Well, Edublogs seems to be changing their offerings for free users of edublogs. I have been an edublogs user since 2006, so I am especially disappointed. I now need to find a new blog provider that provides great features for a free user.
Any ideas of a better blog provider? I am leaning toward WordPress or Blogger.
http://edublogs.org/forums/topic.php?id=8350
For the new school, I have been ordering books since last July/August. AND I am not done yet! We did not do a start up collection provided by a vendor. Often, they give you books they don’t want in their system anymore and things we don’t necessarily need.
This process has been very different than when I helped open the current building I am in nine years ago. So much is available electronically now. ABC-Clio, Gale, Follett – they all provide ebooks. I love this, but I this is new territory for me. How much of the collection will be in ebook format? I am not sure yet – I am looking at more of need/use rather than the format. How will it work when students are doing research? This I don’t exactly know yet either.
Also, I rely heavily on our online databases to fill in gaps especially in science. While that works for this year, what will my ‘real’ budget be next year? Can we continue to fill the gaps with online databases that require a yearly fee? Should I purchase (science) books just in case the money runs out knowing that in a few years I will need to replace those books?
I have enjoyed selecting books that I think our students will enjoy – especially the new books. Using SLJ, VOYA, and other journals, I have been able to order reviewed books. However, I have branched out now into blog world getting some good reviews and promotional information from publishers. For example, Harper Love Fest blog promotes a variety of books.
Fiction will not be available in ebook format (yet). I would like to be able to find a way that we can circulate fiction in ebook format – but with the variety of readers out there and no clear solution on how we can circulate any or all formats. So we can wait. Hopefully, we are not waiting too long.
Sidenote: Library shelving will be installed around June 1. Look for pictures of the process posted in the next couple of weeks.
1. Opening a new building. New furniture, new books, new – everything.
2. You won’t be the only new person!
3. You love kids and enjoy the school atmosphere.
4. You love to integrate technology and show others how to as well.
5. You love to try new things. (You aren’t freaked out that the library fiction shelves are organized by genre.)
6. You stay up on all the blogs, Twitter, and other 2.0 tools out there and want to integrate effectively into lessons.
7. Believe administrative support is essential to a good library serving students. (Our administrators are awesome!)
8. Green – not only is the school color green, but the library furniture is ‘green’ as well.
9. You believe you impact student achievement and figure out ways you can do/show this.
10. You understand that sometimes you might have to do crazy – ‘this isn’t in my job description’ things. (Running up to a room to help with technology, set up a projector and speakers for FCA or other clubs – you know, this list could continue…)
11. You have a teaching degree and a master’s in library science.
12. You enjoy working with a great staff – and we have a great staff!!!
I am sure I missed a few things and might add more later…
Any of these things work for you? Apply now https://jobs.bluevalleyk12.org/ . Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions…
LibraryThing has been an invaluable tool for us and with the redesign of the fiction area this year, it has been amazing. We love to post the widgets on our webpage.
See an older post about how Blue Valley West High School Library uses Librarything.
Slide sharing is a great instructional tool. I seem to be repeating myself from the other 23 things posts when I mention how I love to embed these into libguides. But looking at Slideshare today, I noticed some new and improved features (at least new to me) that I can’t wait to use…
*Slideshare playlist – can display all your presentations and documents. I think I will post this on the front of the Libguides page.
*Presentation pack – it seems very similar to the playlist. Not sure if I will use the playlist or the pack for the Libguides page.
*Add slideshare to your Facebook profile. Good idea to add this to our library facebook page.
* Sidebar widget – could add this to my blog.
I have not used Animoto for instruction like Slideshare, but I have used it for student projects. Here is a wiki with links to student Animoto projects.
The use of video has been very helpful for instruction and advocacy. The above video was produced for the I Heart 21st Century Skills video contest last year. It won first prize!
I began using Teachertube, but it was slow and cumbersome to use. I then tried Vimeo and it worked great for some time. I currently have an account through Viddler for host videos and then embed in a variety of places. Viddler has been great since it is not blocked like Youtube. Although I believe Youtube is much more relevant, I do not have a library account at this time. My hope is to create a Youtube Channel for next year.
We are using instructional videos to upload to our libguides. For example, we created a video about how to grab the citations off of ProQuest and other online databases. Then we embedd this in our libguides page for the assignment. As students are working on their own or if they forget the original in-class instruction, they can refer to this video. Very helpful!
http://delicious.com/beccamunson
How I use delicious:
*Keep track of all my bookmarks
*Send bookmarks to my colleagues
*Newsletter09 tag – with my bloglines account and twitter, I find good links from a variety of people. Links helpful for teachers I tag, Newsletter09. Each month for our newsletter I visit this tag to see what we should include in the newsletter.
*I have not done a ton to organize my links. I keep thinking I will have more time, but I haven’t done it yet.
Activity #1.
I use Bloglines for my RSS reader. I actually moved my feeds into Google Reader a year ago, but being a creature of habit, I continue with Bloglines. I am considering the move to Google Reader as it would be much more seamless with my email, docs, and other things.
I have several feeds, but Twitter with TweetDeck is starting to replace my time that I would spend in Bloglines. I go to my RSS feeds less often it seems. AND I am noticing that I am spending less time in Bloglines. If it doesn’t peak my interest, I move on rather quickly because I have accumulated many feeds.
Favorite RSS Feeds:
There are so many more!
Activity #2
We have not added an RSS feed to our main site. Through our popular links, it would be great. Currently, we have a library newsletter through our blog and we have an RSS feed on it. I have not communicated how to specifically add the library blog through RSS. I believe this is something we need to try!
Activity #3
Our newsletter had an email feature on it for teachers. Since we get so many emails in our inbox each day, we decided to create a widget for our newsletter and make that accessible to our teachers. They can add it to their school web page or iGoogle page – that way, when they are ready, they can access the blog.
I came across this blog/wiki a few months ago http://librarydayinthelife.pbworks.com/. Librarians with blogs or wikis have been posting photos and narratives about their work. Beginning in 08, the wiki provides a list of participants and their blogs. They are now doing Round 4, 2010.
We decided to do this with our February library display. Our typical display, Love your Library, includes pink and red with lots of hearts. So this year, we added photos with descriptions – A Day in the Life of… Library Paras and Librarians. While we thought posting to a blog or wiki would be a fun way to display the images, we also know that this could be a great advocacy tool for when we have administrators walk through the building, parent-teacher conferences, and students in the halls.
Why can’t all meetings be online (or for that matter covered in an email)? Yes, online meetings may take away natural conversation, but the pros far outweigh the cons. An online meeting allows me to multi-task!
I have only attended vendor webinars in the past. They can be quite painful. I need to remember – if I were in the same building as this presentation, would I go to it? If the answer is no, then I should probably not attend it online. I become too easily distracted.
Although not officially an online meeting, I am going through the K12 Online Conference from December 09. Although I missed out on the feedback and participatory portion of the conference when it was live, I am able to go back and discover new things when I get a few moments. If it is something I have seen already, I can speed up the presentation. Last year, I downloaded the video presentations to my iPod to watch while traveling over break.
Next year, I am looking forward to Skype’ing with my colleague, Amanda Davis, as I go to Blue Valley Southwest. There are many ideas we can share between buildings.
Will Lion Flickr Photostream
