Books read on index cards

[Jackie Corrigan <jcorriga@MINET.GOV.MB.CA>]

I had what I thought was a great idea for having students share books
they like.  I created a ClarisWorks database template for book reviews
that included call number, author, title, genre, rating, and review.
The rating and genre fields were default settings that just required
the students to click the appropriate box.  The idea is that they
would rate (one thumb up/two thumbs up) the books they read, and right
a short blurb.  The technology teacher installed the template in the
Middle School computer lab.  I thought this would be an authentic task
for the students since, once the teachers had marked the review and
the students had edited their work, the reviews would be transferred
to the Library network as a locked, read-only file.  The beauty of the
database template of course, is that it is fully searchable by genre,
rating, author etc. even by student name.  We emphasized that future
generations of students would be reading their reviews.  Sounds great,
don't you think?  Unfortunately, up to this point, I haven't had a
single review come to the Library yet.  The teachers seem to be a
little too busy to have followed through.  But I'm still hoping!
--
Jackie Corrigan
St. James Collegiate/George Waters Middle School Library
Winnipeg, Manitoba  Canada
e-mail  jcorriga@mbnet.mb.ca
School Library URL http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/~stjames/library.html