External Relations

Collaborations

AASL collaborates with the following organizations:

ASCD Whole Child 

ASCD has launched Whole Child to encourage schools and communities to work together to ensure that each student has access to a challenging curriculum in a healthy and supportive climate.

Digital Learning Day 

Building upon a growing movement, AASL, in collaboration with the Alliance for Excellent Education, extends an invitation to school librarians, their students and parents, to participate in the inaugural national Digital Learning Day on February 1, 2012. Digital Learning Day will celebrate innovative teaching practices that make learning more personalized and engaging and encourage exploration of how digital learning can provide more students with more opportunities to get the skills they need to succeed in college, career, and life.

The website, DigitalLearningDay.org,  will offer customized toolkits for all audiences, grades, and subjects to help educators explore how they can contribute to the campaign. School librarians and other educators are invited to visit DigitalLearningDay.org  today to register to receive toolkits, resources, and invitations to run-up events and activities.

Learn more about Digital Learning Day at http://www.digitallearningday.org.

Jumpstart's Read for the Record

The Read for the Record Campaign, presented in partnership with the Pearson Foundation, completed it's sixth year with the book book, Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama Red Pajama. The October 6, 2011, national readout broke last year’s record for reading the same book on the same day, and established a new one for a shared digital reading experience by participants reading the book online at We Give Books.
 

NEA's Read Across America

The National Education Association's Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of children's author Dr. Seuss.

National STEM Video Game Challenge 

Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media presents the 2nd annual competition to motivate interest in STEM learning. The National STEM Video Game Challenge  is a multi-year competition whose goal is to motivate interest in STEM learning among America’s youth by tapping into students’ natural passion for playing and making video games. 

The challenge opens for entries November 15, 2011, and will accept submissions through March 12, 2012.  The 2012 challenge will feature four competition categories: Middle School Challenge, High School Challenge, Collegiate Challenge and Educator Challenge.  More information can be found at www.stemchallenge.org.

AASL is an original outreach partner and continues to lend its support to the challenge in its second year.

Net Cetera - The Federal Trade Commission's new kit to keep kids safe online

The internet offers young people a wealth of opportunities to communicate, socialize and explore the world. But these benefits also come with risks: cyberbullying, sexting and simply over-sharing on social networking sites affect students, schools, libraries and communities across the country. The Federal Trade Commission – the nation’s consumer protection agency – and its partners in OnGuardOnline.gov have produced a kit with everything you need to reach out to your community. The Net Cetera Community Outreach Toolkit includes a guide for parents ( Net Cetera); a booklet for kids ( Heads Up); presentation slides and notes; videos for parents and for kids; and ideas to help you spread the word about being safe online. There’s practical information about cyberbullying, texting, file-sharing and using mobile phones. All the materials are in English and Spanish on the enclosed CD and DVD.

All these materials are free and in the public domain. Use them whenever you interact with parents or kids – perhaps during a classroom presentation, library programs, community gathering or PTA meeting. You can also spread the word by using the information in a newsletter or on your website, sharing the toolkit with colleagues and other community leaders, and ordering free copies of Net Cetera and Heads Up for your library or neighborhood school from bulkorder.ftc.gov (Click on the large Net Cetera button to see all the Net Cetera materials to order.)

SchoolTube.com is the nation's largest K-12 moderated video sharing website that provides students and educators with a safe and free video sharing website. In the 21st century, everyone should be afforded the opportunity to see what is happening in their community and SchoolTube offers schools a chance to do just that with categories to showcase news, contemporary issues, sports, and the performing arts.