Post #4 - Blogshare - Staplers, At Death's Door?

This is a little different, but I discovered a blog over the past week called The Lives and Deaths of Academic Library Staplers. A research librarian had noticed that the library was going through staplers at an unbelievable rate, and in an effort to determine if they were just imagining things, they started logging and keeping track of the staplers.  This was really interesting, not only because I never thought that staplers could or would go missing so easily, but I can imagine this as a great way to connect with students.  It was very reminiscent to me of the lives of Flat Stanley, and how he would go places and people would take pictures of him doing amazing things.  Although the Lives... of Staplers happens in a larger university library, I can imagine that it could be a project undertaken at a school library too. It could also be expanded, and students could do research experiments, or even creative writing experiments, determining where the staplers go, what happens to them, and why it might happen.
Jason Vance, the author of Lives and Deaths, wrote about the rampant staplercide in an article in the College & Research Libraries News. It has also been mentioned on several blogs, including the Andersen Library Blog at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater.

Viewer Comments:

SOPHIA FUNDERBURK, 2/27/2014 9:19 PM: Funny!

I found this intriguing and I can relate to it! I never knew others experienced the same! I have one stapler that I never let the children touch. I apologize to them for my selfishness, but staplers are expensive! They always seem to get broken or no one knows where they have gone. On another note, it reminds me of Gary Paulsen's book, My Life in Dog Years. He tells his story through the dogs he has had throughout his life. I guess teachers could tell their stories through the odd materials that we find trends in missing or broken. Ha!
~Elisabeth

Post #3 - Web 2.0 - Livestream

In my rather tawdry past as an amateur Japanese subtitler, one of my responsibilities to the community was to provide information and demonstration in the use of a myriad of assorted freeware tools.  Sometimes, written words were nowhere near enough, and I often dreamed of a program that would let me limit my audience but still be able to cast, either live or recorded, information without being tied to a large program.  At the time,  I made do with the tools available in Google's Hangout-verse, but recently a particular site has come to my attention that I would like to highlight here.  This program is called Livestream.  Like Google's Youtube & Hangout realities, it allows you to record video in real time, while "casting" to an audience; however, unlike Google's suite, it also allows you to cast and play videos as well.  There is an entire community of video casters (I actually discovered this site by watching a livecast of a litter of puppies), and you can record and cast any manner of items with fairly simple setup. It does require your internet connection to be of moderately decent speed, and your casts are only available for a limited time with a free subscription, but you are able to download and keep them for further use if desired.
When thinking of using this in the library, there are a couple of different options that I can imagine its versatility being useful.  Morning announcement programs, whereas back in my day they were created by archaic, cast-off technology from the local television station, could easily be managed (and archived) through a method such as Livestream.  Reports and presentations for asynchronous classes, or special projects, can also be managed in this way.  Although very much a one presenter to a mute audience platform, not having an actual "live" (read: visible) audience may help otherwise shy students get over their fears of presentation.  Teachers who are out of the classroom for a myriad of reasons could use this as well.  It's also an extremely cheap alternative to Adobe Breeze and other programs for distance education.

Viewer Comments:

ANNA BALLINGER, 2/19/2014 6:38 AM: Cool!

This looks neat!  I wonder if this would be a good way to do news casts for schools in the mornings!  Since most schools have smart boards now they could go to the feed and watch students or principal, etc. present morning announcements and news.
Another thing I thought of was things like students being able to show the whole school their science fair projects or things like that.  I definintely like this tool!  Kids love youtube, so this will be right up their ally :) 

Post #2 - Web 2.0 - LibriVox

An interesting bit of Web 2.0 that I have recently come across and adored is LibriVox.  In an age where almost every student is carrying a mobile device, LibriVox helps breathe some new life into some old, dusty texts.  Their mission statement (or, as they call it, theirobjective) is "to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet."  They rely strongly on the help of volunteers to act as readers.
Of course, the quality is a little less perfection than professionally produced audiobooks, but the price (free) makes a few hiccups in the pronunciation of an archaic English term not so horribly incapacitating.  As for using it in a library setting, I can imagine that as a librarian, I may be able to stir the hearts of a few of my students, at the very least, to reach out to older books that may have not been already recorded, or find a favorite book and record it.  I can also imagine this being a project I could coordinate with English teachers that are teaching plays;  what could be more fun than having each student record their assigned lines and then the class reading along?  There are opportunities here for students that are interested in the technological aspect of digital media as well; how do you join together the audio files? How do you ensure that volume is consistent? What equipment do you use to record?
I think that this would be a great way to connect students not only with the source material but also with the community of readers and voices at LibriVox. There are lists, as well, of popular and enjoyed books (to help sift through the 7,000+ books LibriVox has for an example to use in class). At GoodReads, there is a thread dedicated to listing users' favorite LibriVox recordings.  It also talks about what some of the listeners enjoy, or do not enjoy, about the voices. It is a great read.  http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/104911-librivox-book-discussion

Viewer Comments:

WENDY PRICE, 2/10/2014 4:30 PM: Librivox

This is great, Tracey. I have never heard of this before.  I can see how some students would love to be able to say that they recorded a book.
2/10/14

KINSI NEAR, 2/15/2014 12:23 PM: In the classroom

I love the idea of students recording their portions of a play. Many students are intimidated by reading aloud in class, but speaking is often part of the class standards. This would allow students to rehearse and record rather than risk making a mistake in class. Excellent!