As mentioned FB and Twitter are wonderful platforms for educational purposes as well. More and more students are making it part of their life in order to stay connected with others and in the loop of the things, which is why it is important that we as educators connect with them and speak their lingo and do life as they do. The school libraries I discovered on FB are doing a great job of creating a page in efforts to connect with the school community.Posts range from school announcements as well as community announcements such as outreaches and various drives, as well as posts on books, encouraging students to vote for books they'd like to see/purchased in the library. Most pages did not have any comments, but several likes and video views. Through my discovery I was able to visit school libraries all the way from Frankfurt, Germany, which was pretty cool to see! Wow! The power of the Internet! Some of my favorite pages that I visited were Carmel School Library from Carmel, Indiana. That librarian posts several videos, using PicPlay, and on in particular was of students and teachers visiting her library/orientation where winners were also announced in the video of a contest she was holding during their visit. I also came across Oak Grove M.S. from Hattiesburg, MS where the librarian posted pics of a book festival she held in which she hosted Karin Perry. That was pretty neat to see a familiar face at an out of state library's event . Another page I loved was Larson Elementary School Library in Wasilla, AK. That librarian also had a lot of creative bulletin board display posts. This is definitely a wonderful tool to keep students, teachers, and the community abreast of all happenings, as technology becomes an integral part of daily living, and as with all forms of social networking sites,the filtering issue is a difficult one to achieve for students and parents who want to stay in the loop and in the know of things. It is almost impossible and inevitable to not view inappropriate content to a certain extent that are somehow embedded within the appropriate sites. Not to mention, possible comments that may be inappropriately posted if not frequently monitored.
Twitter also has a plethora of educational technology leader accounts that can be very beneficial. Kathy Shcrock definitely lives up to the tech guru that she is with her impressive techy lists and findsand how the can be implemented into the clasroom and well as to imrove one's quality of life w technology. These tech leaders provide informative educational articles, posts to ponder about, book reviews, retweets about other insightful posts about how to have successful book talks(see below), which I really enjoyed and will implement in the class as well. In addition, posts about innovative tools and tech finds that can improve learning/teaching. I gained a vast knowledge through their accounts and am eager to learn from some of the best!
John Schu @Mrschu retweeted this great post!
Hi, Rachel!
ReplyDeleteYou are correct! Your library's site needs to be constantly monitored and updated to keep your subscribers attention. It is a great way to let parents, students, and staff know what is going on in your library. It is a form of an electronic newsletter for the library and campus.
Rachel, when I used Twitter for the first I time, I felt I was learning to speak Chinese. I did have a negative attitude towards Twitter, but when I found that amazing people such as Kathy Schrock had Twitter, I began to change that ugly attitude of mine. My goodnes! We can learn so much from them!
ReplyDeleteWow, what a great find from Jim Lerman! Justin Tarte has such great ideas. They aren't necessarily technology applications, and he doesn't really tell you the "how" of things, but what a store of ideas! Nice catch!
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