Tuesday, October 13, 2009

#18 - Wikkis

I've enjoyed looking at the ways in which Wikkis are being used in an educational setting. I can see that this is something that I can use, support and promote in my high school.

I imagine that to begin with our school would mostly use Wikkis as a way of sharing research on specific topics. As the librarian, I could set up the wikki and use lessons in the library to help students and the classroom teacher to add information to the wikki.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

#17 - Delicious

A useful tool both personally and professionally. I like that we can find out other similar sites or other popular sites that are similar to ones that I'm interested in. As a librarian I use the internet quite a bit in day-to-day work and it's great to see what other similar sites are out there.

I like that we are able to select which sites we make available to the public and which ones we keep private too.

Like everything else that we are doing here, I can see that I can potentially make great use of it - when I make the time. So hopefully during these school holidays when things settle down a bit I'll take the time to re-visit some of these sites and to explore and organise them further.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

#15 - RSS Feeds

This is really new to me. Most of the activities and applications we've done to date, I at least had some basic knowledge of what they were about, but I wasn't aware of how RSS Feeds worked.

I like it.

I've added some feeds that are personal and as a result I'll always be informed about what the latest happenings are in Cricket, which is of course very important.

A drawback I can see is that it may become overwhelming, with the amount of updates that happen each day.

How can I use this in a school environment? OK, this is where my imagination is limited. For me, I'll look for some sites that keep up-to-date information on the latest teen reads. I'm not sure what the students could use it for... I'll look forward to reading other posts to steal some ideas =)

Friday, September 18, 2009

#14 - Facebook

This had to be the easiest task yet as I already have a Facebook account that I use quite a bit and it is already a part of my iGoogle page.

I have enjoyed taking the time to check out Twitter for the first time though. Time will tell if I become and addict or not =)

#13 - MySpace

I already have a personal MySpace page, which I admit I rarely use, Facebook being my preferred place to communicate with friends.

I had a look around and didn't find anything that really convinced me to create a page for my school library. I admit to being conservative (or at least not very brave) and I'd like to see some much more forward thinking (brave) school/teacher librarians create and maintain dynamic and useful pages before I go there.

At this stage to manage, moniter and maintain a page and constantly ensuring that the language and content is suitable for school is not something I'm prepared to tackle.

Not writing it off, just maintaining my distance from this for now.

I also looked at some of the public library MySpace pages, mostly in the U.S. I liked what some of them have done. Some of the styles were definitely targetting teens, the photos of events and activites were great and it looked like a great way to keep the community informed of what's happening and what's available at the local library.

Rocky Beach at Night


Rocky Beach at Night
Originally uploaded by 'Bobesh
I like this photo. Once a Central Coast girl...

#11 - Library Thing

I'm enjoying getting to know my way around Library Thing. I've added a few of my old favourites as well as a few of my recent reads. This application will give me something to do in the school holidays, as I've just moved house and it will give me the motivation to sort and organise my library. I'm looking forward to it.

Some of my books were more popular than others, which is not surprising and again I can't wait to see how popular some of my other books are.

I like how the site gives us the section of conversation directly surrounding a particular book so you can make a more educated decision on whether or not you want to read more. However most of the conversations mentioning my books tended to be very brief or only mentioning my book in passing.

I would love to see this utilised in schools. I'm not sure how we could monitor the content of posts and avoid inappropriate information being accessed by students but it would be worth consideration.

For any interested there is a link to my catalogue below. (If you are interested, you might want to check back closer to the end of the school holidays.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Lyndall72