Olympians are Here!

 Two Olympians Make Their Appearance at New Lisbon Schools Today!


Casey FitzRandolph, a Wisconsin native, was the speedskating Gold medalist at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. Casey was inspired by fellow Wisconsinite Eric Heiden's drive for five gold speedskating medals in the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics. At age 4, Casey strapped on his first set of skates and began his competitive journey into history. You can learn more about Casey by visiting his website, CaseyFitz.com

Suzy Favor Hamilton was born and raised in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. She won 11 state titles in high school and was named one of the top 100 high school athletes of the century. Suzy became the winningest female collegiate athlete ever at University of Wisconsin, winning nine NCAA championships, the Honda Broderick Cup as the nation's top female collegiate athlete and Big Ten Athlete of the Decade for the '90s. Suzy is a three-time Olympian and the holder of seven U.S. National Championships, and she has run sub-4 in the 1500m five times, with a personal best of 3:57.40. Suzy now lives, runs and enjoys life with her family in Madison, Wisconsin. To learn more about Suzy, visit her website at www.suzyfavorhamilton.com

Kids Bookshelf

The goal is to encourage parents and caregivers to help children discover the enjoyment of reading. To encourage creativity and imagination in children through reading, writing, and drawing. This site is produced and published by a dedicated mom and children's literature lover. Click here.

Sites for Teachers

Looking for a website with hundreds of resources? Look no further and check this out. Click here.

Kindle Overtakes Paperbacks

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- OK, bookworms, now you can declare Armageddon: Kindle e-books have overtaken paperback books as the bestselling type of content in Amazon's bookstore.

Amazon made waves when it announced in July that Kindle content was outselling hardcover books. But industry analysts quickly dismissed that milestone, pointing out that paperback books sell far more copies than pricier hardcovers. Read more.

Lexile

Lexile.com provides free lexile scores for your students. This concept was mentioned at the Inservice Day on Monday. To watch an instructional video about lexile scores, click here.

Digital Storytelling

Ever wonder where to go to find a FREE resource for your students to create their own digital story?

Top 10 sites for Digital Storytelling
Digital Films - Quite simply one of the best digital storytelling sites around. This site is very user friendly w/ an iMovie HD feel and great for beginners!!
Myths & Legends - Excellent site for storytelling, can add characters, backgrounds, objects, etc. and great for education w/ an educational instance/portal.
Xtranormal - Very popular/fun site for digital storytelling. A very easy to use site where text is all that is needed to create an original story.
My StoryMaker - Great site for young readers to create a cartoon looking story.
Storybird - An excellent site for creating pictures books for storytelling.
Primary Access - Is a wonderful site for creating digital stories using historical stock footage.
Google Search Stories - A very easy site to use by selecting stock video/audio to create a digital story.
Zimmer Twins - A fun site where users select cartoon footage to create their very own digital story.
Zooburst - Is a brand new site for creating 3D/pop-up stories. A user can either upload their own image or use stock photos. Hopefully, audio/video integration will be coming soon!
Stage'D - A very impressive visual site where users choose their characters, backgrounds, and items to create their very own computer generated story.

Also suggested:

50 web 2.0 ways to tell a story
Story Ideas:
Story Media:
50 Tools:
50 Domino Stories:
ToonDoo
GoAnimate

The Wii is Coming!

You read it here first! Wii is coming to New Lisbon classrooms!  Mrs. Jensen and I have joined forces and through the donation of Scholastic Book Fair proceeds and library funds, two complete Wii systems will be purchased for check out for classrooms. Numerous educational games have been purchased. To learn more about how Wii can enhance your teaching, visit the IMC News wiki and page about Wiis in the Classroom.

What Should I Read Next?

Enter a book you like and the site will analyze our database of real readers' favorite books (more than 75,000 different titles so far, and more than a
million reader recommendations) to suggest what you could read next.

 Check it out for yourself here.

Khan Academy

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Here's your source for virtually any math lesson your could imagine.

Spin and Spell

Looking for an interactive site for your students to have fun learning how to spell? This could be just the ticket! Student click on topic and spin the wheel for each letter of the word.

Spin & Spell

Will iPads Replace Textbooks?

Bringing Digital Reading to the Bus

(CNN) -- When online media first arose, one of the common complaints about it was that it wasn't very portable. Unlike books or magazines, you couldn't easily read your desktop or laptop on the bus or in the bathroom.
But mobile digital media hold the promise of a return to convenient portable reading. And new statistics from the popular online reading list service ReadItLater indicate that mobile devices are not only changing where people are reading but when.
ReadItLater is a free service that allows internet users to save the full text of articles and other content they encounter online on a personal reading list. It then displays this content in a format that's very friendly to mobile devices. Read more.

iPad Reading Could Cut Into TV Time?

The iPad is changing how folks read stuff online -- no surprise if you think how different a gizmo it is to a PC.
But a new study shows it's moving online reading into primetime TV hours, which is big news. Is evening reading coming back, just in a digital style?
The study comes from internal data acquired by ReadItLater, a web service that lets users bookmark web content for perusal at a different time. For more about this article visit this link.

Capstone Interactive Library Has Arrived!

Now you and your students can enjoy 246 interactive books on your classroom computers or from home. All subjects, grade levels, and interest levels are included in this complete set.

All grades K-6 have been introduced to this resource during library classes. If you have any questions, please ask. For access, go the the IMC website and click on "Capstone Interactive Library"

Guys Read!

Guys Read, a web-based literacy program for boys.  Our mission is to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers.
Research shows that boys are having trouble reading, and that boys are getting worse at reading. No one is quite sure why. Some of the reasons are biological.  Some of the reasons are sociological.
But the good news is that research also shows that boys will read — if they are given reading that interests them.

So the biggest part of this site is the collection of book titles below. These are books that guys have told us they like. Our idea is to help guys become readers by helping them find texts they want to read. Get in there and start looking around. There is a little something for everyone.

My Rocketbook.com

How could I let this one pass by? Highly stylized and interactive – created for your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or DVD player – Rocketbook Study Guides feature chapter summaries, in-depth analyses and pop quizzes that break down and explain classic works of literature. They are the ideal companions for the modern student's reading experience.  MyRocketbook.com

LibriVox

LibriVox provides free audiobooks.

• Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project
• Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain
• Librivox is powered by volunteers  
• LibriVox.org

Shmoop Literature

Shmoop Literature is a little beauty I came across last week and have to share with you. Here's a site filled with learning guides by experts and educators. Search by topic, title or subject and find a valuable resource to prepare your next lesson. Shmoop will make you a better lover (of literature, history, life). See many sides to the argument. Find your writing groove. Understand how lit and history are relevant today. We want to show your brain a good time.

Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Bubbl.us

Looking for an online graphic organizer? This site will walk you through the process creating visual maps of brainstorming. Students are able to print these visual maps of their topics. bubbl.us

Learn 360

If you haven't read Mr. Kitson's email about this district purchased service, dust off your email and read again. This is one you won't want to miss.

Learn360 is an interactive media-on-demand service for the K-12 educational market that provides educators and students the power to meet and exceed 21st century educational expectations across all curriculums. Through 8,600 streaming videos, 23,000 video clips, audio and accompanying support materials such as speeches, images, songs, research articles and activities from top educational publishers, teachers will discover outstanding resources for any curricular program which is correlated to state standards, national standards, provincial standards and 21st century learning initiatives.

7 Billion People

Thinkfinity.org

Isn't it time you tried Thinkfinity? For today's best teaching practices, this is your first stop. This site provides thousands of online resources that incorporate Wisconsin Standards and best practices. For a quick overview, visit Thinkfinity or stop in the IMC for your personal walk through.

Free lesson plans, resources, online games, state standards, 21st Century Skills, technology links, videos, downloads and much more. Teachers, parents, and students all have resources available for use.

Mark Twain in the News

Mark Twain's classic "Huckleberry Finn," one of the most frequently banned books in America and one that is increasingly erased from reading lists and curricula across the country, is about to re-emerge in a racially cleansed format that makes it palatable for our oversensitive times, erasing a word I dare not mention, along with its historical significance in the process. Read more...

Shelfsafari

Now that you've committed yourself to the 52 Weeks, 52 Book Challenge, why not keep track of your reading online? Shelfsafari is a great FREE online tool to log what books you have read. You can write brief summaries and see what other readers think of the books as well as view synopsis, character, plots, and other details of the story. If you have questions on how to start your account, just ask and I will be happy to help.

Professional Development Opportunities

Now is the time to check out the upcoming professional development opportunities for you at CESA 5. For more information, click here

Mrs. Walker will be holding two workshops for building your district webpages on January 12 & 13. See her with any questions.

BrainNook

BrainNook is a free virtual world that helps kids develop Math and English skills while playing with others in a safe online playground.

BrainNook contains over a hundred educational games based on fundamental concepts in Math and English Grammar. The games cover Math concepts ranging from single-digit addition to 3D spatial visualization, and English concepts ranging from building simple sentences to counting syllables. These games are embedded within colorful virtual worlds that children can unlock and explore.

In BrainNook, children play educational games while exploring virtual worlds, safely competing and interacting with other children, and solving puzzles.

In addition to Math and English skills, BrainNook helps kids strengthen other important skills such as reading, reasoning, decision-making, analysis, memorization, dexterity and computer literacy.

11/22/63

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.


Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.

10 Most Significant Gadgets of 2010

(From WIRED) -- When this year began, we were feverishly speculating about an Apple tablet, looking forward to 3-D TV sets, and optimistically waiting for the end of the cable companies' cruel grip on our wallets. Read more.

10 New Words in 2010

Bromance and chillax may be on Lake Superior State University's 2010 list of words that should be banned, but the OED added them to its massive vault of words for the ages anyway.

Today the definitive tome added 39 words to its collection. Some seem right on (vuvuzela) while others sound like they've been stuck in the word-hopeful pile for years (wardrobe malfunction, buzzkill, chill pill), and most are sure to create controversy among people who get upset about words.

Here are 10 useful and ridiculous ones to know:

* Catastrophizing: view or present a situation as considerably worse than
it actually is.
* Overthink: think about (something) too much or for too long.
* Matchy-matchy: excessively color coordinated.
* LBD: little black dress
* Frenemy: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental
dislike or rivalry.
* Cool hunter: a person whose job it is to make observations or
predictions about new styles and trends.
* Bromance: a close but nonsexual relationship between two men.
* Exit strategy: a preplanned means of extricating oneself from a situation.
* Defriend: another term for unfriend (remove someone from a list of
friends or contacts on a social networking site).
* Soft skills: personal attributes that enable someone to interact
effectively and harmoniously with other people.

Be Funky

Looking for a FREE way to edit photos? Looking for various features to add? Then check out Be Funky!

52 Weeks, 52 Books Challenge

Are you up for the 52 weeks, 52 books challenge? Start 2011 with a committment to reading! Read how this Ireland reader challenges her audience to do just that... read more.