Inspired by the Book Whisperer

I just finished reading Donalyn Miller's inspiring book The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child. Yes, she very much inspired me, not just to read the book in a day, to immediately act upon some of her great ideas (e.g. I got myself a reader's notebook which I plan to keep on my desk this year and set up a Goodreads account for those that prefer to follow on the Web what I read and recommend), but even to post on my neglected personal blog. While posting I also decided that the orange background needed to go, making space for a more serene, less distracting one. Of course, once again I spent far too much time playing around with the many options available - but still couldn't work out how to fit everything I wanted to show on my blog in the right spaces. I hope to figure this out with time - always learning, right?

If you would like to read more about and from Donalyn Miller, why not explore her blog.

And if you, just like me, wonder whether Goodreads or LibraryThing is the better option to keep track of what you are reading, here two interesting blog posts, comparing the two services: RandomThoughts and Match Goodreads vs LibraryThing. While LibraryThing seems definitely the superior service, I decided that Goodreads would be the better option for my purpose to start with. It seemed more appealing to the eye, less time-involving to manage, and stronger on the social networking aspect. I also like the easy to embed widget for my blog and the option to have automatic updates on my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

New Look

Did you know that Blogger in draft gives you a whole variety of options to customize the look of your blog while still working with templates? It's amazing what you can achieve with a bit of time - and enough patience to apply the "trial and error" method... Well, I had fun and like the new look of my blog so much better. I am inserting a screen shot of the old look below and would love to hear your opinion. Thanks, Tanja

Welcome to the LCS Elementary Library

This is my first project on VoiceThread and while it is still "work in progress", I am amazed how easy it was to embed it into my wiki and into this blog - and how much fun it is working with Voicethread. I can just see how students will enjoy commenting on their own work or the work of peers. Great fun!

Dewey Decimal Classification System - The Library Sorting Game

Check out this SlideShare Presentation (unfortunately, it comes without the animations I had built in - my students had a lot of fun with it in class because they were able to do the sorting themselves).

Dewey Decimal Classification System - The Library Sorting Game

View more presentations from Tanja Galetti.

Bead Making In Ghana

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Bead Making In Ghana

View more presentations from Tanja Galetti.

Tanja's World

Since I have not been able to put up any posts yet, I decided to share at least a few snapshots from my current working and learning environment.

(P.S. In case you are wondering: this slideshow was created with Picasa which makes adding any web album to your Blogger blog really easy - it's basically just one click. Look out for the Blogger icon on the right side of your Picasa web album screen.)

Akwaaba!

Welcome to this newly created blog! I am currently participating in an IB Web 2.0 online course and was inspired to set up this blog to reflect on my learning and share it with interested colleagues and friends.

This blog is still under construction and I hope to add more features and posts soon.

(P.S. In case you are wondering: Akwaaba is the Twi word for "welcome". Twi is a language widely spoken in Ghana.)