Make sure it adds value...

I drove 4 of us to the RA 2.0 (Adult Reading Round Table) program the other day in Schaumburg and I knew all of the jargon (thnx ELL!).  Having lived much of this info in the whirlwind of ELL, it was good to hear some additional applications for some of these tools and also be reminded that this is where we are right now (and we're all there).

Some good ideas for Children's - bibliographies up on wikis, a Caudill wiki, reading suggestion forms online, blog and youtube ideas...I'm still not sold on twitter, but that's okay because the mantra was make sure it adds value to what you're already doing and that's really something to remember.  

Lots of good conversation in the car, even though we were in boatloads of traffic and we were a little directionally-challenged  -- I was glad to see that someone besides me needs to physically hold the mapquest directions upside down to re-trace our steps and figure out which way to turn!

Trap and rescue (me)

I came in for my evening shift the other night, and overheard the end of a conversation with one of the desk staff.  A little boy, maybe 4 years old, was looking for a "trap and rescue" book. Hmm, trap and rescue?  I wasn't sure about that (maybe everyone knows about trap and rescue but me) but he seemed satisfied with a couple of emergency rescue books. 

Then he came up to me and wanted the "trap and rescue everything" video. Yes, he was very sure that this video existed and, no surprise, this title doesn't actually exist in our catalog and there wasn't going to be a very informative reference interview. So I took him over to the videos and dvds and we looked...for a longggg time. We couldn't find the "trap and rescue everything" video, but I found him other rescue av material and we had the following conversation:

Me:  "Here's water rescue."
Kid: "I think I've had this one but I still need the other one." (he held up 2 fingers)
Me:  "Okay, but we don't have a trap and rescue everything video. How about air rescue?"
Kid:  "That's good. But I need trap and rescue everything."
Me: "How about emergency rescue? That's got a lot of different rescues."
Kid: "Yeah, that's good, too, but I need trap and rescue everything."

We were stuck in a friendly though endless loop.  After lots of conversation, he did take 1 video and 2 dvds that we had found (yay!) and finally his mother appeared and said, "Great! You're so lucky because you can take out 3 movies!" To which he replied, "No, I only want to take one. And I want the other ones to wait for me here with my name on it until next time."

Okay, I missed the donuts, so I've got my fingers crossed...

In memory of Matthew Shepard, October 6, 1998

The Laramie Project: Tectonic Theater and About Face Theatre

Mackerel Economics (Life after ELL)

Seems like the right time for a new currency but apparently there has been a healthy mackerel economy in federal prisons since 2004.  Given the prohibition on smoking in prisons, cigarettes have lost their value and since prisoners can't possess cash, the currency is mack, of course! 

The downside? Besides what is becoming a shortage, the other real problem seems to stem from what happens when a prisoner's sentence is up -- amazingly, mackerel can't be redeemed for cash (!) and has little monetary value on the outside.  

Woo hoo! 23 Things

I'm glad to have worked my way through these 23 things -- I feel like I've uncovered some useful tools, both personally and professionally. How to employ these technologies is something I look forward to experimenting with -- and I hope that this is done in concert with my colleagues. One of the most exciting moments for me came when 3 of us were working on the same exercises at the desk and trading information back and forth.

I do feel that there were some weeks with too much to do and that I couldn't reflect as much as I would have liked to. For me, most of the work was done at home because although I was given off-desk time once a week for ELL (really as generous as possible), I needed that time for my storytimes and my other work. Now that I've got a million different accounts, assuming I can remember them, I will definitely go back and investigate some of these technologies and leave some behind. And now I've got this handy blog, too.

MyMediaMall

I've advised patrons about downloading ebooks and videos, looked up compatible devices and loan periods but, until tonight, I had not downloaded the software on my own computer. I downloaded the software to my laptop and I looked at books in the Children's collection. I downloaded Dave Barry's Peter and the Starcatchers, Starcatchers Series, Book 1.

Honestly, the software download was pretty straightforward, but getting the book in my cart to download wasn't as intuitive as I thought it ought to be. It was also pretty slow but that could be my computer and the book does have 7 parts. Fortunately, I was otherwise occupied watching the debate, so the download could go on and on. The listening is yet to come.

Podcasting...I'm in.

Okay, I'm hooked and it's so cool! As it turns out, this exercise was one of the most poweful for me. There's a lot of junk out there but I found amazing stuff and I loved listening.

I pulled up itunes directory of podcasts and searched under Books and by chance clicked on the podcast itunes: Meet the Author. At an Apple store in Soho, author Chuck Palahniuk (I recently finished his book Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey, which I really liked) and director/screenwriter Clark Gregg were talking about Palahniuk's novel Choke and its film adaptation --kismet! I find his writing really compelling and I liked hearing his reading, the movie excerpt and the interview and now I'm a subscriber.

But I also listened to NPR: Children's Literature with Daniel Pinkwater and listened to Daniel Pinkwater and Scott Simon trade off reading Bonny Becker's A Visitor for Bear.
Interestingly, we had just been talking about how a storytime via podcast would fly and I was a little skeptical -- thinking it would be flat without the interaction of the listeners but it was actually fun to listen to. I think having 2 different voices worked really well -- there was conversation about the illustrations as well as the audible enjoyment of the two reading out loud together. It gave me something to think about and maybe something we can do in Children's.

And I listened to This American Life, Episode #364, Going Big, and the first chapter was set in Harlem and was about a program called Baby College which emphasized the importance of reading and language to children for future learning; of brain development and the importance of talking, singing and reading to your children; that the biggest factor determining a child's later success in school is determined by the sheer number of word parents spoke to children; and as a solution to poverty -- exactly the stuff we do and teach in our LEAP program. More validation for something I believe passionately in and love to do and yes, I subscribed to that also.

Podcasting

These little tutorials are very clever and make everything seem very simple although I think this one is as simple as subscribing. Although I have not yet listened to a podcast (I see the writing on the wall, er, screen) it's hard for me to blog intelligently or even semi-intelligently but I have the sense that this is much like watching something on youtube. I looked up NPR's podcast directory and there are 625 podcasts to subscribe to which is just a little bit overwhelming.....