Sunday, September 8, 2013

Final Posting, Closing this Account

Dear Colleagues, Parents, Students,
I am officially signing out of this Blog. It has been fun working with you all.
With my new job full-time starting this autumn at Adam Beck Jr. P.S.,
I have decided this public forum no longer suits my work schedule.

If you still are interested in following my educational and recreational interests and postings,
please follow me on PINTEREST. I find this organisation much more suited to my work style,
and postings and links offer better layout. PINTEREST uses bulletin boards,
much in the way teachers have always posted in their classrooms and staffrooms.

http://pinterest.com/guardlibrarian/boards/

Best wishes for your Learning Commons adventures,

Guardian Librarian,
Mme G. Dassios

Sunday, February 3, 2013

CNE Award Presentation @ OLA SuperConference

Alicia Cherayil & Candice McCavitt, Zis Parras, Mrs. D, Meredith Tutching
Exhibit Coordinators, Program Manager, (me), OLA Forest Program Coordinator


This past week, Ontario Library Association (OLA) held it's annual conference at the Toronto Convention Centre. I had the honour of speaking at the Forest of Reading Breakfast, where we bestowed an Honour Recognition Award to Zis Parras, Program Manager of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE). He, along with his colleagues, Candace McCavitt & Alicia Cherayil were instrumental in hosting the Blue Spruce 10th Anniversary Exhibit at the CNE this past summer. Here is the speech I made:

Forest of Reading-  CNE,  Zis Parras, Candace McCavitt & Alicia Cherayil Presentation
- Breakfast - January 31, 2013.
It was in 2002 that OLA ran the first Province-wide Blue Spruce Reading Program. Ontario children from Kindergarten to grade 3 were introduced to the best in Canadian Children’s Picture Books.  I had the opportunity to meet artist Bill Slavin at this very Conference several years ago. When I asked him what he did with all the amazing artwork he created over 25 years of illustrating, he said, "I have a house full. You want some?"
So fast forward 10 years, we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Blue Spruce Award. The Celebration took form in a National Exhibit of the original artwork that was borrowed from artists across Canada and displayed at the CNE.
It is my immense honour to introduce to you 3 outstanding individuals from the Canadian National Exhibition. 
Zis Parras, – Program Manager at the CNE
Exhibit Co-ordinators - Candice McCavitt & Alicia Cherayil
Although he warmly refers to himself as a "Carnie"... Zis is no stranger to the Canadian Arts Community. In the past, he has been:
  • General manager - Theatre Direct Canada
  • Outreach Consultant - Opera Ontario
  • Education and Outreach Director - National Ballet of Canada
  • Education and Outreach Co-ordinator - Canadian Opera Company
This past summer, the OLA staff and volunteers had a very special project that was finally realized with the partnership of the Canadian National Exhibition. At ‘THE EX’ we got the opportunity to be part history of Toronto’s landmark summer games and entertainment park. The exhibition size of the space Zis arranged for OLA to put on the exhibit was 75' x 20' = 1500 sq ft  for 3 weeks of time.This was the 134th year - 1879 being the first Exhibit year. This past summer the CNE was host to 1.9 million visiters, up 13% in paid attendance from 2011.
The Ontario Library Association would like to present a special recognition award to Zis and the CNE, on behalf of all the Librarians, readers of the Forest of Reading and especially the illustrators of Canadian Children’s Books who were nominated for the Blue Spruce Award in the first 10 years of the Blue Spruce Program. The CNE played a huge role in helping us promote the Blue Spruce artists and the 10th Anniversary Exhibit to the Canadian public and many, many visitors from across Canada and from around the world.
Watch in the next few days for more reports from OLA Super Conference.


 

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Silence too long! This is Oh! so "PINTEREST"ing

Getting back to work full-time this year, 2 Toronto City communities to service, has been a hefty endeavour... to say the least!!! As I purused my colleagues' very informative, extensive postings, I thought tonight that I should once again post to my most valued readership!

Last week, I watched an episode of Jeopardy! that reminded me that no matter how hard I try to keep up with the pace of technology and all the web creations, there are so so many developments, I will never be able to keep up. One category was around Social Media on the Web, I was able to only answer 2 of the 5 questions, Facebook and Pinterest. So here now my reflections on the latter.

Case in point: Social media. "Pinterest".
I created a Pinterest account for myself to explore this new Social Media. I was taken by the very teacher friendly layout of Bulletin Boards! It appears like scrolling panels of themes that are related to the themes that you create and post. The algorithms of Pinterest recommend and post for you more bulletin boards in your sphere of interests... I could spend hours connecting world wide with people in education, new technology, delicious food, beautiful scenes and clothing. As I explored one link after the other, I was sent to many great educational sites and links. There are so many talented and generous teachers sharing ideas, lessons and skills for teachers and students.

Here's the link: http://pinterest.com/

First Grade Faculty as an excellent example of resource rich sites:

http://pinterest.com/theocblog/firstgradefaculty-com/

Second Grade Squad:

http://pinterest.com/theocblog/secondgradesquad-com/

Join up! Create an account and may your scrolling searches be fruitful!

gl

A library book opens the door to visit anywhere in the world

A library book opens the door to visit anywhere in the world
Lago di Como, Lombardia, Italia