I have accounts on LibraryThing, GoodReads and Shelfari. I like the looks of Shelfari the best, but do not think it has as many options as the other two. I use Shelfari on my library website for showing the William Allen White nominees. I also like the feature that gives just a short summary of the book as you move your mouse over it.
I first started with LibraryThing about 5 years ago and was pretty religious about keeping up with it, but realized that more of my friends were GoodReads users. I tried keeping my personal books on LibraryThing, and my books that I read for school on GoodReads. This was just too confusing and so I finally shifted all my books to GoodReads and just created different shelves. I have a shelf for each book club I'm in (3), shelves or books I read for school, both grades 5-8 and YA and also the audio books I listen to. I use the GoodReads widget on my library webpage for books I'm currently reading as well as we keep a widget for new books that havae recently come into the library. I don't like this widget as well as Shelfari, but it'll do.
I just finished navigating around some of the "explore" features on GoodReads that I hadn't ever done before and discovered that you can spend wayyyyy too much time on this! Before I knew it, almost an hour had gone by. I answered trivia questions (addicting), explored quotes and added many of them to my list of favorites, I saw what people were on GoodReads at that very moment and what they were reading (probably won't visit this feature again). What really wowed me was the events link and how everything that is going to be happening in Kansas City comes up. Awesome!! I can't wait to tell some of the girls in my school about Ellen Schreiber coming to the Johnson County Library in June! This was definitely a gem to be discovered.
It's great having an online journal of what I've read. I still keep a little handwritten notebook by my bedside, but I do like having it online also. I also just learned about comparing the books with your friends. Very cool. There's always something new to learn!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Thing 8-Cloud Computing
Wow. All this time I have been doing lots of cloud computing and never knew there was an official word for all of it! Google docs, Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, etc. I'm introducing the idea of Google docs to our faculty tomorrow morning in the hopes that we can finally get a curriculum map together and put it on a google spreadsheet. I think it is important to let everyone know what is being studied at any particular time in order to coordinate units when possible. I may get booed out of the room but hopefully not. I think the only hassle of it will be that as the administrator of the spreadsheet, I will have to get everyone's g-mail address. Guess we could do that on a Google doc also! Anyway, I'm crossing my fingers that it comes about.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Read Across America - Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
What a great day. The entire school spent 30 minutes reading in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. You could have heard a pin drop throughout the school. I read How Do I Love Thee by Nancy Moser. It was a real treat.
Dr. Seuss played a part in collaboration with an art class, the library and social studies. The 8th graders are currently studying WWII and the Holocaust. Since it is Read Across America week, I wanted to do a bulletin board depicting Dr. Seuss and his political cartoons and also his books relating to WWII, including The Sneetches, Horton Hears a Who and Yertle the Turtle. I spoke to the 2-D art class about Dr. Seuss and those particular books as well as the political cartoons he drew in 1941-1942. They are going to draw the characters for our bulletin board. It was a fun learning experience and hopefully will be a great display. I will post pictures when we are finished.
What a great day. The entire school spent 30 minutes reading in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. You could have heard a pin drop throughout the school. I read How Do I Love Thee by Nancy Moser. It was a real treat.
Dr. Seuss played a part in collaboration with an art class, the library and social studies. The 8th graders are currently studying WWII and the Holocaust. Since it is Read Across America week, I wanted to do a bulletin board depicting Dr. Seuss and his political cartoons and also his books relating to WWII, including The Sneetches, Horton Hears a Who and Yertle the Turtle. I spoke to the 2-D art class about Dr. Seuss and those particular books as well as the political cartoons he drew in 1941-1942. They are going to draw the characters for our bulletin board. It was a fun learning experience and hopefully will be a great display. I will post pictures when we are finished.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Week 4 - Photosharing
I have used Snapfish for several years now and started with Flickr a couple of years ago but haven't used it lately. I also have a Picasa account and don't really know which one is the best yet. Too many choices. For some reason when I want to purchase photos, I tend to use Snapfish. But I love the searching and tags used with Flickr and Picasa.
A view from our library Feb. 5
Friday was a winter wonderland and we had a front row seat from the beautiful library windows. We had lots of visitors just to see the snow!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Online Meetings
I went to the BCR site and viewed an archived webinar called "Google Drive-by: Google Books and Google Scholar". It was conducted by Shelly Drumm and Lisa Holmberg. It was a 50 minute webinar and yes, I thought the information that they gave was good and useful.
I have actually attended a couple of webinars in the past year and have conducted one with a colleague. Linworth Publishing Company sponsors several of these each semester, however, they are a little expensive unless several people go in together. Our district doesn't pay anymore for traveling outside the district so I think this is a viable option. I can see these becoming more and more popular in the future. It's a great way to share with each other and I especially like the archived ones. Just as in an online class, you can attend with your jammies on at anytime night or day.
I have actually attended a couple of webinars in the past year and have conducted one with a colleague. Linworth Publishing Company sponsors several of these each semester, however, they are a little expensive unless several people go in together. Our district doesn't pay anymore for traveling outside the district so I think this is a viable option. I can see these becoming more and more popular in the future. It's a great way to share with each other and I especially like the archived ones. Just as in an online class, you can attend with your jammies on at anytime night or day.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Week 2 - Nings and other thoughts
Week 2 is coming to an end. I was already a member of the Teacher Librarian Ning started by my heroine, Joyce Valenza. :) I talked to Joyce on the phone yesterday and felt like I was talking to a movie star! Anyway, the groups I am already of a member of are Middle School Librarians, School Library Advocacy (going to be utilizing THAT one this spring unfortunately) and Web 2.0 in the Library World. I just joined this week YA Lit in School Libraries. I began taking an online class this week through Ottawa University about YA Literature and so this could come in handy! It is being taught by Megan Arnett (Lee's Summit HS) if anyone knows her. It is such fun sharing books with others who have a passion for it.
As our district talks of budget cuts again, I can see the Advocacy Ning coming in handy. I know this is something we will all be facing.
Received the newsflash from ALA this week that our official name is now "School Librarians". I hope that we can all finally agree on this. One post on a blog said they had researched and found that there were 25 different names for us! School Librarian is fine with me, because it seems like that is what we always end up telling someone what our job is anyway after they give us a quizzical look and say "Huh?"
As our district talks of budget cuts again, I can see the Advocacy Ning coming in handy. I know this is something we will all be facing.
Received the newsflash from ALA this week that our official name is now "School Librarians". I hope that we can all finally agree on this. One post on a blog said they had researched and found that there were 25 different names for us! School Librarian is fine with me, because it seems like that is what we always end up telling someone what our job is anyway after they give us a quizzical look and say "Huh?"
Monday, January 11, 2010
First of the 23 things!
Hi! My name is Kathi Knop and I am the library media specialist at Mission Valley Middle School (thus the name of the blog) in Shawnee Mission, KS. My "Valley girl 2" (trusty aide Charlene) has also signed up for 23 things so we can learn together.This is my 4th year at Mission Valley. I love learning about new technology, although I don't implement it as much as I should - I just find it fascinating. I am taking an online class that started last week so hope I haven't gotten in over my head!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)