Online Book Communities

Online Book Communities

This week I explored a few different online book communities trying to discover the one that I felt the most comfortable with and could use with students and teachers. Online book communities are online sites were you can create an account and then add books to different lists or shelves. For example you can create a “book shelf” for books you have read and would recommend to students or others, or your shelf could be for books you would like to read. When I was creating shelves on different sites I created a book shelf for the new Bluebonnet books that were just released so I could keep track of them and I also created a shelf for books that are great for read alouds and are helpful to teachers who are looking for a book to read aloud to help teach a skill. I explored Goodreads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, Booklikes, and Biblionasium. All of them can store books on a shelf but as you read below, I preferred some more than others. I will most definitely be using Biblionasium in my library with all the classes!

 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/

This was a very user friendly site. I was able to easily add two new book shelves easily and then put books on the shelf I wanted. This site also offered great recommendations. Once you start putting books on the shelves it will give you recommendations for similar books you might like. This site was one of the easiest to put books on the shelf. Goodreads also proved the reader with great book summaries and reviews along with sites where you can purchase the book or even Libraries that have the book. Another nice feature that Goodreads provides is if the book is part of a book list it will provide you with the list. For example one of the books I selected to put on one of my shelves was “The Lion and the Mouse” by Jerry Pinkney which is a Caldecott Medal Winner so it provided me with the list of other winners. I think that is a great feature to have. While I think this site is very useful for adults and I will personally use it I feel that it is not student friendly as some of the others and will probably not use it in the library.

 

 

 

Library Thing:  http://www.librarything.com

Out of all five sites that I was exploring I feel that this one was my least favorite. It was not very visually appealing as the others. There were still a lot of positives with this site. It was easy to add books to my shelf although on this site they do not call them shelves, they are called collections. I did enjoy their tag feature. You can click on a book and if there are others books that have the same tag you can find books that are similar. For example one of the books I added to a collection was the wordless book “Chalk” and it had a tag wordless book and so when I clicked on it the site provided me with a list of other wordless books. This feature is very similar to adding a hash tag to a post or picture. It was very helpful when I was searching for books to add to my collection. Overall it was a useful site and not hard to manage but just not as appealing tome as the others.

 

 

Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/

Shelfari is a book community that is established through amazon.com. I found this site to also be very user friendly and very visually appealing. I like the shelf view and how they display the book covers. They give you several choices about how to display the books. Once you have books on your shelf, it is easy to edit them and I liked that feature. You can make the book as planning to read, reading now, or read it. You can also mark a book as your favorite and add to a wish list. The books are also easy to rate once you have read them. Once you click on a title you can read the description and read reviews from other readers. Being a product of amazon you can also purchase the book easily. I think that I will use this site for personal use but still not quite right to use with my students in the library.

 

BookLikes: http://booklikes.com

This site to me is very similar to Library Thing. I found it to be very user friendly but just not as much as the other sites. I was able to add books to my shelf but when I wanted to know more about a certain book it did not provide me with a lot of information except for reviews from other readers. I was also a little annoyed that when I did a search for a book and would find what I was looking for but also saw another book I was interested in I could only add one book at a time and each time I would have to type the search criteria in the search bar. It also opens a new window each time you click on a book. I did like the way that the books were displayed with the book covers. I feel that is was not as user frieldy as the rest and will most likely choose another online book community to “shelf” my books.

 

 

 

 

 

Biblionasium: https://www.biblionasium.com

I am so excited about this site and cannot wait to share it with all my teachers and the students! This is a wonderful site and perfect for the classroom or the library! Biblionasium is very visually appealing and kid friendly. I found it to be very easy to use and something that my teachers can easily jump in and start using right away. There are so many interesting parts to this site. You are able to build reading lists, the kids can log their reading time and it offers reading challenges that you can have your class work on. It also provides a really fun and kid friendly home page with book talks, did you know section and fun and interesting articles. This site also provides parents with a way to view what their child is reading and check on how many minutes they have logged. There are also news articles and other resources for parents and teachers. They provide book lists and activities for children. Under the tab “My Books” is where you will find your book shelf. You can create different book shelves for different lists. The book shelves are very visually appealing and fun to look at because they look like real book shelves and the book covers look great. When you click on each book it will give you the book summary, a place for reviews, you can send recommendations, a link to amazon.com where you can purchase the book and the book’s reading level. When you are searching for books to add to your shelf the search will display the book you are looking for and others by the same author or subject. The only down side is that it won’t let you add more than one book at a time. You have to click on each book to then add to your shelf and then go back to your search results. This one flaw doesn’t have me bothered though because of all the other awesome things that this site can do and provide. I highly recommend it to all reading teachers and librarians.

 

 

 

Podcasts

Podcasts

This week I took a look into podcasts and how they can be used in the library. After reading some other blogs about podcasting I discovered that there are an endless amount of ways that a simple podcast can be used in the library. A podcast is a voice recording that can be about anything. The way I explained it to my students was that it is very similar to a radio show where you can hear them but can’t see them and it is different in the way that you can listen to it anytime and over and over again if you wish. A librarian could use a podcast to record herself or students reading a story to be shared with parents, The students can create their own podcast of them “interviewing” a historical person after reading a biography, the list can go on and on. This week as my classes came to the library I was promoting the book fair that will be opening on Monday so I decided to play with podcasting and record a few of my fourth grade students discussing some books that will be in the book fair.

To make a podcast I tried out four different apps to find the one that worked for me. I tried Soundcloud, Audioboom, Podomatic, and Opinion. After trying all these out I decided to use the Opinion app because it was very user friendly and easy to email to myself so I could them save it on my computer. The other apps I experimented with were to me more focused on different podcasts that have already been made and were ready to be listened too. I found the app Opinion by searching the IPhone app store for “record your own podcast”. It was a free app so I downloaded it and when I opened the app it was ready to record. I could also add music to the podcast if I wanted to. I could also cut and edit the podcast as well. I recorded a few samples and then tested them out to make sure that they could be emailed easily. After I felt confident and comfortable with the app I recruited my fourth grade library helpers to help me record a podcast about the book fair. They had a blast and recorded it several times because they wanted to make it perfect. I then emailed it to my principal and she played it on the morning announcements. Overall I had a great experience with podcasts and play to use them often.

Here is the link to the podcast!

https://soundcloud.com/hdk001/book-fair-podcast/s-qtAKm

 

Information Ethics

Information Ethics

What is Information Ethics? Well, after reading the article “K.I.S.S. and Information Ethics” by Mary Ann Bell and looking up the definition in the dictionary, Information ethics has been defined as "the branch of ethics that focuses on the relationship between the creation, organization, dissemination, and use of information, and the ethical standards and moral codes governing human conduct in society". How does this have to do with the library? When a problem comes up it is about how you as a professional deal with it. This also comes in play when a book is being challenged in your library or a parent, student, or staff member has a concern about a book or resource.

According to the book written by Richard W. Severson’s titled “The Principles of Information Ethics” there are four principles. They are, Respect for Intellectual property, Respect for privacy, Fair Representation, and Non maleficence (or “doing no harm”).

I have decided to focus on the second principle, Respect for Privacy. This principle has to do with privacy and the nature and dangers of email. I have been working as an Elementary Librarian since August and have not encountered a problem to be able to personally discuss. However when I was working as a classroom teacher my librarian had an incident involving parent teacher email communication. She would send out weekly emails to all of our parents about updates and important info that they needed to know about. She would send the email to our self and put all of the parents email contacts in the blind copy part of the email to keep the emails and parents contact private. Well one day she was trying to send the weekly email and accidentally forgot to BC the parents and sent the email exposing all the contact information for the parents in that class. This then allowed for the parents to hit the reply all button. Well it was not a big deal at the moment but a few days later a parent had a complaint about something and instead of dealing with just the librarian she sent it to the whole class list because of this mistake which then created a heated argument between some parents. My librarian then had to involve our principal and forward all messages to her. She then called the parents that were arguing into the office for a sit down meeting to discuss both their concerns at once. The parents were then able to work out their problems and everything was fine after that. Since this issue I have been extremely careful when sending an email.

I feel that my librarian made one simple mistake and learned a very valuable lesson. It was also a great learning experience for all the teachers in the school because at the next school wide staff meeting we discussed the situation and were all able to learn about the dangers of email and keeping contact information private. I feel while it was a mistake on her part the teacher dealt with the problem with a high level of ethical conduct.

 

Videos and QR Codes in the Library

This week I was asked to explore the world of YouTube, QR codes and animoto and how these tools can be helpful in the library. I know that I use YouTube in my library all the time! The most common use for YouTube for me right now is book trailers. I always try to encourage my third and fourth graders to read all the Bluebonnet books each year and to get them interested I show the 20 book trailers and by the end of that class period all my books are checked out! It is a great way to show students about books in a format they really pay attention to. When watching the book trailers I noticed that most of them were created using the web tool Animoto. When I was asked to create an animoto this week I was worried at first because the ones I have seen always look professionally done and I didn't think that I had that ability, but after I started it was one of the easiest web tools to put together. Animoto is very user friendly and a tool that students can use with ease. I have already shared it with my fourth grade teachers and we are planning a project using it. With both YouTube and Animoto the amount of way you could use them in the library is endless. With YouTube you can watch videos of authors reading their books, interviews with author and illustrators, book publishing, or you could have your classes/students record themselves reading or performing a readers theater. There are is so much that a librarian could use YouTube for. The same with Animoto. You could assign all kind of projects the kids could work on. Even the really young students could put together an Animoto using pictures and sequence the story of the three little pigs.

 YouTube

Here are a few examples of great YouTube videos from different Libraries.

1)Norman High School

This is a great YouTube video that tells the viewers all about the library, from when it is open to what the library's purpose is. I think that this video is very helpful to students. If I was a new student and didn't know about the library, after watching this video I would know a lot more and be more likely to walk into the library and feel comfortable. I really like this idea of a welcome to the library video.

This is another cute video that Norman High school created to show viewers all the different things that you can do in the library. I liked how they used the school mascot to create this video. I think that by using the mascot it will entertain the students and keep them engaged in the video. I think that they probably enjoyed this video about the library the most.

2) The Unquiet Library

This library has created a lot of tutorial videos that show how to do/create something. It was hard to pick just one video to share. I chose one example showing how the librarian is teaching the students how to embed voice into a prezi. While watching you an tell that she was collaborating with the teacher on a project and I really like that collaboration was shown.

This next video shows how a librarian can use YouTube for a student project. You an tell by watching the video that the students really enjoyed creating this video.

 

 

3) Pikesville High School

This library uses their YouTube channel to share projects and to post video of all the fun things that happen in the library.   I think the most useful videos for the students are about the ones made by teachers explaining why the students should or should not take their class. If I was a high school student I would think that was helpful. You also get to see and hear from the teacher so you already know a little about who teaches what. The video that I think the students would enjoy the most you be the videos that were posted that show the "library in action".

4) BBMS School Media

This school has some of the best videos! I watched several and it was hard to pick just two to share. The parodies they have made are awesome! The librarian has also posted a few video of himself talking about some good reads for students. Its a great way to get the students interested in some books that they might know about if he hadn't posted on YouTube.

 

I think that the students had to love this video about brining back books!

These four YouTube channels show just a few of the many ways a librarian can use YouTube to promote the library.


Animoto

I created an Animoto video to use as a book trailer for the book "Max the Brave". It was super user friendly as I said before! I really enjoyed working with this web tool and will be making several in the near future

Max is a fearless kitten. Max is a brave kitten. Max is a kitten who chases mice. There's only one problem-Max doesn't know what a mouse looks like! With a little bit of bad advice, Max finds himself facing a much bigger challenge. Maybe Max doesn't have to be Max the Brave all the time...
Join this adventurous black cat as he very politely asks a variety of animals for help in finding a mouse. Young readers will delight in Max's mistakes, while adults will love the subtle, tongue-in-cheek humor of this new children's classic.

-Amazon










QR Codes

When I think of QR codes, the library is not the first place I think of. I have used them in the store and while I am grocery shopping but didn't really connect QR codes and all the possibilities that they offered in the library. I was actually sitting down in a meeting today with a book rep and she started telling me how if I buy enough eBooks then they will provide me with a certain amount of printed books with the QR code on the back so the students can scan it and be able to read the book on an electronic device. I was blown away. While I was researching about how QR codes could work in the library I discovered that there are so many uses. You can make  a QR code link to songs, videos, Web sites that you think the students or parent would like. I also liked the idea of creating a code and placing it on audio book cases for author interviews or books for reviews.You can make a code for just about anything and the students just have to have an electronic devise to scan it. While there are so many ways to use them in the library I am finding it hard to imagine exactly how I can work them into an elementary school library where the students are not allowed to walk around with an electronic devise and a campus that does not have a lot of technology (iPad, laptops). They would be very helpful to the teachers and parents though and that is great. When I created the one below, that will take you to my animoto video, it was a lot easier than I thought it was. I entered the URL of my animoto that I posted to YouTube and then downloaded the QR code and I just had to save the image. You are also given the option to email or print the code so it is easy to share with others. I am planning on creating a QR code to post on the front door of my library for our up coming open house night so the parents will be able to scan it and it will take them to our school library page. I am also going to try and make another for the Facebook page I created for the library!