Windham High School Library November 2018 Newsletter |
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Hello again! This month's newsletter contains information about teacher resources, books, audiobooks, our current Staff Book Club selections, and more. Check it out! We're still taking requests for DVDs to add to the collection. We'll be placing our order soon, though, so please fill in this form if you would like to make a suggestion. If you'd like a personalized recommendation for your department, let us know and we'll send you a list of choices. Don't forget you can "Book Us." Just go to the home page of our website (whslibrary.org) and scroll down. |
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What's New? Circulation Stats! |
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Our Book It! initiative has been a great success thanks to many of our dedicated teachers who have found time during their busy classes to have students read quietly. This has increased our circulation statistics considerably. Compared to last year, students checked out triple the number of books: * September 2017 = 110 * October 2017 = 37 * September 2018 = 309 * October 2018 = 133 We now have a designated space in the back of the library for students to read quietly. Please encourage kids to put down their devices for a while and spend their free time reading a good book. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. Click on the Book It! image above to read about the benefits of students reading during school time. If you would like a poster for your classroom or office, click on the button below. |
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Teacher Lesson of the Month Google Advanced Search |
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Google Advanced Search Features There are many ways to control the information one gets when using Google as a search engine. Google's algorithms are designed to give you results that are popular, which often leads to "fake news." Google also bases your results on your past searches which may or may not lead to what you're looking for in terms of relevant and useful information. In order to retrieve results that are more reliable and trustworthy, use Google Advanced Search. Click on the image above to access a Google Advanced Search lesson on evaluating websites. Click on the button below to access a How-to sheet. |
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Technology Resource of the Month |
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TurnItIn helps teachers detect plagiarism and provides tools for analyzing and providing feedback on student work. Now, teachers have the option of aligning an assignment in Infinite Campus with TurnItIn! TurnItIn assignments are created within the IC gradebook and students access the assignments through the Campus student portal. Teachers can then access the submitted assignments in either TurnItIn or within the IC gradebook. With both options, teachers use TurnItIn's features to analyze and enter feedback and score the assignment. The score entered in TurnItIn populates into the IC gradebook! Staff professional development for this new feature will be held during the December 5th PD time. Click on the image above for helpful information with Infinite Campus and Turnitin. Click on the button below if you would like to pilot the TurnItIn/IC integration before the PD day. |
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Teacher Resource of the Month Windham Public Library Resources |
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The Windham Public Library offers great resources for both students and staff. All Windham staff members are eligible for library cards, whether you live in town or not. See below for a few of their digital resources: Comics Plus |
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Comics Plus brings unlimited access to thousands of digital graphic novels and comics to library patrons on any Web-connected device. The downloads are available for free to all Windham Public Library cardholders with an active, 14-digit account in good standing. Enjoy: - Over 25,000 titles
- 24/7 availability
- Unlimited access to all titles
- Apps for offline reading
- Streaming on any Web-enabled computer or device
- Browsing by genre, publisher, title, and popularity or searching by title/keyword
Click on the image above for access to Comics Plus database. Click on the button below for an instructional handout. |
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RBdigital makes digital magazines available without leaving the comfort of your home! The downloads are available for free to all Windham Public Library cardholders with an active, 14-digit account in good standing. Click on the image above to access the digital magazines. Click on the button below for an instructional handout and a list of all the magazines. |
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Universal Class offers a series of over 500 online courses including test prep and cooking to accounting and pet care. There are even continuing education credits for some of the courses. Click on the image above to access the courses. |
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A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George "Inspector Lynley investigates the London end of an ever more darkly disturbing case, with Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit. The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind. But what was the cause of his tragedy and how far might the consequences reach? Is there a link between the young man's leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge? Following various career-threatening misdemeanors, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter with bestselling feminist writer Clare Abbott and her pushy personal assistant Caroline Goldacre gives her a connection to the Cambridge murder, Barbara begs DI Thomas Lynley to let her pursue the crime. Full of shocks, intensity and suspense from first page to last, A Banquet of Consequences reveals both Lynley and Havers under pressure, and author Elizabeth George writing at the very height of her exceptional powers." -Goodreads Click on the image above for access to the ebook. (Reminder: Login is your PersonalID which you can find in Infinite Campus.) Click on the button below for access to a book review. |
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Absalom's Daughters by Suzanne Feldman "A spellbinding debut about half sisters, one black and one white, on a 1950s road trip through the American South Self-educated and brown-skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother’s laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for “colored music” and dreams of life as a big city radio star. These teenaged girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father’s inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes to a road trip together to claim what’s rightly theirs. In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the American Deep South of the 1950s, a bewitchingly beautiful landscape as well as one bedeviled by racial strife and violence. Suzanne Feldman'sAbsalom’s Daughters combines the buddy movie, the coming-of-age tale, and a dash of magical realism to enthrall and move us with an unforgettable, illuminating novel." -Goodreads Click on the image above for access to this audiobook. Click on the button below for access a book review. |
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"The Man Who Shot Vietnam" "Description: In 1966, the photographer Philip Jones Griffiths first visited Vietnam. It was an experience that would profoundly shape his career and legacy, as well as the world’s understanding of the humanitarian cost of war. Griffiths captured incredible images of the victims of war and his 1971 photo journal, Vietnam Inc, transformed forever our understanding of this terrible conflict. This beautifully shot documentary gives fascinating insight into the life and legacy of a man who was a true humanitarian and whose pictures are classics of photojournalism, as powerful today as the day they were taken. A BBC Production." Click on the image above to read a Times article about Vietnam War photographers. Click on the button below to access the video. |
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The selections for our next Book In the Woods by Tana French and The Man From the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery by Bill James. The date for our next meeting is December 12th, so if you're interested in joining us, let us know. We would love to see some new faces and are looking forward to seeing familiar ones, too! Join us! |
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| | Click on the book cover above to watch an interview with Tana French. "As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox - his partner and closest friend - find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past. Richly atmospheric and stunning in its complexity, In the Woods is utterly convincing and surprising to the end." -Goodreads | | |
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| | Click on the book cover above to read 10 terrifying facts about The Man From the Train! "Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together, faces covered with cloth. Some of these cases, like the infamous Villasca, Iowa, murders, received national attention. But few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station. When celebrated baseball statistician and true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal. In turn, they uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America. Riveting and immersive, with writing as sharp as the cold side of an axe, The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history." -Goodreads | | |
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Digital Pass for Library Instructions |
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- Go to library sign-in page (click on image to left to access)
- Sign in with the user name and password you use to sign in to your laptop
- Click on the "Quick Pass Page" button
- Approve or Revoke the digital pass for each student
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