Web 2.0 Newbie

Blogging student book reviews, new books, new

2007-08-26T17:46:00.001-07:00

On my library website I've had a mechanism for students to submit book reviews. They complete an online form (Formmail.com). The info gets sent to me in an email and I then post that to the website. It's somewhat laborious to update the website with new reviews but I've been able to keep up with the volume, posting them within a day of submittal. Posting to a blog is so much easier I decided to convert it for book reviews plus my info new books, etc. It'll be my introduction of blogging to my school. A couple of the teachers have taken a tech class where they learned about it. Until we figure out as a staff how we teach students commenting I currently have it off.

Here's the blog:
http://mcareads.blogspot.com/

Video booktalk of a book

2007-08-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

I created a video booktalk using imovie, copyright free photos and voice over narration. The toughest part was figuring out how to sink up the narration with the photos. The movie is hosted at TeacherTube.

The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs
by Betty Birney

Week 9, Thing #23

2007-07-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much for providing the tutorial. I learned so much and enjoyed it immensely. Below are my reflections.

My favorite discoveries:
1. Ways to promote books and have an interactive conversation about books through my library website with audio and video podcasts, blogging, LibraryThing.
2. Tools (Wikis, Zoho) to use to collaborate with staff in producing pathfinders and bibliographies that tie library and classroom resources to curricular topics.
3. Ways to efficiently and effectively access, file and organize information on the Internet in order to stay up-to-date with my professional development with news readers and Del.icio.us.

How has this assisted with my learning:
Hugely... introduced me to Library 2.0 and now I'm tapped into the conversation on the blogosphere to continue learning. I'm not always able to get to the conferences so this online tutorial was ideal.

Unexpected outcomes:
That I got so into the tutorial. Enjoyed it immensely, learned a lot.

If we offered another would you participate?
Yes!

Describe learning experience in one sentence:
It blew my mind.

Week 8, Thing #18

2007-07-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

There was a very interesting article by Chris Harris on his SLJ blog about using Zoho Notebook to create pathfinders and as a book review platform as it allows you to embed video, audio (and directly record there too!), RSS reader, etc. This might be a quick and easy way to create audio podcasts of the Calif. Young Reader Medal nominated books and post to my library website.

Week 8, Thing #19

2007-07-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

LibraryThing is great. I especially liked its recent integration into public library catalogs, like Danbury. Seeing the additional info they provide within a record, like similar books, tags and patron reviews, is fantastic. We're definitely seeing the next wave of OPACs.

It's interesting how public and some school libraries are using LibraryThing for reader's advisory (I'm doing this now) and to promote new books. This can be done quite easily. You just export ISBNs of books you've added within a date range (which can easily be done with our circ system Alexandria), upload to LibraryThing, and tag them new books. I tried this with a file of about 40 and it was quite quick for them to process; depends how many others are in the queue ahead of you. See the widget on my blog. One concern I have is the social networking aspect, the book sharing conversation between students and adult LibraryThing users. That's the challenge with Web 2.0, teaching students how to use the Internet safely and appropriately.

Week 9, Thing #20

2007-07-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

I experimented today with making a simple movie booktalk of Avi's The Book Without Words using iMovie, a photo of the book cover and voice over narration. Took some time as I've never used iMovie but the results are intriguing.

Week 9, Thing #20

2007-07-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

I searched YouTube for library promotion videos and came across this gem which is the director's thank you to her elementary school library. It brought a tear to my eye and reminds me of why I love this job.

With further searching I uncovered others created by school and public libraries for an "I love my library" contest sponsored by Thomson Gale with the winning entry shown at last month's ALA conference. See Gale's website for entries submitted by school libraries.

Great example of video booktalking posted by BookWink.com can be found on TeacherTube, an instructional video sharing site. Looking at the instructional videos made me think about creating videos on how to search the catalog, intro to the library, etc.

Week 7, Thing #17

2007-07-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

Hmm, that felt empowering -- I posted ideas (#23, 24) to the curriculum connections wiki. I've wanted to share my knowledge and good ideas with others but as a para I haven't found a welcoming forum. There's something about the anonymity of the online world that makes it easier to risk. Reminds me of something I read about the use of blogging with students discussing books. That the student who is reluctant to contribute in face-to-face discussion may feel more at ease contributing electronically.

Week 6, Thing #15

2007-07-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

It's exciting thinking about possible Library 2.0 applications, such as:

OPAC that includes student written book reviews and lists of favorite books (a la Amazon).
Pathfinders that have been turned into wikis (see Joyce Valenza "Ten reasons why your next pathfinder should be a wiki") to invite teacher and student collaboration.
Student book reviews and tutorials as podcasts and video posted to your website.
Student groups conducting their research using wikis and del.ico.us.
Librarians within a district creating an school library operations guide and capturing best practices in a wiki.
Librarian and teachers collaborating on a children's lit wiki that recommends books that tie to curriculum, including read-alouds, books for guided reading groups, supplemental reading.

For the summer I'm going to start planning for #3 and 6 for the fall. I'm reading the CYRM nominated titles and will experiment with podcasting or video to promote those, and I've been developing bibliographies for teachers around curricular topics which I'll turn into a wiki so they can add their expertise to.

Week 6, Thing #14

2007-07-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Technorati leaves me sorta cold, I guess I don't get it. I tried searching in various ways-- keyword, tag, blog directory-- to locate blogs about school libraries and teacher librarians in elementary schools that blog about books and connections to the curriculum with middling success. I have better luck looking at the blog rolls of the favorites I already have. My bloglines reader is changing since I began this adventure, from a single focus on children's lit focus to include schools and technology, such as Joyce Valenza's NeverEndingSearch Blog. libSite (recommended library websites including school), and Practically Paradise (SLJ). I imagine as I better hone in on the middle blogosphere (is that what they called it in one resource doc I read?) of information I'm interested in stuff gets added and falls off my reader. Thank god for bloglines.

It's easy to do but I didn't claim this blog as it's just my reflections on the tutorial.

Week 6, Thing #13

2007-07-05T18:52:00.001-07:00

I luvvvv del.icio.us! I've kept a list of websites that I called my librarian toolbox on my school library website so I could access it home and school but this is so much better. And, I'm really getting its value now that I've figured out the Popular thingie. I unearthed other booktalk sites, including podcasts that I wouldn't have by other means. It's valuable seeing what others in the field who I admire are bookmarking. I'm up to 70 items marked.

Tagging is very easy to use, to change (which I've done a few times today), but I'm still puzzling out bundles. Is this just a way to categorize the tags? Also I'm wondering if one can get an intersection of two tagged lists?

I can see how this tool would be useful for a student group researching a topic using a shared unique tag.

Week 3, Thing #5

2007-07-03T17:00:00.001-07:00

Library circulation and funding, originally uploaded by jennylinsky.

Going back to Flickr... I've took a few photos of the library before I left for the summer, and have posted them to my Flickr account, showing you this one. It's a poster I created of our circulation statistics and sources of funding over the past 7 years. When we have school board members visit our school, I bring them over to this poster to talk about the importance of funding and its impact on usage. I point out how usage increased dramatically beginning in 2000 with state funding, continued to increase during its 4 year run and then with money we started receiving from our PTA to replace it when it dried up. I tell them that no money translates into old books that no one wants or can use. You can follow the Flickr link to see the other photos of posters I posted which have to do with acquisitions and budget. I use all of these to encourage our PTA to continue funding our library.

Week 5, Thing #11

2007-06-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

I explored Del.icio.us, the social tagging Web 2 app. I created an account, added some links-- kid lit book vendors, awards, blogs. I figured out how to share this on my blog-- see the kid lit blogs I follow to the right. The whole social nature of Web 2 applications is intriguing, but I'm sure I don't totally get the value of sharing links and seeing what other people think are valuable links. As I added more links I wondered how I could organize them, grouping the blogs together, kit lit awards and annual best of lists together, etc.. Seems like you could only order them chronologically or alphabetically.

Week 5, Thing #10

2007-06-18T23:15:00.000-07:00

Comic Strip Generator

Image chef

billboard from fd's flickr toys

Week 4, Thing #9

2007-06-18T18:46:00.001-07:00

I created a bloglines account and added the blogs I'd been following "manually" for the past year. These include Educating Alice, I'm a Reading Fool, The Miss Rumphius Effect, Big A, little a, Kids Lit, and Voices from the Inglenook. I couldn't find a feed for A Fuse #8 Production, my favorite blog, which recently moved to the School Library Journal online website. I found Bloglines really easy to use, more so than Google reader.

Week 3, Thing #5

2007-06-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

After exploring Flickr, I thought about what groups would be of interest to school librarians. Maybe bulletin board displays, lounge furniture and chairs and arrangement, shelving units. I searched for such groups but didn't find anything specific to K-12 school libraries. Maybe we could start one in the fall.

Week 3, Thing #6

2007-06-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

I created this with Warholizer from fd's Flickr Toys using a photo of one of our foster kittens Nym.

Week 2, Thing #3

2007-06-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

I created a blog a couple of years ago for a teacher who wanted have a book discussion blog for her middle school students. To experiment with Blogger we decided to do this over the summer with parents at the school. We selected a book, had them sign up and introduce themselves. The teacher had difficulty posting and gave up. Because it was the summer I wasn't able to help her use Blogger in person.

Week 2, Thing #3

2007-06-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

I set up a book discussion blog for a teacher a couple of years ago with Blogger but it was unsuccessful in the execution. She wanted to experiment with discussing books using blogging, so we chose a book that was our county's one-book reads selection and asked parents at our school to sign-up.