New Media Display OR....Ms. Jones is a Goofball

so, like you already knew that, right? but i'm telling you i haven't been THIS happy about a piece of media furniture in a long time!

look at it~ it's a pyramid!.....a pyramid of NEW BOOKS! OoooohAhhhhh! Booky goodness!

a rolling display where we can show you the new books or books around a certain theme.... its' gorgeous!


we also got a new display to house our ever growing collection of audio books on CD's and Playaways for our Audio Books to Go! program which i've blogged about before....

Our new Audio Book display unit!
SWEET!!!!

READ this Book! Digital Dares and Graveyards!

my friend, Adam Yeargin - Library Media Specialist from Bonnie Branch Middle School sent me this email!....

Little Brother

“A wonderful, important book…I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year, and I’d want to get it into the hands of as many smart thirteen-year-olds, male and female, as I can. Because I think it’ll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won’t be the same after they’ve read it. Maybe they’ll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it’ll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they’ll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they’ll want to open their computer and see what’s in there. I don’t know. It made me want to be thirteen again right now, and reading it for the first time.”

—Neil Gaiman, author of Sandman and American Gods on Little Brother"

i won't say when he sent this to me [coughAugustcough] so, i'm ordering it along with the Newberry Award Winning Book: Speaking of Neil Gaiman.....

"It takes a graveyard to raise a child. My favorite thing about this book was watching Bod grow up in his fine crumbly graveyard with his dead and living friends. The Graveyard Book is another surprising and terrific book from Neil Gaiman."
-- Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife

FINALLY a Newberry book i can actually get behind....i am SO gosh darn tempted to RANT about how i view the Newberry Awards and the Oscar Awards...sappy dramatic books/movies where someone has to get cancer or die....never something uplifting, exciting, or spooky!
But YAY! The Graveyard book is ALL that and a bag of bones....so adding to my Amazon.com cart is that book plus that Little Brother book...and not to be outdone by Adam back at ya, man!

READ THESE BOOKS!~ (trying to be artsy in my digi pics...don't snarf!)

The Steampunk (and geek) in me Loves
Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction

"Bottom Line:This admirable and unique source demonstrates on nearly every page the surprising extent to which the language of science fiction has entered everyday English-terms and concepts such as beam me up, cyberspace, downtime, gateway, morph, newspeak, robot, and space cadet. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries with an interest in science fiction."--Library Journal

and

Aliens Are Coming!: The True Account Of The 1938 War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast

"In this picture-book account of the 1938 broadcast of Orson Welles's adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel, the author employs several creative methods to transport readers back to the heyday of radio. She leads into the story with a punchy introduction to the period, which is delivered in the form of a speech bubble by a smiling radio announcer. From there, black-and-white illustrations depict a family listening to an ordinary broadcast, which is interrupted by reports of an alien invasion. For the rest of the book, events described on the radio appear in lurid color illustrations reminiscent of old science-fiction magazines, while events in the real world remain in black and white. Excerpts from the actual radio play describe a vicious extraterrestrial attack, while the text describes the pandemonium ensuing outside the radio station and across the country. In the end, McCarthy reveals that the invasion was just a story, and an author's note gives a more detailed account of the play's creation and broadcast. In the spirit of the original, the author does not reveal the fact that the broadcast was actually a play until the end. This conceit would make the book a great read-aloud to introduce a unit on the 1930s. The interplay between the text of the play and the author's description of actual events is effective, and the illustrations are exaggerated and funny. A unique treatment of a fascinating topic, and sure to have wide appeal."

-Rachael Vilmar, Atlanta Fulton Public Library, GA

Take That, Mr. Yeargin!!! What?! You got anything ELSE to share~??? Bring it~!


LOL Murray Hill Rules!

Diary of Anne Frank: Holocaust Research

GT English Classes are reading the Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl and are doing Big 6 research to find the causes of the Holocaust and what it was like to live through it as a teenager.

Of course it's alarming when people don't know *anything* about the Holocaust or even worse, deny its existence.



The Pope yesterday released that he "Strongly Condemns Holocaust Deniers"



Isn't it amazing after 64 years and countess eyewitness accounts, books, and testimonies there are still people who deny that the genocide even existed?! This is something that i think our kids need to face...to get a proper perspective on the historical facts of the events that led up to the amazing piece of prose that is the Diary of a Young. What do young people already know about the Holocaust..??
Here is an MTV short about what Teens know about the Holocaust



Here's an interesting video about Anne Frank as a Writer

Out of the Dust: The Great Depression Research

Miss Cullison's and Mrs. Jett's 6th grade English classes came in to do Big 6 research on the great depression...enjoy our wiki page we made to go with it and these cool videos we found on TeacherTube.









A slideshow on The Dust Bowl from Long Beach Middle School, United States


The Great Depression Rap: Highlands High School Mr. Polcha's class

Digital Storytelling with Dale Jarvis!

last year we were so fortunate to team with a Canadian published author Mr. Dale Jarvis who worked with us and our 6th grade English team to bring our kids digital storytelling through the unit Many Voices, Many Stories, & Many Lands! & this year we want to do it again!...but i wanted to share with you a NEW story by Mr. Jarvis..and one done in such a neat way it makes me itch to try this with our kids! please to enjoy!
The Isle of Skye - a Ghost Story: A traditional tale of a ghostly ship from Holyrood, Conception Bay, Newfoundland, Canada, told by storyteller Dale Jarvis, and adapted from his book.


more on storytelling later this spring when we might just participate in the World Storytelling Day...if testing doesn't get in the way!

Buying New Books & Stuff

i know, i know....i haven't blogged lately... we've been busy with our annual book and equipment order! every year when we buy new books we put out a notice to all of our teachers....asking "what do you want?" we also...and this is the most important!! ask the kids "what do you want?" our suggestion bus on the circulation desk gets full of student requests...also, when any kid asks for a book and we don't have it... i immediatley check to see if any *other* HCPSS middle school has it and if they do...we add that to the list! in case you're wondering, we place the following list as priority for purchasing:

1. kids requests (they are our #1 customers!)
   
2. teacher requests (we want them to have what they want & need for instruction)
   
3. best of the year lists (a good place to start!)
   
4. award winning books (always good to have those award winners!)
   
5. GT book club books (always a great list of books!)
   
6. great reviews in School Library Journal (the latest and the best reviewed!)
   

Mrs. Black pours over all these and i add in my 2 cents then we look at the needs of our collection, filling in what we have weeded or where we see areas that need to be built up and we place our order! YAY!!!! then when the order comes in we see what we got! it's like a holiday in the Media Center!! we usually keep all the NEW books on a cart for students to get to them right away....i also invite the teachers over to see that what they asked for we have now! and anything we wanted that we didn't get goes into the file for next year! we love technology....we do!!!
but man..oh man...we still LOVE love love and so <3 our books!!!

we've also been busy buying for our school super cool new LCD projectors, document cameras, and other AV items that are an important part to our multi-media technology infused classroom. we wish we could get everything for every classroom!...if only we had the $$ for that, but we do the best that we can!
~Ms. Jones & Ms. Black

MHTV Class of 2000 STAR Talks TV & More!!

i am so blessed to work with such great kids! year in and year out i get to know them and sometimes they come back to visit and even email! i recently got an email from a former MHMS student and MHTV crew member who updated me on her life. WOW!
LeKesha Lewis was one of those kids who was VERY involved and pitched in to learn and help wherever she could! i have some great memories of her...what a great kid!
here are some excerpts from her and my emails back and forth and pics of her all grown up~!

"Hi Mrs Jones!!!

How is everything? I wish I still lived in the area so I could come and visit.
I can't say I expect you to remember me, but I was one of your kids from the Murray Hill's class of 2000. I got a little nostalgic and Googled MHMS and wondered if you had any more pictures from MHTV 99-2000. I'd love to be able to see if I can remember anyone

Thanks so much!

LeKesha Lewis

and my reply was:

"AWww you're gorgeous!!
i'm so happy to hear from you and see what an outstanding, smart, accomplished and AWEsome person you stayed! (cause you always WERE!) and got even better growing up! i'm SO proud of you!! congrats baby!
~gwyneth"
(and yes MHMS kids, when you turn 18 & graduate HS you can call me gwyneth, too! LOL)

and hers:

"Well, I'm an event planner in DC and I will be graduating from UVA next summer (Architecture major, minor in Japanese language). You can imagine how gas prices have been murdering me between Charlottesville, VA and DC. I will also be getting married May 22nd 2010 to this absolutely amazing guy. He's a teacher and mixed martial arts instructor. We'll be opening an MMA school in the DC area in a few years.
The black and white picture is of me and my best friend Chelsea. The second one is me in an awesome leather mask at a Renaissance festival last year, and the third picture is of Dave and I at a John Mayer concert at Merriweather in July.

thanks so much for the link and i'll be in touch with wedding invitations as soon as I start sending them."

i then asked her...since we're doing MHTV apps this week to write a little something about her experiences on the show and how it helped her in her school career and life! and if i could post these, show her super cute pic and quote her.... here's her answer!

"I LOVED MHTV. When I got to Long Reach I was on their TV crew as well. In 12th grade I became Director of LRTV, composed the Senior Video (much like the experience I had doing the 8th grade slide show!) and I was the greeting speaker at our graduation. I was in the Visual Communications practicum at LRHS as well and MHTV definitely helped me as far as developing that all-important sense of teamwork and basic understandings of visual artforms and technology. That, of course, led me into my major in Architecture, so in a way all the magic started in MHTV!
THe TV studio became something of a haven for me. It was a creative outlet and often got me out of class. ;) There was always something new to learn. It was especially rewarding to be able to go to bed at night, then get up in the morning and have an idea for a new segment or way to run the show, and have the support system there that is willing to develop your ideas. Everyone had an important role in creating a successful and unique show everyday. Anchoring helped build my confidendce in public speaking (and I do a LOT of that), and camera work and research prepared me for team-leading and directing. Its definitely a uique experience that not a lot of people especially at that age, can say that they have.

I definitely miss it!

You can totally use my picture. I think it would be an honor to help get kids interested in one of the principle programs that made me so happy as a kid and played a role in defining what I do with my career."

So see? being part of the MHTV crew helps in SO many ways that you will later see...and if nothign else it may get you out of class....wait! Mr. D! i'm just kidding about that part!!!
and let me say it again....i'm so proud of you LeKesha!

~Miss Jones