Free Learning Sites

If you Know a student who is online often (and what student today is NOT?!) , here are two free online learning sites to help them brush up on skills or learn something new:

KAHN ACADEMY www.khanacademy.org/
Thousands of educational videos and hundreds of practice exercise on a wide variety of K-12 topics ranging from history to chemistry to arithmetic to venture capital.  This website started with math videos prepared by Khan for a relative in another city, but has expanded exponentially to become one of the best free online learing sites available.   The ABOUT section of their website includes the following description of their goals:
"The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge."  I wish such a comprehensive resource had been at my fingertips when I was preparing for academic tests. Bravo!

GCF LearnFree  www.gcflearnfree.org/
a simpler set of free online lessons on Computers, Reading and Math from Goodwill Community Foundation. Yes, that IS the Goodwill Industries who have the the thrift stores and work programs for people with disabilities that we are all familiar with. GCF has now made lessons in basic skills available to all.  There are even mobile apps, so that online learners can put free time anywhere, anytime to good use learning and practicing these important subjects.

A Comment !!!

A comment on my blog from a heretofore unknown person...!  Huzzah!! 
It made me think of the seen in JULIE & JULIA where Julie gets so excited about a comment form someone other than her mother.  :-)  Does this make me a REAL blogger now?

But the best part is that I discovered a fellow blogging bookie and a new writer (ANN SUMMERVILLE) who does my favorite kind of mysteries.   Her blog, COZY IN TEXAS is now one that I am following and I am looking forward to being able to access the Kindle edition of her ebooks.

I knew right away that we were kindred spirits when I saw the number of book-related blogs she is following.  Now THOSE are on my lists of new things to check out, too.

DPL Holiday Used Book Sale

Guess who just found some of the cozy mysteries I blogged about yesterday down in the DPL Holiday Used Booksale!  Woooo-hooo!!  Two MC Beatons that will go onto the Christmas Books shelf at home.  Yes!

Looks like I will be going down again today when my day ends and maybe I'll even come back tomorow. The selection is great and the prices very reasonable.  Think I will hunt for some gift books a little later.  There is still lots to choose from.

Cozy Christmas Mysteries

Noticed a "cozy mystery" with a Christmas theme on a colleague's desk today and it jogged my memory that FIND CHRISTMAS BOOKS is still on my TO-DO List, along with find CHRISTMAS CARDS.  Yes, I am terribly slow at sending out my cards and some years don't even make it to the post office in time.  One year we sent out Groundhog letters instead!  But this year.....I resolved to do better...and I still have time....

But regardless what happens with the Christmas Cards, we ALWAYS get out the box of Christmas books and usually get around to re-reading a few old favorites. We especially like reading A CHRISTMAS CAROL aloud and have even gathered with other Dickens aficionados to make an event of it. I wonder how his CRICKET IN THE HEARTH would stand up to the same treatment. Might be worth the experiment....

But back to the cozy mysteries with yuletide themes.  Some of my favorite authors do series with repeating characters: M.C. Beaton has both the Agatha Raisin stories and her Scottish detective Hamish Macbeth.  Here are some of their seasonal novels: For those who like Agatha's feistiness try KISSING CHRISTMAS GOODBYE (2007) or BUSY BODY (2010). And although it is older, HIGHLAND CHRISTMAS (1999) with Hamish made for a nice cozy evening a few holiday seasons ago.

Another cozy mystery writer with a couple set during the holidays is Joanne Fluke. I liked CANDY CANE MURDER (2007) and Hannah Swensen, the cookie baking sleuth in PLUM PUDDING MURDER (2009)--a lot--as much for the cookie and other dessert recipes as the nice mysteries with likable townspeople.  I have become almost as  fond of the folks in Lake Eden, Minnesota as the colorful cast of characters who populate that little town down the road called Lake Wobegon.  Who wouldn't like cookies, mystery and Christmas all in the same book!

And that reminds me of yet one more item for the TO-DO List:  bake Christmas cookies!   Happy Holidays to you and yours.....

Tech Petting Zoo--highly recommended

WOW.  What a great way to get to see and hear about features of the MANY eReader devices out there without it costing an arm or a requiring a trip to a big box electronics store!

The Reference Services team just finished a whirlwind tour of eReaders and free downloads from the DPL eMedia page with a self-acclaimed "technophobe" staff member at the control panel.  With CTC staffer "Squee" Mueller's  instructions and exuberant encouragement we got through Overdrive Media Console and Adobe Digital Reader installs with little muss or fuss. It seemed the kind of process we actually COULD walk a customer through on the phone or at the Reference Desk on our own.  And then to put the frosting on the cake, she downloaded to the Reference Folder on the shared drive WORD files with buttons boldly highlighted in red that say and show all the steps. This is just the thing that this somewhat technically challenged, visually-oriented old library dog will need to perform this trick and amaze and astound novice eMedia users.  Abracadabra!  And best of all, the files for specific formats of eMedia can be emailed to customers so they can refer to them, too.  While this is a little like pulling the curtain aside and letting our customers see the little man operating the controls, I am very grateful for this vaulable tool to be able to share with our customers. Thank you to the real wizrds up in the Community Technology Center for creating the handouts, staff trainings and tech petting zoo and other opportunities to demystify the gadgets that are becoming such a big part of our lives. Bravo!!

THE MAJESTIC

We recently watched Jim Carey in THE MAJESTIC (2001), a wonderful film that runs "against type" for him. In it he plays a serious dramatic role as a Hollywood screenwriter who has just been summoned before the Congress as a suspected communist. Before he can testify, though, Peter Appleton is involved in an auto accident and nearly drowned. When he awakes on an unknown beach with a concussion and amnesia, he is mistaken for a WWII veteran named Luke Trimble who was reported missing in action, and welcomed home as a long lost son. Martin Landau plays Harry Trimble, the father who wants desperately to believe that the stranger is his son Luke.  The two are "reunited" and the whole broken-hearted town begins to heal as it pitches in to restore The Majestic, the town movie house that as been closed since the townspeople went into mourning over their lost sons, fathers and husbands in the '40s. In one emotional scene, a war memorial given to the town in recognition of their sacrifices by Pres. Roosevelt is finally installed in the town square after languishing in the basement of the town hall. Townspeople raise pennants with blue and/or gold stars--blue for a member of the armed forces serving, gold for family members who are MIA or were killed serving their country. There were dozens of them from this small town that had sent more than its share of young men to the War--and lost 62 of them during the fighting. A devastating number for any town...

Since then I have noticed similar banners in windows in my nieghborhood. So out of curiosity I looked up Blue Star Mothers online and forun the following explanation from a local chapter in Colorado Springs:
rrbsm.webs.com/whoweare.htm and a whole set of Resource Links compiled by these moms and families with ways to support active service men and women rrbsm.webs.com/apps/links . With the holidays coming up, there is still time to get involved and send encouragement to someone far from home or their families here at home.