.  By working together, we can prove to the outsiders (politicians, talking heads, etc.) that we are a community that is about building up, not tearing down.  We strive to build up our students, communities and each other.
So my offer as a beam is to share with you the resources I've found and some of my thoughts on this blog.  With that in mind, I decided to share a "therapeutic" website with you today.  For those moments that you just need to clear your head, try this.  It will help relieve some stress and hopefully give you that moment you need to organize your thoughts....