Dear Learning with Computers members,
For many of us, summer vacation is a great time for reading, and soon we'll be back in school and reading with our students.
This month at LwC, we will explore various online tools that can be used to bring literature to life! In week one, we'll start with Shelfari, a social network for people who like books.
With Shelfari, members can share their bookshelves, connect with friends, discover new books, and participate in groups. Join us this month to explore the wonderful world of social reading!
Jane Petring, Mary Hillis, Carla Arena, and Cris Costa
Week 1
Task 1
Create or update your profile on Shelfari.
Write your username in the table below and add other members as friends on Shelfari.
Task 2
Join the Learning with Computers group on Shelfari.
http://www.shelfari.com/groups/27166/about
Task 3
Use this space for any questions or comments about Shelfari. Also, consider the following questions:
- What are the advantages of social reading networks, like Shelfari?
- What are the disadvantages of social reading networks, like Shelfari?
- How might Shelfari be useful for your personal or professional development?
- How might Shelfari be useful for a class you're teaching?
Highlights of Week One
From our Shelfari forum:
Susana asked, How do I find LwC friends on Shelfari?
There are a couple of easy ways to find friends from LwC. First, look at the members of our LwC group, and then click on their photos to get to their profiles; then you can add them as friends. The second way is to look at our list on the wiki page where members should be adding links to their Shelfari profiles. In fact, the link to Berta's profile is there! http://learningwithcomputers07.pbwiki.com/LwC+Living+Lit
In fact, I received a request from Susana asking, "Should I read The Hobbit"? The e-mail stated, "If you’d like a book recommendation, you can ask your friends or other Shelfari members what book you should read next. Just find a book and click the 'should I read this' button in the book popup."
As for students, I think a social reading network would be most useful in a class library project. That way students could read what their classmates have to say about the books they have read before deciding which book to read or buy themselves. In the case of language students, these recommendations could include information not only about how interesting they found the book but also about the difficulty of the language, the complexity of the narrative, and whether they would recommend the book to other learners of English. A selection of books (highest-rated or random) could be added to the class webpage using one of the widgets provided. This project could continue over the years in such a way that students would be writing recommendations not only for their classmates but for future students as well (which would give the project a permanency that should make students more careful about their writing). Students could also use recommendations from former students to select class readers."
In terms of students, I've put library thing on the class blog so that students could see what I was reading, and I encouraged them to make their own shelf and begin sharing. However, as with all technologies, they didn't because I didn't take the time to guide them, partly because I wasn't sure how to use it myself." If you want to make a Shelfari widget, please see the Shelfari FAQ for widgets at http://www.shelfari.com/faq.aspx#a_widgets
Finally, a big thank you to all LwC members who joined our Shelfari group! Thanks to you, our group was featured on the "What's Hot" groups section earlier this week! I took a screenshot to show you!
How does Shelfari compare to other social reading sites?
Please see the following links:
From Illya "
How could we use Shelfari with students?
Birgit's idea "
Gladys asked, "can't we have a shelf in our group for books we might be reading in future? I thought we could share there proposals for book reviews on issues of common interest to us (namely, new technologies for the teaching of languages). Wouldn't that be cool?"
How can I give recommendations for books?
Very cool, indeed! Let's go ahead and add some books to our LwC shelf. Here's how: You can easily add books to the group shelf. Click on the book on your own shelf. After doing so, you will see the option "Add to group" on the right-hand side. Click on that and then choose the group you want to share with. Don't forget to click "Save"! Also, it is easy to write a review of a book. For example, when you mouse over a book on your shelf, a little bubble will pop up and you can write a review from there.
What are the advantages of Shelfari?
From Birgit "For me the biggest advantage of social reading networks has nothing to do with the social aspect of the network, but with the fact that it's a quick and easy way to catalog your books...." Birgit continues, "Another advantage is that these networks make it possible to get in touch with others who have similar reading tastes or interests and share recommendations as well as opinions about the books you are reading. The hard part is finding those connections whose recommendations will prove to be the most useful...." also from Birgit
What are the disadvantages of Shelfari?
Birgit said, "or me, the biggest disadvantage of social reading networks is the huge amount of time it takes to keep your library up-to-date. I sometimes wonder whether that time wouldn't be more wisely spent doing other things .... like actually READING books!..."
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