Facebook and Twitter

Round Hill Elementary School Library

Https://www.facebook.com/rheslibrary/

Round Hill Elementary School Library had many posts. I looked at their posts from now, back to summer and found that they have shared posts to parents about the importance of reading aloud to their children and promoting the city’s library summer program.  They share cute memes about reminding students to turn in books at the end of the school year. The librarian advertises books for the upcoming book fair. They also share important educational news from the library of congress website. In addition, the librarian invites students to come to the library during their lunch to an event she calls Chat and Chew. (reading books during lunch) The librarian has an ongoing Makerspace and has a post asking for Lego donations for students to enjoy during Makerspace time. As a result, the librarian posts pictures of the student’s creative Makerspace projects.

Rayburn Middle School Library

https://www.facebook.com/RayburnLibrary/

At Rayburn Middle School Library, the librarian’s first post was about helping out with donations for Hurricane Harvey. For the beginning of the school year she announced that the students google accounts were ready to be used. She also makes an announcement to parents that the gradebook is ready to be viewed. She posts about meet the teacher night inviting parents to join.  She shares posts from Library Palooza which is a free event. It is an author festival in which teens can mingle with authors and have their books autographed. Furthermore, she posts pictures of books that she suggests for students to read over the summer. She attended this year’s TLA conference and posted pictures of herself with authors. She has pictures of staff reading books to encourage and show students that everybody reads.

Mission High School Library

https://www.facebook.com/missionhighschoollibrary/

The Mission High School librarian’s first post showed her team spirit by sharing this year’s football team members picture. She also promotes the authors who will be attending the Border Book Bash Event by announcing their names on the post.  Another great post was about sharing a link to the local newspaper where patrons, parents, and staff can get updated local news. The librarian posts reminders to seniors about paying fines before graduation. The librarian applied and received book donations through the South Texas Literacy Coalition and gave away one book per student during National Library Week.  In addition, she advertised activities going on that same week. She beautifies her library by using student artwork and post pictures of their artwork to her facebook.

Advantages/Disadvantages of having Facebook page for your library:

Advantages

-It can serve as free advertisement for fundraisers such as the book fair.

-It can help to reach patrons who use facebook mainly teens and young adults.

-You can connect with people from other cities, states or countries.  

-You can share information through instant messaging such as messenger.

Disadvantages

-Elderly patrons and some parents might not have facebook accounts.

-You need to be careful with what is posted and make sure you have parent’s approval when posting students’ pictures on facebook.

-You might receive uninviting comments.

Ed tech leaders on Twitter:

Kathy Shrock: @kathyschrock 

Kathy Shrock is an educational technologist and Ed Tech presenter who joined twitter on May 2007.  She has posted things such as her edtech websites that have links to presentations and pages of resources that introduce ideas, tips and tricks. She also posts her upcoming edtech conferences, free tool for teaching how to create and query a database, devices and gadgets that might be of interest, promotes inventiveness in the classroom, and shares articles such as the Top 6 Digital Trends in Education. She shares things and compares them like Apple’s AirPods to wireless earbuds from china, and promotes apps such as the iOS app, MSQRD where she mentions you can make videos “in character” and she posts pictures as examples.

I found her posts to be very informative with helpful technology resources, and fun.

Linda Braun: @lbraun2000

Linda Braun is a learning consultant, educator, teen advocate, and librarian who joined twitter on March 2007.  She likes to retweet information such as grant application deadlines from ALA, information about the National Leadership Grants for Libraries, and the Laura Bush 21^st Century Librarian Program in which is included a list of awarded recipients and websites for more information on each program. She also tweets information on Yalsa such as the importance of connecting learning in library services, enhancing teen services through e-book, and putting teens first through library services. in addition she retweeted information on enhancing the reading experience for kids through maker activities and workshops supporting makerspaces. In her tweets she includes articles such as School Libraries being recruited to host igniteCS program to make computer science free and accessible to everyone and giving all libraries the opportunity to apply online. Iv'e embedded her tweet of the Article below.  https://dmlcentral.net/watchworthy-wednesday-google-expands-free-computer-science-education-program/ - .Wam3Dgnto28.twitter via @dmlresearchhub

In addition, another thing Linda Braun has tweeted about is Connected learning and the Genius Hour. Genius Hour is giving students 20% of the time to learn what they want, choose the content, and master the skills. Genius Hour can be done through libraries as well. Linda has posted a lot of great information useful for librarians, teachers and students.

David Warlick: @dwarlick

David Warlick is a 37-year educator, technologist, programmer, author, and public speaker exploring educational technology who joined tweeter on June 2007. He tweets about his travels, photography and videos as an education provocateur. He posts videos of aerial photography set to Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. He also tweets about seeing the future through self-driving buses in Helsinki, a test project that is being coordinated by Helsinki’s Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. David Warlick tweets include articles about learners such as “How Eastern and Western Cultures Tackle Learning”. In Eastern culture everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning and see weakness as an emotional strength, whereas in American culture struggle is seen as an indicator of weakness. David Warlick is also into politics. He tweets about Donald Trump and Fact-checking 2016 presidential candidates. 

Gwyneth Jones: @GwynethJones

Gwyneth Jones is known as the Daring Librarian. She is future ready, a mover, shaker, innovator, and google certified who joined tweeter on July 2009. She has tweeted about tips for the reluctant tech user. This article included motivation, hands on learning, small steps on the how to by showing them one tip at a time, the benefits of think, pair and sharing successes or challenges, making house calls during planning (one on one session with teachers), challenging students to learn tech skills then letting them teach the teachers, praise them, and focus on one thing to learn. Gwyneth also shares tips on redesigning the classroom, posts news about her campus, posts things she does at her school, tweets about books she is interested in, ways to use technology in the classroom, and retweeted great information on 27 things your teacher librarian does. Gwyneth tweets a lot of information that a librarian can make use of and share with others as well.

Jim Lerman: @jimlerman

Jim Lerman is a parent, learner, teacher, leader, author, speaker, collaborator, and networker that is focused on new schools for new learning who joined tweeter since December 2007.  He tweets an article about teaching students four skills to start off the first five days in which includes teaching students how to find information, ensuring students know they can make meaningful contributions, letting students work on something they are passionate about, and showing students how you learn. Jim tweets about digital skills needed by teachers for the connected classroom and for collaborating writing tasks. He also tweets about 10 strategic steps for teaching online research skills to learners in which help students use critical thinking to understand what is credible and what is not. It also helps them search for information from different sources.  His tweets also include, 9 Inspiring Student-Led Formative Assessment Activities, 14 Online Tools that will help learners with improving writing skills, and Teaching Hurricane Harvey: Ideas and Resources, in where they share ideas on how to begin to talk about it with students. Jim shares lots of ideas, resources and information helpful to students, teachers, and librarians.