Recent Changes

Banned Books Week
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September 25−October 2, 2010
Banned Books Week (BBW): Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where the freedom to express oneself and the freedom to choose what opinions and viewpoints to consume are both met. As the Intellectual Freedom Manual (ALA, 7th edition) states:
"Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information. Freedom to express oneself through a chosen mode of communication, including the Internet, becomes virtually meaningless if access to that information is not protected. Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stiflled. "
Map of Challenged or Banned Books in the U.S.
Links from the American Library Association site about Banned Books
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2008
Banned and Challenged Classics
Most Frequently Challenged Authors
100 most frequently challenged books: 1990–1999
Reasons for Challenges
The Stories Behind Some Past Book Bans and Challenges
The Online Books Page presents Banned Books Online
This page was created by John Mark Ockerbloom from the University of Pennsylvania and features information about censorship throughout history and links to other information.
Presentation Products
Glogster - Online Poster Making Program
{Ms. Achuff - Honors English.doc}
{Ms Monaco.doc}
{Banned books2.ppt} Ms. Summers
Banned Books Powerpoint presentation by Author Stream

Wikis and Nings - In-Service Workshop March 8, 2010
WIkis and Nings PowerpointWIkis and Nings Powerpoint
{http://www.wikispaces.com/i/mime/32/application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.png} Wikis and nings.ppt
Wikis - choose one of these to create your own wiki page:Wikis - choose one of these to create your own wiki page:
wikispaces.com
wetpaint.com
Ning
Ning Examples - Web 2.0 - Technology in Education NingsNing Examples - Web 2.0 - Technology in Education Nings
§The Global Education Collaborative
§Ning in Education§Classroom 2.0
Ning Examples - Web 2.0 - Technology in Education Nings-Truman Teachers NingsTruman Teachers Nings
Diane Wilkin's art classes
Mr. Eliason
For BTSD Librarians http://trumanhslibrary.ning.com/?xgi=4UnrEKBMw3VBMA

Advanced Google Searches
{google.gif} google.gif
Google (Advanced) Use limiters such as date, Boolean operators, file formats, etc. to narrow your search to find the best information.
Google Scholar - This Google search makes it easy to search for papers, abstracts, citations and other scholarly literature.
Google Books - Search the latest index of the world's books. Find millions of great books you can preview or read for free. Some will have full text, but some will only have excerpts available.
Google Squared-Allows users to compare results.
Google Government Search
MetaSearch Engines – searches across several search engines at once.
{dogpile.jpg} dogpile.jpg – Searches other search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask, to bring you the best of the web in one handy results list.
{metacrawler.jpg} metacrawler.jpg - This meta search engine searches Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, About, MIVA and others.
{yippy_front_page_logo.png} yippy_front_page_logo.png-Searches across multiple search engines and organizes results into categories or clusters. This services offers privacy protected web searching.
{info.gif} info.gif - Returns results from everyone's favorite search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask and About.)
{mamma.jpg} mamma.jpg - Globally popular meta-search engine, Mamma.com brings forth refined search results from the web’s top search engines; assisting users to efficiently find the information they seek online.
{buttonall.jpg} buttonall.jpg- All your favorite search engines and reference websites are aggregated on ONE page.
Other Search engines
iSEEK -Designed specifically for students and educators, iSEEK is a non-commercial search engine delivering results from universities, government sites and other noncommercial providers.
Deeper Web-Search tool that allows users to navigate using tag clouds and Zoomies. Tag clouds are like subject headings - clouds in larger type list more results. Zoomies sort results by topic and type of information provided.
Wolfram Alpha -A computational knowledge engine. Wolfram Alpha uses built-in knowledge selected by human experts to compute a specific answer to every query.
{kngine.jpg} kngine.jpg - A Web 3.0 Search Engine designed to provide customized meaningful search results. Features of Kngine include interactive statistics and historical questions, concept lists, comparisons -specializes in Movie and Music Searches.
Browsys -This search engine allows users organize web pages in virtual folders that can be easily created, accessed, edited and shared.
{buttonall.jpg} buttonall.jpgAll your favorite search engines and reference websites are aggregated on ONE page. Just type your desired search term and press the button(s) you want. Search engines, references materials, social networking sites, white pages and shopping sites.
{findhow.png} findhow.pngThis site gives you access to trusted, reliable How-To content on the Internet.
Directories – web resources arranged by topics and categories, selected by editors.
OpenDirectory
Best of The Web (BOTW)
Google Directory
Yahoo! Directory
Social Networking Searches – Use these search engines to find blogs, wikis, twitter posts and more.
Surchur -For the latest hot topics on social networking sites blogs, twitter, images, video., and others.
Wiki.com -Search wiki pages.
SearchTwitter
Listorious Twitter people search.
Technorati-Blog search
Bloglines- Blog search.
Internet Public Library Blogs
Twazzup (sorts results and lists hot topics!)
Media Search Engines (Photos , Audio, and Video)
Pixsy – The Pixsy Index is the Internet's largest repository of media resources. Pixsy is a great place to find both videos and photos.
Picsearch - This image search engine puts 3,000,000,000 pictures at your fingertips.
Blinkx - Users can search more than 32 million hours of video on Blinkx. Search by keyword or category.
Kngine - A Web 3.0 Search Engine designed to provide customized meaningful search result. Features of Kngine include interactive statistics and historical questions, concept lists, comparisons -specializes in Movie and Music Searches.
Songza - This music search engine doubles as an Internet jukebox. You can search for and listen to any song or band.
Radio-Locator - The largest radio station search engine, use it to locate over 10,000 radio station websites and nearly 3,000 audio streams. .
Science Search Engines
OJOSE (Online Journal Search Engine) -A free powerful scientific search engine enabling you to make search-queries in different databases by using only 1 search field. With OJOSE you can find, download or buy scientific publications (journals, articles, research reports, books, etc.) in up to 60 different databases.
SCIRUS - The most comprehensive scientific research tool on the web. With over 410 million scientific items indexed at last count, it allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists' homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information.
Wolfram Alpha -A free online computational knowledge engine that generates answers to questions in real time by doing computations on its own vast internal knowledge base
[[trumanhslibrary:Search Engines and Directories#|help on how to format text]]

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Truman High School Library
Library Hours
Monday - Friday
7:00 am - 3:00 pm
Extended hours availableArray
Ms. Summers, Library Media Specialist3001 Green Lane Levittown, PA 19057215-567-3000 x260nsummers@btsd.us ​​
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Diagnostic Assessment
Diagnostic assessment is designed to determine students’ understanding, strengths, weaknesses and skills prior to instruction in a classroom setting. By determining strengths and weaknesses of the students, instructors are able to adjust the curriculum and / or instructional practices to meet the needs of the students. Some common diagnostic assessment tools are listed below:
test(s) during thetheir junior year or at the beginning of their senior year.
For more information about the SAT please visit : http://sat.collegeboard.com
students for the National Merit
To find out more about the PSAT and Merit Scholarship Program go to :
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/psat/about.html?print=true
multiple choice questions and are more individualized instructioninstruction. Benefits for feedback and allowsallow students to
To review information about the Pennsylvania Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT)
Please go to :
http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/pdf/kwl.pdf
http://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/KWLCharts.html
with online assessmentsassessment tools or within the paper and
Online products to design pretests, quizzes and surveys include
http://www.docs.google.com (free)

Benchmark Assessments
Benchmark assessments measure student progress over a period of time. Benchmark assessments are administered several times throughout the school year to give teachers feedback on how their students are performing. These tests are designed to help student learning by providing regular updates on students’ progress towards achievement of learning objectives. Benchmark assessments can help educators make informed decisions about curriculum and instruction at the classroom, school and district level. Below is a list of assessments purchased or used by Bristol Township to monitor student progress.
predict our studentsstudents' reading and
For more information on this assessment package, go to:
http://www.successforall.org/Programs/4sight.html

Formative AssessmentAssessments
Formative assessments are an important part of the instructional process. These assessments are assessments for learning and should be an integrated part of instruction in the classroom. With formative assessments, teachers are able to gather potentially useful feedback which can be used to target further instruction or correct specific errors in real time. The data derived from formative assessments can help teachers plan lessons and design instruction to meet student needs and address weaknesses. Formative assessment allows for instructors to re-teach the material and make adjustments to their instructional strategies to improve student understanding. Additionally, formative assessments activate students as participants in their own learning by giving them opportunities to reflect on their work.
More information on Formative Assessments can be found at these sites:

Below are useful strategies and tools for using formative assessments in the classroom:
1.Checklists. Students can monitor their progress towards completion of a project or acquisition of skills with checklists. Checklists are a list of required activities or behaviors to ensure that the students are progressing as required toward completion of a project or a unit of study. These are usually teacher designed and are distributed to students at the beginning of an assignment or activity. These are very useful as process monitoring and self assessment for students to keep on track. They also allow students to reflect on their progress, making them active participants in their learning process.. Checklists are useful for teachers because they are easy to create and they can be closely matched to assigned tasks or objectives. Checklists are most frequently used for used for process or progress monitoring- they measure completion of specific tasks, but they usually do not measure quality of a student's performance on a particular task.
of checklists areis teacher observation necessarily measure thequalitythe quality of student
Sample Checklists
For PBL and projects - allows teachers to create online checklists for students: http://pblchecklist.4teachers.org/checklist.shtml
http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/classresponse/index.html
4. Exit cards or exit slips. This is a self assessment tool for students to complete about their progress towards completing a research project or new understanding of a topic. Teachers in all disciplines and all grade levels can use this strategy of assessment by asking students to fill out exit cards / slips at the end of a lesson or class period. Exit cards are teacher prepared slips of paper or index cards with a question or a sentence to complete which should reflect the students’ knowledge or understanding of class work. Exit cards can provide important information to inform the following days’ instruction, giving teachers an understanding of how many students understood the material, identify topics for re-teaching or inspire ideas for enrichment opportunities.
AAA good site
http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/mathcatch/mainpages/assess_tools/exit_cards1.html
5. Journals givesgive teachers a
gain information about students’ perceptions or reflections on their work.
Websites with ideas for using journaling techniques for assessment :