Blog

What is a blog? a web page that can be accessed publically, used for discussing a topic or issue. Can be used by students as a personal journal or as a public discussion forum for giving opinions. Provide opportunities for authentic writing experience.

Setting up a blog:

• 

www.blogger.com

• WordPress: www.wordpress.com

Examples of blogs:

 

• http://mrschurchwell.edublogs.org/
• http://kathyschrock.net/blog/

The purpose of my web page, which would be linked from a junior high school library web page, is to give students information about the 2009 Rebecca Caudill Nominees.  This site will be updated on a weekly basis with a new nominee featured every week.  The students, who are required to read 2 of the nominees as part of their summer reading program, can use the site to obtain a list of the 20 nominees, read a summary of the featured book, and read a biography of the author.

In addition, from the web site the students will be able to access the school library catalog, the local public library catalog, as well as Amazon.com.  By being able to access the school library catalog, the student will be able to determine whether or not the library has that title as well as determine whether if there is a copy available.  If a copy is not available, the student has the option to link to the local public library catalog and find out if there is a copy of the title available there.  Since some students prefer to purchase their own copy of the title, I have also included a link to Amazon.com to facilitate that preference.

The 2 pages that are linked to my main page, include a list of all 20 nominees and a biography of the author.  The list of the other 19 nominees is included for the student to peruse as they wish, while the biography page will give them a perspective of the author including how and why the book was written.  The PDF file is a sign-up list for the books at the junior high school.

 As can be seen from the simplicity of my web page, this assignment was a challenge for me, but I feel good about accomplishing the task.  As a result of this class, I find myself viewing the HTML coding of web sites where I really like the layout and information that is presented.  I know that I have   only scratched the surface with regard to setting up at web site, but I feel that if I ever am asked to do HTML coding for a library web site, I would be able to accomplish the task.

For my web review, I looked at the new Chicago Public Library site as well as Columbia College Chicago and Ann Arbor District Library. My first impression of Ann Arbor District Library is that it is a simple and uncluttered site. There is a long picture bar with changing pictures of the library along the top of the site. At the very top of the site is a navigation bar that has opportunities to view the site in several languages including Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian. I have not seen this option at any other library web site, and it tells me that Ann Arbor is very serious about reaching as many of its patrons as possible. There is another navigation bar which includes very easy to understand terms for searching the rest of the site. There is a lot of information that is one or two clicks off the main page. The remainder of the main page contains blogs about future events and this information is very up-to-date. One negative of the site is when I view using Firefox, there is some horizontal scroll necessary.

I choose to look at Columbia College Chicago because I assumed there might be some interesting creativity used on the site. While I was disappointed at the simplicity and uncluttered nature of the home page, it certainly works for the user. The color scheme is pleasant, not at all jarring, and works well with the uncluttered theme of the page. The top 2 navigation bars cater more to university related information, while the main page seems to cater more to library related information the student might need. There are 4 main categories on the main page including research, help, services, and about. These use very simplistic and user-friendly terms like “find books, find articles, find music, find movies”. Even as you navigate away from the home page, the 4 main categories are found on each page on the right side in their respective color bar. This allows the user to easily use the site without returning to the home page. Again the negative I came across had to do with using different browsers to view the site. For example, when using Internet Explorer I was unable to read the information at the very bottom of the page.

I contrasted these 2 library sites with the new Chicago Public Library Website. When I first viewed CPL website I was put off by the cluttered layout of the site as well as the color scheme which uses burgundy and several different shades of green including neon green. There are 2 positive attributes that I noticed on the home page. One is the ability to view the site either in Spanish or Polish, and the other is the ability to increase the text size. Since I had a difficult time viewing the home page, I navigated to a local branch using the Library Locater on the main page. There are several pieces of useful information in this page including a picture of the branch, address, phone number, hours of operation, map of area, up-coming events at this library, ability to search the catalog, plus children and teen programming. My suggestion to CPL would be to de-clutter the main page and provide only necessary information in a more simplified, streamlined manner. I would also like to see a more neural color scheme used with not so many different colors.

     Google Docs is a free application offered by Google that includes a Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application.  This allows the users to create and edit documents online while working together with other users in real-time.  Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations can be created within the application itself, sent by email, or imported through the Web interface.  Since Google Docs allows collaboration between users, documents can be shared, opened, and edited by several users at the same time.

     As part of LIS 724, I used Google Docs for 2 group projects.  While overall the use of the application was a positive experience, there were definite limitations our group encountered.  First, there was no ability to text, or IM within the application which would have helped the collaborative process.  My group used Blackboard for that, which meant we had to go back and forth between the two applications.  It is my understanding that this will be a feature of Google Docs in the future.  Second, the Power Point that we were working on required us to be very conscious of design and how everything looked on the slide.  Our group included both Mac and PC users and that became a negative factor as far as looking at the design of a slide.  Not every person saw the same thing on their monitor.  During the 2nd project, which was a Word document, everything went much smoother.

    School librarians, teachers, and students can use Google Docs to help promote group work and peer editing skills.  Through the revision history portion of Google Docs, the teacher or librarian can follow who has contributed what to the project.  The 5th graders at the school where I work do several projects during the year where they are required to work in small groups.  This sometimes requires working together at someone’s house or at the public library, which can be very difficult and inconvenient to schedule.  With the use of Google Docs, they would each be able to set up an account, then indicate who they wanted to view and share their work with.  The project could then be worked on individually or as a group at the same time. 

     Google has resources for educators.  One journalism teachers said that her high school students love Google Docs and they are eager to go to the school library or computer lab to work together on their project, and because Google Docs saves their work automatically there is never the excuse of “I lost my work”.  This teacher has used the tool for collaborative book reports, research reports, co-editing essays, group discussions about literary works, and poetry or creative writing portfolios.

Joyce

     A couple of weeks ago I attended a workshop sponsored by National-Louis University entitled “Digital Group Storytime”.  This is a way of presenting a story to a group of children using a book in a digitized format from a database, or other online or computer resource.  The “pages” of the digitized book are projected onto a screen or wall and “turned” using a wireless digital mouse.  The audience and the story reader sit together facing the screen or the wall.

     For this workshop the International Children’s Digital Library was used.  This interface was created by a team of computer scientists, artists, educators, researchers, and kids from the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab.  The database can be searched in 15 different languages and in multiple areas at once.

     There are several creative ways to use digitized books with children including preschool storytime, family storytime, and grade-school children in the library and in the classroom.  When using this tool with special needs children, one finds that the large-format images allow many children, who might not be otherwise able to focus on a small-format hard copy book, able to participate and enjoy a storytime.  This tool could also be used for bilingual storytimes, as well discussing picture books as pieces of art.

Joyce

    

     While attending the IL-TCE conference at the end of February, I was able to attend a session given by Steve Haragon, which he titled “Web 2.0 is the Future of Education.”  He feels, even though we do not know at this point in time the full impact of Web 2.0, that “culturally, socially, intellectually, and politically it will have more impact than the printing press.”

     Since Web 2.0 is a two-way interactive medium that is based on contribution, creation, and collaboration; as educators it is important for us to teach our students how to effectively produce that content.  Previously we had been teaching our students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content on the Web-now we have to teach them how to create appropriate content.  For years we have tried to teach them how to seek out information-now we have to teach they how to sort through so much information.  Even though they appear to be very tech-savvy, our students still need to be taught higher order thinking skills.  As educators we can not hesitate to learn about and enter the world of Web 2.0 because we must be able to guide our students in this world.  A good place to start is Classroom 2.0 which is a social network for educators who are interested in learning about Web 2.0.

Joyce

As a soon-to-be school librarian, I am concerned about keeping up with the trends in technology and their application in the field of education.  From Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog – “On the Horizon”, I was introduced to the annual “Horizon Report” which is a product of New Media Consortium (NMC)’s Horizon Project.  The report gives information about 6 emerging technologies or practices that will likely be used in learning-based applications in the next 1-5 years.  Also included are a set of challenges and trends that will probably influence our choices in the same 1-5 year span.  Each trend contains an overview to introduce the technology and then relates it to education through examples of how it is currently being used and/or how it could be applied to education.

In the report that came out in December 2007, the six technologies that will have an impact on the choices of learning-based organizations are:  grassroots video, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, data mashups, collective intelligence, and social operating systems.  The body of the report gives an extensive introduction to the new technology;  addresses its relevance to teaching, learning, and creative expression; and then gives links to further examples.

This report is something that I am going to puruse on an annual basis.

Joyce

Here is my first experience with making a trading card.  I can see where this would be a fun and worthwhile activity for some of our 4th and 5th graders to do.  They are doing a novel study on several of Dan Gutman’s baseball card adventure books and making several trading cards would be an interesting thing to do.

Joyce

     I feel that in this election season, librarians could also use the same buzz word “change” when they talk about the history  and the future of the Internet.  After all, it was the school library that brought the first computers into the school by providing the ability to access their on-line catalogues.  The ability to access the Internet soon followed.  Librarians did a pretty good job of working with the digital content, and learning new search tools.  The current reality is that there is 1 or 2 generations between librarians and the growing group of primary users.  David Penniman, dean of the School of Informatics, University at Buffalo NY said, “In order for the library to remain what it is, it must change.  If it doesn’t change,  it will not remain what it is.”

     Librarians will need to use the devices that the next generation uses as well as re-examine their services to determine where resources can be shifted or changed to address the new uses of technology.  The Web 2.0 tools including blogs, wikis, and podcasts are all about community and collaboration where there are millions of people making small contributions.  As a profession we need to be able to think beyond our physical space as we strive to interact more directly with our students and staff.

Joyce

This is my first experience with blogging.  Here is the class syllabus.

Joyce