Book of the Week

 Click HERE to find out if this book is still available from the MRC.

 

End of Term 1 Break

So just to keep you going over next weeks holiday – here are some of the new books that have recently arrived in the MRC for you to borrow.

Happy Reading and I’ll see you when we come back!

Entangled by Cat Clarke
The same questions whirl round and round in my head: What does he want from me? How could I have let this happen? AM I GOING TO DIE? 17-year-old Grace wakes up in a white room, with table, pens and paper – and no clue how she got there. As Grace pours her tangled life onto the page, she is forced to remember everything she’s tried to forget. There’s falling hopelessly in love with the gorgeous Nat, and the unravelling of her relationship with her best friend Sal. But there’s something missing. As hard as she’s trying to remember, is there something she just can’t see? Grace must face the most important question of all. Why is she here? A story of dangerous secrets, intense friendships and electrifying attraction.

Gone by Michael Grant Gripping from the first moment, this is a scary, an unputdownable and a brilliantly plotted fantasy. One minute all the adults are there – next they’re gone! Only the children remain and they are trapped, cut off from the outside world and, scarily, left to rule themselves. Can they survive? With no guidance, gangs start to form. Danger lurks at every corner and everyone has to make a choice – to be cruel or humane. It’s a chilling prospect and the new world order is scary for all. It’s Lord of the Flies for the Heroes generation with just a dash of the X-Men thrown in for good measure.

Varjak Paw by S. F. Said
Varjak Paw is a Mesopotamian Blue kitten. He lives high up in an old house on a hill. He’s never left home, but then his grandfather tells him about the Way – a secret martial art for cats. Now Varjak must use the Way to survive in a city full of dangerous dogs, cat gangs and, strangest of all the mysterious Vanishings.

Glee The Beginning by Sophia Lowell
CALLING ALL GLEEKS! Get more of your favourite characters in this official Glee prequel! All great performances deserve a warm-up! Enroll early at McKinley High to find out what went on before New Directions was even a glimmer in Mr Schuester’s eye. When did Rachel first decide Finn was more than just a jock? When did Puck and Quinn start their secret romance? And how did the fledgling Glee Club function without a fearless leader? Hint: It wasn’t exactly a perfect melody. Break out the gold stars and refill the slushies: it’s time to find out what happened to all your favourite characters before the show-mance began These novels contain additional storylines to those featured in the hit TV show.

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A-Z of Internet Tools and Techniques: Letter F

So here we are with Letter F of the tools and techniques which you can use to get the most out of the Internet.

F stands for….

Flickr

Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, and online community that was created in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005.

In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs. In 2011 Yahoo reported in  that Flickr had a total of 51 million registered members and 80 million unique visitors. Photos can be accessed easily but you need to register (for free) and sign up for an account to load up your own photos.

Remember to look for photographs that are licensed for use under Creative Commons so you can safely and legally use them.

Check out my previous post on Creative Commons!

Bibliography Scott, Elspeth. (2009). All kinds of e-verything. School Librarian. 57

Coming soon! Author Visit by Nicola Davies

As part of the Literacy focus this year, looking at improving the writing abilities of students, I have arranged for an all day Writers Workshop for our Gifted and Talented students in Year 8.

They will spend the day with Nicola Davies, author of

“Home” and “Poo” amongst others.

This is in conjunction with Authors Abroad

Drop in on DEAR 1.4

The current focus of the Authors Page on the DEAR Homepage is…

Malcolm Rose

Malcolm Rose used to be a full time scientist (teaching mainly organic chemistry) and wrote fiction in the middle of the night before giving up his day job and becoming a full-time writer in 1996.

Malcolm says “I reckon novel writing is not so removed from chemistry as you might think. In one life, I mix chemicals, stew them for a while and observe the reaction. In the other, I mix characters, stir in a bit of conflict and, again, observe the outcome.”

 

Book of the Week

Yankee Girl by Mary Ann Rodman available from the MRC

A-Z of Internet Tools and Techniques: Letter E

So here we are with Letter E of the tools and techniques which you can use to get the most out of the Internet.

E stands for….

EDUCAUSE?

“EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.”

You can subscribe to this service but the website has free access to a range of useful resources such as information about initiatives in learning and using technologies, such as cloud computing.

The “7 Things You Should Know About…” series is definitely worth a look! As they provide information on new technologies. Each gives a brief focus on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning.

Bibliography Scott, Elspeth. (2009). All kinds of e-verything. School Librarian. 57

Coming soon….. Book Fair

The Book fair is due to arrive on the 9th of November and will be based in the atrium for a week. So start saving up your pocket money now!

Year 13 Extended Project

I recently worked with a group of Year 13 students who were in the early stages of planning their Extended Learning Projects. It still amazes, and disappoints me, how many students in KS5 cannot remember or don’t know about our Oliver Database and all the online databases we subscribe to for them.

So this was a refresher -giving them a demonstration of how to search

Screenshot of the Oliver Homepage

Oliver, and how to get to and use Britannica Encyclopedia, NewsBank, and InfoTrac. I just covered the basics as the best way to learn how to use these database is to get in there and use them!

I gave them a mini ‘tour’ of the MRC focussing on our extensive periodical section, and then invited them to come back in the future for any further help. They seemed to go off happier and keen to start using the things I had shown them…. fingers crossed!

 

 

MRC Open Evening

As part of the Parent Workshop Programme the MRC opened its doors (metaphorically speaking as we don’t actually have doors!) to over 50 parents who attended the Homework Workshop last week.

Parents were shown how to access their childs’ homework area on the VLE and then listened to six presentations from eachof the colleges about subject specific homework setting.

I then spoke briefly about how the MRC supports Homework, our opening hours, and access to resources including the online databases and then took them for a browse around the MRC. Lots of questions about  staff help; journals and how many items students could borrow; and many took away the leaflets I had prepared. An exceelent opportuity to talk with Parents.