Out of the mouths of babes

A weekly segment in which I interview some young pup on what they are reading.

YFNL: Why, hello, Miss. I noticed that you are reading one of my favorite books, The book that eats people by the amazingly talented Ann Arborite, John Perry and illustrated by Mark Fearing.

Young Miss: Yes, I am.

YFNL: I wonder if you would mind if I interviewed you about the book.

Young Miss: I would not mind at all.

YFNL: For the purposes of our interview, I will allow you to choose an alias so as to prevent weirdos from reading this and knowing your identity. What alias would you like to choose?

Young Miss: I choose Your Friendly Neighborhood Weirdo.

YFNL: Are you mocking me?

YFNW: Maybe.

YFNL: Can you tell me a little bit about The book that eats people?

YFNW: This book is about a book that you should never read while eating food. If you do, it will eat. you. up.

YFNL: What is your favorite part?

YFNW: My favorite part is when the book eats Victoria Glassford after hitting her over the head.

YFNL: A fan of violence are we?

YFNW: Quite.

YFNL: How do you feel about the illustrations in the book?

YFNW: I like how the illustrations look like they are cut out of newspapers.

YFNL: To whom would you recommend this book or would you recommend it at all?

YFNW: I would recommend this book to my annoying brother.

YFNL: Are you hoping that the book eats him?

YFNW: Yes.

YFNL: Well, thank you for agreeing to my interview. I bid you a lovely day.

YFNW: See ya.

Just bought two of these bad boys for the library. I am going to download some stories from kids.audible.com I am looking for something short because my idea, at least initially, is to have the mp3 players set up as a center. I have several centers that kids can visit after they are done checking out: magnetic poetry, hangman, magnadoodles, brain buster puzzles, pop up books, bookmark making and this year I added flannel board storytelling and listening center.

One of the cool things about these mp3 players is their ability to record. I am hoping to have the fifth graders do some podcasts this year of book reviews and add them to my wiki. This looks like a simple tool to help me achieve that.

Wordle me this, Batman

I decided to try Wordle to write a review of the superly awesome book "Let's do something!" by Tony Fucile. Check it out then get over to Wordle and make one for yourself!

Whew! I made it!

Prior to participating in this class, I thought I was fairly tech savvy. I took digital pictures and uploaded them to the web, I made digital videos and shared them with others, I used Skype, made a Facebook page, kept a blog. But, I didn't use a lot of those things with my students. There were too many technological hurdles - old computers, stressed servers, lack of materials, lack of time. Throughout this course, I learned about many things that I CAN use with my students that circumvent some of those barriers.

I think the Thing I am most excited about is Thing 22. I created a wiki and I can think of some easy ways to use it with students. I am hoping that as the school year begins and my plate becomes full, I will still have the excitement and committment to editing and expanding the wiki.

I am also super excited about video podcasts. I did a quick one with my daughter - she is an excellent student - with just a few pointers. I can totally see doing this with my students and adding their video booktalks and presentations to the wiki I made.

I hope to keep up with new innovations by checking in with with the feeds on my Bloglines account, checking in with the wikis I discovered, reading the blogs of the participants in this course - everyone is going to keep those up, right? - and hopefully, participating in more opportunities like this class!

I feel I have a better sense of the opportunities for reaching students with technology than I ever did before.

My Wiki - Mrs. Gatto on books

Oh. my. god. I have been having sooo much fun creating my wiki! I created a homepage using Glogger which was super cool. The site has lots of free graphics and you can upload photos and videos of your own, as well. So much fun!

I changed my logo by uploading a digital picture that my husband took of me yesterday in my library chair. I did a video podcast of my daughter doing a booktalk and linked it to the homepage. I created a wiki page where students can add books they would like to see added to the library. I did a page of new books recently added to the collection. I have lots of ideas on what I can do in the future - book discussion pages, student video podcasts of booktalks and bookreviews, pathfinders for teachers, etc. My mind is swirling with all the possibilities!

Check out the wiki here!

I really like how the wiki has blog elements - you can keep an on line dialogue about what is going on in your classroom, library, life, etc. - but it also has the community aspect to it which rocks! Students, community members, can add their thoughts and ideas to create something totally new and exciting! I am looking forward to trying this out in my library this year!

Wikis

I haven't really thought about creating a wiki of my own - it seems like a lot of work although the ones I checked out today were really cool and inspiring. I really liked wikiHow. It had how to steps for all sorts of things. I learned how to make a book using old cassette tape inserts. I can see kids really getting into using wikiHow to discover how to do new things AND sharing what they know about with others.

I discovered BookLeadsWiki--Reading Resources at the collection of educational wikis and it is really cool! I loved the great ideas and resources that were compiled for librarians. It even includes videos, documents and step-by-step guides on things like creating book promotion screen savers for your library computers - something I am definitely going to do!

I would love to explore wikis and how they could be used in my library, but even with input from others, it seems like a big time consumer. Recently, my assistant had her hours reduced in the library which is going to impact everything from the daily running of the library to cataloging books. It will be difficult to squeeze in time to create and maintain a wiki.

Podcasts Part II

I played around with EPN and Podcast Alley, but I wasn't really successful. There were some podcasts that seemed interesting to me - ones I would use with students, perhaps - but many of them were out of date. Several hadn't been updated with new podcasts in a couple of years. There are some podcasts on these sites that I would download, but not subscribe to because they are no longer active. When you are talking about podcasts that are supposed to be reviewing new books, it has to be something that is updated frequently. I had much more success at iTunes.

I subscribed to a video podcast that has book trailers for popular children's books. While many of the books were geared toward middle school and up, there were several titles reviewed that would be appropriate to my upper elementary age students. I subscribed to the podcast, "Booktrailers, like commercials...for books!" and then downloaded past episodes that were relevant like the one for Neil Gaiman's "The graveyard book."

I think these video podcasts could be something that I would share with students in the library via our presentation cart. I can download the trailers I am going to use to my thumb drive then use the computer hooked to our data projector to share them on the big screen in the library. I know kids will be super excited to check out the titles I share in this way!

Podcasts

I subscribe to a number of Podcasts for fun, like "This American Life" with Ira Glass on NPR. I download them to my iPod and listen to them in the car on the way to work in the morning. This is the best way for me to hear the show - I am usually at work when it comes out on the radio. I also subscribe to a couple of children's books related Podcasts including the fabulous Just One More Book. Not only is the Podcast great, but they have this amazing website where you can listen to the Podcasts. It has been around for a while so there is quite an organized collection on the site. You can search for Podcasts by category, by title or by author. Pretty amazing!

I had not thought about using Podcasts with students until this class. I had only thought of it in terms of learning more professionally or for entertainment. I think I would use Nancy Keane's Booktalk podcast with students. I like that they are short and to the point. I like that they are listed by title. I also like that all the podcasts are listed on the site and the kids can go and click on titles that interest them. I think if I was going to use it with students to sell them on books that I would have to create a list of links to titles we actually have in our collection. Otherwise they are going to listen to books, find something they want to read and then be disappointed if we don't have it in the library.

Slideshare

I found this really great slideshow at Slideshare that embodies so much of what we have been doing in this class! I have embedded it here for you all to look at:

Libraries and blogs

View more documents from Maggie Verster.

I liked exploring the site - there were a lot of neat presentations out there. I was thinking of creating a slideshow - using Google Documents, of course - for students on how to use the new library catalog. If I post it on Slideshare then lots of people could search for it and use it in their libraries, as well.

I could use Slideshare with students - they can create and post Powerpoint presentations that they do on classroom topics like the American Revolution or they could even do something like a Powerpoint booktalk for a title they read. And then we can upload them to Slideshare. I am wondering though - what to do about the email thing, students will need one to upload I am sure, and what about keeping slideshows private so only teachers, fellow students or parents can view them?

Goodreads

I played around with Goodreads - a terrific tool for organizing and sharing the books you read. I also noticed that there is an RSS feed option which I may swap out for the widget I created to show my visual bookshelf from Facebook.

I have so many books in various states - ones I want to read for fun, book club books, professional reading, books to read for the library, books I have read, books I want to read, the list is exhausting! Goodreads is a great way to keep all these different books organized. You can create different "bookshelves" for the titles you enter. They also making adding titles very easy - you can type in the ISBN, the title or the author's last name. You also have the option of rating the books with stars and writing reviews.

For those rare moments when I don't know what to read, there is also a "find books" option that contains lists generated by other users. You can also search by genre.

I signed up for Goodreads a while ago, but this class has inspired me to visit it again. I have been adding books that I read this summer and am working on organizing them into usable, meaningful "bookshelves."

Google Docs

I am so excited to use Google Documents! I can think of lots of ways that this would be helpful in my professional life!

First of all, for some unknown reason, I don't have Word on my computer at home. This is a way that I can create documents without having additional software installed on my computer.

I also love the idea that the documents are web based and therefore accessible at home, at work, on vacation, etc. One of the things that the group of librarians I work with were proposing for this school year was to share library lessons, units, and ideas. This would be a great way to share those documents with each other and keep them in a central place where we can all view them, edit them, and print them out! I am super excited to share this with my colleagues when we return to school!

I do think that it would be hard to use this with students because you need to have an email account to sign in. Because I work at the elementary level, I know that a lot of my students will not have email accounts. I think this might work better as a means for students to share and collaborate in middle school and high school. Are there any elementary teachers out there that have used Google Documents with their students? If so, what steps did you take to address the email account issue?

I have posted the link to the document I created today. This is based on lesson I do with Third Graders every fall to get them reacquainted with the library.
Library Scavenger Hunt

RSS Redux

I have to admit, in the attempt to cram the remaining Things in a very short window of time, I have been neglecting my Bloglines feeds. But I revisited to today and was able to catch up on several sites that I love and discover new and interesting things in my Delicious tag feed. I am starting to get excited about getting back to work in the library and there are tons of good ideas and lesson plans out there to inspire!

I think that once school starts and 23Things is done, I will be checking Bloglines daily to keep up with what is new and exciting in Librarianship, books and lessons.

Delicious

I think that social bookmarking will be incredibly helpful to me in my teaching. There are so many talented media specialists out there with great ideas and lessons to share. To catalog and keep their websites and information in one easily accessible place will make planning easier. Keeping the bookmarks in a place where others can see them, like Delicious, means that others will be able to find useful things from my research.

I included several lesson plan sites that I visit frequently throughout the year on my Delicious account, MissYFNL. I also added a couple of sites that I found by using a keyword search of library + lesson at Delicious.

I look forward to adding more sites that are helpful to me and tagging them with keywords that will make it easy for others to find.

Tag you're it

I am so excited to start using delicious to tag my online resources! I have had the exact experience outlined in the article we read where I thought I had bookmarked something on my work computer, only to find I must have bookmarked it at home. I think tagging sites and having those bookmarks available on the web is going to be very helpful to me. I use several different computers and instead of replicating my resources on all of them, I can use delicious to organize them all! I also like the idea of being able to easily share links with colleagues and friends. And discovering what others in my professional community have found as useful.

I can't wait to get started, but I am a little worried about assigning tags. It is important to choose tags that are going to be meaningful to me and also to others who may be interested in the same sorts of things. That is a lot of pressure! As with every other thing you put out there on the Internet, it is important to think about the impact of your words.

Wacky Widgets

Review the widget you selected.
I picked two widgets to add to my page from Widgetbox. I thought I would choose things that were book or word related. I selected Random Multilanguage Word of the Day widget first. A random word pops up and then it is translated into all sorts of languages. The thing I liked best about the widget was that each translation also has a speaker icon next to it. You can click the speaker and hear what the word sounds like in the language.

The next widget I picked is called Booklover Quotes. Scrolling quotes about books by famous people and authors pop up in the widget window when you visit the page. The quotes are a fun reminder about the coolness of books. Another element that I liked about these widgets is the ability to scroll ahead to the next word or quote.

Finally, I decided to try my hand at creating a widget of my own. I searched Widgetbox looking for a widget that would allow me to show the books I have on my Livingsocial Visual Bookshelf on Facebook. I came across a widget that another user had created and looked at the source code. After a few attempts, I was able to create my own widget using the URL for the feed of my bookshelf. I was super excited about being able to do this!

I do belong to Facebook and I absolutely love it. I don't have any relationships there that I didn't have face-to-face first. I think being friends on Facebook adds another layer to an already existing friendship. I don't use it to meet new people like I think many young people do. Personally, I am very careful about who I allow to view my page on Facebook. I don't accept random friend requests and I only allow friends to see my pictures and things like that. I guess that sort of goes against the whole idea of social networking sites. I am not trying to make new friends on Facebook, just keep up with my old ones.

Thing 11

This is not my first foray into blogging. I wrote a blog about books and being a mom and working as a librarian. And it was a lot of fun. I had a nice group of readers who would leave thoughtful and encouraging comments. But after a while, I felt more and more pressure to be entertaining and witty in my writing. This was a self-imposed pressure - it wasn't like the people reading my blog left comments that said, "Hey, this is boring, could you liven it up a bit?" This pressure to be funny caused a writer's block that I never really recovered from. I took a break from blogging and when I came back, my readers were gone. Without a group of commentators it felt like there was little point in continuing.

I like to leave comments on other people's blogs. I know how I feel when someone responds to what I have written - it is a validation of sorts, that what you are thinking and feeling is interesting and important and it is nice to give someone else that same support. I also find comments are a great way to ask for further information about the topic of the post. A great thread can grow from asking a question or two.

Because I am behind a bit, I read Thing 10 of several bloggers participating in 23Things so as not to spoil what I hadn't learned yet! It was very helpful and I learned about a couple of different uses for YouTube that I hadn't explored like finding book trailers to share with students. I also read about videos of authors reading their books and thought that would be a super use of YouTube. I left comments and I will check back in a few days to see if there are any responses to them.

The Asus Eee PC T91

This is the netbook of my dreams!




This video was created by Sasha at Minipcpro.

I tried downloading a video using all three options, but I was not successful. I can see how trying to do something like this with your students might prove to be frustrating.

YouTube

I have been thinking of getting a netbook. While researching different options, I stumbled across a review of the Asus Eee PC T91 which sounded super cool. So, I signed on to YouTube and did a search and sure enough there were tons of videos about the T91. Some of the videos were of users demonstrating the highlights of the netbook, and others were tutorials on how to use the multi-touch software included with the T91. It was pretty cool to see all the snappy features of the T91 being used by actual people who own it. Made me want to run right out and get one myself!

Prior to this, I had only occasionally looked at YouTube - mostly to preview videos that my kids were interested in seeing, but sometimes to view videos that friends had recommended. It seemed of purely entertainment value. It was cool to see that there are other, more instructional videos out there. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked in my district and I wouldn't have access to it at school. I suppose if there was a video that I wanted to share with students, I could download it to a thumb drive at home and then share it at school.

What I think would be really cool is if we could get students to create their own videos and then post them on line. I have two Flip cameras at school and I thought this year I might teach the fifth graders how to use them to create videos on a topic - could be a book share or something related to their curriculum, maybe their explorer's unit - and then we could edit them and post them on our web site or on line.

Spins webs, any size

I had this idea when I first started using "Your Friendly Neighborhood Librarian" to create a header with my face on Spiderman's body, but I wasn't sure how to do it. Thank goodness for 23 Things! Although this picture is definitely strange - I look sort of like I am bursting out of the top of Spiderman's body apparently neckless. And I am smiling! I am sure in this situation Spiderman would have a very serious look on his face!

It is amazing all the different things that you can do to manipulate your photos! Before taking this class the most I had done with my digital pictures was to upload them to Shutterfly and put them in a book or calendar. I really liked Big Huge Labs, but I ended up using a link on Image Generator to create the body switch picture above. It was fairly easy to use - I picked a photo and then because I don't have PhotoShop on my laptop I used Paint to crop my face out of the photo. Then I uploaded the picture and using the very simple click and drag was able to add my picture to Spiderman's body.

I spent a lot of time trying things with my pictures. I did try to create a header using Spell with Flickr, but like others in the class, I didn't know what to do with it afterward to put it on my blog. I tried several different things, including copying the code, but I couldn't make it work.

I think I would use some of the tools at BigHugeLabs with students as I found it pretty easy to use. I am especially interested in using the Trading Card feature with students, my third graders in particular, as they do biographies every year. I can see them doing biographies of each other and creating trading cards to share with the rest of the class. I tried it using a photo of my daughter and it was super easy!

This Thing has been a great motivator - I had been somewhat melancholy about the end of summer, but now, with all sorts of fun things to do in the lab with my students, I am looking forward to getting back to work!

Feet first

Flickr is super cool! I uploaded a bunch of pictures that my daughter took over the years of her feet. We used to give her the camera as a little girl and she would immediately point the camera at the floor and take pictures of her feet. She jumps into everything feet first without fear and that is what I try to keep in mind when trying new things myself.

I thought of a couple of ways that I can use Flickr in the library classroom AND be cognizant of copyright restrictions and avoid inappropriate pictures. One idea I had was to create a folder on the shared drive in my school that contained pictures from The Commons or Creative Commons on a particular topic, for example: pumpkins. Students could then work in groups or alone using the pictures in the folder that are about pumpkins to create a timeline of the life cycle of the pumpkin from seed to jack o' lantern.

Another idea I had was for students to take pictures of their own based on a topic, trees for example. We could upload the pictures to Flickr and then the students could add notes that identify the parts of the tree they have been studying in class: roots, branches, leaves, bark, etc.

I am sure the more I play around with Flickr, the more ideas I will come up with that I can use with my students! I just have to jump in feet first!

Books come to them

How great is this picture? I love it for so many reasons. First of all, that font is so old school and plain and yet somehow fantastic. I do admit, however, that it has a little bit of the creepy about it, as if some disturbed person typed this out anonymously on their typewriter with the fading ribbon and then placed it on the librarian's desk at the local library branch. In reality, a poster maker made this for the New York Public Library. I found when trolling for pictures with the tag libraries at Flickr.

It is such an emphatic sign. I am sure the author is letting patrons know that if ever they had need of books and they couldn't make it to the library, that there are options out there like a mobile library service. Of course, people who need that service might not be able to make it to the library to read the sign.

This picture also got me thinking about how books are experienced in today's digital age. Personally, a book is made of paper pages that you can turn and touch and smell and experience physically. For others, the physical act of holding a book and turning the pages is maybe not as important as the content of the book and so they read books on Kindle or iPhones or other digital devices. Or you can listen to books in your car or on your iPod. The idea that books are available in a limited number of ways has changed dramatically. Pretty cool.

Bloglines, I love you

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of blogs out there - how do you handle information overload and how do you think RSS might help with that?

One of my favorite parts about being a librarian is purchasing new books for my library. It isn't always possible, however, to read every single book that I buy for my collection so I spend a lot of time reading book reviews - both in print and online. Given the volume of books that are released yearly, just reading book reviews isn't going to cut it. What can I do to make sure that I don't miss out on some fabulous gem? Of course, I chat with my librarian friends, but I also spend several hours a week reading book blogs by librarians and teachers. In the past, I would visit each site individually using my bookmarks tab. This, as you might imagine, took a great deal of time. And not every blog I check in on updates daily so sometimes my efforts were a waste. I am so excited to add my regular online reading to my Bloglines page! To get all that info in a summary format is going to be so much easier!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 - Not a reference to "The cat in the hat"

Why are you participating in 23 Things?
A couple of reasons: 1) I heard through the grapevine from past participants that is was a very informative class and 2) I really, really miss taking classes! It has been a couple of years since I finished my MLIS and this seemed like a great way to get back into learning!

What do you hope to learn?
I am hoping to learn some new and exciting things that I do with my students in the library. I am hoping that the things I learn about will be adaptable so that I can incorporate them easily given technological constraints, time constraints, etc.

What new insights did you have during Thing 1? How does writing on the Internet, knowing anyone could read it, change how you write or feel about writing?

My mother always told me, "Never put in print anything you would not want others to read." So there went the whole idea of keeping a diary! I always thought this was a very helpful piece of advice - I only wish she had given in to me BEFORE I wrote that note that nearly cost my a childhood friendship. I keep that experience and my mom's words in my mind whenever I write an email or a status update on Facebook or an entry on my blog. I guess in some sense I edit myself and my thoughts and feelings knowing that other people - people I may or may not know - are going to be reading it.

Another piece of advice that my mom gave me about writing was, "Take responsibility for what you put in print." When I first started blogging, I did it anonymously. Not because I planned on writing anything worth being embarrassed about, but because I was afraid some weirdo was going to read my blog and become obsessed or something. In spite of my efforts to keep my blogging identity a secret, it didn't take long before people figured out it was me writing. In retrospect, it seems silly. If you care enough to put your ideas, thoughts and feelings into print, no matter the format, I think it is important to claim them as yours.