Flickr and the School Library

I've been thinking of ways in which school librarians can use Flickr to promote library programs or advocate for their libraries.  Flickr Groups offers some possibilities.

 Flickr returned 652 group results when I searched for "school library" under the Groups tab, click on the screen shot for a larger view.  Some libraries have created Groups in Flickr around themes such as School Library Displays.  These can be a rich source of ideas.




One group is sharing photos to use on their school website while others share photos from library events and conferences.  There's even a group showing how students study in the library.

Given that a picture is a powerful way to convey an idea here are some suggestions:
- promote new resources by snapping pictures of new books OR advocate for more resources by showing how empty the shelves are
- create excitement around upcoming events with photos of posters, an author's titles, mystery objects or 'guess who?' photos
- document changes or renovations to the library
- promote programs with timeline photos as students progress through stages and acquire new skills, take photos of student projects.  For example, Gr. 1s signing out their first books > Gr. 3s reading to Gr. 1s > Gr. 1s reading to their parents during an open house night
- document events: poetry readings, author visits, character costume days - search flickr for ideas others have captured with an image
- photograph staff learning on ProD days held in the library
- promote groups that help the library, parent or student volunteers
- promote genres in your fiction collection
- thank parent groups for donations by showing how they are being used
- demonstrate how well your library space is used before and after school and during the lunch hour
- illustrate the wide variety of learning that takes place: individual studying, group projects, computer use, demonstrations, readings, presentations, club activities

What else can you do with the photos you take?
- post up around the school, in the staff room
- display on open house or parent-teacher interview nights by projecting as a looping slideshow
- add to school newsletters and to your school and library websites
- add to school district promotional materials
- attach to an email when you want to advocate for or promote your library
- send to your local paper

How have you used Flickr or other social image sharing tools?

A Great Elementary School Library Site

I'm turning the tables on this one and asking for your input. I'd like to know what you think makes for a great elementary school library website. I have a few ideas, things like:
- a welcome page with staff names, FAQs, contact information, hours
- great visuals showing the library as an active and evolving community
- a how-to page with instructions on writing a bibliography, creating a brochure etc.
- a youtube player with book trailers, author interviews
- a page showing how the librarian collaborates with teachers
- a library events showcase
- suggestions for great reads
- student feedback forms such as requests for new materials, questions.
- links to online databases, recommended sites for assignments, author sites, etc.

What else would you include? How would you showcase your library to your teachers and students and the world? What web2.0 tools would you use? I'm planning a future post on this subject so please leave your ideas or links to any great elementary school library websites you know of, even your own! Thanks!

Photo used under a Creative Commons license by PlayfulLibrarian
http://www.flickr.com/photos/playfullibrarian/3247796657/sizes/m/

Pass It On

There are often times when you might want to create a list of URLs to post on a site or share during a workshop.  I've played with a few but never found one that entirely met my needs until today when I discovered Sqworl.

With Sqworl you are able to add a bookmarklet to your browser (I use Firefox).  When you find a site you'd like to add to a list, you just click on the icon.  A pop-up window allowing you to add to a list, create a new list and annotate your entry.  It provides you with a URL for your list and you can log-in anytime to edit.  Note: In the demo on their site the instructor is  copying and pasting URLs.  You won't need to do this if you add the bookmarklet to your bookmark toolbar.

Some suggestions for use:

• Ask students to compare and contrast the information found on several sites.  Good for website evaluation, detecting bias or point-of-view, choosing the right site for a given assignment.
• Post several sites and ask students to form an opinion based on the information.
• Ask students to vote on options presented: which place to visit on a field trip, which novel to read aloud in class.
• Post links to opposing reviews after students have read a novel.  Ask if they agree, disagree.
• Ask students to visit the posted sites and write annotations, comments, summaries, citations.
• Ask students to compile a list of questions based on sites listed.
• Ask students to rank sites posted.
• Prepare a list as a series of tutorials or steps in a process.  Or ask the students to do the same.

How have you used lists of URLs?  I'd love to hear your ideas in a comment!

Two New Search Options

Two good new search options came my way through RSS today:

From Free Technology for Teachers  - Database for Award-Winning Children's Literature.  It offers a variety of search options including genre, gender of protagonist, age ranges from baby to 14+, historical period, publication date range, and language.  Click the image for a better view of the search options.

From Joyce Valenza's NeverEndingSearch blog - SweetSearch for students.  Every web site has been evaluated by their research experts.  There is a nice collection of links organized by subject and level in the Web Links section.

Guidelines for Student Comments

Watching a teacher setting a class loose to comment online prompted me to come up with some resources to guide students in the art of commenting.  When little or no direction is given, students post comments full of slang, miss-spellings and humour that may be misunderstood or offensive.

In short, student comments should:

• be succinct
• stay on topic
• extend the conversation
• be polite, respectful

Students should remember:

• your first comment of someone's blog is like meeting a stranger
• using slang may confuse or offend
• your comment is a reflection on you, your school, your community

Online Resources:

New York Times - The Learning Network - Lesson Plan

Care to Comment? Considering Internet Discussion Protocol 

Give your students commenting practice or post your class blog to invite comments from others

Comments for Kids

Jan Smith's class commenting guidelines

Huzzah

Sue Water's The Edublogger 

Set up your blogging rules and guidelines 

Kim Cofino's

Student blogging guidelines

I'm adding Silvia Tolisano's Blogging Lesson Plan thanks to a comment left by Alex, below.

If you know of any other useful resources please leave a comment!

trial

Posted via email from LAN44

Now How Did That Happen?

Today I was helping one of the French as a second language teachers learn about Posterous. She was wondering how to make the accents show up in her posts so I tried a few things in my Posterous account not remembering that it was linked here to the WFB. Hence the strange posting previous to this one.

I wasn't aware of this until a friend who follows me on Posterous said that there had been 30+ views of the post. To those of you who came looking for a new post only to find one word, I apologize! When I started this blog I used it as a sandbox, experimenting with new tools but haven't done that so much of late.

If you are interested in the key sequences for Macs the instructions are here (thanks @bryanhughes). It appears that you can use these instructions in gmail and here in blogger to get French accents.

Etre, ou ne pas être, c'est là la question.