Blogs and Blog Readers
If you have spent any amount of time reading blogs you can understand how hard it is to remember to check on each blog you enjoy, to make sure that you don't miss a new post. There are an endless amount of great blogs to follow and it can be very time consuming to find each one to look for new posts. Well I have good news! I have recently discovered blog readers. There are several different ones that you can chose from as well. The best way for me to explain what a blog reader is, is to compare them to Facebook. You add a blog similar to adding friends and then their information and posts shows up on the news feed. You can set up a blog reader and find all the blogs you enjoy to read and then they will set up a page similar to Facebook's "news feed" where you can scroll down the screen and see what your favorite bloggers have posted. A few options for you are Bloglovin’, Feedly, Bloglines, NewsBlur, Digg Reader, and Newsvibe. After digging deeper into each one of these and playing around with what each one has to offer I prefer the blog reader Bloglovin'. I felt that this one was the most user friendly for me. It was very easy for me to search for blogs and add blogs that I knew I wanted to add. When scrolling through "my feed" I found the format to be the most pleasing to me. It was very similar to Facebook and Pinterest which are sites I am use to. You are able to sort from the newest posts to older or you can click on just one blog you want to explore more of. Of course like just about anything on the web you do have to scroll past the advertisements but I found that on all the blog reader sites. I suggest that if you read a lot of blogs, to save yourself time and set up a blog reader with all your favorite sites and enjoy!
While I was exploring blog readers I came across some amazing blogs about a variety of things that could be helpful for my job as a librarian. There is so much out there when you start looking and that is the key, to look. I enjoy reading blogs about first time teachers or librarians because you can relate to what they are saying and you can learn from their experiences. It is very comforting to hear other stores from other librarians. You can also discover the latest news and happenings along with great ideas to use in the library. Technology blogs are also great blogs to follow. Here are a few of my favorite blogs...
1) Library Displays ( http://schoollibrarydisplays.blogspot.com/ ) This blog has a ton of great idea for book display in the library to generate interest and excitement about reading. I spent a lot of time looking at all the posts on this bog and was able to get a lot of great ideas for the future in my library. One of my favorite posts was the "poet-tree"! I cant wait to make that!
2) Great Kid Books ( http://greatkidbooks.blogspot.com/) This is another one of my favorite posts because it gives great reviews of books for children. I was able to find a great read aloud book from this blog. I love blogs that post about books they have just read and then review them. It is a way to save me time and still b able to find great books.
3) The Busy Librarian (http://www.busylibrarian.com/) This blog offers a ton of podcasts and interviews with authors and illustrators. I had just recently read the book "Max the Brave" to some of my classes and found a podcast with the author on this blog that I will then be able to use along with the read aloud! There are a lot of links to other extremely useful sites and podcasts. I love this blog!
4) Library as Makerspace ( http://librarymakerspace.blogspot.com/ ) This is a great site that I am following because I know that this is the way of the future and how my school district would like to go in. I am still learning about makerspace and what exactly it is and all that it entails so this blog will be extremely helpful to me in the near future. There are a lot of project ideas and technology tools posted on this blog. Its is more defiantly one to keep an eye on so I am glad that I have it on my blog reader!
5) Mrs. Lodge's Library ( http://www.mrs-lodges-library.com/ ) I am also a huge fan of this blog that Mrs. Lodges created about her library. She posts a wide range of things on her blog, read alouds, center ideas, classroom management ideas, and much more. This is the perfect blog to follow if you a new librarian like myself.
Along with my Bloglovin' blog reader I also set up a Tumblr account to be able to share ideas and posts and follow more librarians. If you are interested in my Tumblr then you can click on the link below. Just remember it has just been started and is a work in progress :)
http://mskirkthelibrarian.tumblr.com/
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Friday, September 18, 2015
Teens and Libraries (Infographic)
Rainie, L. (2013, January 23). Teens and Libraries. Presentation presented at YALSA Teens and Libraries Summit.
Teens and Libraries, two words that do not seem to fit together much anymore. After reading the research that Lee Rainie put together for the YALSA Teens and Libraries Summit in January of 2013 I was shocked with the number of teens that actually use the library. To me it feels like it is a struggle to put a book in front of a teen and actually have them read something more than Facebook. I know that in the world we live in there is more of a need for technology and that we need to change with the times, but we cant loose the since of printed books. Lee Rainie and colleagues surveyed online 2,462 teachers with a College Board and National Writing Project and these are these are the seven things that they discovered about Teens and Libraries...
7 takeaways from our research
1)Teens live in a different information ecosystem
2)Teens live in a different learning ecosystem
3)Teens’ reading levels match/exceed adult levels
4)Teens use libraries and librarians more than others, but don’t necessarily love libraries as much
5)Teens have different priorities in library services
6)Teens will behave differently in the world to come
7)The public and teachers recognize this and want libraries to adjust to it
(39 slides)
Teens and Libraries, two words that do not seem to fit together much anymore. After reading the research that Lee Rainie put together for the YALSA Teens and Libraries Summit in January of 2013 I was shocked with the number of teens that actually use the library. To me it feels like it is a struggle to put a book in front of a teen and actually have them read something more than Facebook. I know that in the world we live in there is more of a need for technology and that we need to change with the times, but we cant loose the since of printed books. Lee Rainie and colleagues surveyed online 2,462 teachers with a College Board and National Writing Project and these are these are the seven things that they discovered about Teens and Libraries...
7 takeaways from our research
1)Teens live in a different information ecosystem
2)Teens live in a different learning ecosystem
3)Teens’ reading levels match/exceed adult levels
4)Teens use libraries and librarians more than others, but don’t necessarily love libraries as much
5)Teens have different priorities in library services
6)Teens will behave differently in the world to come
7)The public and teachers recognize this and want libraries to adjust to it
(39 slides)
Friday, September 4, 2015
Twitter is a brand new social network to me, and as I started exploring and following people it opened a whole new world to me. Twitter is a great place to get up to date news and learn about the latest and greatest in educational technology along with many other topics. Here are a few of the biggest names in educational technology and what they are talking about.
Kathy Schrock @kathyschrock
Kathy is an Educational Technologist and speaker along with many other things. She is a great person to follow to learn about the newest terminology and things you can do to incorporate into the classroom. One of the posts that I found interesting was one about app-smashing. I had never heard of such a thing but it looks so cool! As I learned after watching the video and reading other posts, an app smash is when you use multiple apps for one project. The book that was used in the youtube video that she shared was great for explaining how to use it and why. I suggest everyone check it out. Follow the link below to take you to the site.
https://twitter.com/kathyschrock/status/637225073074683904
Linda Braun @lbraun2000
Linda Braun is Learning Consultant, educator, teen advocate, and librarian. Her tweets cover a wide range of topics and I found it to be very informative. I do have to mention that I found it had to read some of her tweets due to the twitter short hand. I guess I am just not use to that yet. There were several post that I saw very interesting and I caught myself clicking on several links and reading about all kinds of things. I really enjoyed her young adult post of the week tweets. It seems that the young adult is her age group that she posts about. I found one post to be very interesting. It was a link to an article about "How Having a Smartphone (or not) Shapes the Way Teens Communicate". It was a great read. If you are interested here is the link to her tweet.
https://twitter.com/lbraun2000/status/638416192013627392
Tony Vincent @tonyvincent
After looking at the tweets that Tony Vincent posts about I can tell he is the go to person if you have an educational technology question. His tip Tuesday tweets are awesome! He tweets about some really cool things and about how to add technology into your classroom. He is also a presenter about the latest and greatest gadgets and apps available. He also tweets when apps go on sale so teachers can afford to download them. He is so knowledgeable about so much! I loved his tweet about how to make Apple TV more classroom friendly.
https://twitter.com/tonyvincent/status/635608738229940224
Buffy Hamilton @buffyjhamilton
Buffy is a librarian and a teacher. I discovered from her tweets that she is a fan of art. I also noticed that she is an advocate and feels strongly for funding technology for the library. You can read one of her tweets here by clicking on this link.
https://twitter.com/buffyjhamilton/status/638722959050469377
The Daring Librarian @GwynethJones
The Daring librarian uses her twitter to connect with many people. She is a fan of comic books as well. Through her tweets I was able to find some great technology tips. One of her tweets was about makerspace. I have heard a lot about makerspace recently and when I saw that she was talking about it I became very interested in what she had to say. Come to find out she even has a makerspace starter kit! I spent a lot of time digging into this and was taken down the rabbit hole in a way because it kept leading me to more and more information about it and the more I discovered the more excited I became! I think everyone should check this out.
https://twitter.com/GwynethJones/status/635585867478925312
Jim Lerman @jimlerman
According to his twitter profile Jim is many things, parent, learner, teacher, leader, author, speaker, collaborator, and networker. After exploring his page I found that he is a fan of google and how a teachers/librarians can incorporate google into the classroom. He also tweets a lot about free technology for teachers and new things in the technology world. Here is a link to one his super cool google tweets. I had no idea we could do so much with google!
https://twitter.com/jimlerman/status/639293320951431168
Kathy Schrock @kathyschrock
Kathy is an Educational Technologist and speaker along with many other things. She is a great person to follow to learn about the newest terminology and things you can do to incorporate into the classroom. One of the posts that I found interesting was one about app-smashing. I had never heard of such a thing but it looks so cool! As I learned after watching the video and reading other posts, an app smash is when you use multiple apps for one project. The book that was used in the youtube video that she shared was great for explaining how to use it and why. I suggest everyone check it out. Follow the link below to take you to the site.
https://twitter.com/kathyschrock/status/637225073074683904
Linda Braun @lbraun2000
Linda Braun is Learning Consultant, educator, teen advocate, and librarian. Her tweets cover a wide range of topics and I found it to be very informative. I do have to mention that I found it had to read some of her tweets due to the twitter short hand. I guess I am just not use to that yet. There were several post that I saw very interesting and I caught myself clicking on several links and reading about all kinds of things. I really enjoyed her young adult post of the week tweets. It seems that the young adult is her age group that she posts about. I found one post to be very interesting. It was a link to an article about "How Having a Smartphone (or not) Shapes the Way Teens Communicate". It was a great read. If you are interested here is the link to her tweet.
https://twitter.com/lbraun2000/status/638416192013627392
Tony Vincent @tonyvincent
After looking at the tweets that Tony Vincent posts about I can tell he is the go to person if you have an educational technology question. His tip Tuesday tweets are awesome! He tweets about some really cool things and about how to add technology into your classroom. He is also a presenter about the latest and greatest gadgets and apps available. He also tweets when apps go on sale so teachers can afford to download them. He is so knowledgeable about so much! I loved his tweet about how to make Apple TV more classroom friendly.
https://twitter.com/tonyvincent/status/635608738229940224
Buffy Hamilton @buffyjhamilton
Buffy is a librarian and a teacher. I discovered from her tweets that she is a fan of art. I also noticed that she is an advocate and feels strongly for funding technology for the library. You can read one of her tweets here by clicking on this link.
https://twitter.com/buffyjhamilton/status/638722959050469377
The Daring Librarian @GwynethJones
The Daring librarian uses her twitter to connect with many people. She is a fan of comic books as well. Through her tweets I was able to find some great technology tips. One of her tweets was about makerspace. I have heard a lot about makerspace recently and when I saw that she was talking about it I became very interested in what she had to say. Come to find out she even has a makerspace starter kit! I spent a lot of time digging into this and was taken down the rabbit hole in a way because it kept leading me to more and more information about it and the more I discovered the more excited I became! I think everyone should check this out.
https://twitter.com/GwynethJones/status/635585867478925312
Jim Lerman @jimlerman
According to his twitter profile Jim is many things, parent, learner, teacher, leader, author, speaker, collaborator, and networker. After exploring his page I found that he is a fan of google and how a teachers/librarians can incorporate google into the classroom. He also tweets a lot about free technology for teachers and new things in the technology world. Here is a link to one his super cool google tweets. I had no idea we could do so much with google!
https://twitter.com/jimlerman/status/639293320951431168
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