Week 9-#23

Amazing !  That’s how I’d sum up this online experience.  There is still a lot I’m absorbing.  I am so grateful that CSLA structured the experience during the summer so there would be time to do it.  It has always taken me a long time to learn aspects of technology.  I now feel more confident about a number of areas.  I defintely plan to keep using LibraryThing, and I hope to keep up my blog as well.  One reason I used WordPress was that anything with blog in the title is blocked by our school’s filters.  There are so many other ideas floating around right now that I can’t wait to share with our library services supervisor in the district as well as the person I work with in our high school library.  Thank you so much for waking me up to new ideas and tools to use to implement them !

Advertisement

Week #9- #22 ebooks and audiobooks

I was surprised at what the Gutenberg Project had to offer.  I still have trouble wrapping my mind around reading books on the computer, but I’m sure the current generation of students would have no difficulty doing it.  I would like to see textbooks on line.  I think that is really the way to go.  There wouldn’t be a problem of having enough copies, or access to the information at home or school.  The only problem, of course, would be getting access to a computer.  We still have a number of students whose only computer access is  at school.  Audio books work great especially with ELL and special ed students.  We got a grant last year to purchase multiple copies of playaways for some of our core literature.

Week 9- #21 Podcasts

I continue to be amazed at everything that is out there, although I’m not sure I’d be able to learn Mandarin Chinese through podcasts.  I did check out one site for English language learners and some poetry offerings. We started a poetry contest last year during April that was very successful.  A teacher  suggested we videotape the presentations.  I’m thinking about podcasts because poetry is so oral.

Week 9- #20

I love the video “Introducing the Book”.  I had seen it earlier and I had wanted to put it in one of lessons we do with the Research and Tech classes, but anything from YouTube is blocked by the filters we have on our school computers.

Week 9- Librarything

I have really enjoyed adding coments to the Librarything list I made of the books I’ve read so far this summer.  It’s still a work in progress since I still have more vacation time.  You can see the list at http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=kaburns^shelf=list.  Click on your library once you get there.

Week 8-Zoho

I just finished exploring Zoho.  It’s very easy to use.  I think their 30 boxes (calendar) may be the solution to a problem we’ve had.  We wanted to have a calendar so staff could see if the library was available at a certain time.  Our tech people said we couldn’t have one that people could view and also add to if the time was available.  I’ll obviously have to check with them to make sure it’s okay, but it seems like this could work.

Week 7-#16 Wikis

After talking with students about verifying what is on Wikipedia and advising them NOt to use it as their only source, it’s good to learn some positives about wikis.  I will certainly use wikis in the library service class.  Students can do their book reviews as well as the genre offerings on wikis.  

Week #6 -#15

A few weeks ago before starting on this 2.0 journey I would have read some of these posts and thought, what are they talking about ?  Now I still don’t recognize all the terminology, but I do understand that libraries are changing to meet the needs of the times as they have always done.  My situation is a bit different. I don’t have the declining circulation mentioned in Rick Anderson’s piece. I work in a relatively new high school (only three years old) where library use has grown dramatically each year.  I want to keep it that way so I’m trying to learn how to appeal to our students and their needs.  I am also at a disadvantage.  Our district only has one librarian, at the district level, to oversee all our libraries.  We are all techs working in the trenches trying to do what we can.

Week 6- How delicious ?

Not one of my favorite assisgnments. I could not access the 12 minute video that showed how to use del.icio.us.  I viewed the other suggested locations. I can see how grouping favorites makes sense.  I can also see the application for sites students can use for research.

Week 5 continued

While I’m waiting for the last Harry Potter book to be delivered I thought I’d spend some time on this.  What a great find LibraryThing is !  I was wondering how I was going to let students know what I read over vacation ( and keep track of it myself).  So I entered all the books I’ve read so far, an electic mix this year, and now I’m writings my thoughts on each one of them.

I also joined the Library technicians ning site.  I’m so glad Megan Fuller created this site. While I belong to CSLA and YALSA, it’s good to have a chance to communicate with people who are doing similar work on a day to day basis.