Week 14: Library Thing, etc.

This may be my favorite personal tool. I have been wanting a way to organize my personal library books, lists I have for books I want to recommend to the students, and a way to keep track of books that I want to read. I have tried several paper methods over the past several years but I keep misplacing some of my "papers." This tool may be the answer. I am sort of intrigued by the idea of looking at other people's recommendations - I am not sure how much I will (would) use that. I decided to go with Goodreads.com at this time. After looking at the three options LibraryThing, Shelfari and Goodreads, I was influenced by Erin's screencast of Goodreads. I am really excited about trying this out and look forward to my experience the next several weeks.

Week 13: Slide Sharing

This is another very interesting tool. It is one that could help me make my presentations more available and accessible. I decided to use slideshare.net for this assignment. However, after viewing the lessons that Cindi did on Zoho Show and Animoto, I am tempted to try both of them. The last one I think has some real applications for the type of work done my by husband so I plan to share it with him. We should have some time this summer to try it out on several projects that he is currently doing.

As I have time to try it more this summer, I may come up with some additional ideas for the library. It would be great to design several projects to use with in-service in August. One that comes to mind is a quick orientation to the library for new staff members. The same presentation might be a good review for some of the staff members who don't use the library very much.

It would be interesting to know or view how other school librarians are using this tool. I need to do a better job of networking with some of the librarians utilizing these tools

Week 12 - Screencasting

As it turns out, this may be one of the most useful lessons. What I decided to do was to create a screencast showing how to put a hold on a book in the library since this is one of the most requested items in the library which most students don't remember how to do. The only challenge now is getting it linked to the library's webpage so it is ready to use next fall. Then I have to figure out how to advertise it so the students get used to going there to look for it. Right now, they prefer to just ask the person working the circulation desk to put the hold on the book for them. However, my goal is to get them to be comfortable with using the online catalog and its capabilities to be more independent.

I am sure the next one I do will be better. It took some time to get the settings right for the audio and to get a video which showed all the keystrokes I wanted them to make.

Week 11 Break

I need to use the break this week to catch up on some of the previous weeks' activities. For example, I did not realize when I signed up for RSS feeds, how they would pile up on me. I am not good about getting there everyday with all the research projects scheduled in the library now. I may have to delete some of the RSS feeds in order to keep it to a more manageable size.

Also, I still need to try my hand at the video on the web lesson.

Week 10 Video on the Web

I read through the lesson for the week but I have not done anything with it. I am not sure that I am going to commit at this time to making a video which I will upload to YouTube. I have the bookfair going on in the library for the next six days and that is consuming my time and energy. It might be a good idea to try and get some video and then maybe I could use it to advertise for next year's book fair. I will need to play around with that idea.

Week 9 Instant Messaging

I can see where this would be very handy in a work setting where co-workers were online and you could get some instant feedback. My guess is that at school this function is not going to work. I wish it was easier to find someone I know that is really good at these things so I could ask my "dumb" questions. It was not hard to set up.

Week 8 Cloud Computing

It is nice to have a better understanding of how online shopping, online meetings, RSS feeds etc. works. I had just recently heard the term, "cloud computing," and had no idea what it meant. Now, with this week's lesson, I have some idea. Of the examples listed in this week's lesson, the items I find that will be most helpful may be Google docs and doing a calendar using Google. The calendar is something I had thought about before where I could keep a calendar for the scheduled classes in the library. It would be a calendar that teachers could consult when they want to bring their classes to the library and note the dates that are still available. Now what I need to figure out is how to embed the calendar into the library's webpage. The other resource I reviewed was Dropbox; it sounds interesting but it seems like it does some of the same things as Google docs, Google presentation, etc. More research on my part is needed.