School Library 2.0 Article

Week 7 Thing 12   Learning 2.0

 School Library 2.0 -Say goodbye to your mother's school library by Christopher Harris (2006) 

Interestingly enough, this article was written just 6 years ago and Library 2.0 seems to be the hot topic today!

I guess we are trying to move from "Library 1.0" or even "Library 0.5" back in day to a technological fluid library of tomorrow.  I wonder if someday there will be a display at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center called the "The Library of Yesterday" where it would show a peaceful, quiet, almost reverent room lined from floor to ceiling with worn books and a dusty card catalog cabinet.  I kind of actually like that picture, minus the dusty card catalog cabinet.

Anyway, I think the article encourages a lot of new ideas about libraries by turning the traditional aspect of what one thinks of a library to a more patron and world centered establishment that morphs with the times and the changes in technology.  However there is one downside.  Funding.  Sure, an espresso bar in a high school library just sounds too irresistible but will the art department give up their funding to buy a $500 cappuccino machine, and will the music department give up some of their budget to fund the coffee filters and cups? Wait, lets put the cost of the espresso bar on the taxpayer! "Novel" idea, no pun intended.

I guess the idea of all these changes in libraries really has to come from each individual school or school districts policy, funding sources etc. Granted there are grants, no pun intended there either, but how would a librarian justify an espresso bar in her library on a grant application.   Okay, I'm off the espresso bar soap box because I do actually think it's a cool idea, though I would prefer a bagel bar. Back to the technology.

"It was school libraries, in fact, that led the way in the first wave that brought computers and then the Internet into our classrooms. This is about adapting, once again, to a new, perhaps even more compelling digital revolution, in which powerful new ideas are enhancing the way in which we function in an electronic information environment." (Harris, 2006)

Very well said! Adaptation is the key word and not all libraries have the capability of adapting to all the technological advances at once, but they key is that they are trying through  librarians who are advocating such changes on behalf of their students.

"Redefining the school library is not a response to some inherent failure on the part of the institution. It’s an opportunity for library professionals to engage in some exciting activities that will enable our institutions to remain effective in the midst of fast-moving technological change." (Harris, 2006)

Change is inevitable and whether we like technology or not, the majority of students librarians work with today are digital natives, born into a digital society. It is an expectation for them to be connected via technology in some way, so why not as library professionals bring that technology into the library curriculum.

 "Remember the 65 percent solution? It calls for 65 percent of school funding to go to classrooms to support student learning, yet in many states school libraries are not considered classrooms in this legislation." (Harris, 2006)

Appalling isn't it. This was back in 2006, some changes have been made since then, but those who believe in school library media programs still today must lobby their state and national legislatures to gain support for their programs. 

I liked Mr. Harris' ideas about how libraries are "digitally re-shifting to non-traditional educational spaces."He did not say "replacing", just re-inventing how we look at libraries with their traditional function and future capabilities.  With an open mind all things are possible.  

For those libraries that are just struggling to make their inadequate space work, struggling with finding funds to buy books and supplies, struggling to not be the keeper of the books, but must be because 90% of books are through cast-off donations, I applaud your resiliency and courage to make your library work.

Librarians for some reason must prove themselves 10 times over and that work will eventually pay off. Even if it means that for you to be a digitally re-shifted 2.0 Library entails obtaining one used desktop so students can finally use your online library catalog.

Technorati

 Week 7 Thing 11  Learning 2.0

http://technorati.com/ 





Technorati is a cool name for a blog.  Though at first glance one could think it's a site for expensive race cars.

For the blog lover this is a one-stop-shop!

In perusing the blog directory which was very easy to find, I noticed that the most numerous blogs were in the Entertainment (39,959 blogs), Technology (34,958 blogs), Business (31,659 blogs), Politics (15,785 blogs), Sports (11,767 blogs). 

The largest blog section is called Living (53,416 blogs).  All things domestic and relating to living our lives were there in 9 different sub-categories.

At first glance the one thing I noticed that "Education" wasn't listed as a main category or a sub-category for blogs. I didn't see "Beauty" as a main blog category or sub-category.  Also in Sports, I think they should include a sub-category for "Running/Jogging".  I think it would also be nice to see "Cultural" blogs on there as well.

I tried searching "Training for a 10K race"

In the blog post option I actually got no results.  In the blog option there were 5 blogs and 4 out of the 5 looked like they weren't much of anything, no recent posts or pictures etc..

So I tried the words "running 10K" and got 86 pretty reputable blogs and no blog posts on the topic.  It seems if you search by blog post, you need to be highly specific or use a lot of key words. 

Technorati is definitely a useful site for finding specific blogs that are reputable and that have a reputation for longevity.

DIIGO gets my EGO. . .

Week 7 Thing 10  Learning 2.0

After watching the Diigo tutorial, I thought that it appeared to be fun, organized and efficient. It's a great idea to store everything in your "cloud" and be able to access the same personalized information from different electronic devices and not miss a beat.

My first thought was that Diigo would work best for those who could afford and actually use different technological devices and for those who as the tutorial said are high consumers of online information.

Upon initial use of my brand new Diigo account I felt a little lost and overwhelmed. I used the help menu and tried a tutorial of the toolbar for starters, but it seemed like there should have been a video tutorial but nothing materialized, so I ended up scrolling down to the written tutorial and it was okay, but not as detailed as I would have liked so it wasn't very helpful. I looked through some other tutorial subjects and it was the same thing.

I did like the Diigo toolbar versus the Diigolet that you install on your browser's toolbar.  I liked the ability to capture, highlight, filter and mark items "to read".  I love the fact you can just save snippets of things you read as well and add personal notes.

So I just clicked everywhere to see what things did.  I finally found the drop down Diigo Menu that listed my library, lists, groups etc.   Then I saw the "hot bookmark" option and started there.

The hot bookmark option brought up the hottest articles, searched items that had been bookmarked by other Diigo users and it listed how many users had bookmarked the article.  I actually found a great article related to 21st Century Learners and tried to bookmark it myself and highlight a few things on there.  I don't have any other devices such as an ipad, or iphone etc. to test out my Diigo findings on this article. I may have to borrow one from someone. :)

I didn't get far with Diigo bookmarking one article, but I can absolutely see the capability of it's applications in a library media center that is equipped with adequate technology.  It would be wonderful to have students collaborate as a group on Diigo on a research project, or to just have a "club" that is interested in a certain subject where they can have a virtual outlet for their interests. It also provides another type of technological media format for students to delve into, however I can see that it may not be for all students. There may be some students who in the instance of reading may only read manga, and in the case with Diigo, there may be students who like using technology for online communications, but only like facebook.

As far as personal research it would make organizing and categorizing information much simpler and allow you to see what others have found on the same kind of research. Diigo would be able to put all that information in one place instead of bookmarking tons of websites on your browser.

 I think for me, it would take some time before I felt comfortable with Diigo.  I would absolutely need a good reason to use it personally and would use it more professionally, as I noticed a lot of the users, at least in the 21st Century Learner article I pulled up were educators and/or professionals in that field.

Google Custom Search Engine - Vroom Vroom!

Week 6 Thing 9    Learning  2.0

Here is the link to my Google Custom Search Engine entitled Fiscal Fitness.

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=011221309480230943195:yb5gbrfjxdm 

FINRA the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Education Foundation (they are the guru's who regulate Wall Street)  recently donated $1.2 million dollars in grants to public libraries to support financial literacy.

 See the article here:

http://www.finra.org/Newsroom/NewsReleases/2012/P125456

Libraries and Financial Literacy.. two of my loves. Well, libraries rate a little higher :)

Now.. if we could only get FINRA to do the same thing for school libraries think of the possibilities!!!!

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Just FYI.

 There are so many fun school age books related to financial literacy education.

Check out the website at Utah's own financeintheclassroom.org (you can find it on my search engine) created by the Utah Education Network.  

You'll find ton's of fun books that teach financial literacy concepts for grades K-12. The website features this with lesson plans, games, printouts and more.  All lessons meet the Utah State Educational curriculum requirements for teaching  financial literacy in the classroom.  Who knew?  I did!

p.s. Financial Literacy would be a great month long school library theme and all those fun books could be featured.

Skype- Hype

Week 5 Thing 6   Learning 2.0 



Skype is fun, free and user friendly. I do like the Skype group feature and this could be very useful in a school library. Listed below are a few ideas I came up with on why Skype is a great tool and how Skype could be used in a school library:

• Location, Location, Location- Skyping with an author would not be limited by location.

• Interactive Technology - This allows students to see a different use of technology that they're familiar with. Sure, texting or video chatting with friends and family is pretty normal nowadays, but how cool would it be to have the actual author of the book you read be able to talk and interface with your class.

•  Storytelling- A great idea would be to have storyteller tell a story through a Skype session.  There are many kinds of storytellers and it wold be fun to have a storyteller halfway across the country or the globe visit your classroom and share their talent.

• Special Occasions - Black History Month, Banned Book week, National Bird Day, Chinese New Year, Dr. Seuss' birthday.  All of these fun occasions can be celebrated by a guest speaker or storyteller via Skype.

• Skype Pals- Interacting with students from another school in the United States or another country. Classes could pre-pick topics of interest and Skype about them and compare similarities an differences in those topics and be facilitated by the librarians.

• Student Book Groups - Sharing ideas with other classes around the nation about books they've read would be fun!  Librarians and students could pre-select a reading list and reading schedule then classes Skype together and talk about the books they've read.

So those are just a few ideas about how to use Skype in a school library!

LIBRARY THING- I'm in personal book catalog heaven!

 Week 6    Thing 8     Learning 2.0

http://www.librarything.com/ 

A personal book cataloging website. Where have I been?  It enables you to create your own book catalog.  You can catalog up to 200 books for free, then it's $25 for a lifetime. It's so much easier than keeping a library journal of books I've read in a word document! I wish it didn't cost anything, but look below for another cataloging website that's free!

I do like the fact that Library Thing pulls books from different sources and then gives you the publishing information, book jacket photo, even allows you to choose a whole series that you may have read instead of adding each book at a time.  It does have some useful editing features of adding tags, and categorizing your books into collections.

I'm still trying to figure out how I can add multiple different books at once instead of one book at a time, some books in a series can come up individually and can be a pain to add them one at a time instead of all at once.  So if anyone knows that trick please let me know!

 Library Thing widget is customizable and it is fun to see it in a blog. Very useful!  Library Thing also tells you how many other people have cataloged a certain book, who has the highest number of books cataloged ( it's about 47,000 in a personal catalog), it can connect you to other Library Thing users,  help you find and save reviews and much more. So if you are willing to pay a fee you can have unlimited cataloging access!

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Another great personal library cataloging website is GoodReads.  You can access it at:

http://www.goodreads.com/

It is very user friendly and you can add friends and see what they are reading.  There is no charge for unlimited use that I know of and it comes with a bunch of library/reader friendly options.You may requests friends and see their reviews and book recommendations. You can also categorize your reading lists into various subject areas which is very nice. There are great control features as well so you can show as many book features, or as little as you want (publishers, ratings, reviews, dates read, dates books were added etc..)

Image Generator Fun! Week 6 Thing 7 Learning 2.0

           


                

There's a gazillion image generators to choose from.. narrowing it down was tough!