1. It was fun and rewarding to present Cool Productivity Tools
with Bonnie at CIL. A few of our attendees emailed us to
say they really enjoyed our workshop and asked for more
of our handouts!
CHECK YOUR EMAILS LATER THIS WEEK FOR YOUR OWN
COPY!
Here I’ve summarized four sessions that I thought most
applied to us as Academic Librarians or were the most
interesting. Enjoy!
Katie’s Point of
View

2. LITERACY LAB: BRINGING ED TECH TOOLS INTO
YOUR CLASS
* This one was the most interesting, and potentially most
helpful for my position of Instruction Librarian.
• Presenters called for a shift to make students the content
creators.
• TPACK- an overlap of technical knowledge, pedagogical
knowledge, and content knowledge.
• 4 C’s- Collaboration, Communication, Critical
Thinking, Creativity.
Note: Presenters taught semester-long
information literacy classes at their
schools. Some of their ideas were
great, but would need to be tweaked
for use at Berkeley College.

3. LITERACY LAB: BRINGING ED TECH TOOLS INTO
YOUR CLASS
10 Ideas
1. Class Site: Wiki- PB Works. Learning Management Systems. Works with
Blackboard, but the students can access course content after graduating.
Layers tech info lit, plus content skills.
2. Flow Charts: Creately, Gliffy, Prezi. Students use these to organize research.
3. Book Reviews: Students journal with Blogger.
PB Works Gliffy

4. LITERACY LAB: BRINGING ED TECH TOOLS INTO
YOUR CLASS
10 Ideas
4. Mobile Scavenger Hunt: Goal is to identify library materials and
services. Work with 1 mobile device per team. Students use critical
thinking to find and take pics of materials like a specific book, copy
machine, study rooms, etc.
5. Bookmarking: Diigo. Students can bookmark and tag things.
6. Team-Based Problem: Students learn how to use Google Hangouts,
Google Maps and Google Drive in order to collaborate to survive the
Zombie Apocalypse.

5. LITERACY LAB: BRINGING ED TECH TOOLS INTO
YOUR CLASS
10 Ideas
7. Organizing Research: Edmodo. Google Sites. Wix (Flash-based:
consider compatibility this when asking students to use this for
their project).
8. Mix Tape: Students use Youtube, Grooveshark, 8Tracks to make a
playlist. They’re curating a collection and must use descriptions to
show why songs were included.

6. LITERACY LAB: BRINGING ED TECH TOOLS INTO
YOUR CLASS
10 Ideas
9. Fair Use: PicMonkey, Gimp. Take meme and evaluate it for it’s
fair use. Students should say something like, “They didn’t use
the heart of the work; the meme was only meant to be shown in
class, etc.”
10. Final Project: Jing. Students create a video on their topic, citing
sources in the video. Allows 5 min video or less.

7. CHANGE WITHOUT PAIN
 Get feedback. Make sure changes are welcomed/wanted by users.
 Focus groups, etc.
 Plan. Think of potential problems.
 Watch tutorials to learn about new products.
 Find mentors in the building, county, regional system, online or wherever
you can.
 Become part of library groups online.
 Read and participate in social media and blogs.
 Horsesmouth.co.uk – “Someone knows what you need. Someone
needs what you know.”

8. CHANGE WITHOUT PAIN
 Use the “Lazy Consensus” for collaborative change.
 Avoid unnecessary discussion.
 Silence is approval.
 Whole group gets the chance to say what they don’t
like about something. If you like it you stay quiet.
Default to yes.
 People with good ideas aren’t held back anymore.

9. ENCOURAGING READING IN NEW WAYS
 Allows regular people to catalog their books. Add books, create a
catalog. Add tags.
 Use LibraryThing to enhance library catalog.
 Users can see other users’ ratings and tags.
 SCALE IS EVERYTHING! LibraryThing’s massive amounts of tags
and reviews will add value and justification.
 Nothing is ever shown in the library catalog that your library does not
have.

10. ENCOURAGING READING IN NEW WAYS
 A product by LibraryThing.
 Makes book recommendations based on ratings
you give other books.
 User-based recommendations are now
ubiquitous.
 Designed to be attractive and simple.
Tips for giving book recommendations:
• Avoid giving recommendations for books of same
authors/series.
• Avoid just popular books

11. ENCOURAGING READING IN NEW WAYS
- One librarian discussed the “Game of Books,” a
reading program at his library. Participants get
stickers/badges on a bookmark for each book you
read. (I.E. Twilight would get a Nerdy Vampire
Badge).

12. Let’s you manage
Twitter, FB and social
media accounts.
- It would have been interesting if the presenters
talked about how they developed the app. They did
not and they left early, leaving no opportunity for
questions.
Create surveys to let users
request an instruction
session, recommend new
acquisitions, etc.
Count Things
Great for on-the-fly data
collection. Attendance at a
session, program or event
Librarian-Created
App!- Librarians developed an app which
patrons can use to contact a librarian
for assistance.
- The app, displayed on a tablet on a kiosk,
sends a message to a librarian in his/her
office, signaling that a patron needs help.
-The app tells the patron that a librarian is on the way to
help.

13. STAYED TUNED..
Next Library Buzz issue to include
Bonnie’s Point of View