Online Book Communities - What Are They?

Online Book Communities - What are they and why should you use one?

I looked at 5 different online book communities.  I have shown you a picture of each of my bookshelves in each community along with some other tidbits of information.

The first was Biblionasium.  I really loved how kid friendly the site is, it's  bright, colorful and fun.  You can create accounts for students, parents and as educators.  I like how each day when you log in, they have suggestions that pop up.   I like how as an educator you have the ability to set up reading logs, and can make reading challenges for your kids, there are resources with lots of articles, fun stuff, etc.  They also allow you to manage groups, send messages, buy books, and complete reports based on how you use the site.  I also like the suggested reading tab, it has great shelves with lots of good reading choices for kids.  I really how it looks like a shelf when you put books on your shelf unlike some of the other communities that I will discuss below.  This is a site that I had already created an account for and I plan to use it with my students when I can even though I am not their reading teacher.  I think this is a great site for educators and students.

The second online book community I looked at was Goodreads.  I have been a member on Goodreads for a few years and I am not using it to it's full potential.  I had never created a shelf.   I do think that think the look is very plain with just a white background.  I went to the My Books tab and created my shelf.  You can  mark them as All, Read, Currently Reading, and To Read.  I do like how you can arrange the books by author or title.   I like that you can create multiple lists and I made one for school.  I like to keep my school books and the books I read for personal enjoyment separate.  It has a Recommendations tab but it won't have any available for you until you have created 20 reviews.  That seems like a lot of reviews to get a book recommendation but it is customized to your likes and interests.  There is also a Groups tab were you can join groups with similar interests.  The explore tab has a books of the month sections,  give aways, top reviews and new releases.  I didn't like the site as much for use in a school setting but I do think it's a great place to find book reviews and photo's of books when creating annotated bibliographies.

Librarything was the third site that I looked at and created a shelf  on. .  You can arrange the books on the shelf by list or covers.  I did like that this site gives recommendations based on the books on your shelf.  It also gives you reviews regarding and there is also a library statistics tab that has all kinds of information regarding the the books on your shelf.  There are also pictures of the authors on the Authors Tab.  When you add books you can search for them on Amazon and even Library of Congress.  It also Groups for similar interest, a Talk tab that has a message board, and a Local tab to help find things that are local.  I really liked this site for me personally.  It has so many neat tabs that give great information about books.  I did not find this site to be as kid friendly.  It's great to find books for kids but not as geared to the primary age that I deal with on a daily basis.  Another thing they even have an IPhone App.  Great site and I can't believe I am just finding out about it.

The fourth site I looked into was Shelfari.  Shelfari is linked to your Amazon account.  I do like how you can separate your books into  I've Read, I'm Reading Now, and I Plan to Read.  You can create goals, there are groups to discuss books and author pages.  Again, I feel that this site would be good for older kids or personal use but not for my primary kids.  I does have under  your profile a space to add friends, block users   I had problems accessing the site on more than one occasion and more than one day.  It said that they were aware of the problem and working on it, but it was frustrating.   Hopefully when you are accessing they have fixed the problems and you will not run into any potential problems like I did.  

Booklikes was the last community that I visited.  You can create different shelves, read, planning to read, currently reading, or add your own shelf.  They have a timeline, blog, discussions and friends.  I am just not a fan of this site.  I found it hard to navigate and it just didn't excite me.  I did like the Book Catalog but it wasn't the easiest to find with the drop down tabs. It had many different genres listed and once clicking on them you could find new releases. There are also Apps which have reading list, challenges and compare books (where you compare your books with someone else-don't know who the person was, which I thought was weird).  They also have giveaways but you have to set up your profile and the webpage and add books and ratings to your shelf to take part in their giveaways.  There are also events (ex. book releases), book clubs (which you can join or create), daily deals (books on sale) and goodies (create a shelf widget, so that you can share and a follow button).  I find that it is also geared toward older students and for personal use.  I did like the goodies tab and found that it would be helpful.  

Find one that meets your criteria.  I really like Biblionasium for school.  It has many tools to use to help your students make goals and to help you with data and finding books.  I like Goodreads for my personal stuff.  I really enjoy finding books on there and reading the reviews.  I hope to really have more time and continue to explore and find out more about these various online book communities.  Find what suits you and read, read, read!

Podcasts-Why and What For?

Podcast-Why and What For?

What is a podcast, well according to wikipedia: A podcast is a form of digital media that consists of an episodic series of audio or digital radio, subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device. The word is portmanteau of "pod" and "broadcast."  taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast.  

So what does that mean, well to me in my classroom and hopefully one day a library it means creating a sound recording for various purposes.  

So now you are thinking how can podcast be used in the classroom or a library?  There are so many different ways that students can use podcast to showcase their learning.  Some that I have found are:

Discuss and summarize learning units

Read Alouds

Library Tours

Book Talks

Reader's Theater

Current Events newscasts-great for social studies

Reading Radio - summaries of books they are reading

Roving Reporter - interviewing key people in important upcoming events in school

Celebrate Culture - telling about important cultural events at the school or community

Bring Your Teacher Home-for that need review or were absent, podcast important parts of the lesson.

Music Casts - bands and choir, could use to showcase instruments, their sounds, characteristics, etc.

Awesome Audio Tour - give students a chance to be tour guides for new students.  Can give a detailed tour of the school that new students could listen to as they enter the school.

Podcasting Pen Pals - have interactive or encouraging podcast that are sent to another classroom in another school or country.  

Reenactments - have students reenact important events in history using period voices and word choices.

Oral Presentations- this could be for so many applications/subjects

Ideas found at: 

http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2014/08/07/10-podcasting-projects-every-teacher-should-try and

http://www.edutopia.org/podcasting-student-broadcasts

I love doing read alouds on podcasts so that students can listen to them time and time again to hear fluency, expression and voices modeled.  One of my all time favorite books to read this time of year is Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini  It ties into Fall really well with fairs and witches.  It is a fun book to read and my students last year loved it so much that I had students practice reading it over and over until they wanted to read to the class with fluency, expression and varied voices.  It was great!  I even invited parents to come hear their child.  My students this year are loving it as well.  

How did I make my podcast of my read aloud?  It's not to hard and with technical glitches I created mine.  My computer at school would not allow me to record the audio so I used my Iphone and created an audio file using my voice memos.  I emailed it myself and then converted it to a MP3 file. There are so many free conversion programs available.  I was then able to upload the file to Soundcloud and embed it into this blog.   So even if you don't have fancy equipment you can still have students create podcasts showing what they know without always using paper and pencil. Sometimes the ears do have it!

Happy podcasting and creating lasting sounds with your students!

Information Ethics and the library

Being a librarian means that you are the enforcer of information ethics.  The four principles of information ethics are 1.  Respect for intellectual property.  2. Respect for privacy. 3. Fair representation. and 4. Non maleficence ("doing no harm").

Image taken from:  http://telecom-it.net/index.php?ns=News&dialoose=View&id=1021&cat=7&name=campaign-kicks-off-to-raise-awareness-of-software-copyrights

I requested information in regards to copyright law violations which goes with the first principle respect for intellectual property.  I received help from librarians via the Texas Library Associations,Texas Library Connection list serv.  One instance that was reported by a librarian was was a teacher that was working with classes on a World Cultures Fair project.   The teacher was requiring students to create a PowerPoint for the project.  The problem was that the school district had not purchased the rights to the software. The teacher told, her it was not a problem because she had copied the software and given one to each student.  When the librarian found out about the illegal copy right infringement (software piracy) and distributing to the students to install on their computers; the librarian went over the liability issues of the software copyright law. The teacher was very nonchalant about the infringement and continued on with her research project with her students.  The librarian reported the teacher to the district tech department so that she could be addressed for her breach of copyright laws and the liability that she was placing the district in.  I think that the librarian handled it well.  She went over the laws of copyright with the teacher and once the teacher refused to comply she had no choice but to report the teacher to the proper district personnel.

I found some great information about  Software Copyright Law,  if you are interested please follow the link.

Copyright violations don't just happen using the internet and software.  I was able to find out about another situation that was reported by the same librarian.  This was in regards to copyright laws for books/materials.  There were a set of different grade level books purchased by an administrator for "the test" and they were asked to be bar coded and cataloged by the librarian.  When cataloging and entering the books into the system the librarian noted that there was a copyright law that only one teacher and their classes only would be able to use the book/materials.  So the librarian made labels to note the copyright information on the front of the books.  She met with the administration to let them know about the copyright issue with the books and discussed the labels she placed onto the materials.  She offered a copy of the fair use and copyright laws and the administration declined the copy.  The librarian was told to check out the books to the department heads.  Weeks went by and a teacher came to check out a copy of the book in question.  The librarian told the teacher about the copyright issue and how it had been resolved.  The teacher left saying that she would ask about being able to check out the materials.  When leaving the librarian saw the teacher talking with the administrator and she entered the conversation and again offered the copyright and fair use paper and it was declined yet again.  At that time the administrator rolled her eyes.  A few weeks later the books were requested by the administrator (that they be removed from the library catalog) and the school secretary was sent to pick them up.  They were never seen again in the library.  Looking at this situation the librarian was doing her job of making sure that the teachers and administration were following fair use and copy right laws.  It is unfortunate that the administration disregarded the law and moral codes.  I'm not sure what else the librarian could have done to ensure that the law was being followed.  The librarian did keep copies of all emails about the materials in regards to the copyright violations that could be taking place with multiple teachers using the one copy of the book/materials.  Even though she was ridiculed she stuck to her morals and didn't give up with the materials while they were in her library.  What a difficult position the administrator put this librarian in.  I know that most teachers and administrators try to do what is morally right and follow the law.  Maybe one more thing the librarian could have done was have a quick copyright and fair use presentation at a faculty meeting to remind and help reinforce the compliance of fair use and copyright laws.

Great website to get information in regards to Fair Use

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

Copyright violations happen and as librarians we have to be the enforcers to make sure that we do not have any liability to ourselves, schools and districts.  We need to educate others and bring them up to standards on Fair Use vs. Copyright.

Image from: http://www.librarian.net/stax/3368/copyright-is-killing-sound-archiving-and-fair-use-isnt-doing-so-well-either/

See below for Fair Use -

Image from: http://www.korsgaardscommentary.com/2013/04/my-fair-use-headache.html

Bell, M. (1998). Kiss and Information Ethics. TAET Journal, Spring 1998.