COMPETENCY # 7

In this competency we were asked to find a reputable website dealing with our area of interest and providing a link. I chose the search engine Yahoo! and since I am interested in using technology in my role as a school librarian I searched for "school library" + "technology" + "book awards" ( I added this because it is a subject I need to learn more about, ie. past award winners). One of my hits provided by Yahoo! was ReadingRockets.org
This is a great site. It even provides podcasts and videos from various authors! That would be great to use in the school library. It also had a section for the award winners,which was what I was initially interested in. Here is the link: http://www.readingrockets.org/

Voki: 6 + 1 Writing (Organization)

Get a Voki now!

ANIMOTO: 6 + 1 Writing (VOICE)

ANIMOT: 6 + 1 Writing (Organization)

ANIMOTO: 6 +1 writing (Word Choice)

POLL EVERYWHERE: let students use their cell phones!

Try this audience polling system at Poll Everywhere

XTRA NORMAL: 6 + 1 WRITING

Technology Conference

Today I attended the Region 6 ESC Technology Conference in Hunstville. Many great new and innovative topics were discussed. The best one of the day goes to a IT tech from Conroe ISD. We discussed using Animoto.com, Voki, Wordle, Blabberize, Glogster, Storybird, Scrapblog and Voicethread. The part about Prezi as a "new powerpoint" was very interesting as well! Check out these new innnovative tech tools for you and your teachers!

Competency #6

I will be including in this competency some of my self made Web 2.0 applications. I have used Voki, Animoto, Polleverywhere and Xtra Normal. They are all made by me so there are no copyright restrictions. They can be shared and published via their creation websites (some are fee applicable). These are great tools for any librarian!

Competency 4

Part I
Tagging and Indexing: Having a Facebook account and a new Delicious account I am becoming more accustomed to tagging and indexing. This assignment called for us to tag our class textbook by Chu through the Librarything website.




This is a great tool no matter which site or content area you are working with because it allows for you to see other viewpoints and observations about the subject being discussed. I chose "Information Retrieval."

Part II

I chose the book Ethics in School Librarianship because I think that the role of internet within schools and their libraries requires a certain amount of ethics when dealing with user needs for information.
The TAGS were: 21st century, school library, technology
www.librarything.com

Competency 5

This competency asked SLIS students to perform four database searches using various search strategies.

Search 1: Building Block Search ASC
Question: How Can School Librarians Help Students Becomes Successful Online Searchers?"
I then broke my query into three parts:
s1=online searching
s2=students
s3= school librarian

When I first connect the words with the Boolean operator AND I received 17 hits.
The sixth result, "Help Them Get IT: Infusing Technology in Instruction" by Janet Murray, is relevant to my topic. This type of technique forces me to break down my question into relevant parts and to consider possibly synonyms for words that I am searching for that might be more categorized as keywords in an existing document.

Search 2: Successive Fraction Search within Library Lit
A Successive Fraction strategy is useful for someone is unfamiliar with a topic.

I will begin with my broadest term first and note the results. I will then search my other two terms, noting their results. "Online Searching" resulted in 3,560 hits, "students" resulted in 11,896 hits, while 7,878 hits. I then searched using "online searching" and added "students" which resulted in 212 hits which is still quite a bit so I added school librarian to the search query. this search yielded 12 hits. The article "Return of the Google Game" by Katrine Watkins is a relevant article and the abstract states: "The writer presents an updated version of the Google Game, which aims to teach teens the fundamentals of efficient searching. This version is intended to help librarians develop students' skills as online researchers and enable them to produce fewer and better hits." Great!

Search 3: Citation Pearl on ERIC

First, I search for "school librarian" and "online searching." The article titled "Brave the Wave: Using the Internet for Student Research" by Elizabeth Saliba and Kellie Shoemaker is a relevant article "my pearl." I looked at the descriptors assigned to the article. This included: Academic Libraries, Bibliographies, Elementary Secondary Education, Information Seeking, Information Sources, Internet, Librarians, Online Searching, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Student Research, Teachers, Two Year Colleges, User Needs (Information), Elementary Secondary Education, Two Year Colleges. I decide to use the descriptor "student research" to help in my search. This search yeilded 3062 hits, so I need to narrow it. I add "online" to my search. Now my results are 771, which is still too broad. I will add "librarian" to the search query. The search yeilds 41 records. The first hit is, "Developing Powerful Student Researchers: by Nancy Messmer. I like this article as it deals with librarians collaborating with teachers within district to produce powerful searchers of students. This search strategy was good and helped if I was lacking the right keyword to implement in my search as it pertains to various databases indexing systems.

Search 4: Specific Facet search on WorldCat
The Specific Facet search is nearly the opposite of the Successive Fractions search. This time I will start my search with my query that is to result in the least likely amount of hit. I decided on "school librarian." This resulted in 4053 hits. I then searched for "online searching" and received 7734 hits and "students" yield 1,007,005 hits!

So I begin with "school librarian" and add "online searching" to narrow the results. I received 11 hits from that search. Once I add "students" to the query my results are now yielding 4 hits. All of the hits were in the area of college students so I add "junior high" to my student query and came back with 2 hits. These still applied to college level students or a conference about higher education.
I'm sure this is a great strategy for searching however, in my case, I am obviously in need of selecting "more relevant" keywords to depict my topic. The citation pearl was helpful in this regard which I thought brought about the best result.

Competency 3

While searching for RSS to fulfill my class module requirements, I came across this Blog. It is the "Annoyed Librarian." She discusses library access and students (my topic for student search techniques in various articles) and the daily potholes associated with librarianship. You've got to check this out!
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/LibraryJournal-AnnoyedLibrarian

Competency 2

Podcast site: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/schoolmediapodcast/

The reason I chose this site is because it provides podcasts from different librarians such as Wanda Erickson who works two jobs, one in the public library setting as well as the elementary and high school library. She compare/contrasts the various roles she fills within each library settings. Some of the other podcast creators/interviewees discuss how podcasting is a great way to interact with other librarians as at times they feel like they are in their own "bubbles." They discuss various books that are popular within their setting, such as the Twilight series. They also discuss what they struggle with as described as certain restrictions within their school settings which hinders their advancement in the technology aspect. For example, some school discuss the banning of vidoes, conferencing which includes podcasting, which they would hope to incorporate into their libraries as a way of technological advancement. The Lewin podcast discuss the incorporation of SMART boards and Skype into her library which helps students in their informational searches which is my topic of competency. It is a VERY informational podcast site for anyone hoping to enter the public school library sector.

Competency 1

I have chosen a blog composed by a Techie from Conroe, Texas. I went to the ESC 6 Technology Conference and she was BY FAR the most interesting speaker of the whole affair! Her name is Amy Mayer and her blog is: http://urenglishteacher.blogspot.com/
I chose this blog because it is all about FREE (or thereabouts) Web 2.0 apps and other neat technology apps you can incorporate into the curriculum either as a teacher and/or librarian! I am posting part of her blog about how you can create your own document camera for $100.00!

$100 Document Camera
Written on 2:07 PM by Ur English Teacher
We call ours eyeCamD; you can call yours BETTER and CHEAPER! Stop paying $400, $500 or more for document cameras right now. Using a few supplies from your local hardware store, you can use a high quality webcam as a document camera with TONS more functionality.

My Bookshelf

My interest is in the public school forum of library science. I am interested in helping student users successfully navigate through the school libraries and develop a lifetime love for libraries.