Contrary to the trend to do away with arts education as an unnecessary expense in schools trying to boost student test scores, this book promotes and explains the value of integrated arts instruction in furthering the accomplishment of curricular objectives and fostering student achievement. Accomplished library media specialist and arts instructor Kristin Fontichiaro discusses how drama, shadow puppetry, and podcasting can be used as tools to meet curriculum objectives in the K-8 media center. By concentrating on the process of creating a piece of drama or puppetry or a podcast, as opposed to the goal of performance, and by infusing the arts with curriculum objectives in story or research, these techniques can intensify a child's learning and provide context for classroom curriculum objectives. A discussion of the affective and academic benefits of this process-based work as well as sample lessons are included. Photographs and examples of student work illustrate the oechniques. Grades K-8.

Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World provides practical strategies and examples to effectively integrate Web 2.0 tools to support the inquiry process in the school library program and the classroom curriculum. Targeted for school librarians, this book addresses the questions: What is digital literacy? How is learning different in a digital world? And the most important questions, what are the best strategies, resources, and tools to support effective teaching and learning in a digital environment? The first two chapters of the book provide the important context for school librarians: research on student learning behaviors in a digital environment, Web 2.0 background and characteristics, and alignment with the new AASL Standards for the Twenty-first Century Learner and the Stripling Inquiry Process. Grades 4-12.

This edited volume provides insight into how digital badges may enhance formal, non-formal and informal education by focusing on technical design issues including organizational requirements, learning and instructional design, as well as deployment. It features current research exploring the theoretical foundation and empirical evidence of the utilization of digital badges as well as case studies that describe current practices and experiences in the use of digital badges for motivation, learning, and instruction in K-12, higher education, workplace learning, and further education settings.

This book examines the question of why ‘play’ is a happy and benevolent verb in childhood, yet a subjective label of behaviour in adulthood. It studies the transformation of the positively labelled term ‘child’s play’, used to refer to our early years, into an aberrance or deviation from normal social relationships in later life, when we speak of playing up or playing around. It answers the question by proposing play as a theory of learning, an ideology that circumscribes behaviour, and a way of thinking. Written by scholars of early childhood through to further and higher education, the book presents research on play enacted in a way that arches beyond the specificity of age groups or predictive, normative patterns. It is international in its focus, moving beyond insular, inward and parochial educational standards and limitations in one city, province, state or nation. Finally, it demonstrates the value of play to educational policy and theories of learning.

Selected papers from the Journal of Applied Linguistics (Dubai) edited by Hussain Al-Fattah Ahmad

Judy Freeman, author of the Books Kids Will Sit Still For series, gives practical how-to tips on how to tell a story, and write and stage a Reader's Theater script that gets children involved with creative drama. Reader's theater teaches children how to become better listeners, enriches their thinking skills, and encourages their response to literature. Included are ideas on using folk and fairy tales, songs, chants and nonsense rhymes, and a reader's theater script. Also included in this handbook are 400 plus annotated children's books every storyteller should know, 100 great titles for creative drama and reader's theatre and professional books and Web sites for storytelling, creative drama and reader's theater. Grades PreK-6. Judy Freeman, author of the Books Kids Will Sit Still For series, gives personal and practical how-to tips on how to learn and tell a story, how to act out a story using creative drama, and how to write and stage a Reader's Theater script. All are guaranteed to get your children listening, thinking, reading, loving, and living stories with comprehension, fluency, expression, and joy. Once Upon a Time pulls together a wealth of ideas, activities, and strategies for using folk and fairy tales, songs, chants, and nonsense rhymes. Also included in this handbook are the texts of 10 of Judy's favorite stories you can read today and tell tomorrow; a songbook of songs, chants, and nonsense rhymes; and a Reader's Theater script. You'll also find annotated bibliographies: 400+ children's books every storyteller should know; 100+ great children's books to use for creative drama and Reader's Theater; professional books and Web sites for storytelling, creative drama, and Reader's Theater; and a title and author index. Chapters include: ; Getting Started with Storytelling ; Judy Freeman's Songbook: Including Songs, Chants, Riddles, and Plenty of Nonsense ; Judy Freeman's Storybook: Tales You can Hear Today and Tell Tomorrow ; 400+ Children's Books Every Storyteller Should Know ; Getting Started with Creative Drama and Reader's Theater ; 100+ Children's Books Just Right for Creative Drama and/or Reader's Theater

This practical guide clarifies why school librarians need to be part of the professional development process in their schools—and shows just how to achieve that goal. To remain gainfully employed, today's school librarian has to be a leader in the school. To that end, Adult Learners: Professional Development and the School Librarian encourages librarians to become instrumental in providing professional development to teachers and staff. The book begins by explaining why librarians should participate in designing and presenting professional development, then goes on to provide tips, examples, and a complete model for doing this based on system used at the author's school. Readers will discover how to determine what is practical and how to turn ideas into actions, whether they want to implement a major initiative or start with something small. Most important, this book details how to become part of the professional development team in ways that are both relevant and meaningful to the teachers and staff involved. When these stakeholders understand what the librarian knows and how they can benefit, the librarian's sphere of influence will be expanded—and a job just might be saved.

Eman Safadi & Ghaleb Rababah (1 - 38); Johanna Ennser-Kananen (39 - 66); Sedat Maden (67 - 86); Jiin-Yih Yeo & Su-Hie Ting (87 - 106); Yesim Papers in this issue by Bektas-Cetinkaya (107 - 122); Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan (123 - 136); Kellie Rolstad, Jeff MacSwan & Kate S. Mahoney (137 - 150); Forough Rahimi (151 - 154); Servet Celik & Mustafa Kerem Kobul (155 - 157)

Presenting examples of school librarians leading professional learning in numerous contexts and for diverse learning goals with remarkable success, this book will inspire other practitioners to initiate and refine professional learning in their schools and districts. School administrators are recognizing that school librarians are ideal to lead professional development because they service the entire school network, from the students and faculty to families and the community. As a national downturn in educational funding is diminishing districts' ability to optimally staff libraries, investing energy in professional development is a sound strategy to bring information literacy skills to every student—especially in buildings with part-time librarians, or districts with only a single librarian of record. Growing Schools: Librarians as Professional Developers stands apart from other works as the first book that directly addresses the potential role of the school librarian as a staff developer. Within the chapters, the authors relate their professional development journeys, collectively representing experience within K–12 public and private institutions, district and regional units, and universities across the United States and Canada. The work provides various approaches to professional development with a range of processes and techniques that have been proven effective in different contexts and in achieving diverse learning goals. Practitioners at the building and district levels as well as school principals, state and district personnel, and library educators will find this book insightful and instructive.

This introduction of Web 2.0 tools is written for parents who want to understand how their children are using today's Internet, both in school and in their social lives. For parents who want to raise their comfort level with today's Web capabilities, for those who want to enhance their children's Internet usage in and out of school, and for those who want to be prepared for potential dark alleys in the online world, The Web and Parents: Are You Tech Savvy? is a welcome new resource. Don't know a blog from a Wiki? MySpace from Facebook? An RSS feed from an instant message? The Web and Parents provides a brief introduction to these and other aspects of Web 2.0, including podcasts, forums, graphic generators, photo storage and file-sharing sites, and more. Parents will get a sense of what each tool or resource does, how they themselves might use them—lots of grownups do, really—and the role each plays in current K-12 education and in the lives of school-age children. With this crash course on today's Internet, the Web becomes a place where families come together, not drift apart.