Take-Aways

from the archived webinar, "Building Reading Culture with Book Trailers," presented by Naomi Bates on October 19, 2015 at Teacher Librarian Day from http://www.classroom20.com.

#1 Book trailers appeal to students because readers are constantly creating visual images in their minds about what they are reading. The book trailer gives the reader an opportunity to create a visual representation of what is being imagined as the book is read.

#2 Students enjoy book trailers because as creators of the book trailer videos they have created their viewpoint of the book and made it come to life. Students can use digital images and videos with music, effects, and text to create new information about the book and are proud of their creations.

#3 There are three key components in a book trailer: imagination + movie program + creative common images, videos, and/or music.

#4 To fuel the imagination process in creating a book trailer, Naomi Bates recommends students begin writing down two key thoughts about the following eight areas from the book: color, font, personality, emotions, places, objects, symbolism, and voice. She shared the image below in the webinar:

#5 A Digital Gallery Walk with a variety of book trailers set up on computers in a computer lab or library can provide an opportunity for students to browse different types of book trailers to help students identify which type appeals to them. After students have created their book trailers, the activity can be repeated with a viewing of student book trailers by the class.

#6 Book trailers should be short one to three minutes ending with a cliff hanging rhetorical question about the book. Below is an example of a book trailer created by Naomi Bates:

Video Source: https://youtu.be/JI1olpbiWPo

Reflection

After watching the webinar on book trailers, I realized Naomi Bates had provided an excellent guide and resources to use to create book trailers and to use with students to aid their process of creating book trailers. She provided information about why book trailers are successful with students, advocated for Creative Commons use, and openly stated she wanted viewers to feel free to use her ideas and resources. She modeled 21st century ethical librarian behavior. There were some technical problems with the webinar at the recording site so I was not able to view all of her information. I was able to locate the information at http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/booktrailerresources as well as her blog at http://naomibates.blogspot.com. These two web resources she mentioned in the presentation are an excellent addition to my Personal Learning Network. Due to time limitations, she had to rush through the information at the end of the webinar. I felt it was a very worthwhile experience and plan to explore other sessions in the future.

Book Trailer Resources

Photos for Class (http://photosforclass.com) is an online site to locate safe images for use by students for their projects. Each image is downloaded with automatic citations and image license terms either at the bottom of the image or an information link is provided at the bottom right side of the image. All photographs are licensed by Creative Commons for public use. There was a wide assortment of images available.

Purple Planet Royalty Free Music (http://www.purple-planet.com/home/4583818248) is an online source for free music tracks which can be used with projects such as films, games and/or web sites. The creators, Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn, request the following credit - Music: http//www.purple-planet.com. The music is arranged by categories such as dance, drama, light, tense, or mysterious. Selections range from one to two minutes which work perfectly with book trailers or fifteen to twenty seconds which work well with images or photographs.

Stock Footage for Free (http://www.stockfootageforfree.com) is online source for free video content. A topic can be searched or located under a group topic such as beaches & water, energy, holiday, nature, animals, and people for use in a project. This site did not offer many videos and attempted to refer user to videos for a fee when they did not have the available video.

Kizoa (http://www.kizoa.com) is a free online source for creating a video book trailer. Account users can upload photos or videos to the site and add transitions, effects, text, animations and music to create a video book trailer or video project. The free version shows the product name, Kizoa, throughout the video.

Resources

http://photosforclass.com

http://www.kizoa.com

http://www.purple-planet.com/home/4583818248

http://www.stockfootageforfree.com

http://www.teacherlibrarian.org/page/teacher-librarian-day

https://sas.elluminate.com/dr.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.0123A6A2612276675196F4B484B3D2

https://youtu.be/JI1olpbiWPo