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TL 16.31.indd The Teaching Librarian volume 16, no. 3 21 ID EA FILE Wells Street Public School York Region District School Board We have begun a Podcasting Book Review Club. Using the digital technology available in our iMac labs, many classes in our school partner with the library for project- based learning. We selected five Grade 11 students, who had experience with this technology, to become our "technical team." These students wrote succinct reviews of their favourite books, and then, using Garageband on the iMacs, recorded themselves reading their book reviews out loud, and added music and graphics, to create podcasts. We decided to post these podcasted book reviews on an iWeb account, and then linked the iWeb account to the school website. We launched our podcasts during literacy month, with a school-wide advertising campaign, and have had much interest from many students who have volunteered to create more book reviews to be made into podcasts! We hope that the number of student-created podcasts will continue to grow, that peer-recommended reads will increase our students' interest in reading, and that eventually, we can even have staff record reviews of their favourite books! To watch and listen, go to www.albertcampbell.org, click on library, and then click on podcasts. Heather Peterson and Anne Werfhorst, Teacher-Librarians Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute Toronto District School Board What better way to learn about a new book than from a trusted peer? First, I solicit students who return books that were on the "brand new" shelf. If they are enthusiastic about a book when they return it, I ask if they'd consider producing a "book byte," a one-minute recorded book review. I initially used a Twilight poster as incentive and every byte earned a student a ticket into the draw for the poster. Now, I don't have to offer any carrots; students just like how fun it is to record themselves. The next step is for students to compose a one-minute script. I record them using Audacity, which is an open source, freely available to download, cross platform recorder, http://audacity.sourceforge.net. It's also on the Peel Board image so I show them how to use the program at school and then they can use it for lots of other activities, such as Reader's Theatre. Once I have the audio file, the student snaps a picture of the book's cover using our school camera and they save it in our shared drive. For this reason, I insist that all book bytes are based on books that are part of our library collection. Finally, I go to http://postcard.fm.com and upload the audio file and the photo. It is incredibly easy to do this. I then send the file to their homeroom or language arts teacher and myself. They play the file either during prime time (which is our homeroom period) or during the start of a language class. It's a great way to introduce new books. I keep a master file of all the book byte links, which is posted on our school website in the library section. If the book byte is really well done, I've also burned the audio file to a CD and played them during morning announcements. Some samples can be found here: http://postcard.fm/03f448ep The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins http://postcard.fm/7a7a1bbp Firestorm by David Klass Janice Robertson Glenhaven Senior Public School Peel District School Board One way to introduce new books to the library is to find them mentors, books that have been around for a while and that are known within the school. New books are paired up with old books that have parallel themes, settings, characters, plots, or distinctive stylistic similarities. The pairs of books are grouped in sets of 10 books, usually five or six groups of books set out on the same number of tables depending on the sizes of the classes. When classes come into the library to select independent reading at the beginning of a semester, they work in groups of four or five students to look at the covers, read the jacket blurbs, scan the pages, and figure how the books match up. Each student at each table is responsible for reporting back to the class the titles of two books at the table, providing a one-sentence summary of what has been discovered about each of the books and, finally, a one-sentence explanation of why the books should be paired. The rest of the class records the pairings on a list of all of the books, arranged in two columns by group. From a practical point of view, one needs to have pairs of books in reserve to change the book lists as the books are signed out. Fortunately, the wonders of word processing mean that one does not need to redo everything, for every class. Pairing up the books is time consuming, but it is a great way to get to know the collection when you are new to a library or to refresh your memory about some of the great books in your collection. Also, the need to avoid having pairs of books overlapping within each group of 10 books helps to The theme for Volume 17 Issue 1's edition of Idea File will be how do you entice/persuade/encourage/ manage to hook in teachers to work together with you? Send your submissions before May 19, 2009 to TingLeditor@gmail.com.