Teen Services Mash Up

This was a pretty unique session.  Something like 16 librarians presented poster sessions.  You picked four to attend and sat at their table until the organizers said to switch. 

Of the four I sat through I found two particularly interesting.  The first was from a young public librarian in California who is the only Spanish speaker in her library.  The community she serves has a high Latino population, so she - and her Spanish speaking skills - are in high demand.  She developed a system of cards with attached QR Codes that would help guide the patrons to the resources they needed when she is not available.  For example, one card says embarazado (Spanish for pregnant) on the front and has a QR Code on the back.  If a patron scans the QR Code the link will go to the resources in the library for pregnancy.  Very clever, I think, but it doesn't end there.  She also downloaded an app that will map your library (I will be emailing her for the name of this) and this app will take the patron directly to (or at least pretty close to) the book.  This got me thinking about augmented reality.  Note - augmented reality is where you have something real, like the library shelves, integrated with something in the Internet world, like a video explaining what's in the 300 section of the library when you reach that area in the library.  I'm still brainstorming on this, but this maybe another use of the iPods. 

The other session I found particularly interesting was about a collaboration between a public library system and a school library system.  This was actually the second session that mentioned this.  Basically both initiatives were big and expensive, but very successful.  They involved adding the school libraries as an ILL (Inter Library Loan) site for the public library thus allowing students to request books from the public library and check them out at school.  I think this type of program has great benefits for both the school and public library.  It is a way of getting more books without spending more money (for the school) and a way to recruit new customers with little outreach (for the public library).  However, it is really expensive to do this to the extent discussed at the conference.  So, I was thinking about talking to the wonderful staff at the DeQuincy Public Library and seeing what we could work out.  Maybe allowing my students to place public library holds from school and then I would pick them up once a week?  If my students request permission for me to check things out on their cards this may be a way to go.  We'll see how this one plays out.  It's, honestly, not at the top of my list, but it is interesting.

Pecha Kucha - Teens and Technology

Pecha Kucha is pretty cool.  What it is, basically, is a 20 slide powerpoint that advances automatically every 20 seconds.  Each slide is one image, and the speaker advances his or her speech based on the image.  Now, for this session there were many speakers, but only three stood out in my mind as relevant to me. 

The first Adri-relevant presentation discussed libraries and social media.  Now, because we are not allowed to friend students on facebook and other social media sites (for good reason) most of the presentation was irrelevant, except for this: paper.li. This is a social media aggregater that will create a newspaper type webpage your students can view without being your friend.  I haven't played with it yet, but I think it could be useful.  I'm thinking maybe a page of YA Author tweets??  I don't really know yet, but it's an idea.  This presentation also wins the award for the best quote of the conference and that is "Avoid the creepy treehouse."  This means do not force you students to be your friends on social media sites because, let's face it, that's just creepy.

The second presentation I found useful was about digital identity.  A few presenters at this conference talked about the importance of students developing a google-able digital identity.  In other words, post their good stuff.  Their digital footprint can be a good resume just as much as it can be a bad one.  We should teach them what's appropriate, but we shouldn't be so overpretective that they reach adulthood without a searchable digital profile - preferably a GOOD searchable digital profile.  That being said, our district has a postable policy - no full names, secured site if possible, pictures of groups not individuals, etc.  It's a good policy, but I think I will encourage our students (remember High School here) to start blogging and creating their own school-work sites outside of school.  That way if they have a really great project, they can share it and begin building their good searchable digital profile.

The last one was about QR Codes.  These are Quick Response Codes that can be printed out and attached to things - like posters, signs, books, etc.  When the code is scanned by a WiFi connected device (cell phone, laptop, iPod, etc) it will take the user to a webpage.  Note - you need to download a free app to do this.  I found this particularly interesting because I plan to use these in the library this year.  My friend Elizabeth mentioned using QR Codes to link books to booktrailers, and I immediately stole that idea giving her very little credit for it. :)  After digesting everything at the conference regarding QR Codes this is what I decided to do this year.  I, along with my student (we'll call her K.), will be affixing QR Codes to the cover page of new popular fiction books.  The codes will link to the catalog record of the book.  This will give the students information about the book including student reviews, AR information, and, once I or K. link them all, booktrailers for the books.

So, in order to do this I will be ordering as many iPod Touch devices as I can afford.  I think these would be a good investment because the students can also use them to video things for our many projects.  They can also use them to download and check out audio books.  And now the search is on for a good deal on the iPod Touch. :)

The Embedded Librarian

This was a session about making yourself an integral part of your school.  It was presented by several really great librarians including Buffy Hamilton.  After attending I was totally inspired to begin a few new projects at my school.  Here are my ideas based on their presentation:  I'd like to start a social justice project with the students in English I.  I'd like them to pick a topic and do some research then create a Ted x type video (something they presented about).  The basic format for the video would be story - facts and data - end story - call to action.  I think this would be a good way to get the students to explore local outreach organizations and to form their own opinions about things while conducting VALID research.  For this project I need to secure Gale's Points of View database and make use of many google tools.   Also, I need to make rubrics and grade things.  It's not fair to expect to be a part of a co-teaching team and never grade a thing.  I'll also need cameras for the video portion of the project.  I was thinking the iPod Touch would be great because it could record video and access our WiFi making it a good tool for reading QR Codes (more on QR Codes to come).