Canandaigua Academy Library

AASL announces inaugural best Web sites for teaching and learning

CHICAGO – The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announces a new resource for school library media specialists and their teacher colleagues. The Best Websites for Teaching and Learning, a list honoring the top 25 Internet sites for enhancing learning and curriculum development, is considered the “best of the best” by AASL.

The Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. “The task force worked very hard to target websites that support learner-centered, inquiry-based curriculum. In the hands of knowledgeable educators, these innovative and versatile Web 2.0 tools and resources can be used to engage and motivate students in the learning process and to develop 21st century skills,” said AASL Best List Task Force Chair, Pam Berger.

All sites are free, Web-based sites that are user-friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. They also provide a foundation to support AASL’s “Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.” Valuable information on each site, including tips for effective classroom use, are available at www.ala.org/aasl/bestlist. 

The Top 25 offer tools and resources in organizing and managing; content collaboration; curriculum sharing; media sharing; virtual environments; and social networking and communication. Each Web site is linked to one or more of the four strands of the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner – skills, dispositions in action, responsibilities and self-assessment strategies. The list will be updated annually based on feedback and nominations from members.

From the CCSD Home Page:

“The Canandaigua City School District has won a $752,400 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to fully fund installation of a 50 kW wind generator to provide electrical energy at Canandaigua Academy. District consultants estimate the wind generator has the potential to replace 292,000 kilowatt hours of Canandaigua Academy’s annual energy consumption, yielding an anticipated cost avoidance of $28,235 per year over the unit’s 30-year design life. Preliminary NYSERDA estimates are even higher, $32,210 annually. The installation will also serve as a unique educational model for District students.

“This is very exciting news for the Academy and the school district,” says Superintendent of Schools Don Raw. “Not only will taxpayers benefit from a cost reduction utilizing alternative energy sources, but students will be able to study the machine directly and analyze data regarding energy produced and energy used. The ‘windmill’ will also be a daily reminder of our school district’s commitment to renewable energy and the importance of alternative energy in our country’s economic and political dialogue.”

Approved project details include:

• Installation of a wind generator rated 50kW, 480V, 3-phase, 4-pole, 60 Hz.
• Installation of an appropriate feeder circuit from the wind generator to the Academy’s main power distribution switchboard, connected through a new switchboard circuit breaker.
• Installation of a demonstration kiosk in the Academy to display energy produced by the generator for student, faculty, and visitor use.
• Creation of a public access website, linked to the school district’s site, displaying the same information as at the demonstration kiosk.

Engineering details, final product design, and placement at the Academy site are still to be determined. “We will work with the Canandaigua community and neighborhood residents to make certain that this is a project to be proud of,” says Superintendent Raw. No timeline for bid procedures or construction has yet been established.

The project is one of just 24 approved for public K-12 schools statewide through a competitive process governed by NYSERDA. 87 projects (out of 427 submissions) were approved, totaling approximately $24 million. Funds for these projects are from the federal American Recovery & Reinvestment Act”

Canandaigua Academy’s student newspaper The Cannon came home with the biggest prize from the Empire State School Press Association’s 72nd annual conference in Syracuse on October 23, 2009. The Cannon earned three top prizes: the Gold/All New York Award for Best All-Around Newspaper Publication, Best Online Publication, and for Service to School. It also earned a Silver Award for Layout and Typography Portfolio.

Individual awards went to:

Haley Blanchette (CA Class of ’09) – Gold Award – Feature Photograph
Tommy White (’09) – Silver Award – Editorial
Haley Blanchette: Silver Award – Feature Story
Tommy White: Silver Award – Special Topic/Event Coverage
Mary Hydar (’09): Bronze Award – Sports Feature
Gannon Osborne(’10): Bronze Award – Sports Feature
Zach Dallmeyer-Drennen (’09): Honorable Mention – Editorial
Zach Dallmeyer-Drennen & Haley Blanchette: Honorable Mention – Editorial Page Design
Zach Dallmeyer-Drennen & Skylar Dallmeyer-Drennen (’10): Honorable Mention – Editorial Page Design

Congratulations to all the students involved with The Cannon, and to Cannon Advisor Todd Feldman for a wonderful accomplishment!

The Cannon Website

This post is reprinted from the Canandaigua City School District website.

Here is another selection of titles that have a limited preview available at Google Books (see my earlier post). BTW, all of these are available in the CA Library collection (of course!)

Hush: An Irish Princess’  Tale by Donna Jo Napoli — Fifteen-year-old Melkorka, an Irish princess, is kidnapped by Russian slave traders and not only learns how to survive but to challenge some of the brutality of her captors, who are fascinated by her apparent muteness and the possibility that she is enchanted.

How To Build A House by Dana Reinhardt — Seventeen-year-old Harper Evans hopes to escape the effects of her father’s divorce on her family and friendships by volunteering her summer to build a house in a small Tennessee town devastated by a tornado.

Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt — Fourteen-year-old Henry, wishing to honor his brother Franklin’s dying wish, sets out to hike Maine’s Mount Katahdin with his best friend and dog. But fate adds another companion–the Cambodian refugee accused of fatally injuring Franklin–and reveals troubles that predate the accident.

Black Box by Julie Schumacher — When her sixteen-year-old sister is hospitalized for depression and her parents want to keep it a secret, fourteen-year-old Elena tries to cope with her own anxiety and feelings of guilt that she is determined to conceal from outsiders.

Antsy Does Time by Neal Shusterman — Fourteen-year-old Anthony “Antsy” Bonano learns about life, death, and a lot more when he tries to help a friend with a terminal illness feel hopeful about the future.

Ghost Medicine by Andrew Smith — Still mourning the recent death of his mother, seventeen-year-old Troy Stotts relates the events of the previous year when he and his two closest friends try to retaliate against the sheriff’s son, who has been bullying them for years.

Climbing The Stairs by Padma Venkatraman — In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with her father’s extended family and become accustomed to a totally different way of life.

After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson — In the New York City borough of Queens in 1996, three girls bond over their shared love of Tupac Shakur’s music, as together they try to make sense of the unpredictable world in which they live.

What The World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio — A photographic collection exploring what the world eats featuring portraits of twenty-five families from twenty-one countries surrounded by a week’s worth of food.

FreeRice is a quiz game site that enables you to make a difference by contributing to hunger relief efforts in third world countries… simply by answering questions! Answer multiple questions in English, Geography, Chemistry, Foreign Languages, Art and Math — for every question you get right, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program.

Although 10 grains of rice may not seem like a lot, users of the site helped contribute over 61 MILLION grains IN ONE DAY yesterday, and over 68 BILLION grains to date. That’s a lot of food, just by answering some questions. You can answer as many questions as you’d like, as often as you’d like.

The rice is paid for by the sponsors displayed at the bottom of the screen when you answer questions correctly, so consider supporting them as well.

Visit FreeRice today and help contribute to hunger relief efforts worldwide. And tell your friends!