Week 4 - Level 1... Time To Play Games

Web Challenge 2.0 poster

I'll start by saying that I don't play online games, so my skill level is pretty poor, especially with all the timed games.  Everyday after school, I have a group of young boys who are on the interent computers playing on line games for hours.  We have a one hour time limit before their turn is up and they wait for the next available computer, just to continue playing their games.  With my limited time, I briefly tried one or more games on each of the recommended sites.  There are a few sites I would recommend to either children or their families.

I am familiar with Nick Jr and often recommend this website to parents who are looking for fun and easy games for their children to play.  The games are related to familiar shows from Nickelodeon, and most young children enjoy playing them.

Whyville wanted you to sign up for a free account, but required your email address. I was not comfortable recommending this to my patrons. I would prefer to recommend websites that let you play games without giving any personal information.  I did not sign up to try any of their games.

I like the Prongo.com site.  It offered many educational games with grade levels and activities which could be completed at a child's own speed. This is a website I would recommend to parents who want an interactive educational game to play with their child at the library or at home.

I attempted a few of the games on the Orisinal site.  Each one that I tried involved a timed activity.  Since I am not very good at timed games, I was not loving this site.  The game concepts seemed simple, so if a child has excellent eye hand coordination, this may be fun for them. 

I visited the Star Wars website, and although I am not a Star Wars fan, I could see this being a fun site for those who are.  Some games required the player to download internet tools such as Unity before you could play. There were several games that could be played without installing any prior program on your computer. The graphics were great and there were games for all ages.There was even something for the little ones, an online coloring site consisting of all the Star Wars characters.  

Poptropica offered games & activities for ages 6- 15 years old. There are several games for various ages. Some of the games I tried were Crash down (click on groups of same colored cubes with the goal of removing all the cubes before your time is up.)  For young children, there was Sleigh Shot (shooting Santa through the air on his sleigh) and Candy & Clyde (assist characters in completing various chores). There was Hoops (keeping a tennis racket balanced while avoiding falling balls).  I was not very good at any of these games & didn’t feel compelled to keep trying them.The site also had games played with interactive characters.Characters can be personalized for gender, race & additional features. I did like that feature.  I think this looks like a fun site, but there was way too much to explore in my limited time.  I may want to go back and look at this site again.



Back to the Challenge... Week 3

I have viewed the CSS website in the past, and now reviewed it to locate wikis that have been posted by others. I will try to add a wiki in the near future when I have more time, but I did look into how I can create a book page.    If I was to update a wiki on the CSS site, I would want to create a relevant contribution. If I chose to contribute a book review, I would first need to choose the book I want to present, then add details including bibliographic data, summary and reviews.  Below is the link that I will use when I am ready to create a book page.

http://www.childlit.info/index.php?title=Creating_a_New_Article

BOOK EXPO 2011

For the third year in a row, I had the good fortune to spend one day at Book Expo! Anyone who loves books and their authors will understand this is really a thrill. From the moment I entered the Jacob Javitz Center, I felt that rush pushing me to seek out my favorite authors, and collect as many books as I could. It felt a bit like trick or treating in a very high end neighborhood.  I love meeting people from all over the country while waiting (on very long lines) to get a favorite author to sign my book. One of the first people I saw was Jimmy Fallon. I was too late to receive an autographed copy of his book, but was able to take a quick picture during his book signing.



 Jimmy Fallon at Book Expo

As the day progressed, I was able to have books signed by several authors including Jan Brett, Eoin Colfer and Chuck Palahniuk.  I visited with lots of fun characters, including Olivia, and the Books for Dummies character.

Books for Dummies Character                        Olivia

Chuck Palahniuk was really great. His book signing could have turned into a dangerous situation, since the publishers were not prepared for the throngs of fans wanting an autographed book.  A line was not allowed to form until 15 minutes prior to the signing, and some people had already been circling for about 2 hours.  When the publishers finally allowed a line to form, the people waiting the longest were not necessarily in the beginning of the line. If the fans had been a different population, (say, teamsters), there may have been bloodshed over this poorly planned event.  Lucky for the publishers, "book people" are very kind, and accepted this very unfair situation with tremendous grace! 

Me & Chuck Palahniuk

Overall, it was a great day. I brought back many fantastic books for our library. Some will be added to our collection, and others will be used as summer reading club prizes. I'm hoping Book Expo will be in NYC next year!



Exploring Delicious.com - Week 3

I have signed on to Delicious.com and added World Craft to this website.  World Craft has both the option to make all kinds of crafts yourself, or the option to buy kits.
There are many multicultural craft ideas in this site that can be used along with our summer reading club theme.  I really liked the plant crafts from around the world, including the cactus plant craft.
It is easy to make and is one of many plants found in different parts of the world.  In this post, I included a snap shot of the site I added to Delicious.com and a picture of the cactus craft with directions.

craft

Looking at Listen NJ & Book Trailers

Our library has a link on the home page for Listen NJ.  I have previously downloaded books from this site.  There is a very long wait for most best sellers and new releases. This can be very frustrating for patrons.  Currently, our library is part of the LMXAC system, which does not have enough copies of books to meet the demand of most  patrons. It is not the easiest system to access for the general population, and most patrons will need assistance to initially use this application.  This is definitely the future, but with more user friendly programs, and certainly a shorter wait for those best sellers!

Book trailers are a great way to introduce our young readers (especially reluctant readers) to some really great books.
I added the book trailer for 11 Birthdays by Wendy Maas to this blog. It is a good example of  a popular junior fiction book that would motivate a young patron to check it out.
Children and young adults are always on their computers, or mobile devices (ie: iPhones, iPad Touch...).  If a library blog was designed to present only book trailers of the newest releases and high interest books, this might be something our patrons would consider viewing.  That would be an easy blog to create, and adding book trailers could increase interest in reading.

Youtube video:  11 Birthdays By: Wendy Maas
Check out this book trailer....then read the book!

I have read the article Reading Suggestion Engines: Your next Read.

After a quick review of the sites discussed in this article, I really liked Book Seer.  It was so simple to use and offered several good suggestions for additional books to read based on the last book I had read. I felt What Should I Read Next provided the same type of service, but when I typed in my last book, it offered very few suggestions compared to Book Seer.  Yournextread.com also offered many good suggestions based on the last book I read, but the website seemed to have some formatting issues.   Some of the printed words appeared on top of each other next to the suggested books.  This may be a temporary issue.

I also liked Teacher Book Wizard as a helpful resource for parents and librarians to choose additional books for children based on their current reading level. Locating age appropriate books, reading levels and subjects of interest for individual children can be time consuming. This site is one I would recommend.

Jacket Flap looks like an interesting site, but visually very busy. There is so much info on one screen, I found it overwhelming. If I need to spend a lot of time looking for what I want, I am not as likely to use it. If I had a lot of spare time to look over all that this site offers, I might feel differently.

I reviewed CSS ChoiceBook.
It was perfect timing as our library will begin a Lap Sit program this summer and I am still reviewing books I will share with our youngest listeners.
The Lapsit & Baby Programs list will be another resource for me to consider.
A few additional suggestions for Lapsit books I will be sharing are Hide And Squeak by Heather Vogel Frederick and Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee.

I felt the Genre Lists are great for patrons who have specific reading assignments.
This is a site I will definitely be looking at more closely in the future.

Title: Week 2 - The Challenge Continues…

I was amazed to learn about all the resources available through Library Thing, Good Reads and Shelfari!  In time, I hope to further explore these sites and use these resources as I plan my future book orders.

The summer reading club preparation is underway and with my limited time, I signed up for these websites and will follow up in the future.  I briefly read about Library Thing, Good Reads & Shelfari  & added a few books to each list.

Good Reads had so many features, it seemed a bit overwhelming to me. I felt that it would take a lot of time to fully appreciate and be able to use it effectively. I had to skip several screens to get to the add books section. There may be quicker ways to access things, but if I have to spend a lot of time figuring it out, I probably won’t continue to use it.

Library Thing seemed a little more user friendly and let me see the books I added on the first screen. I saw a few interesting blogs and felt a little more comfortable with the layout of options available for book recommendations and other features.

My favorite site was Shelfari, probably because it was the most visually appealing to me. I could see my added books on a virtual shelf and found it to be very user friendly.

I was able to easily look up other similar books,  find recommendations and quickly learned how to access books of interest.  I could see myself exploring & using Shefari to help me locate additional books to share with my Lap Sit ,Toddler Time & Story Time crowd. It may also be a quick & visually appealing way to encourage patrons to locate additional books of interest for their own children.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Blogging - Level 1

I'm trying to meet all the Level 1 challenges.
So far, I have, set up my blog, posted pictures, used Piknik (the dog's crown in my previous blog), and used design & gadget (displaying a list of who is following my blog).
I believe I met all of those challenges which were within my low grade tech ability.

I do have a Flikr account and have tagged photos - so I'm thinking I met this challenge too.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52560835@N03/with/5619762543/


Now that I have blogged about blogging,
 I'll share a little information about our upcoming summer program:
Sign up begins on Monday June 13 for One World Many Stories 2011 Summer Reading.

A fun way to get into the spirit, and promote our program is to purchase a summer reading club t-shirt.  These t-shirts will be available for sale on the first day of registration in both children & adult sizes.  All t-shirts will be sold for $5.00 each. 

Blogging 101

Now that I actually have a blog, the big decision is what to blog about.
The detailed information provided about blogging, downloading pictures, and using Picnik
was much easier than I imagined. 

Our library is celebrating its 75th Anniversary this year. 
Even our pets support the library by wearing 75th Anniversary t-shirts!
After visiting the library, Bjorn feels like a king!

In future blogs, I plan to share information about our upcoming summer reading club.