Using Shelfari in the Classroom (or at Home) !

 

Shelfari is a "collection tracker service that lets you list the books you own, see what others are reading, gather recommendations, and share opinions."  Brought to you by Amazon.  Of course, they also have a pretty decent blog.  Here are some ways that you could incorporate produsage into your secondary classroom using Shelfari:

1. There are groups to join (like book clubs).  There are clubs for individual grades at individual schools.  There are groups for first year high school teachers!  You can follow people that enjoy reading similar genres, and an active feed of reviewers.  Encourage students to select meaningful reviews and then create their own so that they get into the habit of becoming site contributors.

2. Students can get excited about saving books they've read and books they want to read to their virtual bookshelf.

3. Have students create a "Read Me Museum" where students take a multisensory and multimedia approach to the old fashioned book report.  Use books in a series or "If you liked X, you'll love Y..." to promote continued reading.  Post these ideas in your group thread.

4.  Establish a book sharing program so that books that are purchased can become a part of the classroom library or maybe even a classroom 'wish list'.  I wrote two different grants for books when I was a high school teacher and received $500 both times for books for our classroom.

5.  Students can read, write and edit plot summaries, popular quotes, and character descriptions from their favorite stories.  This helps them interact with the text, even when the reading is complete.