Middle School & Books

I am looking to use web 2.0 in my Media Center--where should I begin?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on January 22, 2008 at 6:41am

I'd start with a blog, librarians have it made--always some thing to write about! Here are some good samples and I'm sure other readers will suggest more:
Fuse #8 Production
Jen Robinson's Book Page
Just One More Book (postcasts about childrens books)

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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on February 1, 2008 at 6:36am

I love Just One More Book
(and, I did a guest podcast there, too)

Kevin

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Permalink Reply by Sunny Williams on February 1, 2008 at 5:37am

I think it would be great to get your students and teachers blogging about books. It would foster lifelong learning and models what we as adults do all of the time.

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Permalink Reply by Karen Reiber on February 10, 2008 at 7:26pm

Hi Sunny
Decided to go with a forum--it was not user friendly to set up--I believe you can look at without actually getting permission to get in. Opened to a few students last week--on my way. Take a peek I would welcome feedback! Karen

Go to: http://nighthawkstalk.informe.com/forum/

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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on February 1, 2008 at 6:35am

Karen
I suggest you get Will Richardson's book -- Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and tools .... -- which offers a good overview of various tools and pedagogy behind their use.
Good luck
Kevin

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Permalink Reply by Karen Reiber on February 10, 2008 at 7:17pm

Hi Kevin
Thanks for your reply! I plan on getting the book! Will Richardson was at our school 2 weeks ago. I had the opportunity to go to 4 of his sessions. After that I set up a skype account and talk with my son in Italy--free, I have a twitter account, and I have just set up a forum for the Media Center -- http://nighthawkstalk.informe.com/forum/ would welcome feedback. I have just opened it to students last week. Question--how long do you spend each day on this site, twittering/chatting with other professionals? I am concerned about finding the time to explore and respond!
Thanks Karen

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 10, 2008 at 7:33pm

I've done some online book discussions using Moodle and Blackboard, it looks like you might be able to do that in the forum you set up. You need the capability to have a threaded discussion, where you can respond to kids and they can respond to each other. You should be able to peek at what we've done here. use baguest as username and password. Good luck with your new projects. N

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Pass on February 10, 2008 at 7:50pm

Nancy,

I think that this threaded discussion is very neat. You must spend hours and hours reading through all of the comments that your students make and writing your responses. How hard is it to set up Moodle on your website? (I should definitely know how to do this. But, unfortunately, I don't.)

Andy

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 10, 2008 at 7:59pm

It does take hundreds of hours to respond. The book my 5th and 6th graders did had WWWAAAAYYYY too many questions!! My district takes care of the Moodle part of the equation. I used Blackboard for 3 years---it's not open source (about $300.00 a year) but if you can get someone to pay for it you wouldn't have to worry about the admin piece. It looks like informe.com might work for threaded discussions---see the one Karen set up.