Webbing our thoughts with Mind Mapping Tool

We have a access to vast array of information.  We can simplify our lives by using Mind maps as webbing tools.  These tools offer a visual, simple way to organize our thoughts, notes and presentations.  If used effectively, they can be a great teaching tool.  Our students love to use technology so we can provide them the tools necessary to help them study, organize and prepare.
After reading an article about mind mapping as a teaching recourse, I created the following webs with  three different mind mapping tools.

http://popplet.com

popplet is a great tool to use in the classroom with students.  It offers an app to download so the students can easily access it with their device.  It is visually appealing and it will encourage student participation.  I created the following popplet with a free account available when you sign up for services.

http://popplet.com/app/#/1685099

http://www.spicynodes.org

Spicynodes is another webbing mind tool available.  A free account can be set up.  Spicynodes was not as visually appealing as the other tools.  It offers great editing tools, but I feel it may be too much for my students.  It is very busy and might confuse first time users.

http://www.spicynodes.org/a/c3f09d63ea849bfdefb4104196461bea

wisemapping is a webbing tool that will appeal to the students.  It uses emoticons and they can be inserted into the mind mapp.  It is fairly easy to use and fairly visually appealing.  I would encourage my students to use wise mapping only after they have become comfortable with mind maps in general.

https://app.wisemapping.com/c/maps/184557/public

Webbing information is found in the following article:

Cooper, N., & Edward, S. (2010). Mind mapping as a teaching resource. The Clinical Teacher, 7, 236-239.

Videos and QR codes in the library

Today's libraries are becoming a technological setting.  So why not embrace technology and use it to work "smarter not harder"?  I have been exploring various options on how to incorporate technology into our libraries while still keeping touch with traditional routines and procedures.
A great way to promote reading, new books, and more visits to the library is to use YouTube.  Many librarians are producing great YouTube videos that range in topics from orientation to book trailers.
I have included some of my favorite library YouTube videos that I feel benefit the students.

Norman High School Library Rocks! by Calypso Gilstrap

This is a fun, short video that students will enjoy and hopefully be encouraged to visit their library.


NHS Library Orientation by Calypso Gilstrap




This is a great video that will be very helpful for all students.  It's a great way to introduce new students, freshman and the community to the library resources and procedures.

Video Tutorial: Finding CC Images Using Compfight by theunquietlibrary

This is a great video tutorial that will help students locate copy right friendly images for any school project.

Scenes from The Unquiet Library August 2012 by theunquietlibrary

This is a great video to motivate student to read and visit their library.  The students featured in the videos can encourage their peers to visit the library and read.

2014-15 Course Advisement by pikesvillehslibrary

This youTube video was created to help students figure out what classes to enroll in for the following year.  It also advises students on graduation requirements.  This is very helpful for students and parents.

The Panthers Library Shakes by pikesvillehslibrary


This is great video that features students at their library having fun.  It demonstrates that the library is a cool place to be.  The students will enjoy this video.

Dr. Katherine and the Book Hoarder by bbmsmedia

Great video presented by the students at BBMS.  It's a great way to get students to return their books. The students will enjoy the funny presentation by the students.

Leviathan Review

Leviathan is an awesome book review that will encourage the students to read and check out the book.  The students will benefit from book reviews and trailers because they will be able to connect with a book and be encouraged to read.

YouTube in the Library

After exploring the many ways to use YouTube in a library setting, I have come up with a few ideas to incorporate into my library.  I want the students to create their book review trailers with animo and publish them to YouTube.  I would like to start my own YouTube channel featuring my students reading, reviewing and using their library for projects.

Book Trailer

I signed up for an Animoto account with my teaching credentials.  I quickly learned a fun and new way to present pictures, information, projects.  I used Animoto to create my first book trailer.  I was so excited!  The possibilities!

I created my book trailer on the book Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.

About this author

Seth Grahame-Smith (born Seth Jared Greenberg) is an American author, screenwriter and film producer. He is best known for his novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter which both hit the New York Times' best seller list. Seth Grahame-Smith lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Erin, and his son, Joshua.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/169377.Seth_Grahame_Smith

Click on the QR code below to watch my book trailer.

Book Trailer

QR Codes

QR codes, which means quick responds codes,  are a great way to place information in an easy, new techy way that's easily accessible from any device.  The possibilities for QR codes in the libraries are many.  From providing library schedules, information, resources and book trailers, to updating book lists for students, QR codes are efficient to use.  What a great resource to use and help the students gain information quickly and easily.  

I plan to use QR codes in the library to help students find a book to read.  I will group books together by theme, author, or a best selling list and develop QR codes with the book information.  Students can then quickly access the book information and decide to check it out or not.  I want to send home flyers with QR codes for parents to scan and get information regarding library hours, AR testing procedures and information on how they can help their children become life long readers.

It's all about the BLOGS!

Blog! Blog! Blog!

We live in a global community where "sharing is caring".  We are constantly thinking up new ways to create, improve, implement or just explain new ideas.  What better way to keep up with all the latest and greatest than with a Blog Reader.  It's a great place to organize, strategize and keep up with your favorite blogs.  I explored several Blog Readers before I decided to use Bloglovin' as my go to Blog Reader.

http://www.bloglovin.com 

Bloglovin is such a great way to keep up with you chosen blogs.  It's very user friendly, visually appealing and just a fun way to follow all your favorite blogs.  The search section is easy and convenient to use when searing for new blogs to follow.  It also suggest new blogs to follow based on your current blogs.  You can sign up with your Facebook account or set up an account with your email.  Bloglovin offers an app for all your mobile devices so you can keep up with your blogs on the go.  I really enjoyed setting up my account.  Bloglovin is definitely my choice for Blog Readers.

Using my new Blog Reader I stared to follow interesting blogs about school, technology and libraries.

http://schoollibrarydisplays.blogspot.com
This blog is all about awesome library displays.  "Creative ideas to promote books in your library collections".  The ideas are presented along with pictures.  I love how the blog incorporates themes and different displays for all the age groups.  Blogs are described and credit is given to the creator of the displays.  It's a great blog to read and follow.  I plan to submit a few ideas myself.

mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com
This blog was the Winner for Library Blog 2013 by Edublog Awards.  It's a great source for the techy librarians in all of us.  The blog is so organized and divided into different categories of blogs.  My favorites are authors, ESL, Grades K-5, Teacher-Librarians, and Web tools A-Z.  It's a vast source for great technology information.  It's a very friendly blog, easy to navigate through.

mrschureads.blogspot.com

I love this blog because it's all about great books presented through book trailers.  Its concept is "Watch. Connect. Read., Exploring Children's Literature Through Book Trailers".  I want to be able to incorporate as many book trailers in my lessons as possible and this blog makes it easier to locate great book trailers.  The blog includes many videos with authors, activities and reports.  This blog is a must follow for all teacher-librarians looking to "hook" more students into reading.

freetech4teachers.com

This blog is written by Richard Byrne and it talks about free technology for teachers.  It's a "Review of free technology resources and how teachers can use them.  Ideas for technology integration in education.  The blog is very organized and easy to navigate.  The categories include iPad apps for school, android for schools, google tutorials, and free guides.  I'm very excited to follow this blog and incorporate the free recourses into my classroom lessons.

thedaringlibrarian.com

The blog is maintained by Gweneth Jones.  This is such a cool, fun blog that covers anything and everything amazing about books, topics, education etc.  The blog is very visually appealing and easy to follow.  The blog covers tips on how to amp up our own blogs (I'm taking notes), cool fonts, and pictures of all kinds of topics on books.  This is a blog I plan to follow for a long time.

I decided to explore Tumblr and sign up for an account.  I searched for school libraries and decided to follow.  Click on the link below and follow me on Tumblr.

http://zueblue.tumblr.com

Infographics: Great visuals

Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy

Cortessi, S., Duggan M., Gasser U., Lenhart A., Madden M. (2012). Parents, teens, and online privacy. Pew Internet and American Life Project, etrieved from http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_ParentsTeensAndPrivacy.pdf

Infographics are great visuals to use to represent data in a colorful, eye-catching way.  The possibilities for the classrooms are endless.  Infographics can be a great tool to incorporate in the collaborative learning environments.  Students will be able to analyze and create data from any subject assigned.  I signed up for several websites that create infographics.  I tried easel.ly, piktochart.com and infogr.am.  All sites are available for a free trial basis.  My favorite was piktochart.  They really have a great support system for learning to create the infographics.  The tools, templates, and features were very user friendly.  I was able to navigate with ease and create my first info graph (see above).  I can't wait to create more and become more efficient and comfortable in utilizing the infographic tools.

Organize! Organize! Organize!

In today's fast paced technologically advanced society, we have to understand and embrace the tools available for us and how they will make our lives easier, hence, the organizational tools.  With a vast amount of apps, downloads, ect, available, it's great to narrow down the choices and concentrate on what will work best for us, our students and parents.  The following list describes six organizational tools I have signed up for and tried out.  

 

https://www.wunderlist.com/en/. Wunderlist is a free online organizational tool available with apps for both the iTunes and android market.  Wunderlist is very visually appealing and provides a fun and user friendly way to organize your to-do lists for both personal and professional settings.  This organizational tool is great to use with students because you can access it from anywhere (school, home) and make collaboration teams required for projects, homework and activities.  The students can use this tool to organize homework assignments, due dates and plan extracurricular schedules.

https://www.rememberthemilk.comRemember the milk is a free online organizational tool available for download for the app store, google play and blackberry world.  It is also available with Gmail, google calendar, twitter and Evernote.  It provides the user with many possibilities in creating to do list for both personal and professional settings.  The interface is setup with tabs to help organize all your information.  The overall look is simple, not very eye catching.  Students can use this tool by downloading it to their devices and helping them organize their study times, projects, and other personal goals.

 

https://workflowy.com

Workflowy is a simpler free organizational tool that can be used to organize your to-do list.  It's interface is very simple.  It works on a system of tree-branching.  You create a list and then continue to add sub tabs until you have created all your list and organized them to your preference.  This is a good tool to use by people who don't like the extra gimmicks.  It's a very simply application and it can be used by students who want to keep everything simple and ready.

http://scribbless.com     

Scribbless is free online organizations tool that helps users create lists.  The lists can be public or private.  You have an option of printing your lists, sharing or just keeping it for your organizational purposes.  It's an eye catching tool that is user friendly and helps people who need to collaborate.  Students can use this tool to make lists of books, projects, homework, supplies and anything they need to prepare for school.  The lists can be shared by group members who are working on a project.

https://evernote.com  Evernote is a popular organizational tools used by many people to share documents in the workforce.  Students can use Evernote to help with note taking, projects, homework and to-do lists.  As a teacher, I would recommend to my students to download the Evernote app to their device.  We can create an account so we can share documents, pictures, assignments.  It's a great way to keep everything together.  Students can also take audio notes on Evernote and it will help them with additional support.  My students can take snapshots of my notes and file them for use later. If a student is absent, they can check their Evernote account from home and keep up to date with lessons.

http://www.pinterest.com  Pinterest is a popular online pinning site.  Users create an account and begin to create "boards".  The boards can be anything the user wants to organize and categorize.  It is a community of people who "pin" ideas, pictures, tips, jokes, quotes, recipes, educational ideas, etc.  By following people, the user can follow their boards and keep up with new and trending pins.  Pinterest is a great source for students to gather ideas on projects, homework, book suggestions.  The students can create their own free accounts and create education boards.  They can pin their favorite books, pictures of projects, and links to interesting reads online.  

This is my reading/books board:

Follow Zulema Garza's board Education on Pinterest.

Sweet Tweets for education

Linda Braun:  @lbraun2000  Collaboration Matters

#lis460 what do u think - Collaboration Matters http://t.co/Rji1LCgZyx
— Linda W Braun (@lbraun2000) January 23, 2014

Tony Vincent:  @tonyvincent  10 Simple Ways to Maximize Your Productivity

10 Simple Ways to Maximize Your Productivity → http://t.co/kiYnZef4fS #4productivity
— Tony Vincent (@tonyvincent) January 5, 2014

Buffy Hamilton:  @buffyjhamilton  Using Wikipedia in information literacy instruction

Using Wikipedia in information literacy instruction http://t.co/tIPLDyT725
— Buffy Hamilton (@buffyjhamilton) January 21, 2014

The Daring Librarian:  @GwynethJones  10 Social Media Skills for 21st Century Teachers

10 Social Media Skills for 21st Century Teachers INFOGRAPHIC Inspired by @BlueSkunkBlog via @21cif http://t.co/tlGqTnWUjQ
— The Daring Librarian (@GwynethJones) January 20, 2014

Jim Lerman:  @jimlerman  Google Search

Google Search has finally added a simple way to search for images that have reuse rights! http://t.co/EEuHcVtLvB
— Jim Lerman (@jimlerman) January 16, 2014

Kathy Schrock:  @kathyschrock   iMovie Trailers Across the Content Areas

iMovie Trailers Across the Content Areas (republish) http://t.co/0dlTYLTxuW
— Kathy Schrock (@kathyschrock) November 18, 2013

Facebook for School libraries, yay or nay?

In today's fast paced, high tech learning environment, we must ask ourselves, "Do we incorporate social media into our libraries?"  And if we do, how do we go about it?  Careful research can help school librarians choose their methods of social media to incorporate into their libraries.

One popular social media to utilize is Facebook.  Popular across all age groups, this social media can promote literacy in various ways.  Many elementary, middle and high school librarians have set up a Facebook account for their libraries.  Posts can include the latest book read, technology used at the library, or simply posting pictures of the students enjoying a great book.  I searched several elementary Facebook pages and I really enjoyed the posts.  Many included links to projects, ways to help the library, and asking for donations.  I see many advantages to using Facebook.  Parents can keep track of the many events offered at their school library.  It's a great way to promote library fundraisers.  The only disadvantage I can think of is ensuring the comments are kept positive and appropriate for the students.  Overall, I really think Facebook is a great social media to promote literacy and help engage all readers.