Last week our family had our annual vacation at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We've stayed at the same beach house every spring for 12 years, and no matter what the weather holds, we always have a wonderful time. But for all our enjoyment each year, I've longed for one thing - to see the wild ponies which are supposed to haunt the beaches, but never show up on our stretch of sand.

Friday early evening I was taking my last walk along the ocean alone, silently saying goodbye for another year. And there they were - five beautiful horses in shades of chestnut, with a small foal among them, standing against the sunset. As usual, I didn't have my camera with me, or even a cellphone to snap a quick pic.

It's ironic that I spend so much of my professional time in classrooms capturing images of great teaching to share with you, and yet I'm so inept in my personal life when it comes to remembering to bring a camera with me in my pocket or a purse. Last week was a vivid reminder of how many of the best memories are visual, and worth capturing digitally before they are gone for good.

If you're in the midst of end of the year celebrations, you've got a million things on your to-do list. Just don't forget to add "bring my camera!" to it. Those last staff meetings, celebrations with families, and kid displays of favorite work will be over in a flash, and one of your greatest pleasures years from now might be going through old storage boxes or hard drives, looking again at the images from those special events. This week, we've got some terrific free tools on the web for storing, sharing, and editing those photos once you have them. Plus more as always. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

Many teachers wish they had access to the editing features of Photoshop, but can't afford the steep software price or learning curve for its more complex functions. There is good news - Photoshop Express has been launched on the web. This is a free service that includes the most common features from Photoshop, plus a hefty amount of free storage space. You can give it a test drive here:

https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

It will be interesting to see if Photoshop Express can compete with Google's Picasa, the free photo editor and on-line storage service which I've used for the past couple of years. Picasa requires a Gmail account (also free), but couldn't be easier to use when it comes to posting and sharing albums or slideshows. I use the simple fixes like red-eye correction and cropping all the time:

http://picasa.google.com/index-new3.html

Is the digital camera in your classroom or school gathering dust much of the time? Gail Lovely has suggestions for integrating digital camera use into classroom routines at this link:

http://www.gaillovely.com/resources/cameras.htm

Do you need a great quote for the last mentoring meeting of the year? Check out our Quote Collection on Mentoring:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/289.cfm

If you're looking for picture perfect professional development this summer, consider joining us for Literacy Coach Jumpstart with Jennifer Allen, Choice Literacy's popular one-day workshop for literacy coaches. The fast-paced session includes tips on mentoring new teachers, designing study groups, focusing classroom observations, and leading whole staff literacy initiatives. All participants receive a copy of the Layered Coaching DVD for review and use in workshops back home:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/383.cfm

For Members Only

In this week's video, Karen Terlecky gives a room tour of her 5th grade classroom, highlighting the many anchor charts and wall displays that support literacy learning:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/602.cfm

The last read aloud of the year leads Franki Sibberson to reflect on the progression of her read aloud choices throughout the year. In this article, she shares her booklist of read-alouds and the thinking and learning goals that led to each selection:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/603.cfm

Finally, a unique take on the fluency debate in schools. Jennifer Jones uses her experience as a tourist in a Spanish-speaking country to consider how fluency and meaning are (and aren't) connected, and what that means for teaching students:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/601.cfm

That's all for this week!