Questions?

This blog will remain on the SEMLS web site, so feel free to check back if you need a refresher. The URL is www.semls.org/kathy/bloggingschools.html. Feel free to post comments if you have any more observations or questions. I have enabled e-mail notification of comments, so I will see your message and will respond.

As always, you can contact me via e-mail at klussier@semls.org, via phone at 508-923-3531, or via IM at semlskathy (AOL, Yahoo) or at klussier@semls.org(MSN) if you have any questions.

Thanks for participating in this session. I look forward to seeing your blogs!

Podcasting

So what does podcasting have to do with all of this? A podcast is essentially an RSS file that points to an audio file. When a new audio file is uploaded to your server, you also update the RSS file so that subscribers can be notified that the new audio is available. That file will then be automatically downloaded to their Podcatcher and possibly to their MP3 device the next time they sync it to their computer.

Making audio files available for download on your site is not enough to call it a podcast. To be a podcast, it needs to be pushed out to subscribers whenever a new audio is available.

The actual process of podcasting does not need to be difficult. At SEMLS, we purchased Podcast Factory, a product that brings together the various elements required to create a podcast. (It is also available at Amazon at a less expensive price.) However, you can easily pull together these elements yourself. What you need is:

• A microphone to record the podcast. It can be a microphone connected to your computer or one on an MP3 player.
• Sound editing software so that you can splice and improve the sound quality of your podcast. Podcast Factory uses the freely-available Audacity.
• Software to help you create your RSS file. Podcast Factory uses the freeely available Podifier.
  
• A web server where your audio files and RSS files will reside.

To make your Podcast sound more professional, you can also find sound effects to add to your recordings.

Make the most out of RSS

RSS is not only important for publicizing your blog. You can also use it to keep up on the news as well as professional information. To start, you need to use a RSS reader. Two web-based readers are My Yahoo and Bloglines. You can also download a reader to your local computer. Some popular readers are Pluck, SharpReader, and Newzcrawler.

The idea behind RSS is getting the news you want the way you want when you want. If you don't like the way your RSS reader displays information, keep looking around until you find one you like.

To start, think of a web page you visit on a regular basis to get your news (boston.com, nytimes.com). Now look at the page and try to find an RSS link or an orange XML button. Add this feed to your feed reader. Go to your reader on a regular basis instead of the web page. Now, add a couple more feeds to the reader. When you go to this reader, you will get news from a number of sites instead of the one that you usually get news from. Here are some good feeds to try:

LISNews - http://www.lisnews.com/rss.shtml - a number of feeds to keep you up to date on the library profession.

American Libraries Online - http://www.ala.org/cfapps/xml/alonline.xml - Feed for articles in American Libraries.

The SLJ Blog - http://www.ala.org/cfapps/xml/alonline.xml - Get the buzz about libraries, learning and technology.

Will Richardson's weblogg-ed - http://www.weblogg-ed.com/xml/rss.xml - a great blog about using blogs in the classroom.

Massachusetts Performers & Programs Directory - http://feeds.feedburner.com/massperform - Find out when new performers are added to the directory.

MBLC Job vacancies - http://mblc.state.ma.us/cgi-bin/mpv/rss.pl - Be notified of new job openings across the state.

Library Elf - www.libraryelf.com - Notifies you when your books are due and when your holds are available.

Feedburner

You can use your blog's feed as it is without any problem. However, you could also do more with your feed if you use a tool called Feedburner. With Feedburner, you can view statistics for your feed. However, don't be disappointed if your only subscriber is you and one other person.

You can also use Feedburner to easily republish your feed on another web page. Why would you want to do this? Let's say you're using your blog to highlight new stuff in your library, and you want this stuff to appear on your web site's home page as well to get maximum attention. You could pull the feed from your blog to create headlines on the front page. When somebody clicks on the headline, they are taken to your blog posting.

RSS

Now let's talk about RSS - Really Simple Syndication. RSS is often talked about in conjunction with blogs because blogging software almost always creates an RSS feed for you. It's easy to provide quick access to your RSS feed.

1. Log into your administrative console.
   
2. Click on Look 'n' Feel.
3. Click Insert Portlet and select RSS Add Me.
4. Click Save This Layout.

Let's see what other media centers do with their blogs.

Galileo Academy of Science and Technology Li-Blog-Ary - www.galileoweb.org
Hunterdon Central High School - http://central.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/imc
Mabry Middle School - http://mabryonline.org/blogs/media/
Berkley High School Book Break - http://www.bookbreak.blogspot.com/
Dutch Fork Middle School - http://nlcommunities.com/communities/mshaddon/
Northfield Mount Hermon School Library - http://nmhlibrary.typepad.com/
Rundlett Middle School - http://blueduke.blogspot.com/
Whippanny Park Library News - http://whippanylibrarynews.blogspot.com/
Elementary School Blog - http://elementary-school.blogspot.com/

What do you think? Was there anything that caught your attention that you really liked? Are there ways these libraries could have improved these blogs? Would you like to take any of these features into your own blogs?

Cool blogging tools

Try some of these cool tools to enhance your blog.

Bookmarklets (http://www.blog-support.com/bookmarklets.htm) allows you to quickly create a blog posting on a web page you are viewing. A handy button is added to your toolbar. With one click, you are brought to an entry form with a link to the web page. Blog-city also provides a toolbar button to add a page to your blog's bookmarks.

More Cool Tools http://www.blog-support.com/read/coolstuff.htm

Using Blogger? Try these:

Audioblogger (http://audioblogger.com) is an easy way to post audio files to your blog. Dial a phone number and, after following the instructions, you just say the message that you want to be posted on to your blog. It will be posted within a few minutes of your phone call.

The Google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) is great for a number of reasons, but can help your blogging experience as well. See a web page that you want to post to your blog? Just click on the "Blog This" button on the Toolbar, and you will be brought to the Blogger editing screen with a link to the web page already typed in.

Tweaking your blog

Here are some settings you may want to tweak in your blog.

Layout Style - Provides options for changing the location of your blog's gutter.

Main Blog Layout - Remove and add items to your blog's gutter, or just move them up in the list. A couple of items you may want to consider adding:

• Bookmarks - allows you to put permanent links to web sites in your gutter.
  
• Most Used Tags - if you're planning to tag your entries, this will list your most popular tags in the gutter.
• Link Blog entries - many bloggers post a lot of links to their blogs. With blog-city, you have the option to create a separate Link Blog. By using a Link Blog, your main blog does not become cluttered with these postings. The latest Link Blog entries can then be posted in the gutter.
  
• Profile - Let your students get to know you.
• RSS Add-Me - Easy way to add an RSS feed to your blog (more on this later.)

Edit Blog Header - Give your blog a usable title and add other info to the header.

Edit the Blog Entry Options - This is the place to go to control who can comment on your blog.

Theme Editor - Play with the look and feel of your blog.

Allow Future Blogging - Click on the Entries link and Select "Choose your Editor." Place a checkmark in the box that allows you to put a "Publish Date" on your entry form. This allows you to create seven posts in one day, but spread them out over seven-days worth of posts.

Let's create a blog!

To create our blog today, we will be using blog-city, a free hosted blogging service. Some features require a paid subscription, but it's only $35 per year and well worth it if it is a feature you really want.

Some other free hosted services include:

Blogger - http://www.blogger.com - Owned by Google, Blogger is the software used to create this blog.

Live Journal - http://www.livejournal.com - this site is typically used for personal journals.

WordPress - http://www.wordpress.org - can be hosted or installed on your server.

For more robust blogging, you can try these blogging tools that cost money:

Movabletype - http://www.movabletype.org is blogging software that can be installed on your school's web server.

Typepad - http://www.typepad.com - if you like Movable Type, but cannot use your school's server for blogging, you can use this hosted service, which uses Movable Type software.

Radio Userland - http://radio.userland.com - another option for a hosted solution.

NEW! Vox - http://www.sixapart.com/vox/ - is a new hosted personal blogging service that will be in full release in October. School librarians may want to keep an eye on this service. The privacy features in Vox may be just what is needed in schools where administrators are nervous about who will be reading your blogs. Posts can be set up to be only read by students, parents, or everyone.

Blogging resources

Read these resources for more information about why you might want to blog in your media center:

Blogomania! from School Library Journal, 8/1/2005
Blogging@Schools a presentation from Computers in Libraries 2005
The State of Blogging a January 2005 report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project

What is a blog?

Blog is an abbreviation for weblogs. This name comes from the fact that early blogs were literally logs or diaries written online. However, this name is misleading since blogs have grown to be much more than diaries. Essentially, blogs are web sites that are:

• Listed chronologically with all written content dated and timestamped;
• Easily created with a web-based form;
• Archived.

Standard features of a blog include:

• Comments;
• Permalinks, i.e. each posting has its own page to which anyone can link;
• Categories that a post can be labeled with;
• RSS feeds;
• Trackback, i.e. see who is linking to your posts

Types of blogs you will see:

• Diaries
• News
• Political
• Professional
• Collaborative
• Educational
  

Why blog?

First of all - don't create a blog just because you want a blog. A blog will not be successful if it does not have a purpose and content that students and teachers will find useful.

Having said that, there are several reasons why your library media center may want to use a blog:

• It's an easy way to update content on your web site.
• It gives students and teachers an opportunity to interact with your web site. Students can post their experience with an assignment or add comments to book reviews.
• Team blogs are an easy way to collaborate on a particular project online.
• You can highlight new services and resources.

As we go through this session and look at some school library blogs, you may think of other reasons to use a blog in your library. Feel free to post these ideas here.

Good morning

Welcome to Blogging & RSS in the School Library Media Center. I'm thrilled to be able to tell you a little about blogging today and how you can use it to support instruction in your media center.

My goals for today are to:

• Tell you what a blog is and show you different types of blogs that are available.
• Show you how to create a blog in five minutes (yes, that's all it takes.)
• Look at different ways school librarians and teachers are using blogs to support reading and instruction, to disseminate information, and to collaboarate with students and each other.
  
• Explore what RSS feeds are and how you can not only create them easily with your blog, but how you can use them to keep up with news.
• If time allows, we'll also look at creating a Podcast and how it fits into blogging and RSS.
  

I would like to hear what your interest is in blogging. Are you considering it for your media center? Are you just interested in learning about the communication tools that your students may already be using? Do you see any barriers to using blogs in your library media center?