Technology & Student Authors

What do you do with student-authored books?

The Problem

I used to cringe when students brought in their treasures to share.  It wasn't that I didn't enjoy reading their creations.  Students write wonderful stories.  I love them!  The problem was that I didn't have a good place to store their books or a system for circulation.

Student authored books are generally thin paperbacks, and they disappear into the stacks if shelved among hard cover editions.

Another problem was that I didn't know whether to actually let them circulate.  How would other students treat these books?  What if a little sibling tore or wrote on it?

At my current school, students LOVE to write.  Many students write books as part of their action for the PYP Exhibition, and our collection is growing.  When I first arrived there were a few titles on the shelves, and by the end of the first year we had nearly a dozen books written by students.  The collection continued to grow, but no one (beyond the author, his/her parents, and teacher) knew they existed.

Our Solution

Seeing the cover is critical for circulating student-authored books, so they now have their own acrylic display stand.  It is located in a prominent location, on a low shelf, just as you enter the Media Centre.  It is at eye level for most primary students.

The Procedure

When a student has a book they would like circulated through the library, they can either bring in a hard copy or email a soft-copy.  Hard copies are first scanned into a PDF version and then the pages are bound with a comb binding and clear cover (to show off the student's artwork); soft-copies are printed and bound. The cover is saved as a jpg.  Then the books are barcoded and added to our catalog.  After changing it several times, we settled on STUDENT AUTHORS as the call number.  This allows us to move the display around.

As part of our processing, most books are uploaded to our library's ISSUU account.

Within the record is a link to the ebook version:

Of the 13 titles on ISSUU, statistics show they have been read 87 times!  That beats the print copy stats fourfold.

One of the things I love best is how the students treat each other's work.  Reverent is the word that comes to mind. Students almost always ask if they may borrow them and take the books home - no assumptions are made - and they all seem to treat this as a special gift.  Thus far, all books have come back intact and on time.

#adivineday - A Vine Daily Challenge

I posted this on my personal blog, but I am excited to get started using Vine - so I am going to post it here on our Librarians on the Fly Blog!

I am a social media nut - I use  Instragram, Twitter, and Facebook daily and I am convinced that it is what keeps me abreast on what is new in the world of technology.  One of the things I love  about Instagram is the daily #fmsphotoaday using the iPhone Instagram App.  With the daily #fmsphotoaday I find myself planning ahead and really being on the lookout during the day for the perfect shot. And now, I have just started using the new #VINE app.  VINE is like twitter in that you really have to think about what you are posting because it has a limit.  Twitter challenges you to get your point across in 140 characters or less, Vine challenges you to create a video post in just 6 seconds.  When I joined Vine this week, I looked around at what people were using it for.  One of my favorite librarians ever, Jon Schu, already has 44 followers and 85 posts.  He is sharing books that his students are reading, author visit preparations, and displays.  Because I have just started using Vine yesterday, I am looking for innovative ways to video.  I think using social media can be powerful for librarians, teachers, students and really anyone who enjoys learning, but having a prompt makes it more purposeful.  On the daily prompt I have set for myself (and anyone else who might want to try it) I have chosen words that work for anyone.  Take Day 1 for example - fooling around - (it is April Fools Day) can apply to a student, a teacher, a mother, a librarian, an attorney - anyone.  How a person interprets the word and finds a way to photograph it or explain it with a 6 second video can be insightful.  Can you think of ways to use Vine?  If you don't have an account yet - you should.  I think it is going to be big - it is after all owned by Twitter.  If you do get a Vine account - you can follow me at @annvega.

My beginning Vine posts with no purpose – but I am excited to start the challenge above!

#Kool - My Crazy Dog and First Subject

Cruising with my husband

The ABC's of Issuu

A while back I blogged about some new-to-me tools I stumbled upon when a fellow

Blogger's post led me on a birdwalk.  Over the past year, I 

Committed myself to becoming "fairly proficient" with each of these tools. 
During 2012, I frequently posted on Scoop.it! over morning coffee, and I
Found a couple of new blogs to follow through that tool, as well.  
Gathering a decent webmix for Symbaloo has taken longer than expected, but I may
Have finally created one worthy of sharing with my students.  
ISSUU is my latest and greatest victory.
January was the month grade 1 students finished an inquiry of How We Express Ourselves.
Knowing that alphabet books are one way to structure information, we  
Looked at several and read a few during library visits.  
Many of the books were a single subject (sports, princesses, animals), but some of the 
New books played with the letters in funny and strange ways.
Only after exploring a wide variety some did we attempt to make our own.

Perhaps our product could be better, but this was a first try.  Using
Quiet library voices, students brainstormed words for each letter.
Reflection tells me grade 1 students could have written full
Sentences for each letter, but I was worried we would run out of 
Time.  After each word was illustrated, the cover was designed and all the pages were
Uploaded to ISSUU.  It was
Very exciting to see the students' hard work turned into an eBook that 
Was even added to our library catalog.
NeXt time we may use an iPad app for the writing and illustrating.... but I have learned
You can't let your perfect get in the way of your good, or you will have 
Zero to share.