I was apparently under the false impression that advertisers paid for the ads placed in the newspaper. But I got the following email today that makes me think I've been misinformed all these years. On Thanksgiving Day, we will deliver to you the biggest newspaper of the year! As always, it is loaded with information you can use and valuable advertising to get your holiday season off to the right start. Because of its sheer size, the Thanksgiving Day newspaper is one of the most expensive to produce and difficult to distribute. And many of our carriers must use additional help to complete deliveries in a timely manner. Effective this year, we will charge a premium rate of $2.00 for the Thanksgiving Day newspaper. This charge will be debited to your newspaper account on Thanksgiving Day. The small increase in the rate for the Thanksgiving Day newspaper will result in a slightly earlier expiration date for your current subscription term. We hope you can appreciate the value of the Th...

When I first walked into the C. C. Griffin Media Center, I was absolutely floored by the amount of space it had. It was big. It was light. It was beautiful. Space is a tricky thing, however! A lot of space doesn’t automatically equal good flow and work space. As I watched students and classes move around and work in the media center, I started thinking of a plan - not a radical plan, but a plan that would allow for better flow in the areas used most often and for classes to not feel cramped in certain sections. This is the view from the front. While you can’t see much, you can get the feel for the place as well as its size. The library was divided into three sections by double-sided, chest-high bookcases on wheels. One fourth of the library was fiction, one fourth of the library was nonfiction and one half of the library was reference. Each section had about eight tables with chairs. The fiction section had the most books and reference definitely had the least, so there was a bit of an...

A few copyright highlights: Portions of copyrighted material may be used with proper credit and citations. This may just be a title and a link, but if copyrighted material is used, it must be credited. Consider creating and using a personal fair use statement to include at the beginning of any and all materials that include copyrighted materials. Fair use ends if you put something on the internet with unlimited access. You cannot claim fair use on an unsecured site. Examples of fair use (with proper credit given): Text – 10% or 1000 words – whichever is less. Poetry – Up to 250 words of a poem. No more than 5 poems altogether. No more than 3 poems from a single poet. TV Shows – You should have made the tape yourself. Someone else can make it, but it can’t be a copy of a copy of a copy. It must be shown in a classroom/instructional setting. It has to be from a public TV station – ABC, NBC, etc. Cable channels do not count. Video must be shown within 10 days of taping. Video must be dest...

I expanded it to a booklet ;)

  Shepherd: Instead of Mandatory Standards for All . Short post (and would someone please listen to him!):   Robert D. Shepherd answers a fundamental question about the Common Core: “Question: What should we have instead of a single set of mandatory standards for all? “Answer: Competing, voluntary standards that can serve as guidelines to be followed, or not, by independent, site-managed schools in which teachers make their own decisions about what should be taught, when, and to whom.”

We've got more than a few new teachers this year and I wanted something to put in their hands. Here's my effort. Not sure if it's finished or not - probably though since my next is to work on one for the students and one for Destiny. My extension isn't on it because I could not for the life of me remember it :/ Library| Media Center Teacher Guide

Vol.#37: The NC News Target | Teaching Speaks Volumes . So does Erica. I didn't start reading Erica for her NC political updates but I'm glad she writes it so I can read it. Wear red on Wednesdays for solidarity please.