Tik Tok Book Toks

One of my favorite things to do while attending conferences is to learn how librarians are using the latest technology to reach their patrons. While attending the Arkansas Association of Instructional Media Conference back in April, I attended a few sessions about Tik Tok. One really resonated with me that was done by a Library Media Specialist from Bigelow High School in Arkansas. I was very excited to hear how Dena Meriweather had been innovative with Tik Tok during the pandemic as a powerful literacy outreach to her students.

Pandemic Outreach

As Dena's school was locked down for the COVID-19 Pandemic, she wanted a way to reach her students. She began by emailing video book talks to her students while the school was virtual. From this idea, she decided to start sharing her book talks using the Tik Tok social media platform. This continued through the pandemic. She found that this was a great way to reach her students since so many of them use the popular platform. She typically videos her "Book Toks" at various places in the library, outside, and even at the golf course!

Impact 

Dena mentioned that she now has students and parents following her on various social media platforms in addition to Tik Tok. When she posts a "Book Tok" video to Tik Tok, she also shares it on Facebook and Instagram. She is able to reach more people that way. The students and parents have let her know they enjoy watching her "Book Toks", and she always has students coming into the library to ask about the books she advertises.

Next Steps

Dena plans to keep making her Tik Tok videos. She said it is a great way to reach the public to show some of what she does in the school library. She is thinking of branching out with more than "Book Toks" in the future. After seeing Dena's conference presentation, I also tried using Tik Tok this summer to share how our Luxer One book locker works at the public library where I now work. It has received over 800 views since June! I'm still not fully comfortable with Tik Tok but plan to keep experimenting with it in the future. I'll keep learning from innovative librarians like Dena as I build more confidence with the platform.

If you have questions for Dena about her journey with Tik Tok, she allowed me to share her school contact information:

Dena Meriweather, LMS

Bigelow High School

email: meriweat@bigelow.k12.ar.us

Also, be sure to follow her on Tik Tok, Facebook, and Instagram!

Tik Tok: @BHSBookToks

Facebook: Bigelow High School Library

Instagram: @bigelowhslibrary 

Other links that may interest you:

In Search of Student Voices

Our Outsiders Library Collaboration

Our Book Pickup Service

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3 Grand Travel Apps That Took Us Through The Desert

In my last post, I talked about the importance of disconnecting during vacations and breaks. I did a fairly good job of staying off social media during my recent spring break. My wife Cindy and I decided to hit the open road to visit the southwest region of the United States. We have always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, and the sights of Sedona, Arizona. While visiting these areas, we used three cool apps to make decisions on where to stay, where to eat, and how to get there! Since this blog is about library media and technology, I thought I would share these tech tools with you. In fact, I'll share how some of these apps might make a cool series of library lunch programs to share with your learning community!

Maps App for iOS 9

I love the updated Maps App for iOS 9! This app will give you spoken directions to your destination and provides great interactive 2D and 3D maps. We looked at the Grand Canyon on the app after we actually visited the national park. The interactive 3D map has amazing detail.

A view of the Grand Canyon from the app

You can see in the photos how accurate the maps are compared to real life!

The Grand Canyon is truly breathtaking in real life!

The Grand Canyon in 3D

What I like about this app is that it allows users to virtually visit nearly any place in the world. Many students may have never left their own home state. This app gives them the opportunity to "visit" new places in 3D. When students have these experiences, it helps them better understand the world. It also allows them to have reference points. For instance, I had heard of mesas my whole life, but I had never seen one. After traveling through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona during spring break, I had the opportunity to see these land forms. The experience changed me and my thinking.

Library Program Potential

I even used the app to locate a few other National Parks I hope to visit in the future. Viewing such places on the app made me imagine a Skype session with someone knowledgeable about these areas (perhaps even a park ranger at one of the locations) for a real guide! This would be a great library program for students and teachers! Pass out iPads to those in attendance, or put this on your big projector screen; and you have instant awesome! Take it a step further by putting out print resources on the places you show off on the Maps app!

Look at the detail on Devil's Tower National Monument (remember this from Close Encounters of the Third Kind?)

Mount Rushmore in 3D courtesy of the Maps app

TripAdvisor App

This is a cool app that allows you to check out hotels, restaurants, attractions, flight searches, and vacation rentals. Cindy used it to find restaurants several times during our trip. We decided to go for yogurt after leaving Sedona (a city we recommend visiting if you ever go to Arizona).

Cindy found a soft serve yogurt restaurant in Flagstaff using this app. We were able to get reviews and a description of the place. She punched the address into her phone, and we were on our way!

I liked the photos that the app provided of both restaurants and hotels. It is very user friendly. I'll be using this one from now on when we are on the road in both familiar and unfamiliar places!

I really like the reviews portion of TripAdvisor

AAA Mobile App

I discovered the AAA travel club about 7 years ago and decided to join for the towing and roadside assistance benefits. I have used the towing benefit a few times (luckily close to home). If you travel a lot, you might want to consider a roadside assistance benefit through AAA or your auto insurance provider for peace of mind! When traveling, I use the AAA app to find the cheapest gas near me and to book hotels. It will also allow the user to rent a car, book flights, find auto repair shops, and it provides parking locator assistance. It works much like the TripAdvisor app. I just type in the city/ town we want to book a room and the app gives me a listing of available hotels with a variety of price ranges. It also reveals reviews and reservation information.

I really like the comments portion of the AAA app

Final Thoughts

I can't help but wonder how many students and parents know about these apps. With summer vacations coming soon, these and other apps could come in very useful for our learning community. I think I may present these and MapQuest (directions app), Yelp (I've used this for restaurant recommendations), and GasBuddy (for cheap gas prices). It might also be good to give students an opportunity to come up to show their favorite travel themed apps during lunch sessions in the library. There are so many possibilities to share these tools and show off library materials at the same time. My thought "wheels" are turning... are yours?

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Have you tried the Morfo app? You can make any photo of a person's face talk! 

Why you should take breaks and disconnect (especially during spring break!)

This is how we held our first Mystery Skype in the library!

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Why You Should Add Twitter Analytics To Your Library Statistical Reports

Why I Will Include Twitter Analytics To Our Library Statistical Reports

I have been making an effort to be more active on Twitter since the summer of 2014. In that time, the benefit has been a phenomenal growth in my Professional Learning Network (PLN). The largest growth has taken place during the participation in Twitter education chats. It has been wonderful to connect with educators all over the country and world on a consistent basis. The use of Twitter has also driven substantial traffic to this library blog. A blog is an important advocacy tool for libraries since it is a record of our journey. Twitter is also a great advocacy tool because it allows your followers to see snapshots of what you are doing, 140 characters at at time. If you use hashtags that school librarians check frequently, your work will be seen around the country.

A few common school library hashtags:

#tlchat (Teacher Librarian Chat)
#txlchat (Texas Librarian Chat)
#mwlibchat (Midwest Teacher Librarian Chat)
#ndlibchat (North Dakota Librarian Chat)

Why Include Twitter Statistics?

This year I will include my Twitter Analytics to our library end of year report. The reason is simple, it shows a large amount of interaction and outreach. To access your Twitter analytics, visit analytics.twitter.com and sign in with your Twitter account. The tool will show monthly activity and statistics for your Twitter account. Let's take a look at one of the monthly reports:

A Screenshot from Twitter Analytics

Twitter Analytics reports my activity for November 2015 in this portion of the page. This report reveals the most viewed and mentioned Tweets for the month. You can also see how many Tweets were sent from my account over that 30 day period. The part of the report that will be of interest to library stakeholders is the "Tweet Impressions". This is how many times Tweets are seen. For November, the Tweets in my account were seen 80,300 times! That is a powerful advocacy tool statistic! I plan to add these statistics up over the course of the school year and share that in the final report at the end of the year. Administrators need to know the impact of our social media activities. This shows the impact of how you are telling the story of your library program and your school to the world! If your analytics aren't high at the beginning of your Twitter experience, that is fine. You should consider reporting any impressions! The more active you are on Twitter, the higher your Tweet impressions will be. Sharing these statistics over time will show growth. Administrators and other stakeholders want to see effective use of social media, and this is a great way to share the impact your library program is making outside of the school walls.

Final Thoughts

School librarians should also consider including any other measurable social media statistics into their reports for administrators. I will be adding our number of Facebook posts and our library blog statistics to the final report. Anything that shows the evidence of reaching out to tell about library services and stories is powerful. It gives stakeholders a return on their investment! Remember, if we never tell them, how will they know? What you do for your learning community is important... share it!

Check out some thoughts on annual reporting (and an example) here! 

New to Twitter? Read Part 1 of an article for newbies here.

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My First International Hangout!

On a Saturday in late September, one of our Lakeside High School Assistant Principals, Mr. Mathew Thornton, (@Mat_Thornton) mentioned me in a Tweet. The message was from Dina Moati (@dinamoati) who is a Professor of Education in Ontario, Canada.

After seeing that Dina was looking for volunteers to speak to her class of aspiring educators, I Tweeted a message to her immediately! I love sharing about how Twitter has changed me professionally! I have also been looking for opportunities to connect our learning community to educators outside of the United States.

Dina Moati leads the Virtual Experts Panel

I knew this could be a first step to lead the way to more international collaboration! Dina messaged me back and the date was set. 

Stephan Hughes

This event took place for two of Dina's classes as a Google Hangout forum with two other educators: Stephan Hughes from Rio de Janeiro (@stephwurking) and Tammy G. Neil from Florida (@TG_Neil). 

Tammy G. Neil

We started the two sessions by introducing ourselves and telling about what we do. Dina would turn her camera to the class so we could see them on our screens and we would all wave greetings to each other. We then discussed ways that we use social media in the profession of education. We took turns answering some of these questions and topics: 

• "What is a connected educator?" 
• "Discuss how you use technology in the 21st century classroom" 
• "What are your favorite hashtags to follow?"

I had never participated in a discussion on webcam like this before. It was so much fun to connect with new friends in Canada, Florida, and Rio de Janeiro simultaneously! I began thinking of what an impact this demonstration must have had on Dina's students. She was modeling a wonderful practice for her college students. 

Dina's class in Canada

Furthermore, I considered what this could look like in a high school classroom. We have such wonderful tools for connecting our students to other places, yet our time is limited. I plan to encourage our teachers to make time for these activities! I want to encourage them to be risk takers by stepping out of their comfort zones to connect their students to other classrooms outside of our town, state, and country. I hope they will use the school library whenever possible to embark on their educational journeys. The adventure is only just beginning! What happens next?... Whatever we decide! How will you model social media and being connected to your learning community?

Check out our Google Hangout with 4 Spanish classes here!

Read about our first #MysterySkype here!

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Tweet Us Some #Inspiration Part 2

A few weeks ago, I shared about our inspirational quotes Twitter program. Go here if you didn't get to read it! Since that time, I have continued to Tweet successful people and celebrities for inspirational quotes to share with our learning community. Others on our faculty have even joined in this activity! Our high school principal and two other teachers have Tweeted out to get inspirational Tweets from successful people in their networks. In addition, we have started receiving positive Tweets from recent Lakeside High School alumni.

To show off these Tweets, one of our library assistants (Mrs. Peggy Schaeffer) came up with a great iPhone display to hang on the library walls and doors!

Mrs. Schaeffer put small text balloons in the messages to identify the name and position of the people that sent the Tweets.

She used the #inspiration hashtag on signs to attract attention.

Students have been stopping to read the Tweets ever since we posted them!

Our students have also enjoyed reading Tweets from recent alumni! Mrs. Schaeffer has made small Tweets to display on the library shelves. 

This has been a great way to model digital citizenship by sharing positive messages via social media. We will keep working for more ways to model these crucial skills that students will need as they prepare to enter the professional world of work and communication.

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Tweet Us Some #Inspiration!

This school year, I have become hopelessly addicted to Twitter! As a result of Twitter education chats, I have gained many new connections in the education field. It has changed the way I think about learning and communicating professionally. I am constantly trying to think of new ways to model good social media behavior for our learning community.

Recently, the PARCC test has been a strain on our school in both personnel requirements and technology resources. I have been serving as a test administrator for the past two weeks and have been unable to plan any engaging library programming... until two days ago.

I decided that we should try to Tweet successful people on Twitter for inspiration! I took requests from students, teachers, and administrators after PARCC test sessions. I took these lists home and started Tweeting at night. The lists included actors, singers, authors, athletes, news anchors, and more. I Tweeted around 20 people wondering if I would get a response... The Tweets looked like this:

I tweeted out the above example last night at 7:41 PM. This morning as I was driving to our school campus, my Twitter notification went off. I looked at the phone after I parked, and this Tweet had arrived!

Mr. Johnson had Tweeted a great quote for our students. "Interesting how the harder you work the luckier you get!" I couldn't wait to get inside to share this with teachers and students! The normal drudgery of testing and the last nine weeks of school just got brighter as I shared the wisdom of the great coach! We had used Twitter for something other than selfies or boasting... we had used it for communication outside of our school walls. A communication with a celebrity who shared a very effective sentence with the Lakeside learning community.

A few minutes later, I heard from Arkansas' Today'sTHV (CBS Affiliate) Meteorologist, Tom Brannon.

The day before we heard from these individuals: T.A. Barron (author), Diana Falzone (FOX News, NY), and Jim Lichtenstein (Co-Exec Producer of CBS's The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation with Mo Rocca). Here are their Tweets:

Now that we have several responses, we plan to create a display of each person's bio and their inspirational Tweet! I'll share this soon on a future post. I'm also going to continue Tweeting different celebs over the next several weeks. I'll continue taking requests from students and teachers! I'm hoping all that see these great examples will realize that social media has great potential in education. We now have access to people and companies that were previously unreachable! We have only scratched the surface of possibilities! Go here for part two of this activity and see how we displayed these Tweets!

Click here to see how we used Twitter during an 8th grade research skills lesson.

Go here if you want to know more about Twitter education chats.

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The Power Of Connecting Our Voices

"Alone we are strong... together we are stronger."

As an educator, I have learned that it is impossible to be an expert in all areas. We must have resources to help us in our weak areas. It is not a sign of weakness to ask others for help or to reach out to those resources. In addition, we should share what works for us with others. I encourage everyone to share your best programming locally at your own school and also at professional conferences! We all have programs that connect well with our learning communities, and we should share these to inspire others! What if we all connected with great teachers on social media and shared our best ideas?

Here is an example of how these concepts can benefit everyone:

During the summer of 2014 my LHS teacher librarian partner (Mrs. Misti Bell) and I had the privilege of presenting at the High Schools That Work conference in Nashville, Tennessee. We presented our most successful common core library collaborations with a team of our own teachers in two separate sessions. It was a wonderful experience that we will never forget. We were able to make contacts with teachers, teacher librarians, and administrators from all over the country! We shared our contact information and this blog, too!

Fast forward to February 2015. I received an email from Mrs. Mindy Nichols, a teacher librarian at Crockett County High School in Alamo, Tennessee. In the email she proceeded to describe how she had held numerous collaborative events in their library during the 2014-2015 school year. Events such as The Great Gatsby and Ad Day (which were modeled after the very events we had shared at the High Schools That Work conference and also on this blog). She also described new events such as Minimalism Day for both Art & Music classes and 1950s Day for U.S. History Classes. After I read her email, I immediately shared their upcoming Day of The Dead program with one of our Spanish teachers. He is already thinking about how we might have a program like this in the fall! Mindy's innovative programs have already impacted our school because she took the time to share it with us! In addition, she has a great blog you should visit here. She has wonderful photos and descriptions of these library collaborative programs!

This is the power of sharing our best programs and lessons with each other! Everyone has great ideas to bring to the table. We can all help each other be our best, so we can impact students in the most effective ways! We should all share our voice with one another!

I really liked Mindy's quote at the end of her email: "I love it when libraries create a spark in their school and then pass on that ember to others." Let's all create a spark and pass the ember on to each other! 

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How We Used Twitter In The Library While Teaching Research Skills

In the most recent blog entry, I discussed some of the ways we support teachers in the library by helping them present research tools. Recently, I've been trying to work in social media whenever possible. Students are presently using social media to post selfies and brag about themselves. In recent months, I have discovered that these great social tools can be used for so much more. We should strive to model better ways to use social media in the classroom!

Two weeks ago, I was showing an 8th grade English class how to do basic research using Britannica School. I also taught a brief introduction to EasyBib. After I had taught a few sessions, I thought about bringing Twitter into the lesson. I decided to take one of the photos we had captured (we always take lots of photos of events in the library for evidence!) and send out a Tweet to share what we were doing. I sent the first Tweet about Britannica School and EasyBib after I got home from school that evening. I decided to mention them both in the Tweet just to see what might happen. I figured they were bound to have PR people monitoring Twitter. Here is the Tweet and photo that I sent.

The next morning, Britannica responded with this Tweet:

They later sent two more Tweets.

Then had inquired about what we were teaching!

EasyBib Tweeted us too!

I was able to share a response to Britannica about the specific things we had taught the students. I also shared this with all of the classes! I thought it was significant that while teaching new research skills, we were able to bring in a social media connection with two of the tools we were using. I later Tweeted out to Prezi (Since they were part of the same two day project for this 8th grade class). They responded by favoriting my Tweet.

I'm going to continue looking for new ways to add social media into our daily practices in the school library media center. This is a great way to get students thinking beyond selfies! I'll keep you all posted on what we do next.

Part 1 of this article is here (if you didn't click on the link at the top of the page).

Check out our 5 most read blog posts of 2014 here.

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