Method #11

Podcasting  For this method, I went to my Google Reader, set up months ago, and listened to several of the news stories I subscribe to from NPR.  These were interviews with authors of new books; one was even the reading of a children's book being reissued, by the NPR reporter and Daniel Pinkwater.  Very fun to listen to.  And of course, I began thinking about how much fun it would be to podcast weekly or monthly readings of new books, using myself or the school principal or a teacher as the readers.  It could be posted on my blog, or I could use it as a hook or as part of a booktalk in classroom presentations. Who knows, I might even talk the principal into using a short podcast as a part of daily announcements.   A podcast could also be used to give students instructions for use of the online databases.  One of the schools who does podcasts (in this case, a vidcast) uses them to discuss summer reading requirements.  Interviews with visiting authors, or with teachers and students talking about their favorite books could be other ways to use a podcast.
        I know my school has a digital recorder, so it might be possible to create podcasts that I could post on my blog.  With some tech help, I might be able to set up a podcast on the home page of my library or of our catalog.  This as with so much else will only be worth it if I can figure out a way to attract patrons (high school students, in my case) to actually listen to the podcasts.  Perhaps I could talk our speech/drama teacher into making this an assignment for his students.  I'm sure the possibilities are limitless for a truly creative person, which I'm not.  Although I did not go to Audacity to check out how to create podcasts there, I'm happy to know it's available, in case my school digital recorder is not available.
       Once again, I'm excited to hear about yet another digital and online tool which might be used to motivate students to read, and to pass along valuable information for doing research.  And I do plan to figure out how to subscribe to and download podcasts to my iTunes, so I can listen to them on my iPod!

Method #10

Wikis  I'm glad to have learned more about wikis, and especially about some library related ones out there in cyberspace.  I tend to think mainly of Wikipedia when I think of wikis, although I know our tech people maintain several wikis on different tech-related topics on our district web page.  I'm not sure why they chose to post that information in wiki format.  I certainly wouldn't be gutsy enough to add anything to those pages! 

I can think of a couple of wikis I might like to start on research related topics.  I feel like several teachers on my campus might have great ideas about helping students learn research techniques that they would be willing to share in wiki format.  And I can see it being very helpful to use a wiki to list bibliographic information on a certain topic.  Instead of the librarian making lists of resources, a wiki would provide a format for everyone to share great sources of information they've come across on any given topic.  And I loved the possibility of using a wiki to communicate with others for a short-term project or outing.  Afterwards, the wiki can be deleted, or saved if helpful information was gathered which might have a broader application.