beccablog, teacher-librarian » website

Web site and advocacy

beccablog — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:30:23 +0000

I added a Twitter feed on the library web page. Why? Well, I was reading my blogline feeds today and saw a recent post from Hey Jude, a powerpoint from Nathan Wright and Hilary Brown discusses Library 2.0 . Although a lot of the information is directed to public libraries, the examples of how public libraries are using twitter stood out to me. The Wabaunsee Community College Todd Library not only includes quotes, links to helpful sources, but also usage statistics. How could this be used in the school library?

1. Post usage statistics in a way to get students to use the site (see current post) and to make others aware of the sources used most often.

2. Instead of shouting out, “this is the best source” or reminding students of a specific link – post it on the Twitter which then shows on the front web page.

3. When students set up an iGoogle account, have a twitter badge ready for them to post on their page – you can provide updates, new books, instructional information, etc. This one seems pretty easy to set up and if you have younger ages, you could provide a fun picture too.

I posted the code on our library web page, so students would easily see it. Hopefully, we will receive some feedback from students and evaluate the usefulness of this tool.

Now I need to ask myself if the site is too busy for the 21st century learner – or do they appreciate polls, librarything, wikis, gadgets, widgets, and other links…

Widget & Gadgets

beccablog — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:25:13 +0000

With a 9th grade class, we started the semester adding library widget & gadgets to the iGoogle. I created several widgets/gadgets from widgetbox and then posted on our website. Students added several widgets to their iGoogle page. Then, they had to check the widget by the end of the week for their assignment.

Another way to push information to students – I am hoping databases will eventually catch up with this trend.

http://www.bv229.k12.ks.us/bvw_lmc/widgets.htm

Widgets, Poll Daddy, anything else?

beccablog — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:33:23 +0000

I am constantly thinking of ways to engage students with our great resources. I think Joyce Valenza said at the AASL conference session (paraphrase) – “students go for information that is just ‘good enough’ not necessarily the best.” I believe that is why Wikipedia is such an attractive source – easy, seamless, and good enough (but not always the best source).

We can continue to debate the Wikipedia issue or try new ways to involve students in discovering new ways to learn – web 2.0 features. I have been exploring iGoogle and Pageflakes & I want the best resources to be a part of those features – our online databases. How does this happen? How do we direct them to the best?

1. Create a google gadget. I am currently trying to get one that would send information to students pages that subscribe to a google gadget. Anyone can create their own gadget & then invite people to use it through email. (it is in the very beginning stages – if I create a better one, I will post).

2. Widgets – you can create a widget that can be posted on websites, rss readers, facebook, etc. I am using widgetbox to create widgets that students can grab a hold of through the sites they already use. I post one to our website – inspired by Twitterlit (which is the neatest thing!) – we created our own first lines (we call them pick-up lines) of books in our library with a link to the online catalog. Go to our Find a Book page & see the widget on the left hand side. Click get widget to grab the widget to add to a blog, pageflake, igoogle, etc.
http://www.bv229.k12.ks.us/bvw_lmc/findabook1.htm

I hope to create some that are research-minded soon – so students can access from facebook or another source that they use.

3. Poll Daddy - What are some ways to create an interactive library site? Poll Daddy is a free site that allows users to create polls and post to their website, blog, etc. Our first question – Would you use the library web page if it were on facebook? Click here to see the results. This week’s question – “Is the library out-of-touch by discouraging Wikipedia?”. Click on view results to see the answers so far. Each week we will try to ask engaging questions (not just library related).

Back from AASL

beccablog — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:49:18 +0000

I’m back from AASL & contemplating the various resources from the presentations.
I recently redesigned my library web page – hoping to eliminate the many clicks to get to good sources. This thinking was validated through the conference… In a workshop with ProQuest – SIRS Researcher, they discussed RSS feeds, creating widgets, and other interactive tools that could make the databases competitive with Google (yes, I know – do we even attempt to compete with Google?) Joyce Valenza discussed using iGoogle with her kids & would like feeds from the databases in iGoogle.

So my dream -
Could libraries allow students to create a page (like an igoogle) where it searches the entire library site at the top with many widgets to helpful tools that students could customize to their needs? Depending on the class, students would have information directed to the created page from us… They could continue to customize it to fit their needs & we could use it also as a formative assessment…
Just a dream at this moment…

But for now, I am continuing to take away the clicks… I updated the Find a Book site on the library web page. It allows users to search novelist right on the page. I love it! Now, if we could have a search box from our online catalog on this page… Thanks to the Johnson County Public Library page for inspiring me with great ideas!

New site

beccablog — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:13:28 +0000

In the next couple of days, we will be posting a new library home page. I struggle so much with changing the current one – if something works, don’t fix it – right?

However, we have had the same site for six years.

Of note, the Johnson County Public Library just changed their web site. It looks wonderful and a great example of “cleaning up” a busy page. It is giving me courage as I think of changing the West library page.

Things I love:

*Novelist widget put in the Find a Book page

*Clean front page

*Did I mean a clean page?

*Federated searching options

*RSS Feeds

They also posted an analysis of web site redesign results. I found it helpful when thinking of changing our site.