Building an Online Professional Library – The GREEN Way!

Many of the school districts I work with have professional libraries. These libraries usually consist of professional development books, academic journals, and teacher contributions all housed in a special section for checkout/usage.

Since this is Earth Day week, I thought I would post about a “Greener” way to collect professional development books and documents by using some free web tools!

If you don’t know about it already, Google offers a book search at http://books.google.com/ . You can search all kinds of texts and many are available as FULL TEXTS that you can read directly from your computer! You can view my current library here: http://books.google.com/books?uid=16881718368634312334 . Additionally, you can use Advanced Search to search for either books OR magazines, and you can filter for FULL TEXTS.

Another cool site I ran across is a PDF search engine at http://search-pdf-books.com/
I typed in topics such as “Response To Intervention” or “Brain Based Learning” and found lots of resources!

I’m also an extensive user of Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader . I use it to subscribe to blogs that have an educational or technology focus to help keep up with what’s on the edge of educational technology. Some of my favorites include:

• The Tempered Radical – http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical
• Literacy, Learning, and Sharing – http://visitmyclass.com/blogs/edpsliteracy
• Reflections of the TZST Teacher – http://tzstchr.edublogs.org
• Reflective Creations – http://reflectivecreations.wordpress.com
• The Power of Educational Technology – http://edtechpower.blogspot.com
• WNY Education Associates Blog – http://www.angelastockman.com/blog
• Writing Frameworks – http://writingframeworks.blogspot.com
• Clif’s Notes – http://clifmims.com/blog
• Ellis’ Island of Learning – http://mrsbrowndog.blogspot.com
• Angela Maier’s Blog – http://www.angelamaiers.com
• Cliotech – http://cliotech.blogspot.com
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog – http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com

Please add any additional resources or cool blogs you follow in the comments section! I’ll add all of the resources to a wiki and publish the link in a couple of weeks!

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