LMS & Social Media

14 Ways K-12 Librarians Can Teach Social Media by Joyce Valenza is a great article in School Library Journal offering tips to school library media specialists on teaching and integrating social media into the curriculum and instruction. The tips range from copyright/fair use, documentation, Google tools, collaboration, and more. Everyone can find at least one thing, and likely many more, that will make teaching these tools easier.

Shift Happens Video

This wiki gives the background, history, sources, and links to the official versions of the video Shift Happens, including the most recent version Did You Know? 4.0 (September 2009). With so many versions out there, this is a great resource.

It's a Marauder's Map!

I have often thought a Marauder's Map would be quite useful. Just which mall entrance is closest to the Apple Store? Where is room 1145A in the meeting venue? Where is my family at Disneyland? Apparently, others think so too.

A new startup called micello.com just began mapping the inside of buildings like convention centers, malls, college campuses, theme parks, and more. Described as "Google Maps for the indoors," micello is starting to map locations in Silicon Valley, with plans to include other regions. It will be available as an iPhone app within a few weeks. And,

In addition to navigating the maps, aided by the iPhone's GPS to show you where you are, Micello users can also locate their Facebook, Twitter, and iPhone contacts within the map community.

Just like the Marauder's Map! ReadWriteWeb offers more info.

Now all Hogwarts students with an iPhone can have a Marauder's Map, not just Harry.

Teaching with New Media

Edutopia just published a 13-page guide called Ten Top Tips for Teaching with New Media (2009-2010) Past MILI participants will recognize many of the tools and the tips for using them. Here are the tips:

1. Break the Digital Ice
2. Find Your Classroom Experts
3. Get Off to a Good Start
4. Think Globally
5. Find What You Need
6. Make Meaning from Word Clouds
7. Work Better, Together
8. Open a Back Channel
9. Make It Visual
10. Use the Buddy System

You can download the PDF which has more information and resources here. Edutopia is a program of The George Lucas Educational Foundation. You can sign up to receive their newsletter which has ore tips and information on educational technology and other education issues.

If Only They Knew How To...

An academic librarian has compiled a list of what she wishes college freshmen knew about research. Which means, what she wishes they would learn in their K-12 experience. Her original list was created in 1989 and published in Research Strategies: A Journal of Library Concepts and Instruction 6, no. 4 (Fall 1988): 189, but she revises the basic ideas in a blog post at Inside Higher Education Blog U. Among her "great expectations:"

1. Knowledge, information, and opinion: what they are and how they relate...
4. Primary and secondary sources: an understanding of their nature, distinction, variety, and use in all fields...
8. Databases: concept and experience retrieving citations or data; fluency in Boolean logic...
9. What resources, services, policies, and procedures to expect in any library...
10. The importance of accurate citations and a research log.
11. Principles of selecting and evaluating sources:

Some of these are the same things the panel of academic librarians mentioned; others will come up as we work on MILI throughout the year. Nice to know we are all on the right track, at least according to this librarian!

Book Trailers

We all know about movie trailers--those few minute peeks at upcoming attractions. This catch- their-interest technique is the latest way to promote books. Book trailers use multimedia to capture readers' interest with a preview of characters, plot, and action. Publishers, teachers, students, and authors are all making trailers to promote new books or old favorites. This is a way for students to create book reports or to show their fellow students their favorite books. Equipment is minimal, students engage with the book and each other, and the trailers encourage reading for pleasure.

Here are some resources:

• How to make a book trailer
• Bookscreening aggregates a collection of book trailers for all types of books and readers, including more than 100 for youth
• Fiction Notes lists many book trailer resources
• Digital Book Talk is an award-winning site with resources for making book trailers and finished trailers for books of interest to K-12 readers.

Let us know if you try this out. We'd love to see your book trailers.

"Prepare Us for the Future, Not Your Past"

Here is a video to begin the school year and MILI. I Need My Teachers To Learn demonstrates some ways old rules interfere with new teaching and learning.



The video was made by Kevin Honeycutt and his friend Shawn Gormley. Honeycutt works at ESSDACK, a Kansas education services and professional development agency.