Using Photography to Tell a Story

One of my courses this semester is Electronic Media and Design - it's an EDU (vs. LBS) course, and it basically covers ways to effectively communicate through images. It is one course where my Marketing background has come in handy - I've done my fair share of presentation creation, that's for sure!

This week's assignment centered on photography, and telling a story using pictures. One of our choices was to do a "how-to" feature, such as in a recipe. As an avid recipe blog reader (shout out to 2 of my faves, Skinnytaste and Emily Bites), I hadn't ever tried my hand at actually photographing food. It's harder than it looks!

So without further adieu, here's my inaugural attempt.

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With the first truly chilly weekend, what better way to kick off fall than with a warm, hearty soup? Found just the candidate I was looking for in my new favorite cookbook and settled in for some (hopefully) delicious French onion soup.

Kicking things off with (lots) of onions, butter and olive oil

Caramelizing those suckers...saute, saute, and then saute some more.

Adding a lot of liquid to the mix

While the soup simmers, some Asiago-Parmesan crisps for topping

 

Cheesy, oniony goodness is served ... Bon appetit!

 

Cheesy, oniony goodness is served! Bon appetit!

What I'm Reading: October 2014

After my YA binge this summer for my Children's Lit course, it's been a little slow going on the reading front, but now that I'm in the swing of things with my classes, new school schedules for the kids, and so on, I am ready to get back at it!

My book club book this month is The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer, which I just recently finished. It was, surprise, surprise, another one picked up from the Parents' Picks shelf at my local library, but I had also remembered one of my Goodreads friends reviewing it a while back. I have a soft spot in my heart for summer camp - which features pretty prominently in the story - but this one fell a little flat for me. It was certainly readable, and I liked Wolitzer's style, but the characters didn't quite do it for me. There's another one by her that seems pretty applicable to my stage in life - The Ten Year Nap - which I might check out soon.

For my YA pick, I am finally reading If I Stay, and will likely follow it up with Where She Went (damn Gayle Forman...there's no way I can *not* follow up with the companion book right away!). So far so good on this one - certainly very readable and have a feeling there may be a tear or two shed before all is said and done!

New semester

Hooray! I'm actually not commencing another semester-long break from blogging, even though it's not required for either of the classes I am taking this fall. Progress, for sure.

My two classes this semester are EDU classes (vs. LBS) so not as interesting to blog about but I am doing some library volunteering that has me pretty excited.

In my home school district, there isn't budget for an elementary librarian, so all five elementary libraries are parent-run. Which, coincidentally, is a good opportunity for an elementary school parent looking to become a librarian.

I'll be helping out with my daughter's K class (mostly checking in and out books, and choosing a book to read aloud), but another way I'm helping is through a really cool program called the Massachusetts Children's Book Award (MCBA).

In a nutshell, this program was designed to continue momentum for reading for upper elementary students in the hopes that it will carry them through middle school and beyond. It essentially culls a list of 25 books - across genres, targeted to all levels of readers - and encourages students to choose at least 5 to read between now and March. Those students who read all 5 (or more) will be eligible to attend a special breakfast event at the school and vote on their favorite.

I attended one of the kick off meetings for a 4th grade class this morning and it was awesome. The kids were SO excited about the program (helped by the strategic reading of some introductory sentences of a few of the books by my fellow volunteer - a very effective form of booktalking) and eagerly waited their turn to peruse the special shelf designated for the program. I'm looking forward to seeing which books are the most popular, and hopefully reading a few myself.

Another highlight were the questions they had after our spiel - apparently they really want French toast and waffles brought in - I'm glad we have a few months to hone our breakfast menu!

What I'm Reading: Popular YA Books

It's the final week of my class and our theme this week is "What Teens are Reading Now" - while the obvious answers are Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, I figured I'd try to delve a little deeper to get some ideas for my recommendations this week. I also solicited two of our teenage babysitters so it will be interesting to see how their recommendations align (or not!) with what I find on my own.

Two great lists that helped me this week were Mashable's 12 YA Books for Your 2014 Summer Reading List and Teen Vogue's The 15 Most Exciting YA Books Coming Out This Year (don't judge...I actually found the Teen Vogue list to be a pretty thorough and thoughtful one...who knew?).

I predict I'll be reading much more YA in the coming months...there are so many books that I have come across that I can't wait to dive into!

What I'm Reading: Nutritious Books

What's a Nutritious Book, you ask? Simply put, a YA novel that a teacher could use as part of their curriculum, supporting Common Core standards, etc. As an adult reader, I actually have loved some of the ones I have come across this summer...it's great to feel like I'm actually learning something as I'm reading, and many of them have given me a much greater understanding of a time period or event that I didn't know (or let's be honest, remember) much about before.

ELA and History are definitely the predominant teachers who might be inclined to use YA novels to support their classroom activities, and as it turns out, all of my picks this week have some sort of historical basis. I have to cheat a smidge and include one of the books that I included on one of my midterm reading lists, because I just loved it so much (as much as you can love a Holocaust book, I suppose!). In fact, I really enjoyed three of my recommendations from that list, so I'm including the other 2 as Honorable Mentions, as I didn't think I could get away with recycling all three of my picks!

So, here we go...Nutritious Books for your reading (or teaching) pleasure:

What I'm Reading: Geeky and/or Scary Books

This week is my least favorite genre...and honestly a bit of a letdown after my required romance reading last week! "Geeky" is essentially science-fiction and fantasy (a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think, by my professor) and Scary obviously speaks for itself. Our course this summer is one week shorter than when it runs in either the fall or spring semester, so we were able to choose either Geeky or Scary for the week's assignment. Since my assigned book was in the Geeky category (More Than This by Patrick Ness), I decided to be consistent.

In searching for my books this week, I tended to gravitate towards ones that I might actually be interested in reading. I figure this category is the easiest to get boys interested in so I let myself off the hook. In the comments kicking off our module this week, our professor advised not to shy away from series. Which is good, because all of my choices (unintentionally) are parts of a greater set.

Here we go...

What I'm Reading: Romance Books

Ah...teen romance novels. Call it listening to too much Taylor Swift, or actually having mostly positive memories of high school (boys included), but I loved this week's genre. Interestingly, I couldn't remember any romance/love stories that I loved as a teen reader but I devoured three of my picks in a matter of days this week. I started off my exploration by searching "Popular Lists" on my nook and quickly found a Contemporary YA Romance list with 53 titles to sift through. My neighboring library has a much larger YA section than my local one, and I got lucky finding two of my top picks there as well as finding another one on display. I suspect I may be checking out a few more of these once my class is over and I can get back to leisure reading!

As in previous weeks, I tried to find at least one title that (might) appeal to a teen boy, though this genre was a little more difficult. Per usual, in no particular order...

What I'm Reading: Funny Books

This week, we are focusing on funny books. This is kind of a tough one for me...it's not that I don't think I have a sense of humor, or don't enjoy laughing (though who would admit to that, I suppose!), but I am not really drawn to comedies in any of my entertainment choices (books, movies, stand up, etc.). Throw in that I am looking at books that are meant to be funny to teenage boys and girls and I'm even more out of my element. But as with anything that puts you outside of your comfort zone, it's certainly not a bad thing!

The book I was assigned to read this week was Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle, which I did enjoy, and had some laugh out loud moments. Others I have found in my searching this week are highlighted below, again in no particular order.

What I'm Reading: Award-Winners

It works out well that my prior "What I'm Reading" topic fits nicely into the required blogging of my Lit course. Each week, we'll be looking at a different category of YA literature, searching for titles published in the last 10 years or so, and providing annotations of some of the books we find.

This week, it's Award-Winners. For any of you non-library/education folks, the Newbery has been the "king" of the awards, dating all the way back to 1922, and has included such classics as A Wrinkle in Time (1963), Bridge to Terabithia (1978), and Sarah, Plain and Tall (1986). Another award list that I discovered this week, where I found some quality books was the Michael L. Printz Award. Perhaps it's because the list is newer, and also solely focused on YA books (vs. the Newbery which includes children's titles as well), but I jotted down a ton of books I wanted to read from this list. A 3rd list I focused on this week were the National Book Awards (Young People's Literature category, abbreviated as NBA further in this post), where I also found some excellent titles.

The genre I nearly always gravitate towards is realistic fiction, so I made a conscious effort to mix up what I read this week (though as you'll see, I couldn't resist including at least one in my list!). In one of our class discussions a few weeks ago, we talked about the difficulty in drawing in teen male readers, so I also made an effort to include at least one title that would appeal to them. In no particular order, here are my award-winning choices for the week:

And, I'm back...

I really had the best of intentions when I made my last post for my course last semester about keeping my blog going, but alas...

In sum, I wound up applying (and getting accepted) to the M. Ed program in Library Media Studies at Salem State and launched right into a Survey of Children's Literature course this summer, which explains my blogging hiatus. Lots of reading of excellent children's books (plus a killer midterm assignment, including 66 annotations, but who's counting?) took the place of my blogging. But, now we are onto the YA portion of the class and we are back to required blogging (hi, Barb). Which is a good thing, I think.

Hopefully, I can keep it going this time!

10 Things Every Teacher Should Know About Technology

As previewed in my last post...

1. It’s never too late to start!
2. You don’t need to know everything…ask for help from others (students and teachers at your school, virtually, over social networks) that you know have successfully used a new technology
3. You don’t need to do everything all at once – make a goal to try one new thing each month (or semester, or year), while tweaking/optimizing the things you are already doing
4. Don’t introduce an app or technology just for the sake of doing something “technological”– (Alternative wording found from the original blog post we read: "Use technology only when it makes rich, real and relevant curriculum richer, more real and more relevant”)
5. Share what you do with other teachers – it’s the best way to get new ideas and get input to make your lessons even better. Corollary: Find a champion, that teacher who is most open to collaboration, and work together to create a knock-out finished product. Then, promote the heck out that success to encourage other teachers to utilize the library as a resource
6. Think about what your end goal is and then find the technology solution that will accomplish your goal (vs. asking yourself “How do I use this technology?”)
7. Have a backup plan (or two)
8. Think outside the teacher box – use the experiences of friends/family in other professions to uncover technologies you might not have otherwise thought of
9. Be organized! Create a system that will work for you to stay on top of new trends, tools, technologies, and best practices
10. Have fun!

What's Old Is New...

This is my last "assigned" blog post for this course...crazy how fast time flies! Overall, it's been a really great experience having this blog to organize my thoughts about what I've learned over the course of the semester, and one that I hope to continue as I make my way through the program.

Our very first assignment back in January was to provide our own list of the "10 Things Every Teacher Need to Know About Technology." For this final blog post, we've been asked to revisit our list and add/edit/update as we see fit, based on what we've learned in this course. As I look back at my list, there's not a huge change for my v2.0, mostly just a few tweaks here and there and some reordering.

I did take exchange one tip completely, replacing "Understand how to differentiate for all skill levels..." with "Be organized..." Not that I don't think differentiating is unimportant, but I think, for today's students especially, technology is a more level playing field than other subject areas, and so much of student learning comes from simply working with and experimenting with a new tool (much as we did in this class). So while I think having an understanding of how to introduce a new tool, provide tutorials, etc. for different types of learners, I don't think it cracks my top 10. On the contrary, without having some sort of mechanism for organizing your online "world," you will never have a chance of taking advantage of all the resources out there, or remembering, weeks or months down the road, something that you wanted to use in a certain setting. Using tools like Twitter and RSS to connect/learn from other LBS professionals and Diigo or Delicious to organize the useful links you do find are paramount to staying on top of the ever-changing world of technology in education.

In the spirit of not making this blog post too long, I'll give my v2.0 it's very own post, but here's my original version with the tracked changes. 

More on OPACs

In short, the LMS I interviewed was pretty happy with her OPAC, and as I researched other options, I didn't see a compelling reason to move from one to another.

I do see the value in having the system hosted by a 3rd party, especially given the situation that transpired in my district this spring, so that was what I recommended in my presentation.

For your reading pleasure...

The Case for Keeping Destiny

Interview: What Do You Like About Your OPAC?

Our assignment this week is to interview a current LMS about their OPAC - likes, dislikes, wishlists, etc. - and look into alternative options that might be a better fit than what they are currently using.

What's an OPAC, you ask? A library's Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) is essentially a comprehensive list of everything in its collection -- books, DVDs, CDs, equipment, periodicals, e-books --  all accessible via author, title, subject, or keyword search.

My interview was with the school librarian at my local middle school, whom I have been volunteering for all year. Our talk came at a pretty opportune time. My local district's OPAC is housed locally and managed by the school's IT department (vs. being hosted in the cloud and managed by a 3rd party), and a few weeks ago, they experienced a major server failure that brought the OPAC offline for several days, in addition to severely limiting other technological functions across all schools within the district. Would a 3rd-party hosted solution have prevented this outage? No, of course not, but it would have lessened the pain the outage caused and decreased the impact on teachers heading into the final stretch of the school year (coincidentally, when many capstone research papers are in full swing).

This situation led me to my first "must-have" for my ideal OPAC - 3rd-party hosted service. While hopefully this exact situation won't happen again, I don't think it's a crazy idea to allow a 3rd party that is an expert in providing technology solutions to libraries to own this function. Of course a server failure could have happened anywhere, but if the school was paying a 3rd party to host their OPAC, I can guarantee that it would have been hours/days before it was back up vs. weeks, as was the case here. Plus, having a dedicated project manager ensures that all upgrades/updates happen in a timely manner which is not necessarily the case when the library systems are only 1 of the many technologies that the district IT manager is in charge of (Side note: I learned through my interview that our district's IT director actually splits his time between all 7 schools in the district plus he functions as the city IT director, further highlighting how spread his time must be).

Other "must-haves" that I determined through my interview included:

• Compatibility with other systems -at this school, the OPAC and the Student Information Platform are from the same company, making a nice "one-stop shop" for students and teachers alike
• User-friendly interface - Kind of goes without saying, but having an easy way for students to access library resources is a must
• Useful and flexible back-end reporting - What good is a great system if you can't manipulate the data to figure out how well it's working for you? As with any system, the ability to run customized reports is a major plus
• Price - Obviously a factor - the more it costs to run your OPAC, the less available to add needed resources to the collection
• Customer service - Tied to the first point above, but bears repeating. Having a dedicated person to reach out to with questions and concerns is crucial

So how did my local middle school's system stack up?

You'll have to wait for part two of my assignment to find out...

How Should You Maintain Your Collection? (and Other Burning Cataloging Questions)

We had some interesting topics and conversations in my class discussion board this week around cataloging (go figure!). There was lots of back and forth about the feasibility of truly ditching Dewey (as I mentioned in my last blog post) and some interesting perspectives on how a librarian should add to her collection, specifically what the non-fiction/fiction breakdown should be and how this varies based on student age.

I set off on some good old internet searching to find some additional perspectives on this particular topic, and I stumbled on some great stuff that I don't want to forget when I need it:

• Keeping Your Library Collection Smelling F.R.E.S.H! - A blog post from Library Girl includes a very handy set of criteria on both why it is important to weed through your collection and how to assess which items in your collection should be tossed. Bonus: Printable handout addressing the "how"
• Mighty Little Librarian - This blog was a treasure trove of good info, so much that I officially added it  to my blog roll. The author, a middle school librarian from Baton Rouge, is another proponent of library "genrefication" (i.e. Ditching Dewey), and has a whole series of blog posts dedicated to how she accomplished this in her library. Upon further investigation of her blog, I found awesome posts on social media in education, digital citizenship lessons, and creating a March Madness bracket for the most popular books in her library. Can't wait to see what is to come!
• The End of Nonfiction - An interesting blog post from the SLJ's "The Digital Shift" points out the inherent confusion in classifying books in fiction, nonfiction and reference and advocates for new terminology that better correlates with the Common Core (one suggestion: arrange books by whether they are trying to "tell me a story" or "teach me about something)

While cataloging itself is certainly nothing to write home about, I have enjoyed these past two weeks and having the opportunity to think about the book part of being a librarian. While the technology piece is certainly important, I've also been drawn to this field because of my love of books and finding ways to share that with others, so it's fun to read about how others are making the most of their own collections. 

What I'm Reading

Been a while since I have done one of these (updated my last post with my verdict on Coming Home), but I am 1/3 of the way through this YA gem and can hardly put it down. It's already brought me to tears multiple times...I am not sure how I am going to make it through to the end! So glad I am reading it before the movie comes out (isn't the book always better than the movie?)

Diving into Cataloging...

And I don't mean shopping with the many books that magically appear in my mailbox! (Though, if I'm being honest, I did a bit of that this week, too. Just can't help it with all the adorable little girl spring and summer dresses!).

We are switching gears a little bit and diving into a module on cataloging. Our first assignment was to work through the first 89 pages of what seems to be a school library media specialist's bible: Catalog It! A Guide to Cataloging School Library Materials.

Let's just say that I am glad that technology has advanced to the degree it has today so that I will rarely need to physically create my own records - this is confusing stuff! It's systematic, and doesn't leave a ton of room for misinterpretation, which does appeal to my love of order and organization, but I'm certainly thankful for the ability to cut and paste records from other libraries' collections and to import records direct from the publisher for new acquisitions.

A few takeaways from my reading this week:

Week 10 - Internet Safety

This week we are looking at the issue of internet safety and how to best teach kids to be responsible digital citizens. Our assignment is to create a presentation for any audience we choose related to internet security. In doing some of my initial research, one thing that struck me was how early we need to be having these conversations (a 2013 study by Common Sense Media showed that 72% of children under age 8 have used a mobile device to view some type of media, compared to 38% only 2 years earlier. Crazy!).

With my own 5 year old starting kindergarten in the fall, I wanted to explore this further with my assignment and put together a presentation that could be used at her preschool. She is definitely part of the 72%, as she has access to the family iPad and occasionally our phones, but so far she hasn't figured how to buy apps, or necessarily what the internet is (though she does know that the PBS Kids app needs internet access in order to work). But it's only a matter of time, and I now realize I need to be proactively thinking of how to start this education with her.

In no particular order, I have included some of the best sources I found while doing research for my presentation:

More Flipping of the Classroom

Our goal this week was to create a Professional Development (PD) opportunity that would be relevant to teachers in our chosen age range. I was so interested in flipping the classroom following my work last week that I thought I would try to create a module that would introduce this idea to teachers, and provide them an opportunity to get started with a flipped lesson of their own.

I found a lot of great videos explaining the theory behind the flipped classroom as well the benefits, but this twosome really stood out to me. Enjoy this TEDx talk from Lodge McCammon, PhD and Katie Gimbar, a middle school math teacher who has wholly embraced the flipped classroom model. Very interesting and inspiring!

Week 8: Technology Integrated Unit

This assignment was pretty comprehensive. We were asked to create a unit in the subject of our choice, for the grade level of our choice incorporating 10 of the applications, tools, or formats we have learned about thus far.

One thing I have learned (sometimes the hard way, as evidenced by the trouble I had finding podcasts that related to women's suffrage!) is to do a little pre-research to make sure that the subject area I choose will have enough "meat" for the given assignment. This time around I chose to create a poetry unit, which for the most part wasn't too difficult to think of ways to incorporate various online tools and application. 

The cornerstone of my unit was a tool called Blendspace, which was introduced to me by the library media specialist that I volunteer for once a week. She had helped a history teacher put together a flipped classroom model using this tool, so I thought I would give it a whirl myself. The concept of a flipped classroom is still pretty new to me, so it may not be a perfect representation of the idea, but I had some fun playing around with it. From a student perspective, I think it's a great way to aggregate resources and assignments, and also to have them engage in specific work outside the classroom, so that they are better prepared for the next day's class. 

Without further ado, the Blendspace for my Poetry Unit assignment:

Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat, oh my!

Week 7 is about social networking and all that it entails. I am no novice to social networking - I've been on Facebook since shortly after it was opened up to people with a .edu email address, keep a professional profile on LinkedIn and regularly post on Instagram, to name a few.

But while I access these sites daily, I am apparently no match for Generation Z (who's that, you ask?). Gen Z, roughly those born between 1995-2010, is the first generation who will grow up in a digital world, where technology is ever-present.

Our assignment this week was to write a position paper on social networking - which led me down the path of researching the good, the bad, and the ugly of all things social media.

One of the first sources I found was courtesy of a fellow classmate, which she shared on our class discussion forum. Generation Like examines the phenomenon of teens and how they use social media to promote images of themselves. Thoroughly captivating, and somewhat disturbing, it definitely made me realize the differences in generations. It was particularly interesting for me as both my children fall into Gen Z (though I have a few years at least before they are posting selfies!).

While it is easy to decry the reliance on technology and the shameless self-promotion (this article very much falls on the side of "Social Networking Has Gone Too Far"). I think the author makes some very valid points - it is tough to find redeemable value in Baby Scumbag, after all.

But my ultimate position is that social networking will do more good than evil. Much of the research into Gen Z points to the fact that these kids will be more  globally aware, more environmentally-conscious, and more accepting of different cultures and perspectives as a direct result of the internet and social networks "shrinking" the world. And that, to me, is worth it.

Week 6: Online Digital Media (part 2)

Had some technical difficulties with my formatting of the 2nd part of my last blog post, so why not start a new post? It is my blog and all.

The second part of this week's assignment was to create my own digital media. I think it goes without saying that I didn't choose a podcast! I used the same tool, Animoto, that I experimented with last week, but this time did a 30-second book review of one of the recent books I've read. This was a really fun way to think about being concise, yet still capturing the essence of the book. I think this could definitely be an application for this tool that could be used across many grade levels.

Week 6: Online Digital Media (part 1)

This week's assignment centered on online digital media - a combination incorporating audio and video in the classroom and also creating your own digital media. 

I really struggled with this assignment! We were to choose a standard from the MA frameworks and find 5 videos and 3 podcasts that could support this in the classroom. Maybe I just chose a bad topic (women's suffrage and the passing of the 19th Amendment), but it was very hard for me to find sources that I would actually recommend.

I was able to find good, relevant, interesting videos much more easily than any audio sources. After conducting search after search, I have concluded that part of my struggle is that I just don't really like podcasts. I am way too easily distracted and way too much of a visual learner to really dig in and enjoy getting material this way (makes sense that I also am not an NPR listener!). 

My two favorite videos (very different!):

• Woman’s Suffrage Crash Course #31 - A really nice series of 10 minute or so courses on topics in history, the sciences and literature. I will definitely keep the "Crash Course" series in mind the next time I need a refresher on something I should have learned in school
• Bad Romance: Woman's Suffrage - A cool parody of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video. I like the way it successfully juxtaposes modern pop culture with an issue that was so pivotal at the time and which matters to all women today (Fun bonus video: Behind the Scenes)

One step closer

I've been hemming and hawing about just applying to the LMS program at Salem State.

Basically, I need to take the MTEL and get a few recommendations to complete my application. 

Made a special trip to my husband's office to print this sucker out. Been awhile since I took a standardized test, so I think I know what I'll be doing now that I turned my assignment in early. 

One step closer, indeed! 

Week 5: Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom

Well, this week was a welcome change in that I was actually familiar with 4 of the 13 tools we were tasked with working with this week. I was starting to fear I was just too old (gasp!) to try to jump into a new career.

Our list of tools to explore included: Flickr, Big Huge Labs, Dumpr, Glogster, Google Drive, Zamzar, Survey Monkey, Doodle, StumbleUpon, BubblUs, Voki, Jing and Animoto.

Of this list, I had prior experience with Flickr, Doodle, Survey Monkey, and Google Drive (all in either my personal life, or my prior corporate life, but all in which I can see applications in education as well). I hadn't used Flickr personally, only on behalf of one of my clients, so it was fun to set up my Photostream and map my pictures (I intentionally only chose travel photos so my map would look more exotic!). It also made me very envious of some of our pre-kid travel!

A few other results of my exploration:

Animoto- Birthday wishes for my mom
BubblUs - Brainstorm on what the heck I'm going to do when I grow up
Voki - See my previous post...

In short, I could see applications in education to nearly all of these. I must confess that it was a stretch for Dumpr (plus the name is awfully unfortunate) - while I had some fun on this site, it was harder to think of a clear educational use.

I think the other thing to keep in mind - as with any web 2.0 tool - is to guard against style over substance. There's no use in a flashy tool if the content stinks. Two of these applications in particular - BubblUs and Glogster - reminded me of things I did back in the dark ages, just with a healthy dose of fun and cool sprinkled in, which is how it should be (in my humble opinion of course).

Fun with Voki

I'm working on the "exploration" part of this week's assignment, which is basically playing around with a bunch of web apps that I've never even heard of. It was a long day with the 5 year old who is on school vacation, and I think I am having a little too much fun with this one. For your viewing pleasure...

What I'm Reading

I had a rare 3 days away from the kids (including a very long airport delay on Sunday) so I made it through 2 of my inaugural picks in one weekend (see original post for my verdicts).

Had to return a couple of things to the public library today and perused the "Parent Pick" section while my kids played in the Children's Room.

Side note: If your library doesn't do this, you should really mention it to your librarian. There is a rolling shelf of 100 or so books that they think might appeal to parents of young kids - it's a nice mix of genres, mostly newer titles - but I always seem to find something I'm interested in.

Today's selection was:

Verdict:
3 stars. Pretty readable and decent storytelling but many of the characters were tough to relate to/empathize with and the ending kind of got a little hokey. Good vacation reading, but I don't know that I'll be rushing to read more from this author.

That and Happier at Home should keep me occupied until my next book club selection!

Revisiting Wikis

After copping to being a little OCD in my Diigo post, it pains me to break my linear flow to go back in time and revisit Week 3 but it must be done.

Our assignment last week was to explore a few wiki sites, and then create our own. I spent a good several days trying to figure out what the heck I was going to start a wiki about. Our professor gave us leeway that it didn't have to be education-related, which helped, but I was still floundering a bit.

I took a first pass using Wikispaces to create a travel wiki for Outer Cape Cod but really struggled with inserting pictures appropriately, and then got frustrated with the topic altogether.

I abandoned that one and decided to try PB Works next. To my surprise, I already had an account set up - I had completely forgotten that the final project for the LBS class I took in the fall of 2010 was to set up a wiki that could be used in a school library. It was helpful to look back on what I had done, but for this assignment, I wanted to start fresh and do something totally different, so I created a wiki for my book club who does things the exact opposite way as is recommended in this excellent Common Craft video on wikis.

Week 4: Online Organizational Tools (part 2)

The 2nd part of this week's assignment was to experiment with social bookmarking and social reading sites.

Social Bookmarking

For someone who once worked in marketing (for a company with a strong online presence, no less!), I am kind of embarrassed that social bookmarking was a pretty new concept for me. It definitely makes sense, especially the idea of having your bookmarks "follow" you to whatever device you happen to be using vs. being stuck on one machine. So I jumped in to add a few of my favorite sites and see which of the 2 sites we were advised to start with - Delicious and Diigo - might better serve my needs.

Week 4: Online Organizational Tools (part 1)

No, you're not counting wrong. I haven't blogged about Week 3 (wikis) just yet but it's coming.

But for now, onward and upward, to week 4. Our focus this week is on various online organizational tools, including RSS feeders, social bookmarking and book organization sites.

Part 1 of my assignment for this week is to evaluate an RSS reader and share my findings with the rest of the class. I chose Feedly and loosely used this rubric to help focus my evaluation.

I am not new to Feedly, but I had only previously used it on my iPhone and have not been too impressed. I always seem to be overwhelmed when I access the app, and many of the features don't seem clear in that setting.

It was a completely different experience using the desktop version. Using the core categories from the rubric, and ranking them on a scale of 1 to 5, my recommendation after setting up my RSS feed on Feedly follows after the jump: 

Drinking and Tweeting

Just kidding, but had to give a nod to one of my guilty pleasures (RHOBH, anyone?)

In addition to exploring blogs in the classroom, I started to dabble a bit with Twitter this week. I worked in Marketing in my past life, so I'm familiar with it, and would send out tweets on behalf of one of my clients but I've never felt the need to use it for my personal use (a. no one needs more than daily updates on my comings and goings, and Facebook fills that need, and b. I don't need any additional time wasters that would inevitably come from following any celebrities!).

But, in the name of scholarship, I decided to follow a few notable Teacher Librarians, to get a feel for how it could benefit someone professionally. The most useful hashtag I've found so far is #tlchat as it provides perspective from a much wider pool than me trying to figure out who are the most useful people to follow and managing my stream that way.

In doing so, I found this.

And this.

And this.

Suffice it to say, I'm convinced. In just 5 minutes, I found 3 thought-provoking, useful pieces of information that I otherwise would not have found in my daily web use.

Now, I'm still not sending my own tweets but soon. And I'll tell you all about it. 

What I'm Reading

A happy byproduct of pursuing a career that involves books is giving myself "permission" to read more often, something I didn't always have time to do when I was working. And another happy byproduct of pursuing a career with middle school students is that it gives me a built-in excuse to check out some new YA literature, as well as revisit some of my old favorites.

My goal is to read at least one book targeted to the middle school population (give or take) as well as whatever other books I happen to be reading at the time.

Without further ado...

Week 2: Blogging in the Classroom

Our key focus this week is blogging, and how teachers can use classroom blogs to enhance collaboration, communication, and transparency among students, parents, and really anyone who has an interest in what is going on in the classroom.

One of the most interesting places I visited as part of this week's exploration was the 2013 Edublog Award winners. I particularly liked the winner for the Best Library/Librarian blog, as it's such a great example of the value that a Media Specialist can bring to teachers among all subject areas and grade levels.

We were also asked to experiment with Twitter and how it could be used in a school setting and I came across a classroom blog of a 1st grade teacher in Canada.  In addition to having a very inviting, engaging blog, I thought it was interesting how her students interact with other classrooms across the world using Twitter and Skype (just in January, they've worked with other 1st graders in England and Italy). While they could certainly learn the same concepts without collaborating with the other classes, I think it's so cool that, at age 6, they are "meeting" people from different countries/cultures. It also makes future lessons much more meaningful - for example, if they are learning about Italy in a social studies context, they now have a personal connection that can only make them more interested and invested in the lesson. 

Welcome!

I am a marketer turned SAHM turned Library Media student. I have created this blog for my Emerging Technologies for Libraries course at Salem State University and plan to use it not only to chronicle my work this semester but also to follow my journey as I pursue this career change.

Hopefully, this isn't really what I am getting myself into!