Library Matters

This course has been an amazing journey through the online world and I learned a huge amount over the past few weeks. Thank goodness I did this course over the summer because it gave me the opportunity to spend loads of time exploring the resources that Shelley made known to us. I don’t know if I could have completed this course during the school year, even though I would have had people at hand to help me solve problems. However, maybe it was a good thing that I had to work things out for myself most of the time–and with Shelley’s support at other times! There was really more information in this course than I could absorb the first time around, even though I managed to complete all the assignments. What struck me particularly was the sheer volume of resources and I think that for the sake of my sanity I will need to be very selective and choose only a couple of new tools from the list. I’m looking forward to implementing some of these tools for my classes in the fall. Finally, I really appreciate having this blog as an electronic journal of my learning. Thank you Shelley!

After exploring both Classroom 2.0 and Twitter for educational purposes, I have begun to think more seriously about how I could use these tools for my own professional development and for my classes. Classroom 2.0 offers a useful librarian network in addition to the Teacher Librarian Ning I joined some time ago. I have had a Twitter account for a while but have not been using it at all for my work. Now that I have done some exploring I can see how useful this tool can be–see Thirty Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom for some great ideas. I like the idea of having to distill thoughts into 140 characters so that you really have to think hard about communicating the most important concepts. This would be a great tool to use for book groups.

I am familiar with personal portal pages as I set up an iGoogle page some months ago. However, I only set up the page for my personal use as we already had a portal page system for my school. I am inspired by the ways schools have used pageflakes for educational purposes and would like to explore this tool some more. Some of my favorite pageflakes pages from the samples given on our class wiki page include ideas for using Voicethread in Education and the Unquiet Library from Creekview High School.

Photo credit: Parthenon by Wally G.

I have worked with Google Docs before on a college project with two other students so I am somewhat familiar with the process. For this “Thing” I created an Excel document for a bibliography of books about ancient Greek mythology that would be appropriate for students in grades 5 and 6 at my school. I would share this document with the 5-6 teachers who could add titles and notes when they find new books or read any of the ones on the list. Together, we could create a comprehensive bibliography and keep it current by updating it. As a librarian I can foresee many uses for this type of document for other courses where teachers are looking for reading material for their students.

Google Docs could also be used collaboratively in other ways: by teachers who have attended professional workshops or conferences to share feedback on their experiences and knowledge; by faculty to contribute thoughts on a particular project and create a document for review.

I found this article from my Google Reader feed. This is the first chapter of an article about tools for digital book publishing from Joyce Valenza, a well known school library media specialist. In this first posting on the subject, Valenza describes the functions of Mixbook for Educators, a suite of digital storytelling tools on the Web. Valenza recommends this free, collaborative tool for students who can create stories around topics they are studying in the classroom or give a report about a school event or field trip. This tool is easy to use and enables students to add backgrounds to their photographs or images, manipulate images and even print the final product.

I found this thought-provoking video on the topic of books and libraries on YouTube. It is a panel discussion from TV Ontario about the role libraries and teacher librarians play in students’ learning and the changing library environment. The panel participants include two teacher librarians who also discuss the role of print materials in this new digital information environment. The discussion covered many issues relating to literacy that are of relevance not only in Canada, but also in the USA, the UK and other countries around the world. It also answered many questions that I have about being a school librarian in the 21st century.

On my tour of YouTube I found some delicious recipes for eggplant dishes and some fun Mickey Mouse cartoons. I also found video tutorials for learning how to use Excel. Here is a link to the first Excel tutorial; the creator of the tutorial requested not to provide the embedded code. I’m sure I could spend hours exploring an infinite variety of topics.

I also explored the video section of TeacherTube but found very little that I could use, mainly because of the poor quality of the material. However, I found a fun video that helps students to learn some state capitals although I was disappointed that there was no credit given to the original producers of the video. It’s certainly a great tool for students to produce their own videos and present their ideas, give presentations, provide instruction, produce multimedia books reviews . . . in a creative way

My Shadow

Here is my first attempt at a podcast. I enjoyed choosing one of my favorite poems and reading it aloud. I can see using this tool in my library lessons to develop literacy skills with my elementary students. They could choose their favorite poems or create original poems and read them aloud for a podcast.

Portrait of a Poet written and performed by Charles R. Smith Jr.

Here is another podcast that I produced with my 5th and 6th grade library classes in collaboration with one of our technical support team. The students wrote their own rap poem in response to a poem entitled “Inspiration” written by a local author — Charles R. Smith, Jr.

5-6 inspiration project

I have been exploring the world of podcasting and there is far more to it than I realized; I found out that podcasting refers to video as well as audio and that there are many online podcast directories as well as itunes. It was more complicated than I thought to listen and subscribe to podcasts. Firstly, some of the podcasts take a long time to download so I abandoned these sites when I was exploring different ones. I also found that the quality of the podcasts varies enormously. When I subscribed to the podcasts I found them in the list in my Google Reader but they were listed under the URL so I had to rename each one individually. So, I don’t think I have got the hang of the administration of my subscriptions yet. I found the episodes on Radio WillowWeb by elementary school students in Nebraska inspirational and gave me many ideas for how to incorporate podcasts into my teaching. Students from all the elementary grades share their knowledge of different topics in an entertaining way. I have set up subscriptions for LibriVox: Classic Short Stories, for NPR: Fresh Air hosted by Terry Gross and for Stephen Fry’s Podgrams. I found Tony Vincent’s Learning in Hand Web site very helpful for providing guidance and resources for creating podcasts. I can see that it takes time to plan and create good quality podcasts so I don’t know if I’ll be able to use this tool with my classes this coming year as I don’t see them frequently enough or long enough each week.

Here are some interesting responses to David Brooks’ article “The Medium Is the Message”  (July 9, 2010).