Inspiration, Innovation & Information for school libraries and learning.
by Carrie
Pinterest is a fun and useful site that allows you to collect, organise and share ideas and images. You are essentially creating virtual bulletin boards (based on your interests) that others can browse and comment on. You can use images from the web or upload pictures from your own computer. Each image is called a ‘pin,’ and can include notes and links back to the place on the web where you found it.
Browsing through other people’s boards is a wonderful way to find inspiration. You can follow your favourite people, then grab their images and ‘repin’ them on your own board. To pin images from the web you just follow the instructions provided to install a Pin It button on your web browser. Every image you choose for your board will automatically link back to the site where it comes from.
Making an account is easy: just go to the site and request an invitation (or wrangle one from a current member). The site is invite-only, but my invitation came through a few hours after I requested it. Once you have your invitation you can register through Facebook Connect or your Twitter account. There is also an iPhone app so you can pin things on the go.
Want to see more? Check out this school library display board to get started. Pinterest is a great resource for teachers and librarians looking for ideas and inspiration. It would be a wonderful way for students to collect and share images and information when they are doing research on historical or literary figures and events. I would also recommend it for art students and secondary English students who are putting together static images. Fashion students could collect looks, fabrics and designs they love…there is something here for everyone!
Have you used Pinterest? How do you organise images from the web so you can keep and use them later?
image by dabblelicious
Social bookmarking is a great way to organise and share your favourite websites. As a web based tool it allows you to access, add to, and manage your bookmarks anytime and from any computer that’s connected to the Internet.
For those who haven’t yet adopted this practice take a look at 7 things you should know about…Social Bookmarking (PDF). As a concept, social bookmarking has been around for some years now and has culminated in the creation of a variety of tools to support bookmark sharing. The main function of social bookmarking is the ability to share your bookmarks with others and in turn discover what they have bookmarked under tags (keyword access points) that relate to your areas of interest.
flickr image by sneeu
School libraries have used social bookmarking to set up accounts that provide access to a wide range of websites accessible under different curriculum and subject areas. The tags attached to each bookmark provide users with keyword access points that can be grouped together allowing easy access. Golden Bay High School have set up a Delicious account for the school library which shows you how this can work. In addition to seeing the listing of bookmarks you can also see the 10 most popular tags and the tag bundles where keyword tags are grouped under an all encompassing term e.g. Web 2.0 as a tag bundle name could incorporate individual tags such as web2, 2.0, Web, Library2.0, L2, W2, www2.
We are now seeing the next generation of social bookmarking tools coming into play which not only allow you to bookmark websites but also social media content from sources like Flickr, Twitter and YouTube. Tools such as Diigo and Evernote provide additional functionality including the ability to add sticky notes and highlighting to websites and pdfs. These are useful tools when you want to emphasise specific points or make connections with certain web information for staff and students. With the increasing use of social networking the school library can now also share its bookmarks through social networking accounts such as Facebook and Twitter and also via email. This is a great way for the school community to keep up with current content you are collecting through multiple communication channels.
For a comprehensive discussion about social bookmarking including some of the tools you can use take a look at WebTools4U2Use.
Maxine
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