Greetings From Jerry

Greetings my friends. So sorry that it's taken me so long to join back in and say hello. Life has been crazy & hectic as usual - but also quite good. The summer ended on a couple of wonderful notes after my "good friend" finally passed, allowing me to get off of medication and return to a "normal??" mental state. Hawaii was absolutely wonderful, relaxing, beautiful, etc. etc. Our sons wedding was great fun - & then it was back to work. It's been an interesting year - many more administrative issues, pains, red-tape, garbage, etc. etc. this year than in some past years - but it appears that things may be starting to smooth back out a bit. The last few weeks have been all about Follett Destiny. Our district is upgrading our Circ/Cat system. I was made the lead librarian on the project so have been working hard on all the arrangements, communicating back and forth between the company, trainers, technicians, all the other librarians, etc. Tomorrow we finish up our second day of on-site training and then we go "live" with Destiny on Monday. We are all so excited. I knew it was a cool system - but after today's training and learning even more of what it can do - am very excited to get going with it. Looking back on some past posts I see that Emily already gave you links to some of my new stuff. The most important one for you is my Delicious site with all of my bookmarks:
http://delicious.com/jdredge

I am working at getting in all of my links from all of my CWU classes and getting them organized. I have completed entering all the Web 2.0 links - but am still working on links for some of the Information Literacy, Questioning stuff - and then things from my Production Class. My plan is to continue to keep this updated and keep adding stuff as I find new cool sites. So, keep checking it out if you're interested. Even though I haven't contributed much here - I am seriously enjoying checking in every once and awhile and reading about your various exploits. It's always fun to see how my "kids" are doing. Continued good luck to all of you & many rich blessings - Jerry

Praxis Test Results!!!

I checked my score online today and I'm pleased to say that I passed with a 740. What a relief, though really I don't see myself using that particular endorsement in the near future. What is the process for getting it added to my certificate? I've completely forgotten the presentation we had this summer about it.

Jerry's new Web 2.0 Sites

Hey All!
We had a Central Washington Meeting in Ellensburg yesterday and Jerry showed us a couple of great wikis and other sites that are great for working with web 2.0 information. I have really enjoyed it.

The sites are:
Central Washington Library Lessons Wiki (built for library lessons by Jerry)
http://centralwalibrarylessons.wikispaces.com/
Jerry's Bookmarks on Web 2.0 Resources
http://delicious.com/jdredge
Jerry's Website
http://www.jalldredge.com/

There is already some great lessons for students k-12. Have fun!
emauk me if one of the links does not work. Emily

Does anyone know how to visit the Scholastic warehouse to buy books? And other News...

I've been informed that I've got over $6,000 (yup, thousand!!) to spend at Scholastic. The warehouse is in Portland. I have about 5 empty shelves, so I could really go to town, particularly with paperback series that the school doesn't have. No Magic Schoolbus! Sheesh.

Anyone have experience with this?

In other news, I'm happily settled into a rented house in Vancouver. Our wedding was absolutely great, even though it was on the HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR (almost 106 in Yakima that day). It was an evening wedding, and as soon as the sun set it cooled nicely and fun was had by all. The band turned out to be delightful, with a banjo and mandolin and everything! If you're familiar with Nickel Creek, you'd know the kind of sound. We sang two songs: Simple Gifts and For the Beauty of the Earth. There were twinkle lights everywhere, and the frogs were singing in the pond, and I couldn't have wished for anything lovelier. If you are on Facebook, you can visit and see more pictures.

The job is great--I've got an unusual schedule that I really like. Other schools in my district are so slammed with back-to-back classes that they're using itinerant teachers in the library. My school, on the other hand, is on an 8-day specialist rotation. I see the kids for longer (48 min) but I only see them for 6 of the 8 days. So...two days per rotation I have the library to myself and I can work on collaboration projects, management, and planning! Next week those days will be Tues and Wed...I hope to visit Portland's warehouse on Wed.

We started WCCPBA books today and between The End and Chester the overwhelming favorite is Chester. He's such a stinker cat!

Hope everyone is well!

hello from the 'Couve! I love love love being a librarian! More later...

Congrats, Laurel!

I'm happy for you, and you will be a great, gifted teacher of the gifted! Keep us posted on the year. I love my new position. I have never really loved going to work. I do this year. What a concept! Hope all goes well for you Praxis takers. That's today, right? Or was it last week???? Talk to you soon. claire

Gainfully employed (pending some phone calls)

Well it's almost official. I am the newest 5th grade Challenge (aka gifted) teacher at Terrace Park School in the Edmonds School District. I was offered the job late this afternoon, and once the required reference checks come through and they make sure that I am highly qualified it will be officially official. It's been a roundabout process starting on the first day of school when the original teacher was offered a position in the school district where her children go to school. The first day of school I basically job shadowed her, and day two I was on my own with 29 very unique students. I actually knew most of them when I stepped in the door because I'd subbed for their classes a lot last year (and I did my library practicum at this same school). Since then I've been the long-term sub while they went through the hiring process. I've dealt with a parent unhappy with their child's math placement (which it turns out I was right about), and the same parent unhappy about the fact that we were reading "The Giver". I'm predicting more interesting conversations with this parent. I've also conducted a curriculum night with little real knowledge of the curriculum (last night actually). But the parents have been largely very supportive, and they are a highly involved lot. I've got a lot of work cut out for me this year, but it's continuing, and the principal and the entire staff are sooo supportive, I don't think I could have handled the last few weeks without them. I've got to aquire a classroom library, figure out the CBA's, differentiate for multiply gifted students and all sorts of fun stuff. I'm super excited!