LIBR 246-13 Building the Social Library Online

They're at it again...this time attempts are being made to block access to Second Life in schools and libraries with DOPA raising its head again.  How do we educate this way?  Even about the issues we all agree on like child safety from predators.  I know we're done, but....

1. How has your view of social software changed since starting the course?
My views have totally changed. Not because I disliked social software, but because I did not know all of the tools available, how to make use of them, and how beneficial they can be to me personally and at work.

Educators who lack knowledge about social software are the biggest barrier to implementing it in my workplace.  While I believe the educators in my K-12 district are excellent, the majority do not understand the benefits social software can bring to the classroom.  Further, they are not encouraged by administrators to incorporate these tools into their instruction.  I would go so far as to say teachers and students are discouraged from using social software because access to these tools are blocked by district filters.  Teachers themselves currently cannot access bl

Boy, was this challenging!  I totally assumed that creating my screencast would be about as simple as creating my podcast.  For the most part, I wasn't too off base with that thought.  I used Camtasia to create the screencast and actually found it very user-friendly, even for first-timers like myself.  Their screencast tutorials are wonderful.  I watched them, created my screencast....then the problems started.

When I worked at a high school, I held library orientation for Freshman at the beginning of each school year.  Inevitably, there were students who missed it or transferred into our school after orientation.  It was always easy to identify these students as classes began working on research assignments.  I would then attempt to provide them an on-the-spot, watered down version of the orientation.  Having the orientation available as a podcast would really work wonders (and would be a way to clone myself) for getting students up to speed.  Most likely, the podcast wou

This week I got a good look at the ways libraries are using virtual reference.  I haven't worked in a library that offers it, nor had I used it prior to this exercise.  It's great that libraries are reaching out in this way.  I can see how this benefits students, researchers, and even the person who just needs a quick answer to an everyday question.  Virtual reference is also a precious gift to people who don't have a library close for their use, or cannot access one for other reasons.  This is the piece that was missing from the bookmobile!  It makes outreach

This is the response I received from AskNow inquiring about murders in my state:

Hello, tonya kennon

This was a totally new adventure for me, but I created my Facebook account with ease. I liked the fact that I didn’t have to read lots of text to get my profile up, add applications, and search for friends. After browsing the apps I decided WorldCat, Books iRead, and Zoho Office were choices my library patrons would make use of.

Don't get busted doing this at work, but do check out Hulu to watch episodes of your favorite TV shows or movies.  Some movies are clips but many are full length.  Go here to watch October Sky.  There a place to register on this site, but I did not, I just clicked the title and it started playing!   What will they think of next?!

Wikipedia offers many benefits to schools.  Sadly, many schools overlook the fact that this tool offers current information on just about everything.  Wikipedia can be used to teach students not only how to glean from the collective knowledge, but how to add to it - and let us not forget that it’s free.  How many schools can re