The Mind Behind the Mask : 3D Technology and the Portrayal of Abraham Lincoln

       
Click on picture to go to iTunes to download the book         


"As part of its marking of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and
the assassination of the nation’s 16th president, the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of American History has published and posted its first
e-book for students. “The Mind behind the Mask: 3-D Technology and the
Portrayal of Abraham Lincoln” invites students to immerse themselves
in an investigation of Abraham Lincoln, how he has been portrayed and
what the availability of 3-D data can bring to the study of history."

Public Library Digital Access Cards

Ashley High is piloting a program with the New Hanover County Public Library.  We are giving our 10th and 11th graders a Digital Access Card to be able to use all of the eResources that the public library owns.  If the students make use of the eresources, we will continue the program and expand it out to the other high schools.

eResources include:  Databases, eBooks, Audiobooks, eMagazines, Streaming videos, Foreign Language programs, the Standardized Test Prep site, Tutor.com (for live homework help) and free music downloads.

Direct links to the Public Library databases, ebooks, streaming videos, Tutor.com, and the Standardized Test Prep site are located on the Media Center webpage.  Once you are on the Public Library's site, you can change to any program or you can go directly to nhclibrary.org.

Students will need to enter the number on their Digital Access card in order to use the eResources.  Since everything is online, there are no overdue fines.

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.