Free Driver Permit Tests at the Library!

We have just received access to Drivers-Tests.org, a driver education program.  The site includes North Carolina state specific information which includes :




10 car practice tests                                                                                
6 motorcycle practice tests    
1 CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) practice test      
2 online driver’s manuals (car and motorcycle)      
An FAQ section with detailed answers to 100+ DMV-related questions.

Look for the link in the right-hand column, click and start practicing before you take your exam.

Author Nathan Kotecki Visits with Ashley Students

Young Adult author Nathan Kotecki spent two days at Ashley.  On Wednesday he was in the media center. Students from Ms. Meek, Ms. Ventre, Ms Basso, Ms. Riggs, and Mr. Thomas's classes attended. Nathan talked about his books, the writing process and his experiences with the publishing industry.  He also involved the students by finding out their opinions on what they were reading and why they either enjoyed or didn't enjoy the books.  There was a great give and take on what made a book interesting and relevant.  On Thursday he was in Mr. Jarman's classes giving a workshop on creative writing.  The students in each class worked together to come up with a story based on a photograph that they had chosen.

Mr. Kotecki currently has two books published, Suburban Strange and Pull Down the Night. The two books are part of a series that deal with the coming of age theme and contain supernatural incidents in the story lines.

Reference Books Moved into Nonfiction Collection

We have taken over 3700 books out of the Reference collection and moved them into the Nonfiction collection.  This will provide students with more available titles to check out.  It has taken us a couple of weeks of changing items in the catalog and also of actually moving the books to a different location.  The student library assistants have done a great job! We've posted some pictures of them at work.

New Sculptures in the Media Center

Ms. Maltby's Sculpture class has created a number of packing tape sculptures for the school, two of them are now located in the media center.  Stop by and see them, they look great!  Thank you Ms. Maltby and your students.

What are Libguides?

Libguides are pages that will assist you in your research and class work. Each one will focus on a specific topic.  Use them as a reference or jumping off point to find resources, how-to videos and other helpful information.

Libguides will be posted in the upper right-hand column of the webpage. Check out the ones that are currently posted.  Teachers and students are welcome to make suggestions for future libguides.  Email Mrs. Absi if you have a suggestion for a Libguide or if you have a resource you would like to see added to a guide already created..

Starting Your Research Projects

As the semester begins, English classes at each grade level are starting their big research paper assignments.  Students make sure that you take advantage of all of the online resources that we have.  There are ebooks and databases that you can access at school and at home.  If you are looking for print resources, ask the librarian or student assistants for help if you need it.

Make use of your Destiny login to save book titles to your personal list and to get access to reliable websites.  Sign into Destiny using your computer login.

Remember to use the Thesis Generator program to help you come up with a thesis statement. Use PaperRater to check for grammar, spelling and plagiarism mistakes before you upload your final version of your paper to Turn It In.  PaperRater will help you improve your final copy.

Seniors, the librarians from UNCW, Cape Fear Community College and the public library will be here on September 19th to tell you about the special resources they have at their libraries that you can use for your research.  They welcome questions, so come prepared to ask about your topic.

Updates & Changes to Destiny OPAC and FollettShelf

When using Destiny OPAC, if you login, you will be able to do more things with your search results.  Login to Destiny the same way you login to the school computers.  When you do a search for books, you will also be able to click a tab to search for related websites and click another tab to search through some free databases.

From the results you get, you can select which titles or links you would like to save in your Personal list. Why would you need to save them? If you need to go back and get citation information or if you can't remember a particular book that you thought would be useful, you can keep pertinent websites for your research in the same list with your book titles.

If you click on the FollettShelf tab from Destiny, you will be automatically logged into FollettShelf under your name.  Doing this will allow you to highlight information in a book you are reading, take notes and bookmark certain pages, you will also be able to print out pages from the books now.  Once you create notes on a book, they are entered into an online notebook.  You can access this notebook anytime by signing into FollettShelf, your notes will remain until you delete them.

FollettShelf books are now available for you to checkout.  Checkout on these books is for a three (3) day checkout period and will be released after the third day.

World Digital Library

A link to the World Digital Library has been added to the Media Production Tools page at the top of this site.  The World Digital Library makes available on the internet, free of charge, and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.  It contains books, journals, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, prints and photographs and some audio recordings and film clips.

You can search by Place, Time (8000 BCE - 2010), Type of item, Topic and Institution (where the original is located).  When using the items from the WDL remember to follow fair use and copyright policies. Remember to cite the location of any images you may use in your school work.

Mobento - Online Videos

Mobento is a video learning platform that combines the best educational content with innovative technology to deliver a more personalized and effective learning environment for students while empowering educators.

How It Works: Mobento curates content from world class teachers like those at Stanford, Yale, Khan Academy and TED.  Students and teachers can watch the videos online. Teachers can click the share button and get an embed code to place videos on their own websites, or create an educational account and put together a class online.

There are a wide variety of subject area videos: biology, chemistry, art, design, technology, business, global health and many others.  The link is located in the left-hand column under Teacher Reference Center button.

VarsityTutors - New Site added to Practice Tests

A new link has been added to the Practice Test Sites list.  The new site is called VarsityTutors.  The site has practice tests for the Accuplacer, ACT, SAT, AP exams and a variety of other exams. The Practice Test Sites list is located in the right-hand column of this webpage.

Direct links to ACT Questions of the Day have also been set up for English, Reading, Math and Science for you to use, look for the subject icons above the Practice Test Sites list.  Click on the icons and they will bring you to the Question of the Day for that subject area.

  

Once on the VarsityTutors site, you can create your own account and keep track of your testing progress.  It is a free practice test site.  Each type of exam has practice tests, flashcards and questions of the day.

YALSA Book Award Winners

YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) a division of the American Library Association has announced its 2014 Best Lists for Young Adult Literature. 

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.  The award went to Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick and the Honor Books are: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal, Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner, and Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool. 

The Edwards Award which recognizes an author for his/her body of work went to Markus Zusak for The Book Thief, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, Getting the Girl, and I Am the Messenger.  The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction went to The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi written by Neal Bascomb. 

The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.  This year’s winners are: Brewster by Mark Slouka, The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell, Golden boy: a novel by Abigail Tarttelin, Help for the Haunted by John Searles, Lexicon: a novel by Max Barry, Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu, Mother, mother: a novel by Koren Zailckas, Relish by Lucy Knisley, The Sea of Tranquility: a novel by Katja Millay, and The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence.

For a complete listing of these awards and also lists of current and previous years’ lists for: Best Fiction for Young Adults, Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, Great Graphic Novels, Outstanding Books for the College Bound, Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults and lists for Amazing Audiobooks and Fabulous Films go to this website link: http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklistsbook.

There is also an App that can be downloaded YALSA’s Teen Book Finder for your phone or iPad. http://www.ala.org/yalsa/products/teenbookfinder