Recently I made a LibGuide about using NoodleTools. The NoodleTools team was really helpful and gave me some good feedback and links to include. I made the LibGuide as a template, so feel free to use it and adapt if for your own lessons and projects.
Showing posts with label LibGuides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LibGuides. Show all posts
Friday, January 6, 2012
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Summer Reading List on LibGuides
My summer reading lists are moving to LibGuides. Last year I tagged books in LibraryThing to complement the traditional list, but since my students know how to use LibGuides, I decided to try that platform this time. It is so easy to transfer an already made list of books and annotations to LibGuides! It takes just a minute per book - or less.
On the 7th-8th grade reading list home page I put the required reading, and since the seventh graders have a choice of three books, I put book trailers I found on YouTube so the kids could watch a bit of what each book is about. Then I challenged them to make better book trailers this summer - we'll see if any do. Also, since I haven't yet met our incoming seventh graders, I made my profile box a "Meet Your Librarian" box. The other tabs are named after genres, and feature 8-12 books each.
The book covers are links to Amazon, a feature of LibGuides. Each page also has a "user submission" box where students can submit links to their favorite books, allowing a place for them to contribute and potentially make the guide more relevant to their interests.
I am having fun making these slightly more dynamic lists for the older readers too, and each LibGuide has a down-loadable Word version of the summer reading choices, for those who like to have printed copies. I am adding required reading for Honors and AP classes as well. This could really revolutionize summer reading for us - I hope the students like it!
Do you use LibGuides for summer reading? Or do you use a different method for sharing books? please share!
On the 7th-8th grade reading list home page I put the required reading, and since the seventh graders have a choice of three books, I put book trailers I found on YouTube so the kids could watch a bit of what each book is about. Then I challenged them to make better book trailers this summer - we'll see if any do. Also, since I haven't yet met our incoming seventh graders, I made my profile box a "Meet Your Librarian" box. The other tabs are named after genres, and feature 8-12 books each.
The book covers are links to Amazon, a feature of LibGuides. Each page also has a "user submission" box where students can submit links to their favorite books, allowing a place for them to contribute and potentially make the guide more relevant to their interests.
I am having fun making these slightly more dynamic lists for the older readers too, and each LibGuide has a down-loadable Word version of the summer reading choices, for those who like to have printed copies. I am adding required reading for Honors and AP classes as well. This could really revolutionize summer reading for us - I hope the students like it!
Do you use LibGuides for summer reading? Or do you use a different method for sharing books? please share!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
LibGuides: Collaborative Aspects
So many of us now use LibGuides and love the ease, consistency, and clarity of them. But are we really using them to their potential as collaborative information sources? Most of the ones I have seen are being used as information dissemination portals, using the LibGuide as a platform for links to databases, books, and even videos. So much better than our paper or web pathfinders of earlier decades, but they are still a one-sided educational tool.
Are we really using LibGuides to their greatest "2.0" capabilities? Easy to use boxes can be added that allow for not only user ratings of links, but interactive polls, feedback boxes, and, most interesting and least used (as far as I can tell) user link submissions.
Some libraries use these boxes, but how can we get kids to participate?
Our 7th graders research the people and cultures of Middle Eastern countries in order to write a first person creative piece. Over the past few years we have built a Google Custom Search Engine for this project (I wrote about it before), and put it on the LibGuide.
I ask the students to participate in this endeavor by submitting links to the LibGuide for their friends to use. This has been relatively successful, and by that I mean maybe eight kids have submitted links this year so far. I might ask the teachers to make submitting links mandatory next year, to help us build a good database in the Google Custom Search Engine, but also to show the kids that we want to collaborate, that they often find great sites to use for research, and that their research is worth sharing.
When the students submit links, they are asked for their name and email as well as the title of the link and the url. I tell kids to only put their first name (privacy), and that the email address doesn't get posted. Then I receive an email telling me I can preview the link before I either reject or post it. This is helpful, so kids take it seriously and really only post worthy sites. It also lets me look at the sites they are finding so I can potentially help them if I see they are somewhere they might not really want to be. After I post the link, at a later date, I add the link to our custom search engine, to be used by others in later years.
On other LibGuides, we ask the kids how they like the LibGuide, or which database is most useful via polls, but the voting is minimal.
I poked around a bit in LibGuides and I found that Juliet Kerico, librarian at Southern Illinois University's LoveJoy Library, has had some success with this type of collaboration with students.
Have you had any interesting collaboration experiences with students using these features? If so, how did you entice students to vote and participate?
Are we really using LibGuides to their greatest "2.0" capabilities? Easy to use boxes can be added that allow for not only user ratings of links, but interactive polls, feedback boxes, and, most interesting and least used (as far as I can tell) user link submissions.
Some libraries use these boxes, but how can we get kids to participate?
Our 7th graders research the people and cultures of Middle Eastern countries in order to write a first person creative piece. Over the past few years we have built a Google Custom Search Engine for this project (I wrote about it before), and put it on the LibGuide.
I ask the students to participate in this endeavor by submitting links to the LibGuide for their friends to use. This has been relatively successful, and by that I mean maybe eight kids have submitted links this year so far. I might ask the teachers to make submitting links mandatory next year, to help us build a good database in the Google Custom Search Engine, but also to show the kids that we want to collaborate, that they often find great sites to use for research, and that their research is worth sharing.
When the students submit links, they are asked for their name and email as well as the title of the link and the url. I tell kids to only put their first name (privacy), and that the email address doesn't get posted. Then I receive an email telling me I can preview the link before I either reject or post it. This is helpful, so kids take it seriously and really only post worthy sites. It also lets me look at the sites they are finding so I can potentially help them if I see they are somewhere they might not really want to be. After I post the link, at a later date, I add the link to our custom search engine, to be used by others in later years.
On other LibGuides, we ask the kids how they like the LibGuide, or which database is most useful via polls, but the voting is minimal.
I poked around a bit in LibGuides and I found that Juliet Kerico, librarian at Southern Illinois University's LoveJoy Library, has had some success with this type of collaboration with students.
Have you had any interesting collaboration experiences with students using these features? If so, how did you entice students to vote and participate?
Friday, February 6, 2009
LibGuides as Pathfinders
At ALA in Anaheim this summer, I discovered LibGuides, and my teaching has changed dramatically because of it. Known in the university library world but new to the school library world, this amazing service will transplant your pathfinders into the 2.0 (r)age. My students love it, the other librarian I work with loves it, my consortium of Southern California independent school librarians love it - we all agree - it makes teaching research easier.
With a flexible and easy-to-use application, you can use links, text, RSS feeds, Word documents, embedded slide shows, embedded videos, and more to make multi-page web-based pathfinders for you kids. It is easy to put a LibGuides widget on your homepage, link to LibGuides via Facebook, and more.
Going a few steps beyond wikis in flexibility (but not necessarily in collaboration, although you may give your students an add a link option in LibGuides), my school instantly became a LibGuides school from the first research pathfinder. Buffy Hamilton, The Unquiet Librarian, put together a slideshow about library pathfinders from yesterday to pathfinders of today, with LibGuides being an example of today's 2.0 pathfinders.
Although there is a fee for subscribing to LibGuides, we have found that it is quite worth the investment.
Take a look at our LibGuides, and explore what others are doing too! I am excited to see what elementary school librarians are doing with LibGuides. Our K-6 Librarian hasn't made one yet, but hopefully will soon. I can predict that it will be useful for that age range as well.
With a flexible and easy-to-use application, you can use links, text, RSS feeds, Word documents, embedded slide shows, embedded videos, and more to make multi-page web-based pathfinders for you kids. It is easy to put a LibGuides widget on your homepage, link to LibGuides via Facebook, and more.
Going a few steps beyond wikis in flexibility (but not necessarily in collaboration, although you may give your students an add a link option in LibGuides), my school instantly became a LibGuides school from the first research pathfinder. Buffy Hamilton, The Unquiet Librarian, put together a slideshow about library pathfinders from yesterday to pathfinders of today, with LibGuides being an example of today's 2.0 pathfinders.
Although there is a fee for subscribing to LibGuides, we have found that it is quite worth the investment.
Take a look at our LibGuides, and explore what others are doing too! I am excited to see what elementary school librarians are doing with LibGuides. Our K-6 Librarian hasn't made one yet, but hopefully will soon. I can predict that it will be useful for that age range as well.
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