Janet's Raven 2.0 Blog

Week Nine Number Twenty Three

2009-06-04T21:54:00.001-07:00

This is a great video to explain copyright. The irony is of course that Disney is more than serious about the subject and most viewers will be left with the understanding that copyright is a multilayered concept. Confusing in the least.

The Stanford Media Education Foundation has loads of teaching resources on their website that I have ferreted through to both learn and get ideas on the issues and creative ways of approaching the topic.

These 23 things have been fun and will serve as a checklist for me to go back and periodically review. It's all changing so fast that there is always something new to be updated. As always the challenge is to translate the neat stuff into meaningful content and realistic use. We continue to be constrained by rules and regulations on the use of web 2.0 applications and technologies as well as the lack of sufficient time and bandwidth.

The blog and respond format is most effective if you keep up with the rest of the class ;-)but if you take the time to go through and explore it is motivating and worthwhile.

Week Nine Number Twenty Two

2009-06-04T21:38:00.000-07:00

e-Books and Audiobooks

When will our students be able to have all their textbooks on ebook readers?

I've been playing around with both formats with the aide of my iPOd , laptop and Kindle.

I have tried several times to find a title on Listen Alaska that I am interested in and that comes in the mp4 iPod format. Lately they have added some of these audio titles that looked interesting but inevitably there was a waiting list.

I do like Librivox for classic titles. I recently listened to My Antonia and thought the readers did a great job.

Even though I enjoy the quiet of knitting there are times I wish I could whip through more YA fiction titles while knitting ad accomplish two things at once. Audible.com seems to have a great selection but I have not brought myself to spend the money.

We have added to our audiobook collection at school but only for those titles that are in the curriculum. My intent was to make sure we have options for reluctant readers, makeup assignments or for class instruction . In a perfect world our students could download these titles easily from their library website.

eBooks have the scene this past year. I subscribed to Gale ebook editions of some of our more heavily used reference titles. They were used more this year than last year so it will be interesting to see if the use increases as the format becomes more familiar.

I have downloaded several titles from Gutenberg for my Kindle along with using Stanza to convert journal articles. I think once ebook readers are multi platform and ebook content is also cross platform there will be no limit to what we can use them for.

Week Nine Number Twenty One

2009-06-04T21:26:00.001-07:00

iPod, uPod...

When I first got my iPod I downloaded lots of podcasts related to technology, education etc. After I was sufficiently bored I swiped those off and returned to iTunes where I discovered KNITTING PODCASTS. Need I elaborate? My favorite knitting podcast is created by Barbara Dane and comes from Wales. Try it!

In a perfect work world I would not be telling students to hide their cell phones, iPods and earbuds as is required in our school. I would create podcasts for orientations, book reviews, student created book talks etc. The recreational reading and instructional possibilities are endless. This year we had teachers who used garage band to have students do interviews, essays and reports. Sadly they stay on the computer but it would be great if we could post them on our webpage and have students be able to download them. Alas, our IT teacher said "not" that they took up too much storage space.

I have no worries. Podcasting will be around for awhile and the powers that be will come around and catch up with the kids ;-)

Week Nine Number Twenty

2009-06-04T21:08:00.000-07:00

Teacher Tube has some great stuff.

A co-worker recently pointed out to me that all my information literacy lessons could be found on Teacher Tube. Clearly all I needed to do was to download them and voila, my work would be done.

I would still prefer to make my own presentations and/or use some of the pre-made ones to augment my lesson. Why? Because I still believe that what I offer is created specifically with what the assignment and student are required to learn. One size does not fit all.

Here's the Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto

Enjoy :-)

Week Eight, Nineteen Point One

2009-06-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

Digital Pipeline...Dragging the Horse to Water

Why is it that we are enamored with databases and work hard to get our kids to use them but they continue to default to Google? ( Including the teachers...)Part of it is that students do not share the thrill of the search. They only want the find and so they don't really care about all the advanced slick features of any searching engine unless you can convince them how it will save them time.

I was rather heavy handed this year and insisted that all freshman English teachers have students locate at least one source using the databases. I also provided lessons introducing the fascinating resources found on a database and had them compare a database source with a website for a specific topic. ( snore)I made some progress but will have to continue the good fight in the Fall.

I have set up journal alerts in the past. They seem to work for awhile but then they drop off and I forget about them. I find it more convenient to search under publications and browse the latest issue available online. I also have branched out from library related journals to those published by NCTE and IRA along with one on adolescent literacy. I've been taking this angle rather than pursuing a steady diet of tech magazines because I find the tech is in the other titles but usually within a deeper framework and with more content.

This coming year I would like to have an orientation lesson using the high school edition of SRC and using that database only. I also would like to push the consumer health database. Global studies teachers will be interested in the Historical Archives beta database because of all the primary resources.

Week Eight , Number Nineteen

2009-05-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

I started a Library Thing account some time ago but ended up having my books on Shelfari. I just liked the format and overall look better.

I actually have an account for my professional reading and one for my personal reading.

This spring we started a Library Thing account for our library. Depending on any changes in our district policies on using blogs and wikis we will need to upgrade to an institutional account come September because we have over 200 titles listed. We are planning to tag them by genre and then have students participate. We hope this functions as a reader's advisory, marketing for new books, student book reviews, book group support etc.

I chose to use Library Thing because they made an offer for free book cover photos that we could use for our blog. Great idea but I never got anywhere with it but it's still on my to do list.

Week Eight, Number Eighteen

2009-05-26T14:53:00.001-07:00

Productivity...( verb ) Google Docs

I've found many uses for Google docs from my own personal needs to family and work activities.

Editing daughter's research papers without having to worry about format or attachments

Working on my thesis and not have to put it on a jump drive

Keeping a list of things to do at work or a list of books to read

Keeping my work budget on a spreadsheet that I can look at from anywhere I can get on the net

Developing a unit with a teacher and being able to work on it at the same time

Teaching my students to do their work on Google docs or presentation app so they can work on it at home and open in in the library or classroom.

Have the Google apps on my iGoogle page. Very handy

Keeping an annotated bibliography of books for booktalks

Being able to work on a "powerpoint" with a copresenter without sending stuff back and forth

Keeping a list of things to do for library staff

Being able to share my work with others by setting them to "share" .

Having students work on group projects at different times

Week Seven, Number Seventeen

2009-05-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Sandbox

A high school library blog that makes full use of web 2.0 tools: The Unquiet Library

I looooove this site and wish I could find the time to maintain something like it. It's attractive, informative, creative, alive ,interesting, engaging and I'm guessing it totally works for her students.

A long article but full of ideas about the impact of web 2.0 on learning Minds on Fire : Open Education, the LongTail and Learning 2.0

I only scanned this article and then added it to my delicious list with the intent of going back and carefully reading it.Look like lots of information/ideas that would make for good discussion.

Creating a personal learning network to keep you moving on the web 2.0 journey as a school librarian Personal Learning Networks

There has to be a way of staying on top of things without being overwhelmed by the infoglut. I'm thinking that having a plan of attack that helps you to learn in an organized way by making choices on where you need to attend to would be helpful.

Week Seven , Number Sixteen

2009-05-26T11:42:00.001-07:00

I'm finding myself pretty wiki-ed out at the end of this school year.

I started a library wiki a year and a half ago to replace our web page which I could not update.
It took on a life of it's own and taught me that collaboration is easiest when no humans are involved. Joking aside, I'd like to note that it was a very easy way to introduce ourselves and our teachers to the ease of wiki use and as time went by more and more ideas for it's possibilities came to light. I completed a Dreamweaver class this semester and my plan was to redo the webpage with links to our databases but continue to use the wiki as an up to the minute source of library information. Ironically we are now being told that the district plans to provide us with a webpage school based template and wikis an dblogs are in question at the. moment. We'll just have to wait and see where this takes us.

A few things I liked in the wiki sampler:

I really like the subject guides with phots of book covers and direct links to the catalog.
I have yet to answer my own question as to the copyright issues of putting book covers on blogs and wikis. Everyone seems to do it but NO ONE can tell me if it's okay.

I think putting together these subject uides is helpful and can be used as an instructional tool in the school library setting but as search engines become more sophisticated I wonder how many people will continue to use wiki subject guides or pathfinders. Students seem to be quite happy to just google it.

I'd like to return to StevenBell's Keeping Up with It website and the Blended Librarian portal.
Both seems to have some good ideas and I've never heard the blended librarian term so that's intriguing.

Week Six, Lesson Fifteen

2009-05-26T10:08:00.001-07:00

You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf.

This summarizes in a nutshell what I believe school librarians need to do to survive in a 2.0 world. In this past school year I have been amazed as the apathy of some who seem to not be rocked by the implications 2.0 is having on our profession.

Another observation I have made this year is that despite the high energy discussions and debates that are going on in library and tech circles, the institution of public education continues to remain the same. The window dressing is changing but the process and product in most classrooms stays the same as does the administration on both the site and district level.

In a 2.0 world we have administrators concerned about liability and access. Code words for control. So as the world outside the school doors rapidly changes and more students seem to be floundering in our system we choose to hold on to the old model.

Michael Stephens writes about librarianship 2.0.
"The library is human". It is a socially and emotionally engaging center for learning and experience. I think that is especially true and important to promote in a high school.

The Librarian is a "strategy guide". Strategies are part of the toolbox that students need to be effective users and producers of information in the 21st century.

Makes decisions based on user needs and increased access to resources. We can no longer think abotu what we think makes a good library. We need to be competitive to a certain extent and identify what will make us most useful to out patrons.

Librarian 2.0 embraces web 2.0 tools...for as much as they are not filtered.

Librarian 2.0 control technolust. We need to think beyond the lastest gizmo and ask " where's the beef" when it comes to it's educational applications.

Librarian 2.0 makes good but fast decisions. We need to become more comfortable with change. What works best today will be different tomorrow.

Librarian 2.0 is a trendsetter. I think we also need to develop a deeper perspective and ask
what is the underlying idea that propels these changes and what does it mean for our user.

Librarian 2.0 gets content. It's not all about the iMovie...has the student learned content and sharpened their research and learning skills or did they just participate in technology assisted plagiarism?

Week Six, Lesson Fourteen

2009-05-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

The first thing I would like to change about the Technorati site is the constant barrage of animated adds that run across the top of the screen. Whining aside, I think this site is useful for those who are serious bloggers and who want to get their blog out there and in the reader's radar. This is important if you really have something to say or are starting an online business of some sort.

The site must be experiencing some growth spurts as the "Techorati monster has escaped" page came up after I did several searches for school library learning 2.0 stuff. I checked out the Technorati blog and found that they are indeed upgraded in reorganizing and that frequent users have been twittering about their blogs disappearing on Technorati. (What is this world coming to ? ;-))

I think Technorati is another useful website to see what blogs a favorite writer may have going such as David Warlick. It can definitely give you a a sense of what is being talked about and what new ideas are getting the most coverage.

I have followed through on the popular blogs link and saw a lot of both entertainment and techie stuff. This form of communication is some peoples idea of having a life ?

Week Six Lesson Thirteen

2009-05-25T12:05:00.001-07:00

Thoughts on the Tastiest Bookmarks in Town

I'd be lost without my Delicious account.

I used to have a very long bookmark list and tried organizing in folders but delicious takes access to a whole new level. It did stretch my comfort level at first because the bookmarks were housed someplace else besides on my computer but once I put a button on my browser toolbar it became second nature to tag a site when I first found it. I find my organizing system has improved with the visual tagging system and the tag clouds.

I think delicious lends itself to research because as you find ideas and sites you find out what others have said or learn about other blogs, wikis etc and the rabbit trail continues ;-) The search capabilities allow you to pursue content as well as discussion threads and specific people who have contribute to a debate or field of knowledge.

I started one for our library but it seems like we have been too busy this year to really build it. If we continue this we should probably put the link on our wiki since we have trained students to go there as a starting point.

Week Five, Number Eleven

2009-05-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

VoiceThreads

I started with the link from Della Curtis' class which features a discussion on information Literacy . Voice Threads has unlimited possibilities in a library or classroom. I would love to have an orientation and some lessons put together for the freshman and for those lessons I tend to repeat each year. It would be really cool to have students check out an iPod to do a library orientation.

Several of our English and World Language teachers have used Voice Thread this past year. They have had a a lot of fun with it. It does take several hours to go through the tutorials, play with it and make one before you can go into a class and teach it and get everyone on the same page. I mention this only in that if kids are just fooling around and being creative then it takes no time at all but to organize , scaffold and have students participate asa class on a project takes some organizing before you start to know what some of the hang ups might be.

The biggest problem we've had in our school? Bandwidth. It doesn't really work well unless you have a reliable, fast connection otherwise you are faced with uploading,downloading and buffering issues.

I did browse for school library and saw many hits that looked interesting however I could not get them to load . Try again later.

Week Five Number Eleven

2009-05-25T10:22:00.001-07:00

I looked at PageFlakes and toyed around with setting up a page for myself. It is very easy to use and get you feeds for Twitter, Facebook and all your favorite podcasts. That said I have an iGoogle page already set up and since I didn't find anything on Pageflakes that sets it ahead of iGoogle I probably won't use it. BTW Cast On is one of my favorite podcasts. Barbara Dayne from Wales talks about knitting. Makes you want to just pick up those pointy sticks and forget work ;-)

I've been a member of Joyce Valenza's Teacher Librarian Ning for some time and have found it very useful. For instance when our district decided to implement professional learning communities I found it helpful to ask other librarians what role they played and how they participated in their schools. Of course this site is blocked at our district so I have to connect with my professional learning community from home. Surprise surprise.

Personally I feel every student should have their own iGoogle page set up much like what David Loertscher describes in one of his books. I think it's called

In Command.

I checked out the Library 2.0 Ning. Looks lie a major time sink to me. I may have signed up before I finish this lesson. It's in another tab waiting for me.

Katie needs to set one up for our staff. Add that to your list or delegate it and...unblock it with the powers that be.

Week Five Number Ten

2009-05-25T09:30:00.001-07:00

I only have a limited number of my library photos on my home computer so you get to see the dragon again. I posted my picture using the send to blog which created a direct posting. I've used the cut and paste code to post the word image.Both of these are from Image Chef.

Week Four, Number Nine

2009-05-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Finding Good Blogs

Chasing My Virtual Rabbit

I've used Technorati before but I have found that the best blogs for me are often found serendipitously or from reading one blog and looking through what another person has on their blogroll.

Another way I fall on to good reads is when someone mentions a person , features an interview with that person or that person debates the ideas found on another blog. Doug Johnson does this and so when I read his blog, if he mentions the source or the name of the person or provides a link, I often follow through on that connection and will "feed" that blog for awhile to see what I think of their ideas.

Another source is through ALA Direct which features a wealth of information, best of the best lists and what's new in technology and libraries from a 2.0 perspective.

I did try Blogpulse and found that it works in a similar manner to what I just described only it is more organized and does some of the work for me. I will definitely return to use it. I like the trend watching tool and the conversation tool. The conversation tool is helpful if you have seen a topic discussed or a new term introduced but are not sure where you saw it. The conversation tool will pull up key words embedded in different blogs and show you the "connections". I tried "learning commons" and "high schools" and came up with several related blog postings. This tool would also be helpful in determining key words and concepts and give you an idea who is picking up on them.

Week Four Number Eight

2009-05-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

I opened a Bloglines account about two years ago and then last year changed over to Google Reader. I didn't to a big comparison before making the decision to switch, I just decided to do the Google Reader when I was setting up my iGoogle page.

As you can see I haven't checked it in a week or two and I am backlogged 256 items. These are just technology and librarian blogs . I can't imagine how far "behind" I'd be in my reading if I had PBS or CNN leaking in to my "inbox"!

What I do like is that the Reader becomes a Reader's Digest of sorts. The sources are handpicked by me and I can delete them at any time if they fail to hold my interest. If I find a new blog or other source while grazing on the net it is as easy as adding a book mark to my delisious account and I don't add to my e-mail box. It's in another"box" that I can go to when I have the time. I also like being able to "star" and tag those entries I find interesting or good enough to file and be able to easily retrieve when I need to.

Week Three Number Seven

2009-05-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Technology

Someone once said that you can never be to rich, too thin or have enough bandwidth. That being said and looking back over this past school year I am amazed on how many new technogadgets we have in our school and yet, everyone whines for more.I find it interesting that in such a short time we default to the thinking that an education is not possible without a computer screen or some electronic tool.

Perhaps this is "end of the year" thinking brought on by several days of collecting equipment from teachers and tracking down missing fire wires, ESB cables, ethernet cords, camera manuals, cleaning labs and sanitizing keyboards. Long gone are the days of wiping off the overhead projector and stashing empty book carts.

In Fairbanks we have only ninety frost free days. Barely enough if you are a gardener and in that time some of us will scurry to catch up or keep up with the technology wave so we can be prepared for the next go round. Truth is we never really catch up and so have to learn to let go , read the books, reflect, rest and recuperate so we can be ready and refreshed in the Fall.

Week Three Number Six

2009-05-23T16:33:00.001-07:00

Yes, I would rather be knitting. I suppose I should put this on my desktop as a reminder to finish this class and then I can go whip out a few more socks. I've seen Doug Johnson use this application on his blog and also viewed one on Jessamyn West's blog Librarian.net which I absolutely love. It's a picture of Barack Obama as a student in the Harvard Law Library. The caption reads "The Library: Where the cool kids hang out". I so want it for my office but alas would be violating every copyright law out there. Oh well.

What fun! We could use this in school to promote books new titles and readers who recommended the books.

Yep, this poor little dragon is not looking forward to a quiet summer in the library without all his buddies but he will have tons of new YA fiction to read because the library staff couldn't take it all home with them, as much as they wanted to.

I chose to play with this site because it did not require me to upload my photos to Flickr. I have one set on that site but prefer to share only my adventure pics with family rather than sending attachments. I really didn't want to add all

my library photos.

These mashups could both be used in the library for event promotions, reading promotion, staff words of wisdom, student recognition etc.

I'm Baaaaaaack! for #5 Week Three

2009-05-18T18:18:00.000-07:00

Gosh, that was a long time away. Here's a picture to prove I've been on an adventure. Okay so the kayak trip was only ten days
and for most of the rest of the time a whole school year went by.

If you don't believe I took this photo then you'll need to check out the rest of the photos in my photostream and find me. Kinda of like looking for Waldo ;-) (without red stripes).

Ideas from other HS Library Blogs

2008-07-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

I found a wiki that lists 75 or 80 school library blogs. From this list I scanned the high school ones and found some cool ideas to add to our library blog.
My favorite sites featured a balance of pictures, tie ins with school events and participation/comments from both teachers and students.

My top 5 picks are:(okay so there's 6)
Mt. Hermon Academy in Northfield Massachuusetts
(most cool feature "click title for availability"
brings you right to the catalog entry)
Governor's Academy in Byfield Massachusetts
Nicholas Senn HS Library in Chicago, Illinois
American School in Japan
International School in Bangkok
Beverly HS in Beverly Massachusetts
Here are what was featured in the blogs:

ongoing newsletters of library events
photos of recent events in the library
book podcasts created by students
book reviews and booktalks
quick tips and tools for web research
student created reading "rants and raves"
requests for book recommendations
pathfinders and resource pages
links to class wikis
orientation videos
tie ins to classroom reading selections
bookcovers with links to amazon.com
"random books from my library" ( LibraryThing)
teachers posting book reviews
senior students posting favorites
blog visitor locations ( clustrmaps)
book club activities
random Flickr photos of library

So I have a couple of questions from this exercise.
I really like the actual pictures of book covers featured on most every blog. I recently read something in School Library Journal that made is sound like this was okay. We went ahead
and did it for a few entries but I'm still wondering.
Also, is it good practice to link directly to subscription databases as long as they require a password. I have fallen on a few sites where no password was required and I guessed it was an oversight on the part of the blog author.
A number of sites had links to their blogs from their school web page. This seems simple but I'm guessing some schools/districts might have policies regarding the use of blogs and wikis which sit on some outside server. In our school we have tried several ways to get the word out on our log and wiki address. Most students pick up on it but it would be nice to have it off the school webpage also.Maybe this is not a big deal.

Week Two Blogging Set-Up

2008-06-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

I have dabbled in blogging a couple of times this past school year.

I started my own personal blog called Inuksuit Knits to share my latest knitting and quilting projects with my mom. The irony is that I had little time to do either this past year. I am an avid reader of The Yarn Harlot who has been blogging and knitting for many years.

I started a blog at work so that we could post announcements, ideas and updates about new additions to our library collection. It helped us become more comfortable with the blogging process and is so much easier than updating a web page.

We continue to promote our collection by word of mouth, e-mail updates, paper fliers, displays an during library events.It will continue to be one means of getting the word out.

For this next year I would like to:

Find and attach a statistics widget to get a better idea of how many people are accessing the blog besides ourselves.
Borrow creative ideas from other school library blogs.

Week One with the End in Mind

2008-06-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

My learning goal for this class is to progress though each of the exercises outlined while making the best use of my learning time. Given that I am having to work for a large part of my summer this year ( go ahead play your violin ;-) , I may as well make this count. In that light, I aim to develop specific lessons or library tools that I can use in the coming school year.
I am no stranger to toodling around on the web but it is a total time sink and I would like to practice some restraint!