We're updating the Teacher portal! MeL provides helpful resources for teachers, school librarians, and now parents in the Teacher portal. The Library of Michigan spends a significant amount of our MeL funding on K-12 resources including encyclopedias, early literacy resources, and article-based databases. It's important that we support the use of these materials by teachers in the classroom and school librarians in the media center. This is one way we do that. Did you know MeL has a K-12 Education Specialist on staff named Christine Schneider? She's been in contact with over 5,500 Michigan educators in the past two years talking about MeL. She's a former classroom teacher (English and Math) who knows the importance of talking to educators in their own language and showing them how to integrate the MeL resources into the classroom. It's her job to go out on the road and work directly with educators, giving them tools and information about what's in MeL and how it can help them to do their jobs better. She's available to come to your local school district and work with the teachers in your community as well. Feel free to contact her at mailto:cschneider.mel@gmail.com. Christine is hard at work this fall updating the Teacher portal. There are eight learning centers: * Elementary Resources * Secondary Resources * Training Toolkit * K-12 Spotlight * Michigan Educator Links * Parent Resources * Test Preparation * Technology Resources Elementary (preK-5th) and Secondary (6th - 12th grade) resources concentrate on MeL resources for those grade levels. Upcoming changes will focus on integrating the databases into curriculum. The training toolkit contains resource-specific support materials, slide decks that you're welcome to steal from should you be venturing into a local school yourself, and lots of videos both long and short. The K-12 spotlight highlights districts and how they integrate and use MeL in their schools and school media centers. We like to celebrate Michigan teachers and school librarians so if you're doing great things with MeL let us know! The Parent resources tab is an introduction to what a subscription database is and what their benefits are. Also it notes that everyone can use them, not just the schoolchildren in the household. MeL is a resource for the whole family. The Test Prep tab highlights, among other things, our inclusion of Khan Academy in MeL and how, combined with LearningExpress Library, they make a powerful tool for students. Brought to you by Deb Renee Biggs and Sonya Schryer Norris, Library Consultants at the Library of Michigan MeL databases are available to Michigan residents or Michigan library access only. MeL Minutes are brought to you by the Library of Michigan. Want more information on MeL? Stay tuned for the next MeL Minute available on many Michigan library listservs, email us at contact@mel.org, visit http://mel.org, or sign up for the MeL Minute and other Library of Michigan e-mail lists via GovDelivery. We encourage you to share MeL Minutes with your colleagues and networks. Sonya Schryer Norris Library of Michigan 702 W. Kalamazoo St. Lansing, MI 48909 517-373-4457 http://michigan.gov/libraryofmichigan http://mel.org http://michlibrary.org