Saturday, July 25, 2009

You Tube

The first time I went to You Tube was probably a few years ago and I've continued to visit every once in a while. The last time, my daughter and I were looking at trailers for the latest Harry Potter movie. To be honest, I never looked up library stuff until this week. I started out with a book cart drill team performance. I thought the song ("I Want to be a Librarian" by Haunted Love) featured in the performance was a crack-up, so I looked up the video. I went on to watch a few trailers- for txshare, for a school library, for databases... I thought one library tour I watched was a good idea and I enjoyed a library contest submission. There were a number of interviews- I watched one with Stephenie Meyer at TLA. There were clips from a game in which I'm guessing the objective is to annoy the librarian. (Many of the clips enforce the librarian stereotype.) You Tube is potentially a very useful tool, but you would have to let people know where to find anything that you've uploaded- on your webpage, newsletter, etc. because people aren't likely to happen upon it serendipitously. Because of copyright and legal issues with posting pictures of students online, I would be leery to create something of my own and put it out there for the whole world to see. For professional development and instructional purposes, I would use the mini tutorials. I saw a Facts on File database tutorial, for example. This is particularly helpful with your visual learners. When I'm struggling with something, I might check You Tube for help from now on.

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