Video Book Trailers & Destiny

Two years ago, Doris Murphy, one of our 8th grade English teachers, approached me with an idea about creating book reviews. After discussing the project, we decided that adding technology would make it much more interesting for everyone.

We are a Mac school and began by creating enhanced podcasts in Garage Band. Students had the option of taking their own photographs or using copyright-friendly images to accompany their recorded scripts. We had some adventurous students branch out into iMovie last year with varying degrees of success. At our project-end meeting, we knew we had to make some changes.

1. Students lost focus on the message when trying to act in their own videos
2. Students were too busy acting in other videos to focus on their own
3. We needed to have an authentic audience for the projects

Thanks to the fabulous resources available via Twitter and LM_Net, we found out about Teresa Schauer and her Book Trailers for All project. We were so inspired! Using images imported to iMovie or Animoto allowed students to focus on the mood, message and persuasive aspects of the project. However, we were still limited to a captive audience of students in the same block.

The district upgraded to Destiny in the Fall of 2009. We knew the system had the ability to handle multimedia, but our IT department was reluctant to grant us access to the server. As media specialists, we knew we had not only our administrators but also the standards on our side - we continued to push the issue. At a recent meeting of LMS, IT and administrators, we again proposed opening access to the multimedia permissions. The planets aligned, and we were given access.

It is a simple process from our perspective. The person(s) who has (have) District Administrator privileges will need to grant access by following the steps below and logging in at the district level.

To see the status of your site, log in as the administrator for your school and click 'Back Office'

Click on 'Access Levels' in the left column

Select one to look at by clicking on the edit icon (your levels may have different labels than mine)

Click to enlarge

 Scroll down and look for 'Library Catalog Search Access' in the left column

If this access level is able to upload digital content, the box will be checked. Until yesterday, that box had a line through it just like the last one in the screen shot.

I do want every access level to come through me for approval first so 'Approval not required' remains unchecked. You will need to check each access level individually.

If you find that your access levels are not allowed to upload digital content, request it be opened from your Destiny system administrator (for us it is our network IT guy).

To add content is the easy part!

Click to enlarge

• The reviewer searches for the book in the OPAC
• Click 'Reviews' tab
• Click 'Add Review'

• Option to rate with stars
• Option to write a review
• Option to choose a file
• Enter text for the hyperlink
• Locate the multimedia file
• Upload

Click to enlarge

Click on this link to view this screen shot's page. The trailer was added at our high school. We are still going through the middle school projects, so only one has been uploaded here.

The process, once unlocked, is extremely simple. I am more than happy to walk you through it; enjoy!