Professional+Organization+Page

Please choose a professional organization from pp 259-261 (one that you are not familiar with) and explore the website listed. Below, please list the organization, your name and one aspect of the website you found useful and may be useful to your colleagues (not the journals please). //National Middle School Association [|www.nmsa.org]// I found that this website is extremely useful, if you are a member and a middle school teacher. The section that I found most intriguing, were the links to the different publications. In the publication, //Middle School Journal//, I found an article entitled "How to Promote Character Development using Hollywood Film Clips." I found this article intruiging because it related more towards elective instruction- which usually takes the back burner. Currently, my students are working on character development in Health class. I perceive the option of learning about character development through the use of films, more meaningful to the learner. I know that if I were a middle school student and wanted to learn about character development, I would rather learn it from something I find interesting, like movies/films, rather than from reading it from a text book.
 * Jenny Hengel:**

//National Middle School Association [|www.nmsa.org]// This website had many neat aspects. One thing I found to be really neat is the link called, "Connecting with Classrooms Around the World." You can click on a region/country and click on a link to communicate with others around the world. Some of the links are teachers looking for other classrooms to become penpals with their students. This would be a great way for students to learn about other students culturals, schooling, etc. and at the same time practice writing skills.
 * Sarah Warren:**

//National Staff Development Council (DSDC)// [|//www.nsds.org//] When you are on the homepage of this website, click on "Staff development library". You will then get a list of many different topics. When you click on a topic you will be taken to that topic's page. On that page there are many links to different articles related to that topic. Topics include: staff development basics, change, comprehensive staff developoment, data and research, diversity and equity, ethics, evaluation, job postings, leaders and leadership, learning communities and team skills, learning strategies and designs, model staff development programs, NSDC blogs, parents and partners, policy and advocacy, powerful words, quality teaching, resources for staff development, school based staff development, standards based staff development, talking to parents, whole school improvement. I thought this might be useful. Many of the topics we have discussed in class and there is such a wide array of topics you might find something you could use.
 * Kim Trent:**

//College Reading Association (CRA)// [|//http://www.aleronline.org///] Now re-named the Association of Literacy Educators & Researchers, this organization strives to stimulate professional growth of teachers and reading specialists and encourage the improvement of college preparatory programs for teachers. Unfortunately, I didn't find their website to be very useful. There is a section titled AELR Awards that some might find interesting. It lists several awards AELR members may apply for and past recipients of these awards. There are three awards listed at the beginning of this list that I'm thinking non-AELR members can apply for, but I'm not sure because the links do not work. The ALER also has a listserv you can join but it does not tell you what types of information you will receive after joining. I'm assuming it will be a variety of excerpts from the many publications they have, but I'm not sure. There is also a link titled constitution and by-laws that would be interesting to look at, but it is not working either. Overall, the best part of this site happens to be the publications links, which we were not to comment on. Too bad--I was hoping to get more out of this site. Maybe once they get everything working!!
 * Jennifer Schoonover:**

Amanda Benson Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) www.ascd.org I found this website after doing a google search---the text book has it listed as .edu instead of .org. I found the website to be a little overwhelming--there was so much to look at and sort through. They did have a section that linked to the ASCD publication-Educational Leadership. It gave information about current and past issues, and gave the user a chance to blog. Another section talked about professional development-online, conferences, and whole staff opportunities. The most interesting part to me was the "initiatives and programs" section that talks about the current focuses of ASCD. THis website definately takes quite a bit of time--but would be a useful resource once you know what can be found on that website.

Julie Lardinois National Reading Conference (NCR) www.ncronline.org I explored the National Reading Conference website. It has a section labeled NCR Literacy Research Reviews and Policy Briefs. Then there are different titles and you can click to get it on a word document or PDF file. It gives a review of research that has been done on literacy. I thought that this would be helpful for reading specialist. They need to stay on top of the literacy research. They often are the ones passing on the research information to teachers since not all teachers stay on top of research. The reviews give a nice quick read about what the research was about. If you want to read more, the research article is also there for you to read it yourself.

//National Staff Development Council (NSDC) www.nsdc.org// If you are a literacy coach, reading specialist, principal, or curriculum coordinator, this website offers a plethora of resources on staff development. This website is threefold: it outlines the national staff development standards, provides an online staff development library, and allows for networking contacts in the education field. Staff Development Assessment Inventories, job postings, numerous summer opportunities, and innumerable instructional resources/materials are also available. For a $49 teacher membership, you can receive a Teachers Teaching Teachers newsletters 8 times a year and have online access to many instructional materials and conference/workshop opportunities. There are several basic teacher memberships as well as more comprehensive memberships for administrators.
 * Melanie Sickinger**

**Nadine Mathu:** National Staff Development Council- [|www.nsdc.org] There are several components of this site and organization that teachers and Reading Specialists might find useful. The three main categories of information it houses include standards, a library of resources and archived articles, and a membership/connection section for communication. For example, I looked at topics listed in the staff development library and selected the topic of parent communication. It offered a succinct article with suggestions on how to incorporate parents into staff development and inform them about outcomes and goals in order to enlist parent support. It also offered a space to view parents' FAQs which would be helpful, in addition to NSDC Articles that had previously run and which were available in PDF format. That was just a single topic of the many available. It seemed as though a good amount of pertinent information was accessible, even to non-members.

Mara Nelson American Library Association (ALA)- www.ala.org I thought this was a neat website to use because it addresses areas of diversity, professional development, literacy programs, and much more! I found that it contained practical information such as how to arrange for an author's visit at your school or library. There were guidelines and outlines provided on the steps that you should take. When searching the section on professional development I found book lists such as recommended audiobooks, early elementary reading titles, books on dealing with tragedy, and notable books of 2008. What a great resource for a reading specialist to use and share with her teachers. So much time is spent reading through different resources and searching various websites. The ALA website is a very useful website that educators can use quickly to find very practical and classroom friendly information.

Nikki Nelson National Middle School Association (NMSA) www.nmsa.org Teaching middle school, I never new there was website directly related to what is happening in today's middle school's. It had a nice staff development link that offered courses to interested professionals. It also posted articles relating to current issues in today's school and how other professionals are continuing to change and grow.

Abbi Wills Phillips American Library Association (ALA) www.ala.org From the main page of the ALA website I found a link to the Young Adult Library Services Association, which was very cool. It has lists of award winners in the area of young adult literature and lots of other booklists. It even has lists of videos, graphic novels and audio books that would be significant to young adults. It gives lists for reluctant readers, college bound kids and even paperbacks for students who can't afford hardcovers! AND the lists are updated every year with pasts years lists easily available. I bookmarked it. I plan on using it alot!

Jacque Smedberg National Middle School Association (NMSA) [|www.nmsa.org] I am glad this website was on the list. I liked the section that discussed research summaries. I have learned to look closely at research but it gives you a place to start. A lot of this website is links to journal articles.