For this reading journal, I chose to read the paper version of School Library Monthly (Volume 28 Number 6 March 2012).
The librarian that I work with has several back issues of this magazine that she has put out for us both to read and discuss-I love that aspect of reading and then talking about what I like and what she likes.
I read the entire magazine in two sittings. The first part of the magazine did not hold my attention as well as SLJ or the Horn book. The month I read had articles such as Lesson Study for School Librarians, Using Web 2.0 Tools with Young Researchers (something that my colleague does with 3rd-6th graders frequently), an already outdated review for the Nook Color, A School Library Work Plan, and my favorite-Hosting a Family Read-In. There were also book reviews that included a "spark" addition where teaching tips and/or books to partner the selection with were included.
This magazine as a resource does not rank as high for me as those I have previously reviewed. While reading the articles I just didn't feel that spark of excitement that I have felt with the other journals/blogs that I have enjoyed. What struck me with this resource is that today (October 2012) there were articles that were already outdated. The article on the Nook Color was already old-new technology has taken its place. How interesting that if a library would have purchased this device for student usage to see that there are newer tools that have been produced a mere 7 months later. I did enjoy the article on being a story teller and loved the hosting a family read-in article. If I had the opportunity, I would absolutely offer that type of program for our students and their family members.
I did learn some interesting information from the content in the article entitled: A School Library Work Plan. The author of this article suggests using the word "pilot" when presenting strategies/programs/or an innovation in the library. This article encouraged the administrator/librarian relationship due to the lack of exposure pre-service principals have in their coursework. This article gave tips on creating a plan to best use your time as a librarian and broke it down into educational and instructional roles. It was a concise article that was very helpful in the management of the library as a whole. I also enjoyed the content of the family read-in article. I am always so excited to work with others in educating them about our library! I enjoy having parents come in and see what we are doing with their kids during the school day-how cool would it be to have a read-in as an evening activity!! While this article seemed to be for older kids, I would like to dig deeper and see if there are schools that have done something similar with lower grade students. Maybe even pursue this idea and make a "bedtime" story night at our library? It would be a lot of fun-pull a bunch of "quieter" selections and have families come in to enjoy some stories. Or just pull books and read at their leisure.
Overall I would not subscribe to this magazine. While I am sure it is suited for many, I did not find it to be as engaging, or as exciting as other materials I have seen. The reviews were not as detailed or as helpful as those in SLJ and the articles were no better than those I have seen in SLJ either-if I had to purchase one as a professional development tool, it would be SLJ over SLM.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Wikispaces
For my tech journal entry this week, I chose to explore wikispaces. I chose this particular tool because even though it is required, it just so happens that I heard several teachers talking about their "wiki's" this week and I was intrigued.
Initially when I went to the site I wasn't impressed-it was okay. But then I signed up for the educational wikispace and was pleasantly surprised!! I REALLY like how it (by choice) walks the user through the set up. For someone like me who isn't confident in technology use, it was an easy way to get my wiki set up!!
While you will only find my rough set up at the above link, what was cool was how easy it was to get this wiki up and going. The tutorial literally walked me through everything.
For fear of sounding stupid, I will admit that I am not sure how I am to use this exactly. Yes I see that you can collaborate with this site, but I am still feel unsure-so this would be what I need to research more. Would this be a way to plan our literacy lesson if I had to work with a colleague that was outside of my building? Something to think about. I know that in the past, our jr. high teachers used a wiki to house curriculum content, homework assignments, updates, etc and it worked nicely for the parent/student/teacher communication.
I definitely used the start up tutorial and will go back and view the additional sources as well. I think the online support is very helpful, and I like how there is a tool bar in the upper right hand corner that is easily accessible.
I think I would use this tool if doing a collaborative unit with a teacher on something like informational literacy. It could also be used to collaborate with a librarian at a different school on a variety of topics like the Monarch Awards-maybe a few school librarians could track the favorite book for their school and then see what a multi-school vote would be? My question still is can this be used like a blog? I don't think the purpose is to be used to simply update or present information-again, this is something I need to explore.
The visual part of me does like how there is choice for background color, font style and layout.
I think overall I prefer the Weebly over the wikispace-but again I am thinking that they are to be used for two different types of communication. I can see that I need to familiarize myself deeper with the wikispace.
Using these different technologies has been helpful-especially since there are so many that I am totally unfamiliar with!!
Sunday, October 14, 2012
The Jackpot-or Horn Book Online (Reading Journal)
http://hbook.com
For this week, I chose to look at the Horn Book (online version) and was NOT disappointed!!! Let me begin by saying that this is my favorite resource that I have looked at so far. This resource has been created to provide parents, teachers, and librarians (public and school) with recommendations for good children's and YA literature (their mission statement). I chose it because it was on the list and had been discussed in class-it sounded interesting.
I spent a lot of time browsing this site! I read information on choosing books which included reviews and author's questions; using books for libraries (this focused on public libraries but was still full of excellent information!); under creating books I watched the making of the Freight Train app (super cool!); and under the interview tab I selected 5 Questions with Roz Chast to preview.
My favorite articles were: What makes a good dystopian novel? And the making the Freight Train app. All of the articles I read were VERY helpful-there are a variety of book reviews, app reviews, and ideas for instruction. I enjoyed the author interviews and the publishing section as well. There was nothing on this site that appeared to be useless or lacking. It is very practical and I have bookmarked it to use in the future. I will absolutely use this with my students when it comes to purchasing, reviews, and educating myself.
I REALLY needed to read the article on dystopian literature. Right now I am struggling with YA fiction and this was excellent!! The article defined what dystopian literature is, the four criteria of what makes a good dystopian book, and then gave book reviews on good books. Reading this one article gave me the structure and a background knowledge of a genre that I don't know much about. I can take this knowledge and immediately apply it in our library-I like being able to use information NOW. I will continue to use this resource when I have questions, or just to keep up on what is out there. I also like how Horn Books has a clear mission and their entire site upholds their statement. I will continue to come back to this site and actually liked it more than School Library Journal.
For this week, I chose to look at the Horn Book (online version) and was NOT disappointed!!! Let me begin by saying that this is my favorite resource that I have looked at so far. This resource has been created to provide parents, teachers, and librarians (public and school) with recommendations for good children's and YA literature (their mission statement). I chose it because it was on the list and had been discussed in class-it sounded interesting.
I spent a lot of time browsing this site! I read information on choosing books which included reviews and author's questions; using books for libraries (this focused on public libraries but was still full of excellent information!); under creating books I watched the making of the Freight Train app (super cool!); and under the interview tab I selected 5 Questions with Roz Chast to preview.
My favorite articles were: What makes a good dystopian novel? And the making the Freight Train app. All of the articles I read were VERY helpful-there are a variety of book reviews, app reviews, and ideas for instruction. I enjoyed the author interviews and the publishing section as well. There was nothing on this site that appeared to be useless or lacking. It is very practical and I have bookmarked it to use in the future. I will absolutely use this with my students when it comes to purchasing, reviews, and educating myself.
I REALLY needed to read the article on dystopian literature. Right now I am struggling with YA fiction and this was excellent!! The article defined what dystopian literature is, the four criteria of what makes a good dystopian book, and then gave book reviews on good books. Reading this one article gave me the structure and a background knowledge of a genre that I don't know much about. I can take this knowledge and immediately apply it in our library-I like being able to use information NOW. I will continue to use this resource when I have questions, or just to keep up on what is out there. I also like how Horn Books has a clear mission and their entire site upholds their statement. I will continue to come back to this site and actually liked it more than School Library Journal.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Weebly (Technology Journal Entry)
http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php
This week I decided to kill two homework birds with one adventure-taking a look at Weebly. Above is the link for my professional portfolio that is only in the initial stages of completion-i.e., I had no idea what I was doing and just played around!
I chose this tool because I had no idea what Weebly was and thought I would check it out. Honestly, I liked the name-it sounds cute.
I liked the following about this tool: the tutorial options is awesome-it is helpful to get started, it is relatively user friendly (see my dislikes), and it has a lot of design options. I used their free stock pictures to play around with my heading graphics and they are decent. I will probably upload some better pictures as I realize this is a professional portfolio-although the Mr. Potato Head does make me smile.
I did not like the lack of direction once you get past the initial "home" page. I had no idea how to create the tabs on my site for my project-i.e. I didn't get how someone would click to get to my resume or professional philosophy. I did play around and figured it out, and maybe I am missing additional tutorials, but it was a bit confusing to get started. I currently also cannot figure out how to change the text font-I realize it isn't a big deal, but as I have shared before-this makes a difference to me! If people are going to be looking at this, I want it to look really good.
I could not figure out how to change the text font and will return to explore this as well as adding additional graphics to the page. I have some images from Pinterest that I would prefer to use so I will take the time to figure that out. I did enjoy the ease of getting started-again I do think that Weebly is user friendly overall. I did appreciate the initial tutorial but again wonder if I am missing additional tutorials that would enable me to personalize the site a bit deeper. I will also be exploring that as well.
I would totally use this with students/parents/administrators to communicate the goings on of my library!! I would request that this site was provided on my school's homepage for easy access and would update it weekly with pictures, book reviews (from myself as well as guest bloggers-students, teachers, administrators), special events, and maybe even spotlight certain genres. There are so many things that I could do to inform the school culture of the exciting happenings in the library-this is an easy and free way to publicize the fantastic things that are happening. I would even post how the space is being used-in my case posting pictures of ISU students who are using the space to work on research projects with students, pictures of chess club practice-anything that gives the library excellent press.
I really like Weebly and will definitely be using it to create my Professional Portfolio project.
This week I decided to kill two homework birds with one adventure-taking a look at Weebly. Above is the link for my professional portfolio that is only in the initial stages of completion-i.e., I had no idea what I was doing and just played around!
I chose this tool because I had no idea what Weebly was and thought I would check it out. Honestly, I liked the name-it sounds cute.
I liked the following about this tool: the tutorial options is awesome-it is helpful to get started, it is relatively user friendly (see my dislikes), and it has a lot of design options. I used their free stock pictures to play around with my heading graphics and they are decent. I will probably upload some better pictures as I realize this is a professional portfolio-although the Mr. Potato Head does make me smile.
I did not like the lack of direction once you get past the initial "home" page. I had no idea how to create the tabs on my site for my project-i.e. I didn't get how someone would click to get to my resume or professional philosophy. I did play around and figured it out, and maybe I am missing additional tutorials, but it was a bit confusing to get started. I currently also cannot figure out how to change the text font-I realize it isn't a big deal, but as I have shared before-this makes a difference to me! If people are going to be looking at this, I want it to look really good.
I could not figure out how to change the text font and will return to explore this as well as adding additional graphics to the page. I have some images from Pinterest that I would prefer to use so I will take the time to figure that out. I did enjoy the ease of getting started-again I do think that Weebly is user friendly overall. I did appreciate the initial tutorial but again wonder if I am missing additional tutorials that would enable me to personalize the site a bit deeper. I will also be exploring that as well.
I would totally use this with students/parents/administrators to communicate the goings on of my library!! I would request that this site was provided on my school's homepage for easy access and would update it weekly with pictures, book reviews (from myself as well as guest bloggers-students, teachers, administrators), special events, and maybe even spotlight certain genres. There are so many things that I could do to inform the school culture of the exciting happenings in the library-this is an easy and free way to publicize the fantastic things that are happening. I would even post how the space is being used-in my case posting pictures of ISU students who are using the space to work on research projects with students, pictures of chess club practice-anything that gives the library excellent press.
I really like Weebly and will definitely be using it to create my Professional Portfolio project.
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