In my county, we use Destiny. The version we use allows students to log onto Destiny Quest which incorporates some social networking components. Students can log on and interact with the catalog system. They are able to search for books within their school's catalog, put them on hold, and even give a book review and/or rate them. This is a wonderful feature and the students love being in control of their library account. As a media specialist, I love the fact my students can interact with both the catalog system and me. Yet, I wish there was more. I believe there is a place for more social networking within the media center and the school.
One such social networking tool I wish media center's used is librarything. I love librarything and believe students, media specialist, and schools would benefit greatly if they could use this sort of social networking tool in the media center. Students could tag similar books. This would help me in assisting students who come to me saying, " I loved this series (whatever series they are reading), but I have read them all. Is there another series like this one?" or " I love books with action, etc." If I needed help coming up with titles, I could simply go to students' tags and get book ideas. Students could also see each others tags.
I do believe that incorporating social networking and the media center will become more prevalent (in a modified way) in the near future.
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We also use Destiny and it is a start. Our teachers also have the opportuiny to use Blackboard and create teacher web pages which makes it a bit easier to incorporate social networking. I totally agree that more social networking should be available through the media center. There are many that I would like to include...librarything, like you mentioned but I also like Flickr because it would allow pictures to be shared for project purposes or studnet work that needs to be posted for everyone to see. I would also like to have an open blog so that parents and others could post questions or comments about needs or concerns.
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Raina
Your Destiny account with the ability to review books sounds awesome. No more bulletin boards with sticky notes or "book reviews" posted, how much easier to have it all online. Quick and easy feedback for students and for you, certainly a great help when deciding what books to order. Librarything is really a great site, I agree with you. Some media centers have their own account and the LMS posts the new arrivals or hot topics of the week. We are a bit behind in Troup, LHS's media center webpage is pretty much our link to the internet. The media specialist is in the process of setting up a blog through the TeacherWeb page so we'll see if that takes off with enough promotion, perhaps through the English classes. The elementary school my daughter goes to, while having a beautiful, well-run media center, only has a very basic web page with a few links. Social networking? It may be a while before Troup sees its value and allows it. Librarything and Shelfari might convince them. But I don’t think Facebook and Myspace will ever make it.
ReplyDeleteWe also have Destiny in our school. That is a great way for the students to feel that they really have some part in their own library. I remember the projects in one of Dr. Snipes class that we did Flickr and LibraryThing. I can see where those technologies would be great to use in schools. Flickr with pictures like classroom yearbooks, and librarything with tagging books that they liked. This would help media specialist to find books that were similar for the students.
ReplyDeleteOur system is not very advanced in the area of those types of technologies at certain levels but I can see where things like twitter, facebook, and myspace will probably not be on the list to be approved by the IT department anytime soon. We are still having problems getting some educational websites back on the list. That internet filtering, don't you love it!
I also like LibraryThing, because it gives the media specialist and students quick details about the book they are interested in and the specific genre in case they want more from it. LibraryThing would be a great way to organize a teacher's personal library so that students and teachers in the building can share the resources that the media center does not have. Right now with being on tight budgets, sharing resources is especially helpful. This would help teachers to find a small set of the same book for literature circle use also.
ReplyDeleteSocial networking has amazing possibilities, but again it depends on how flexible the county is about allowing access (filter control).
LibraryThing is a great tool (that is actually NOT blocked in Henry Co!) that I could see uppergrades students getting a lot of use out of. Just like Traci mentioned, students could utilize this to tag and refer books. Would you load your entire collection onto the site--or would kids add books as they wanted?
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Linda that classroom teachers could benefit from this site with thier classroom libraries.
As a media specialist LibraryThing could be a useful tool to organize and plan for book talks by putting the book talk information in the notes section and tagging the books as such. Inviting fellow MS's & teaches to your page, this becomes a great collaborative tool.
I also love Flickr! I am the MS in a Title 1 school, and good photography allows lower income students to experience things and places that they normally would miss out on. Unfortunately, this is a blocked website in our county--but the idea of using photography and art to take students on virtual field trips is still a good one!
We have Destiny at our school as well and love the upgrades for the students. It gives them more empowerment about what they can do independently. It has been a wonderful addition to the students' experience as well as the teachers. Both students and teachers are able to create lists of books they want to read or get for lessons at a later date. While our students haven't been given permission to put items on hold, they are able to let us know what they want so that we can put them on hold.
ReplyDeleteAs a media specialist, I am a fan of Delicious and Librarything for helping students locate books or other items they would want to read. It helps me to continue to choose books and materials to meet the interests of our population as well as the GPS we are required to teach.
Traci, while we have Destiny in our district, we have yet to use Destiny Quest as the default lookup for the students. We have showed the students benefits of Destiny Quest, and they have loved the creative and colorful interface of the program. With working in the elementary students, we have yet to use Destiny Quest for its social networking aspect. I think that it is a great idea having your students log in and write book reviews and rate them. I also love using LibraryThing and I also wish that this social networking site would become more commonplace in media centers. I am always looking for new, wonderful books to read (I am sorta obsessed with young adult fiction). I constantly read reviews of books on amazon to find new books (I forget about all the benefits and aspects of LibraryThing at times). With reading your blog, I have seen what a beneficial social networking tool this would be in the educational setting (for both media specialists and students). I constantly have students asking my opinion about good books to read about a particular subject. Using LibraryThing to find good books (using tags and reading reviews), we would be more efficient in locating solid, good books for our students, which, in turn, would help them learn, grow, and fall more in love with reading!
ReplyDeleteHow great that your school site already has social networking, even if it is limited. This will definitely pave the way for other schools. Another social networking site that would be wonderful is Delicious. I love that I can access my favorite sites from anywhere. It really helps ease and access. I think this would be very helpful for teachers to include for their students. It would offer a easy way for students to research and comment on websites that the teacher suggests. Also, I'm just learning about Voice Thread. It's another really unique site that offers collaboration for teachers and students. Both of these websites, in my opinion, offer great opportunities for social networking.
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