Podcasting book talks!

A great idea from Michele Velthuizen Middle School Librarian American School of The Hague

"I recently started encouraging our middle school students to create video podcasts about their favorite books since peer recommendations sometimes work better than my own booktalks!

I set up my computer (a Mac Book Pro which has a built-in camera and microphone) in our reading room and have students come in during lunch break to create their recordings. They rehearse for a minute, then they record themselves using QuickTimePro which has a movie recording feature that is very easy to use. I then upload the podcast onto our library web page within minutes.

I've used these podcasts when classes come in to check out books and update their reading cards.

Click on this link http://fc.ash.nl/~mvelthuizen/, then click on "Watch a video podcast" on the main screen to see some samples.

To follow up from Marita's post on graphic novels, you might like to check out iFanboy.com.

The iFanboy.com Comic Book Podcast is a weekly talk show discussing the best in current comic book releases.

Ron, Conor and Josh will share what they loved and hated about the week's comics. With a deep, sometimes scary knowledge of the depths and intricacies of pop culture and the geek lifestyle, the conversations can spin off in many directions. While comics, graphic novels and trade paperbacks are the center of the iFanboy universe, the discussion often covers the video games, movies and TV shows which will capture the fancy of your regular comic book reader.

Something different for older students.

Getting Graphic

I started a new discussion at Read On today asking people to share student’s current favourite reads, with a view to starting some recommended lists for various age groups. Please join in when you get the chance – it will be interesting to compare notes.

When answering my own question first thoughts were about our comic collection, maybe because this was discussed on OZTL last night. Here is a bit of what I posted to that discussion, plus some local additions to the literature:

At Patrician Brothers our graphic novels are a big hit across the board. Like certain series books (Harry Potter, Deltora Quest, Alex Rider, Darren Shan) they have an appeal to reluctant and avid readers alike. In this sense they are a real boon in our efforts to develop a reading culture. Whilst many boys read books as well, some are having their first (and maybe only) positive reading experience with comics.

Earlier in the year I was travelling home on the train from our athletics carnival with the boys and was chatting with one of our very avid Year 8 readers. He was reading a graphic novel and said to me that it was actually taking him longer to read than a novel (and he is a very fast reader). We had an interesting conversation about why that might be. I don't think we should undervalue the visual.

Favourite links to resources on this topic:

Secret Origin of Good Readers
Free book download. Check down the page for the 2006 version. Plenty of quotes,links, annotated reviews, information for librarians and teaching activities.

The "Decline" of Reading in America, Poverty and Access to Books, and theuse of Comics in Encouraging Reading by Stephen Krashen, Teachers CollegeRecord, February, 2005 (More in Krashen's book The Power of Reading - search here for local publication details)

Di Laycock of Barker College has published an article and completed an action research project on graphic novels, adding a much needed Australian flavour to this field:

Developing a Graphic Novel Collection, Synergy, Vol.3, Num.2 (PDF)

Getting graphic with guys: Using graphic novels to engage boys in school reading From this page choose IBSC 2005/06 Action Research Project from the menu on the left.

Okay, I know you don't have time for all this reading. Maybe in the holidays?

Search the Biblioblogosphere and Beyond

It's worth taking a look at LibWorm to find the latest items of interest in librarianship - join LibWorm and create your own reading list, collect your favourite feeds, or just collect clippings. Choose from Feed Categories or Subjects. Nice one!

Of course, this also had to come along from Google! Go take a look!

Web2.0 & Primary Students

I wish to share an ICT initiative from St Michael’s, Baulkham Hills, and I hope we receive some responses to guide our future planning!

A colleague and I attended an Introduction to Podcasting course and as a result our Year threes and a class of year 4s have been introduced to podcasting this term …by two novices! They have been our second ‘group’ of learners to embrace Web2.0.

Audacity [free download] is the program we are using for creating the audio file, then using Lame [free download] to convert the files to MP3. We are yet to load the files to the web. Our students have been highly motivated by the opportunity to publish their research and understandings using podcasting. This is the positive aspect of the tool, combined with the students demonstrating some prior knowledge and understanding of audio - In year 3 we were able to add some ‘zing’ to the important [dry!] topic of Recycling!

Evidence from this exercise has informed us of the possibilities of podcasting with younger students. We have the opportunity to combine this with evidence gathered from our St Michael’s AGQTP project. Both projects indicate high levels of student motivation when they engage in a social networking environment. We used www.think.com as the tool for social networking in our AGQTP project. In that project, we were able to gather data not only related to our research question, but on many other areas including the social and ethical use of computers. For example: we elected to use the online tool Think.com as a secure environment for our research project. Several discussions were held with the students regarding social and ethical behaviours in the Web2.0 environment. Despite this, we had evidence of inappropriate comments from [unexpected!] students towards others. Think.com was therefore a scaffold, a secure and controlled environment - valuable discussion ensured, thus scaffolding primary students into the Web2.0 environment.

Moving into 2007, I foresee a wider use of these two environments at St Michael’s.
Radio WillowWeb scaffolds students, and I believe this is a model worth replicating as we enhance student learning. Think.com has the facility to upload multimedia files [i.e. podcasts], thus providing a secure environment to develop our students’ ethical use of the Web2.0 environment.

Please comment and give us encouragement to keep developing ‘authentic’ Web2.0 educational pedagogy in our large primary school…with all its associated issues relating to access to hardware etc etc!

Read On! - An update from Marita

At last Thursday’s Network/PD Day we neglected to give the group an update on our readers’ advisory initiative, launched at an after school meeting on 9th November. The “plan” (in its most flexible sense) is to start with course materials provided by the good people at NoveList (part of our EBSCO database suite) and develop our own local context support materials.

WHAT IS READERS’ ADVISORY?
Readers’ advisory is that part of our role where we assist students to discover reading which matches their wants. Like the reference interview, it is a specialised interaction and a good opportunity to practice one of our great potential strengths: the human touch. Stephen Abram in Waiting for your cat to bark – Competing with Google and its Ilk, Part 3 suggests the following summary of where opportunity lies for libraries:

Librarians aren’t just about search; we’re about improving the quality of the question. End users are about “find and discover.” We need to be clear on that. If we focus on search, we are focusing on Google’s best game. If we focus on the question, the human touch, and overall customer experience, then we will not only survive, we’ll thrive.

And, of course, in schools readers’ advising skills have relevance for teacher librarians, library assistants and classroom teachers.

RA-101 Lite
The course materials provided are based on sound principles developed from research and practice. However, most examples are about adult users and the references used are not Australian. Thus the need for local content.

RA-101, full version, was a joint project of EBSCO’s NoveList and the St. Louis Public Library, Minnesota. It grew out of a manual called Talking With Readers: A Workbook for Readers’ Advisory, by Duncan Smith and Suzanne Mahmoodi, Ipswich, Mass.: Ebsco, 2000, which is available from NoveList as a PDF file for subscribers. (Readers’ Advisory tab.)

Talking With Readers was developed using action research, but that is another (very interesting) story!

READ-ON!
Thanks to Frances Manning we have a wiki space and a good name for our context building exercise. When you go to Read-On! Click on “Manage Space” to see who has joined (about five so far). Contact a member and and ask them to send you an invitation to join. (Also done from Manage Space by a member). The space is evolving and contributions are eagerly awaited.

Finally another quote from Stephen Abrams' article:

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Let’s be clear – that’s too long term – we need to do something now.

Introducing our next super contributor!

Welcome to our newest contributor, Marita Thomson, who has been 'blasting the cyberwaves' for what seems like 'forever'! Marita is busy exploring all sorts of digital and web tools in her work at Patrician Brothers.
There's Marita, bottom left, with some of the other attendees at the IWB 2006 conference. I'll leave it to her 'showcase' her initiatives. Let me just say - they are ALL worthwhile.

Smart Learning is just one of these...and there are more. Don't you just love how easy it is to learn from each other?

Welcome to our Newest Contributor!

One way or another, there's been a lot going on in some of our school libraries that needs to be shared with with others. Collaboration and the social networking power of Web 2.0 means ....... you guessed it - time for this blog to develop and more in to a newer phase.

Patricia Lee from St Michael's has joined me as a co-contributor (read 'blog team member'), so that she can share directly some of the things that are happening at her school as well as explore the world of 'professional' blogging.

Watch this space for Patricia's contributions........................

Are you keen to explore the world of 'professional' blogging too? I would welcome a couple of other keen and regular bloggers to our Weekly Update.

Lets make this blog a great place to share discoveries as well as initiatives and achievements in our schools.

Virtual Bookshelf - the 'shelfari' possibilities.....

I spotted this, and thought that this new Web 2.0 tool provides a great virtual tool, to create a great virtual display, and provide the option for virtual sharing of books.

I can see a virtual display like this sitting quite nicely as part of a library web site, library wiki, CeNet, or just a classroom blog.

Imagine the possibilities for promoting reading - premier's reading challenge? or anything really.........

Seems like a cool tool. Can't wait to see who gives Shelfari first go!

We're Wondering - questions from Year 3

Have you got computers and library books handy? Looking for an information hunt to help kids in another school. Then why not dive right into the questions being asked by the 'minilegends' from Glenelg school in SA.

Al Upton visited us at Parramatta recently, and met some of our teachers. Al works hard exploring learning opportunities using technology.

So visit "We're Wondering" podcasts, listen to the kids questions (divide them up for your own kids perhaps) and get the kids to write a comment back with an answer to one of the questions. Al explains how he did these podcasts (easy tools) and how he made them accessible using box.net, the free online storage solution, which we promoted recently.

We're Wondering Podcasts

It would be great if a couple of classes could reply to the children soon! Or perhaps you have some lunchtime library users who would enjoy this challenge.

Book Plates - from My Home Library

Anne Fine welcomes readers to My Home Library with the following words:

Every day, we get messages from people who've just been told about us, or have stumbled upon The Home Library by accident. Schools, families and libraries all over the world: they're all delighted with our bookplates. Some of you are even making requests for different wordings that will suit you better. We're working on these as fast as we can, so keep checking.

For new visitors, let me assure you our bookplates can be used any way you like (except for commercial purposes). Some people print onto sticky labels; others print on paper, then use scissors and glue. (Don't forget you can always print out the black and white plates on coloured paper. Some look remarkably different against a fresh background.)

Everyone needs a Home Library. Make sure that yours keeps growing. Don't forget that books furnish the mind, and unfurnished minds are EMPTY and TIRESOME.

You will find black and white, as well as coloured book plates, in all shapes and sizes. There are lots of other good links too, including bookmarks, book reviews, tips & tricks, and more.

So dip in and enjoy!

Squirl: A site for collectors

If you like organising your things, and maybe even cataloguing things....if you like Library Thing, and if you are a collector of things, then Squirl might be the place for you.

Just this weekend I have been musing over my vast CD music collection, and thinking that a Library Thing approach to my CDs and even my vintage collectibles wouldn't be such a bad idea!

So being alerted to Squirl seemed timely and 'kinda fun!' Now I just want to see how many of my Library Thing friends make the jump! You have the option of creating a public or private collection, and a number of templates are provided. Squirl also incorporates the option of organising your book collection too - good if you want to keep things that you organise within the same management space.

For anyone who didn't notice - let me bring to your attention the small icon on this top right hand of this blog.

Box.net is a Web 2.0 'sanity' box! as it provides you with a free 1 gb of storage space online. There are many other great features. Click on the icon on the right, and get yourself free online storage!

Eclectic Bunch of Links I meant to share....

Educational Hotlinks for New Teachers

http://131.125.2.61/~njcms/newTeacherResources/index.php
These websites have been chosen for their quality and special relevance for new teachers.
Though this is not Australian, it provides some useful material.

NewsMap

http://muti.co.za/static/newsmap.html
Select the continent/location. Click on any country on the chosen continent map to get the links to ten current news headlines for that country. Click on the headline link to reach the article. Try this... zoom in on the map and click on a city to get news specific to that area of the selected
country.

Philosophy from YouTube
Monty Python - International Philosophy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrShK-NVMIU

For those who know their philosophers, check them out on YouTube

School-Libraries
(not sure about this, but you might like to add your school library?)

School-Libraries.Net is the largest directory of school library and available on the net. It has recently changed hosts and is now hosted by StandardCatalogs.com, a service to the library community offered by the H. W. Wilson Company.

Now we need your help:

1. Please visit School-Libraries.net

2. We are not strong in the international libraries listed. We would like to add more countries and many libraries from each country. If you would like to list your library, or school, please send us the information requested at School-Libraries.net. The more listings we
have the more useful the site will become.

Check the website for more information.

K12 Online 2006 - Unleashing the Potential

The K12 Online Conference opened with a Fireside chat on Monday 16, to be followed by a Keynote to launch the two weeks of presentations on Monday 23 October.

You will find details of the two-week program by looking at the K12 Online Conference Agenda.

All the sessions of the conference will be available for download, which is genuinel global! There were over 70 propposals submitted for the conference, though only 36 were chosen at the end.

It is the first online learning conference in the world which will use the the following Web 2.0 tools throughout:

---

• K12 Online Conference Hitchhikr — A page where you can read blog entries posome links that may be useful to you:
• K12 Online Conference Blog Tagger — This tool will help you generate Technorati tags for your blogs that will make it much easier for you to have your blogs accessible to other conference attendees.
• My Keynote Wiki — Here you can register yourself to the wiki page and generate your own conference notebooks for taking notes during the various presentations and conversations. Through this wiki page, your notes will be available to others — and visa-versa.

Here are some other links that may be useful:

• Setting up a Blogger blog — This is a print (pdf) handout that will help you to set up a blog using blogger.com.
• Setting up an EduBlogs blog — This print (pdf) handout will assist you in setting up an EduBlogs blog.
• Setting up a Bloglines Account — This print (pdf) handout will help you set up a Bloglines account so that you can aggregate discussions about this conference.
• Setting up a flickr account — Handout (pdf) for setting up a flickr account, though there will likely not be very many pictures associated with this conference — or maybe there will.

Now back to the Conference ........................

Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning

PRE-CONFERENCE KEYNOTE
Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning

October 16th, 2006

David Warlick
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
http://2cents.davidwarlick.com/

Presentation Title
Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning

Bio
David Warlick is a 30 year educator, author, blogger, and Web 2.0 programmer. Since 1981, he has been using information and communication technologies to help people learn, young and old. When his school could not afford any software for it’s computers, he taught himself to program and wrote award-winning instructional games, before computers could even display in color. His blog postings are read around the world, and his free online web tools are accessed millions of times a week. At heart, David Warlick is a teacher, with a contagious passion and enthusiasm for helping people discover a brand new world of teaching and learning.
David blogs at http://2cents.davidwarlick.com/
and podcasts at http://connectlearning.davidwarlick.com./

Download the Presentation and take a listen
http://k12online.wm.edu/k12online2006_optz.mp4

Bookmark the Conference Website, and take advantage of this wonderful digital learning opportunity.

Celebrating School Libraries

School libraries - almost every school has some form of a school library. To paraphrase a quote by American novelist Shelby Foote, a school is just a group of classrooms gathered around a library. Now we need to turn the attention to something that is rarely done for school libraries. It is something that many teacher-librarians find difficult to do - we need to promote ourselves - we need to celebrate!

We can celebrate our programs by showcasing students' projects in a number of ways, including displays in the library or office display cabinet and publishing written work in the school newsletter or on a website. Why not approach the local newspaper to have students' work published in the weekend paper? What about the local media showcasing the actual unit in action?

But the best way to celebrate school libraries is on the fourth Monday in October. International School Library Day was proclaimed in 1999 by then International Association of School Librarianship president Dr. Blanche Woolls and reaffirmed last year by the current International Association of School Librarianship president, Peter Genco.

International School Library Day is an opportunity for school libraries to showcase their role in the promotion of reading and literacy skills as well as information literacy skills, which help to provide the foundations for lifelong learning. School libraries matter and make a difference!

International School Library Day provides the school community an opportunity to celebrate the importance of the school library. It is a day where teachers, students, parents, administrators and of course teacher-librarians stand up and show the public that school libraries matter.

On Monday October 23, 2006, school communities around the world will be celebrating the eighth International School Library Day with the theme of "Reading. Knowing. Doing".

Tell us about your activities!

If you have any events or activities for International School Library Day, please use this form to provide information to IASL. Your activities and projects will then be listed in this International School Library Day section of School Libraries Online. Not only will this help to publicise your activities, but it will also help colleagues in other places who are looking for ideas for this special day.

Rick Mulholland

International School Library Day Coordinator, International Association of
School Librarianship.