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"Kill the Vampires"

Reading Matters is one of those events that one always hears the best things about. It is a youth literature conference for professionals and young people organised by the Victorian Centre for Youth Literature. They get an amazing range of YA authors together each year, and this year I heard great things about David Levithan's contribution.

The good news is that there is now a ten minute podcast of Levithan from a panel called "Let's Talk About Sex". He is asking us to vanquish those voices in our heads telling us what our bosses, parents and others might think of the books we put in our libraries. His reflections on the Australian YA literature environment are interesting as is his no nonsense attitude to that last "acceptable prejudice", homophobia. As Read Alert says:

It’s a moving, provocative and inspiring talk about getting the right books to the teens who really need them........ And you need to do more than hear it. You need to copy it, you need to put it on your blog, you need to tell people about it, talk about it, think about it. It has a Creative Commons license, so use it as you will.

Listen and share: David Levithan:Kill the Vampires

It is also worth mentioning a review of Levithan's Boy Meets Boy by Chris Wheat in Viewpoint, Vol 13, No 3, Spring 2005 (links to the journal but not the article). More than a review, this is a heartfelt plea for this book to be in your library.

New Contributor

My name is Sharon Brennan and I am the teacher librarian at St Augustine’s Primary School in Coffs Harbour, NSW. We have 620 students in 23 classes. Our school is part of the Diocese of Lismore. It is my pleasure to be a contributor to this blog. I began a library blog (Reading Rules) late last year and it is proving popular with our students. I am now encouraging other staff members to begin a blog with their class. I've just tried to link to my blog but have discovered that Safari does not support the formatting and hyperlink buttons on the posting screen. When the link becomes active, you'll know I have logged on using a supported browser.

Designing the 21st Century Library

Flickr image: ‘deliciouslibrary OMG” by petit hiboux

You can often find great examples of libraries who have already redesigned and reformulated themselves for the digital world. However there is not always a lot written about the processes involved in undertaking this change.

An excellent Australian paper A Prototype 21^st Century University Library: a case study of change at the University of New South Wales focuses on the organizational change involved in a library involved in constructing a new future for itself. It has added relevance for our libraries as it focuses on an academic library that needs to support teaching and learning activities much in the same way that we need to.

Building the Ubiquitous Library in the 21^st Century from the World Library and Information congress in August 2006 provides a “road map" for information professionals to utilize emerging technologies to “design, develop, integrate, enhance and implement ubiquitous library services and projects in the 21^st century”.

Lastly ‘Is todays library the new mall” discusses how emerging technologies and the change in how we think about learning is driving library design that engage library users in more experiential learning environments.

REFUGEE WEEK 2007 - June 17-23 Theme: The Voices of Young Refugees

In preparation for this special week Jenn Martin (from the aliaREAD list) has put together a junior reading list on Library Thing, as well as adding suggestions from others on the list. A great use of this social network. For lots of other ideas for celebrating see the Refugee Council of Australia

David Goldie's interactive documentary Long Journey, Young Lives is perfect for the theme, as is Médecins Sans Frontières' Virtual Refugee Camp. This is less interactive but combines great photos and relevant text to give a realistic picture of the experience of living in a camp. Then there is Cuc Lam's Suitcase, a 4-5 minute video in a series called National Treasures, telling the story of a refugee couple who came from Vietnam with just one possession - now displayed in Melbourne's Immigration Museum.

For more drop in to Blinkx and find another video or two!

Video-streaming resources

In addition to YouTube and TeacherTube, there are many other sources of videos from traditional news sources and educational sites. How can you find them all?

Hurray! To the rescue comes Blinkx... a video (and audio) search engine. You can put in your search term and get a list of videos from over 130 sources. You can then select the appropriate ones for your needs and can usually play them without additional software or other technology.

The Information Literacy Game

I was asked to source some engaging resources for teaching HSC All My Own Work after a recent assault on our Year 11s. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Your ideas welcome.

The Information Literacy Game is a bright idea you can try online courtesy of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, but better still they offer it for download with tips for customising to your own library or school.

Topics covered include plagiarism, referencing systems, choosing resource formats, search skills and specific local information, like library hours and services. Although the game uses all the same dry information as your typical info lit overview it injects some fun, competition and immediate reinforcement. You can play alone or in a group and actually learn as you go.

This type of material also has potential as a board game, a la trivial pursuit, and The Fletcher Library at the University of Arizona has developed such a game as a precursor to a computer game. Can’t access the game itself but check out this presentation Game On! Developing a Game for Library Instruction (PPT) Even more powerful would be if it was the students who wrote the questions and designed the game. (Although it could be a great one day project for a group of TLs and/or teachers.)

For another excellent resource which concentrates on plagiarism try What is Plagiarism at Indiana University? In spite of the title this is a very portable resource. It is described as a brief quiz and concept lesson by Ted Frick and uses specific examples with source and student work side by side. A great learning tool which reinforces concepts as it goes with immediate feedback. Not fancy but very clear.

Lastly, but in no way a lesser resource, is Alan November's page of resources: Grammar of the Internet. The eight resources here include a short quiz, detailed answers and specific activities which take the quiz items in more depth. It is addressed to teachers and includes specific web resources of interest in learning to evaluate - like hoax pages and those which intentionally mislead. Great material for teacher PD and then selectively for students as appropriate to your audience.

The next step is to road test some of these ideas on our kids (and teachers?) Who’s game?

Podbean podcasting at Marian College

Thanks to Joan for pointing us to this excellent and easy way to manage and deliver podcasts for our learning environment. Terrific!

What I particularly like about this is that I can grab and embedd the podcast here for you to sample! Even better, it looks as if I can use the same 'container' to deliver a podast collection - a bit like vodpod, which I put onto the ParraCoordinators Conference blog to deliver videos!

Cool Co-ordinator's Conference Handout!

What is a Blog? What is Web 2.0?

The journey into Web 2.0 is just like this...one step at a time. This is the message that Jamie Wahab and I reiterated at our workshop on blogging and Web 2.0 at the Primary Coordinators Conference.

Hats off to Jamie for a fabulous presentation of work being undertaking at Good Shepherd, and his ongoing enthusiasm for Web 2.0. We put together a blog as a 'digital handout' for those who attended the workshop - but of course it is public, and anyone can access it. You might find the compilation of help to you.

I liked two things. First, we created a delicious account to support the digital handout. Then I created a VodPod to make it easy for people to get the videos related to the topic.

Visit the Parra Co-ordinators Conference Spot, and enjoy.

Caroline Chisholm College

I spent a wonderful day at Caroline Chisholm, to see what Michael Stevenson and other super teachers are doing with Web 2.0 and CeNet for learning, and to talk about how to continue to improve on and extend the blend of Web 2.0 and CeNet.

Overall some absolutely inspiring work by teachers, particularly the Year 7 Visual Literacy unit, Year 8 music, and Year 12 - all using technology tools, online learning, and heaps of creativity. But best of all was the depth of comments from students and their obvious engagement with learning.

How easy!

All I did was drop a single photo collection from my Flickr account into www.slide.com - and look what I got!

There are lots of other things you can do to to create slideshows online. This was a 30 second job!....but I do use my Flickr account all the time, which is why it was so easy.

Scholarly vs Popular Journals at YouTube

I like the idea of preparing short videos as explanatory guides. Here is one that we could use. But wouldn't it be better if we could start creating our own, or better still, get the students to create short videos as part of their learning and assessment processes?

Anyway, we need more creative ways to reach out to our learners - don't you think?

EdTech: Focus on K-12

The cover story of the April/May 2007 issue of EdTech magazine addresses the important issue of cybersaftey.

Other articles discuss the growing popularity of podcasts in education, learning with the use of Web 2.0, and optimal classroom layout for use with one-to-one notebook programmes.

EDTECH: Focus On K-12 - April/May 2007

Also included are teaching ideas for 21st century learning. My favourite comes from Vicki Davis (key leader in the Horizon Project 2007) on Introduction to Wikis. In her 10th-grade class, students make movies and learn online safety through a class wiki.

EDTECH: Focus On K-12 - Lesson Plans II

Archives of previous issues are available also.

Library Design at Broadgreen

I was really inspired by a school visit in New Zealand. Broadgreen Intermediate in Nelson, hosted an evening cocktail party for the attendees at the recent SLANZA/LIANZA workshop in NewZealand.

The library is inspired by New Zealand art work, on loan from various museums. The Principal, Roger Brodie, has been behind the re-creation of a the new library for the school. The students came up with much of the interior design, and that first year of students is represented by a large photo mural near the circulation desk.

All the books are shelved in 'bins' facing outwards - and the Principal, who has a strong focus on literacy and getting the kids to read - says that circulation of books increased threefold with the new design.

There were lots of interesting design features - but the one that particularly caught my eye were the chairs. There is a Nelson company that takes old furniture and remakes it in the checkered and coloured designs that you see on the library furniture. That's the best part really, and the easiest for anyone to replicate!

Enjoy the photos, and think of what you might do!

Capturing the vision... in New Zealand!

I was very honoured to have the opportunity to work with my librarian colleagues in New Zealand, and to hear about the many initiatives there, and the particular challenges that they are facing and embracing! I am particularly impressed with the strong relationship with the National Library of New Zealand, and it's extension services to schools.

I am preparing and sharing information from that event with my New Zealand colleagues, located on their PD blog here. Included on that blog is the post Workshop Time that has the information used for the Workshops, and for follow-up afterwards. There may be material there that is useful for you.

I also wanted to share an edited version of the slideshow of the Presentation, as it will give you access to links and videos that I used.