Monday by the Numbers
October 13, 2008
5 Sources for Free and Legal Images -If you blog or use any sort of photography in your presentations, you might want to start thinking about making sure those photos and images are legal for you to use. If you want to skip that step, try using one of these five sources from The Blog Herald. The best part is that they are free, so you won’t have to dole out any hard-earned cash, and you’ll still feel fine about using the images copyright free. Of course, there is always Creative Commons Flickr if all else fails.
Classroom Survival Kit: 25 Items You Need to Have on Hand In Your Classroom – From TeachingChildren.ca, this list includes all of the essentials for teachers, not necessarily students. Though some of the items sound more like things you might need if you were going to commit a crime (tool box, dice, metal nail file, duct tape), most of the items here are crucially handy to have around. I personally would have never thought of keeping “thank you” cards around until the last minute, but I guess preparation helps.
11 Things You Shouldn’t Leave for School Without- This article from Dumb Little Man is meant for the college-bound, and it is never too early for seniors to start thinking about preparing themselves for success. These are all online resources, so if nothing else, sites like Ottobib.com — an online bibliography — provide resources students of all ages can use.
10 Quick Lesson Ideas for Substitute Teachers – Substitutes have it tough. My own mother substitute taught many classes in my school system, and though she had it pretty easy because many people loved her, most other subs didn’t top the list of people students respected. These tips from Work Sheet Library should come in handy for any subs out there who might otherwise spend their whole day asking students to “settle down.” My favorite on the list: magic tricks. Nobody can make fun of a substitute teacher who does magic tricks…right? -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
Photo credit: curly_exp(l)osure on Flickr
The folks at the Internet Public Library know what every good public librarian knows: Teens need their own space. Teens are loud and opinionated, and they need to be convinced that hanging out in the library is worth their time. While the volume element isn’t such an issue in the virtual world, the second part (seeming hip and relevant) certainly is. The Internet Public Library (IPL) provides a virtual space for teens — 
Millions of children (and adults!) have enjoyed the classic children’s book of Eric Carle at home, in the library, and at school. The author and illustrator 
We all know games are fun, but can they be used for learning? In a word, “YES!”
The Library of Congress is an impressively gigantic organization. It occupies three large buildings on Capitol Hill. It contains more than 138 million items in its collection. It holds materials in 470 languages. And the Librarian of Congress has the very librarian-ish name James H. Billington. Impressive!
The summer movie season is in full swing. For a lot of your students, the last thing they’re thinking about right now is reading books. It may be too late to reach them this summer, but when they return you’ll definitely want to point them toward 
Sure, your phone plays music, surfs the Web, sends email, and has GPS capability (and you can, you know, talk to people with it, too). That stuff is cool, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what these handheld powerhouses can do. Now, with one simple download, you can give your phone some extra power you can use in the classroom thanks to 
Welcome to the Carnival of Education Career Fair! We’ve retracted the bleachers and set up the booths on the gymnasium floor so these brave teachers can see what they might be doing if they weren’t teaching (perish the thought).
As if you don’t already have a tough time getting students to read, schools keep banning the books kids actually like. Young adult literature is a frequently challenged genre, probably due to the fact that the teenaged protagonists often act like, you know, teenagers.
When I was in library school, professors talked about a widespread fear of librarians among the general populace. Library users have questions, my professors said, but in many cases are too afraid to ask them. Huh. I looked around at my fellow librarians-to-be, mystified. As a group, librarians are the least intimidating, most approachable people I know. We like comic books, cats, and vigorous games of four-square.
Welcome to your romantic and eerily educentric Valentine’s Day date. But will it end in love, tears, or possibly food poisoning from an undercooked Valentine’s dinner? These kind educators were gracious enough to share their Valentine’s Day experiences:
Teaching Latin? The Classics? Shakespeare? Turn-of-the-century American history? If you are, you’ll find a dizzying array of resources under one virtual roof at Tufts University’s 
