Anime Club

Our wonderful Anime kids recently had a meeting in the library. They watched a video and our club President quizzed them afterwards. The winner received an Anime key chain. It was a hard quiz considering the video was in Japanese.

Cross Country Team

Good Luck to our Boys Cross Country Team as they get ready to compete this week-end at Regionals. All those early morning practices and ten mile runs paid off. "May the wind always be at your back".

Library Statistics

I knew it was a busy first six weeks but really I had no idea! We circulated over 3,600 items this six weeks. Most of our circulations are in the fiction area, how great is that?
Our other big area of circulation is of course 741.5, gee I wonder why. Porter Readers are great! Let's keep up the reading and try for 4,000 circulations.

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week is celebrated the week of September 26 - October 3. The central message for Banned Books Week is that censorship violates the right of free expression. Observed annually, this ALA event celebrates the freedom to read books that may be considered inappropriate or express unpopular ideas.

We have set up our annual display showcasing some of the challenged titles. This display always generates interest and discussion among our students and faculty as they see some of their favorite titles in our display case.

While in Austin this past summer I visited my favorite store Book People and found the following bumper sticker : Everything I need to know about life I've learned by reading Banned Books.

From the Fields to the Stars

What an inspirational story. This just proves that "Si se puede". We are a high school that is predominantly Hispanic with a Migrant population. It takes hard work, sacrifice and dedication but everything is possible.

From the Fields to the Stars

Shared via AddThis

Oscar Casares

Porter High School graduate and author Oscar Casares was in town this past week. Mr. Casares did a reading of his new book, Amigoland, at the Brownsville Fine Arts Museum. He answered questions and autographed books for the hometown crowd.

His first book, Brownsville: stories, a collection of short stories about life in our very unique border town was well received. I am sure his new novel will do just as well. Mr. Casares has a unique style of writing, very descriptive and quite his own.

11.5 Thing # 11.5

A big thanks to Spring Branch ISD for letting me participate once again. This was much better than just being a lurker. Once again I have learned so much and am so anxious to share with my faculty when school starts.

My favorite discovery has been using screen capture and glogster. GoView is so easy to use, I love it. I am currently working a summer bridge program for incoming freshmen and have created a short video on how to search for books using OPAC. Super easy to do and even easier to embed in my wiki. Students pay attention to a video, especially a quick short one. Am still playing around with Glogster.

My learning goals remain the same. I consider myself a lifelong learner and this program if anything has reemphasized this. Even an old geezer like me can learn new things and have loads of fun. My favorite part is that now even some of the younger faculty members will come and ask me questions about technology.

The most unexpected thing for me is how quickly technology is changing the way we live. It took me a while to Twitter but now I really rely on it and all of the blogs I keep up with in my Google Reader. What sometimes troubles me is when I read the tweets of all of the people I follow and keep up with the blogs I follow I begin to feel really inferior. When do these people find the time to do so much online? Do they not have families? Do they not cook, shop, read books, visit with friends, walk their dog, go to the movies, sleep? I know I've said this before but I often feel like I'm playing catch-up all of the time.

Really I can't think of anything that could be done differently to make this experience a better one. There is always lots of support and encouragement and the whole atmosphere is very non-threatening. Thank you Spring Branch once again. This Valley girl is a big fan.