When I was starting to work on this project, I went looking for images to use for my presentation in Simple Booklet. I wasn't finding anything to my liking, so I searched for a picture of the town library where I grew up. I was reminded that the beautiful old building was no longer the public library, since it had been moved to a bigger building many years ago. But it was interesting to find current photos of the building, which is now being used as a function hall. I was pleased to see that it has not changed much, other than the lack of books and other library materials, the architecture is still the same, inside and out. Looking through those photos brought me back to a nostalgic time, when I loved to read and had the time. But even in the present, I see a need for library spaces. In the school where I work, the media center is a favorite destination for most of the students. It is a place to socialize, go online, do research, listen to music, watch movies, read ebooks, use iPads for reading and games, and even reading real books! The kids still love to borrow books from the library and take them back to their classroom to read.
The readings this week supported, in my mind, the need to keep "brick and mortar" libraries in schools. I believe students in K-12 schools still need a place to go to get help from the Librarians or Media Specialists to navigate the research tools even more than in the past. The Internet is a vast resource with accurate, but also a lot of inaccurate, information. I think a brick and mortar library with digital resources is the way to go. Students need a place where they can browse through the books available. As Liz Gray said, there are all different kinds of learners, so we need to have choices for them.
I go into more of this in my Simple Booklet. Sorry but since this is a free account, they put ads in it. This seemed like a great tool for creating ebooks, which can be shared via email, on social media sites and embedded in your blog or other HTML site. But I am having trouble getting the audio to work, which I saved for last. I started this book 3 days agoso I don't want to redo the whole presentation!
This is the second time I have used this tool and the first time with audio, and I discovered it only accepts mp3, m4a and acc files, so my wma files, which I recorded first, did not work, so I had to go back and re-record them on my phone and then send the m4a files to my email and download then upload, but I still cannot get the audio to play, here or on the online version! I have also attached audio files which I uploaded to Dropbox. Simple Booklet didn't like Dropbox files, gave me an error message. I linked to my Dropbox files below the book, so if you want to hear the audio, you can open the files along with the pages, you will just have to toggle back and forth between windows. I was able to get it to come up on my phone and play the audio by clicking play buttons, and swipe to change pages. To get it on a mobile device, snap the QR code below the book.
simplebooklet.com Audio files: Cover Page Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Last Page
It worked when I used the QR code so I could hear you speaking. Nicely done. I agree, when my kids were little, we loved taking them to the city library and checking out books. When they all received their own library card, it was a really big day. It meant responsibility. They were able to sign their name on it and it was theirs. It was like a mini drivers license! I do think the libraries need to stay too, but what is inside should also change. Your library in your school looks like the perfect balance of books and technology.
ReplyDeleteStrangely, I went in to look at this again, since I got an email saying my simple booklet was about to expire, as I don't have a premium account, the audio was actually working! But in case it is removed, I created a Jing capture of myself playing it here: http://screencast.com/t/nSHiVXWZm
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