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Ten D2L Retention Strategies

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Ten D2L Retention Strategies By Max Macias 2/2014 Email the class their assignments for the week via D2L email every Monday to make sure everyone is kept abreast of where they are supposed to be and the time frames for the class. Create a Google Calendar and share it with the class.  Either embedd it, or send it to your students via email.  Have all the class assignments on entered on the calendar and the due dates clearly stated.   Embed your Google Class Calendar in your news feed with the D2L embed tool.  Tell your students they can click on events in the calendar and directly copy them to their own personal calendars. Give clear feedback that lets the student know what they are doing well, and what they need to work on to get the outcomes for the class.    Make comments on the student’s documents with the “insert comment” tool.   Contact Students via Dropbox list, when dropbox assignments...

The Day We Fight Back

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Pathways to Progress: Issues and Advances in Latino Librarianship Review by Max Macias

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Pathways to Progress: Issues and Advances in Latino Librarianship Review by Max Macias Last fall I had the honor of being asked to review the much anticipated Pathways to Progress: Issues and Advances in Latino Librarianship; edited by John L. Ayala and Salvador Güereña.   This book is a collection of essays by Latino Librarian/Advocates on Latino Librarianship.   It is part of a series called Latinos and Libraries Series, published by Libraries Unlimited.   I do not have time to write about every essay in the book--there are 12 chapters and 17 pieces written by some of the leaders of the Latino Library Movement.    Chapter one is by Dr. Sergio Chaparro and is entitled: Common Denominators in the Development of Latino Library Leadership.   This chapter was far too short and underdeveloped.   It was surfacy and generally vague without references to the diversity within the “Latino” label.   It was supposed to outline and disc...

Instagram

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Instagramatic!   I love Instagram and am in a state of constant inspiration from those I follow.  Advertising, nor those stupid PR people have not ruined it yet for me. I am an insta-junkie at the moment.  Have you found any interesting library related uses for Instagram?

OPEN LETTER TO SUPERINTENDENT OF THE TUCSON UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, DR. JOHN J PEDICONE (COLLABORATION WITH YAGO CURA)

Superintendent John J. Pedicone, Ph.D. Tucson Unified School District 1010 E. Tenth St. Tucson, AZ 85719 (520) 225-6000 Hinchas de Poesía c/o Yago S. Cura, Publisher Max Macias, Librarian 11928 Venice Blvd. L.A., CA 90066 Dear Dr. Pedicone:             We have never met, and my son and/or daughter is not matriculated in the school district you oversee. I am writing today in my capacity as the publisher of Hinchas de Poesía (www.hinchasdepoesia.com), a fledgling online literary journal, and in collaboration with Max Macias, a Chicano librarian living near Portland, Oregon. We are both members of REFORMA, although the contents of this letter and the opinions expressed herein solely belong to us (Yago S. Cura and Max Macias). We are writing to express our intense gratitude for your continuing, yet albeit wholly indirect, support of Ethnic Studies in the United States of America. Put simply, if it we...

Buy a copy from the AZ Banned book list for your local library!

The idiots from TUSD have created more awareness about Ethnic Studies in the US than I have ever seen.  I am 45 years old.  Thank you AZ!   There are Ethnic Studies events going on around the nation, and I would like to participate by requesting you purchase a book from this list and donate it to your local library.  We are going to increase the Ethnic Studies Collections in libraries around the nation! Please share and post widely! Max High School Course Texts and Reading Lists Table 20: American Government/Social Justice Education Project 1, 2 - Texts and Reading Lists Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. PetersonThe Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998) by R. Delgado and J. StefancicCritical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001) by R. Delgado and J. StefancicPedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) by P. FreireUnited States Government: Democracy in Action (2007) by R. C. RemyDictionary of Latino Civil Rights Hi...

National Digital Ethnic Studies Library Now!

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Hi everyone, I do not know if an Ethnic Studies Digital Library exists, but I believe we NEED to create one due to the oppressive climate in education today. Historically, education has failed Latinos and Black students. I would like to volunteer to coordinate the construction of a National Ethnic Studies Digital Library. I also think this library should, perhaps be funded from Outside the current education system--as this system is White-supremacist and colonial at its foundation. Does anyone know if a current National Ethnic Studies Library exists? What do you think of this idea? Would you be willing to help? I do not know enough to do this by myself, and do not feel it should be done by a few people--it should be done on a grand scale--the scale that a National Ethnic Studies Digital Library deserves. Here is our FB Planning group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/213376968755122/ Here is the link to a Spreadsheet that we are using to collect Ethnic Stud...