My
graduate degree requires students to complete a 100-hour practicum. During the practicum, students spend 100
hours volunteering at a school library.
It also requires a special project.
I am completing my practicum at a high school library this semester. Even though the library has an established
program, the library had a very basic website.
The library director thought it would be very helpful, if I could put
together a website for the library.
The
school district uses Google Sites for teacher webpages. Google Sites is not a terribly flashy web
creation tool, or at least I do not know how to make it flashy. I did some research on using technology to
promote books and came across the following article in Teacher Librarian.
CHANCE, ROSEMARY, and
TERI LESESNE. "Rethinking Reading Promotion." Teacher Librarian 39.5
(2012): 26-28. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Sept. 2012.
The article discusses the use of technology
to promote reading. What interested me
was the use of online book trailers. One
of the author’s is the creator of http://booktrailersforall.com,
an online tool to share publisher, student or teacher created book
trailers. It allows educators or
librarians to download the trailers for promotion.
The article also has suggestions on how to
create trailers. iMovie, Animoto and Movie Maker are mentioned as tools to
create the trailers. The best books for
book trailers are high quality books that might not easily find an audience. The trailers should be much like a book talk
– succinct but conveys the setting, mood, characters and conflict of the
story.
Book trailers seem like a great way to hook
readers. It allows those who love a book
to express their interpretations of it and share them with others. My only hesitation with book trailers is that
they could also impact the mental images a reader could develop from reading
only.
I am definitely going to utilize book
trailers for my website project. It will
be a great way for me to liven up the website and help promote books in the
high school library.
