Last year at my school we had all Y8s make book videos and used BookTok as the context or inspiration. This year we opened it up to the whole school as a competition. In making model videos I had fun using the popular CapCut app, showing how to make a video in Padlet, and as a screencast with PowerPoint. The variety was to make it accessible but also show people that they didn’t have to appear in the video or even speak to make a fun contribution. However, this was all closed outside the school, so more ‘inspired by’ BookTok than taking part.
Similarly, I’ve used GoodReads in reading classes as an option and asked students to see what is recommended as ‘similar to’ a book they love, or look at genre/theme lists on GoodReads and then see if they agree and see if there’s something to be added to a ‘to be read’ list. But again, what we’re doing here is recognising such sites as useful as a point of discussion or inspiration rather than getting involved. I think we’ll be doing something similar soon with AI recommendation tools: trying them together, working out their strengths and limitations.
Simply, perhaps quite obviously, people love seeing recommendations from people they know. We have ‘reading captains’ in every Y7 and Y8 class in our (quite large!) school and have their ‘picks’ on display in the library and they get snapped up. Each class has a Padlet page for various activities, including sharing recommended reads and creating awards for books, which we often refer students to for ideas. But again, these are all internal ‘social’ tools.
Looking externally, I made a push for our school to get involved with School Library Association of Victoria’s (SLAV) Shelftalkers this year and last year but was knocked back both times, due to privacy concerns (even though SLAV have thought of this already).