Publicizing NetLibrary

I'm starting to feel that the teachers I work with are going to start avoiding me. Every time I catch one I start talking about some of the neat things I learned while doing 23 Things on a Stick.

Today I caught an English teacher and introduced her to NetLibrary. She was really excited about the possibilities with a class that uses nonfiction. I'll have to see if she uses it.

Friday one of the social studies teachers and I talked about using Google Docs when he next had his students do group projects. We both need to look at it more closely so that we can anticipate the questions (and problems) that the students might have.

Young Adult Reading

I read a great article today. Check out Every Teen's Struggle by Sherman Alexie in a recent Publisher's Weekly. I haven't read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian yet -- but it just moved closer to the top of my To Be Read pile.

There are so many good books and so many articulate writers for young adults who post on their blogs and make videos and do podcasts. I know or hear about them. Now I need to make my students aware of them. I'm still looking for the best way to do that.

Advertising LibraryThing

I spent part of today installing The Print Shop 21 so that I could make some promotional materials for my media center. I had used previous versions of Print Shop but the possibilities sure have expanded since the last version I looked at. The User's Manual must be an inch thick!

I needed to make some bookplates for books that are donated to our media center. I also wanted to make a poster to advertise our media center LibraryThing at DEHSLibrary. I want to encourage my readers to add to it. My para and I are both readers but I want to draw on the talents of the 200 or so kids in our Page Masters reading club. I want them to have some ownership.

Let's hope we get some takers.

For the readers out there, I just read Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith and thoroughly recommend it for any middle high school reader who likes fantasy, adventure, and a touch of magic. I think both girls and boys will like this one. I'll be steering those who read Tamora Pierce in this direction.

Next from the To Be Read pile is Marked by P. C. & Kristin Cast.

Thing 23: Final Thoughts

I enjoyed the opportunity to explore things I had heard about but have never had a chance to try. I do not know if this experience will change the look of my media center or the services we offer but it has certainly enhanced my personal knowledge. I know we won't have a presence of MySpace since it is blocked at school to our students and staff.

Some of the things were interesting but not possible in a one-librarian setting. IMing or text messaging reference questions implies that someone is available to answer them. There are too many other tasks (teaching mainly) to devote time to that one. Second, our students are required to keep their cell phones in their lockers during the school day.

My favorite things were the ones that I felt would enhance my personal productivity. I liked del.icio.us so that I could access my bookmarks from any computer. This has already proved useful as I try to tell someone about a great site that I have found. I expanded Bloglines to include more and more varied feeds including magazine feeds and podcast feeds. I would not have known that was possible without 23 Things on a Stick.

I am eager to do more exploring of Google Docs and Zoho to use with kids who are doing group projects. Our current system of having kids store their files on a common drive isn't working well for us. The common drive gets full and no one can save anything. Apparently, no one ever removes things from the common drive when the project is finished. And the common drive is only available when students are in school making it difficult for them to work on projects when they are not in the building.

I would definitely take part if a 23 More Things on a Stick program were offered. Although I would like to wait for a while until all the things I have learned in these 23 have "settled" and become part of my daily practice.

Thing 22: What Did I Learn Today?

My paraprofessionals and I have a running joke that we need to learn one new thing a day. The comment is usually -- "OK. That's my new thing of the day. Can I go home now?" It is especially amusing if it happens before 8 AM. But the truth is, when you are working with students and staff in a school media center, there are new things to learn every few minutes.

Learning the new thing is easy. Remembering and applying the new thing is the hard part. I already had many of the sites listed in this thing in my Bloglines account. Today I added a few more. It often takes an effort like the 23 Things on a Stick project to provide the incentive to break out of the usual day-to-day activities.

I have enjoyed the opportunity to explore new technologies and to think of ways that I can bring them to my program to better serve the staff and students who are my patrons.

I knew about LIbraryThing before 23 Things on a Stick but hadn't thought of using it for my Media Center. Now we have a growing list of good books there. I am excited to explore the possibilities of Google Docs and Zoho with my students too. Again I knew of Google Docs but hadn't done anything with it.

Thing 21: Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

After reading through the introduction, I decided to look at some of the resources. The link to the article about Gather trying to be the MySpace for books didn't work. I did find an article entitled "Can Gather.com Get Book Lovers Online?" in the December 5, 2005 issue of Publishers Weekly but I'm not sure that one is the correct article. I did join Gather because I thought it could be interesting.


View my page on 23 Things on a Stick

I joined the 23 Things on a Stick Group and left a couple of comments. As you see, I have added the membership button. I don't like that I don't have a photo but my photo is on my school computer's hard drive and not my home computer's. I'll have to remember to get a copy to take home.

I also joined WebJunction so that I can keep up with things there. I may have to retire to keep up with all the groups, organizations and websites I have joined.

Thing 20: Libraries and Social Networks

I looked at both MySpace and Facebook. I could do Facebook from work but not MySpace. We block MySpace because it got to be such a time-waster for our HS kids. They'd spend time there instead of doing the work that they should have been doing on the computers. I was talking to one teen yesterday who said that MySpace is getting to be a thing of the past for her and for her friends. She maybe checks it once a week now. I looked at the Hennepin County Library page in MySpace.

I like the privacy features of Facebook. I wanted to add some friends from other librarians doing 23 Things on a Stick but didn't know how. I don't have email addresses for any of the participants. I looked for a 23 Things on a Stick group but couldn't find one. I was tempted to start such a group but don't feel comfortable enough at Facebook to do that. The thing says to let "us" know when I joined Facebook but I wasn't sure how to do that or who "us" was. Any ideas?

Why isn't there a Rochester, MN region? The closest was Minneapolis/St. Paul. How do we start a new region? I have lots of questions about Facebook and don't know where to go for answers.

I did like the tutorial from Expert Village. It looks like there are a number of intersting tutorials there.