Good Information!

Librarians are the guardians of information in our society. Do you have a question? Talk to your librarian. He or she may not know the right answer but they sure do know where to start looking for it. If you are a teacher or a student, obviously you go to your school media specialist. Just like the librarian at your local neighborhood branch library, your school media specialist has many resources at his or her disposal that will yield up the answer you are looking for.

As information specialists, librarians are in the business of identifying and using current high quality information resources in both print and electronic formats. Recently, the American Association of School Librarians released their list of Landmark Websites for Teaching and Learning. The websites that made this list have “exemplary histories of authoritative, dynamic content and curricular relevance. They are free, web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover and provide a foundation to support 21st-century teaching and learning.”

Among this list is PBS Teachers. PBS Teachers is noted for their standards-based and cross-curricular resources that connect to both on-air and online PBS programming.

Visit PBS Teachers now and be ready for a new school year!

- Diane

Make Learning Active and Fun

Every teacher worth his or her salt knows that the best way to make sure students really grasp a concept or master a skill is to actively involve them in the learning experience. If students are left to sit still and listen, their minds are likely to become as inactive as their bodies. If they talk and move and experiment with ideas during the learning experience, their minds often move as quickly as their bodies.

PBS Teachers know that too. So they’ve created a collection of interactive SMART Board games on PBS Kids that you can use in your classroom with pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students. The collection includes interactive games in language arts, math, social studies, science and the arts. All of the games include bright graphics that can be manipulated with simple mouse clicks and audio clips that help guide students through the activities. Every game encourages students to experiment and provides feedback that lets them know how they are doing.

Before school starts, visit PBS Teachers and play some of these games yourself. Have fun and think about how you can help your students learn while they have fun with these games too.

- Diane