INKYS shortlists announced 24/9

Here is an ideal Term 4 promotion -
Ideal because there are only 6 books at the tail end of the budget year
Ideal because the books are all very attractive to students - they picked them after all.
Ideal because students get to do it - does not need a lot of input once it is up and running
Ideal because the books appeal across the years
And at last students get to vote for international books as well.....

At Delany the Book Club is promoting the INKYS and they have a jar - register your vote online and also in the Library jar. How else will we know what our readers liked?
Jan

New resources @ TLRU

The Design Way : intentional change in an unpredictable world : foundations and fundamentals of design competence.
by Harold G. Nelson & Erik Stolterman
Educational Technology Publications (December 2002)
745.401 NEL

Developing the new learning environment : the changing role of the academic librarian.
edited by Phillipa Levy and Sue Roberts
London : Facet Publishing, 2005.
Summary:
"This key text captures and critically discusses the librarian's changing learning support role in an educational context, providing guidance and practical support. Written by acknowledged experts across a broad range of roles in the new academic environment, it challenges thinking in this area as well as offering practice-based advice." "This book is essential reading for practitioners at every level within the higher education and further education sectors, including information specialists, learning support professionals, academic liaison coordinators and subject specialists, academic service managers and heads of library and information services. It is also a valuable resource for all other professionals involved in the delivery of learning support, and for students of LIS and of education."
Contents:
Introduction. The challenge for the academic librarian / Philippa Levy and Sue Roberts -- 1. The policy framework: a critical review / Peter Brophy -- 2. Pedagogy in a changing environment / Philippa Levy -- 3. Literacies and learning / Dorothy Williams -- 4. Key issues in the design and delivery of technology-enhanced learning / Allison Littlejohn -- 5. New professional identities and practices for learner support / Sue Roberts -- 6. New academic teams / Sue Roberts, Mark Schofield and Ruth Wilson -- 7. Responding to the e-learning imperative / Susannah Quinsee -- 8. Information literacy education in practice / Judith Peacock -- 9. The inclusion agenda and its impact on practice / Joan Chapman, Gail McFarlane and Stuart Macwilliam -- 10. A kaleidoscope of change: how library management can support the development of new learning environments / Philip Payne -- 11. (E)merging professional identities and practices / Sue Roberts and Philippa Levy.
027.7 DEV

Luke: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Paperback)
by Mikeal C. Parsons
Educational Technology Publications (December 2002)
226.406 PAR

The Inkys! A teenage book choice award

Insideadog website from the State Library of Victoria is a great literature resource for your school or public library - and now the Inkys have just made it even better!

The Inkys are Australia's first teenage choice book award.

There are two awards - the Golden Inky for an Australian book, and the Silver Inky for an International book.

It all starts with the longlist - 10 Australian books and 10 International. Then the panel of 6 judges will whittle it down to a shortlist of 3 Australian and 3 international books.

Information for teachers and teacher librarians is also available.

Don't forget to vote.

Write-A-Book-In-A-Day - Amazing!

Write-a-Book-in-a-Day is a fundraising initiative of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre and Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation. Write-a-Book-in-a-Day is a one-day writing marathon where sponsored teams will write a children's book in a day, raising funds equally for KSPWC and Children's Hospitals in each Australian State. Additionally a copy of each finished book will be donated to the hospital library.

This fabulous initiative, Write-A-Book-In-A-Day, resulted in incredible collaboration amongst students in Australian schools as they met the challenge to create an imaginative fully illustrated book - all in one day!!

Several schools in the Parramatta Dioese joined the competition this year as their way of celebrating Australia's Book Week.

Take the opportunity to check out the fabulous examples of the work at the Marian College Learning and Resource Centre.

They have made their books available to download and enjoy - you will be amazed at the quality, variety, and completeness of these final products developed totally in one day! Other books from around the country are being added to the

No time?

Then just spend a few minutes looking at and listening to the students Write-a-Book-In-A-Day VoiceThread which you will find at the bottom of the page. Press play and listen to their Voice Thread!!

Future Teaching Today

Last week over 180 teachers from Catholic schools in the Diocese of Lismore gathered at St Augustine’s Primary School in Coffs Harbour for a ground breaking conference on interactivity in the classroom.

Dr Anne Wenham, Director of Catholic Schools believes, “This conference is the first of its kind and a great testament to the existing skill base in our school. This technology has enormous potential to improve classroom learning and student engagement. We are proud of our staff and feel that these changes will gather momentum.”

The conference used the skills of over 20 teachers employed in local Catholic schools plus two invited keynote speakers, Dr Renata Phelps (Southern Cross University) and Judy O’Connell (Parramatta CEO) both known for their expertise in this area.

Conducted over two days and using classrooms with students present, this conference took on a very different approach to usual professional gatherings. Teachers participated in a variety of workshops on movie making, using Google in classrooms, Learning Objects, school intranet sites, Flash presentations, data projectors, podcasting and how to set up and use blogs and wikis. The classroom focus involved SMART, Promethean and Interwrite boards.

A wiki has been set up for follow up comments and ideas. Evaluations of the two days were extremely positive. Many teachers commented that this was the best professional development they had received. Already teachers are asking about next year’s conference. We would recommend this model of professional development to other school systems. If you are interested in more specific details of the conference please do not hesitate to contact us.

One Shot World Tour: Australia

"Best read with Vegemite......."

Get a different perspective on Australian literature through this great initiative from a bunch of non-oz bloggers. Along the way you will be taking your own One Shot World Tour of fantastic literature blogs.

Nick Earls by Colleen at Chasing Ray .

Margo Lanagan interviewed at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Melina Marchetta at Writing and Ruminating.

Anna Feinberg and her Tashi series at Big A, little a .

Simmone Howell interviewed by Jenn at Not Your Mother's Bookclub.

Kathy Hoopmann's award winning All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome reviewed at Chicken Spaghetti.

How Sassy Changed My Life, The Red Shoe by Ursula Dubosarsky and more Margo Lanagan
by Gwenda at Shaken and Stirred.

John Marsden's Tomorrow series is discussed at Jen Robinson's Book Page

Jaclyn Moriarty and Penni Russon's Undine feature at Finding Wonderland

Alyssa Brugman's Finding Grace discussed by Little Willow at Bildungsroman.

Catherine Jinks and her four "Pagan" books by Liz at A Chair, a Fireplace & a Tea Cozy.

Does My Head Look Big in This? and John Flanagan's The Icebound Land feature at Interactive Reader

Queenie Chan interviewed by the YA YA YAs

Hot Men of Children's Literature: Australian Edition and John Marsden and "The Rabbits" (Part Two) (Part Three) at A Fuse #8 Production

Peter Temple interviewed at Light Reading

Am I Right or Am I Right? by Barry Jonsberg at Mother Reader .

Photo by Los Cardinalos

Be Cybersmart: Researching the Internet Wisely

This video comes from a series produced by The Mid-Atlantic Regional Technology in Education Consortium (MAR*TEC) at Temple University in partnership with The CyberSmart!® Education Company. In this video Joyce Valenza (internationally known teacher librarian) provides a great overview of the issues to consider in researching the internet wisely. Show it to students, staff meetings, or parent information sessions.

The purpose of these videos is to introduce the "new literacies" to educators — the challenges of safe, ethical, and effective technology use in support of teaching, learning, and living in the 21st Century. Further videos on Internet Safety, Social & ethical issues, and more are available here.

In2Edu - Education treasure trove!

"I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right." Albert Einstein

The In2Edu site provides an astonishingly comprehensive range of approches and resources for teachers - including fabulous support information literacy learning in schools.

The site features an information literacy programme/model called STEPS, born of a desire to help pupils make sense of and be creative with information. What makes STEPS unique is the range of variations that enable you to adapt it to different curriculum areas and different ages.

All 5000 best education links/favourites/favorites on this site were updated/verified July 2007.

They have developed a full information literacy programme similar to BIG 6/ SAUCE etc. It is supported with a range of downloadable resources and online activities to practise skills. Materials, posters, teaching tools and ideas are available across many curriculum areas. In fact, it takes ages to navigate all the dropdown menus and links to discover the wealth of information available. Rich tasks and deep thinking is included, and Blooms taxonomy underpins the rubrics.

Check out the downloads available, or navigate to the 'rich topic' curriculum choices below.

Discover Information Literacy

Audio Books @ Delany

I have been buzzing all week after the great input Jan shared at the Literacy Conference at Delany. The information was both very practical and thought provoking.

Jan gave details as to how to set up the system in the Library as well as very sound reasons as to why we should be exploring such systems to improve student outcomes, especially in Literacy areas. The staff at my school have had me quoting Jan every day at every opportunity ALL WEEK! What a great session!

I have since thought about how to take advantage of the concept in a Primary School Library, considering limited budgets and resources. I was thinking of 'taking on' the challenge to conduct a Professional Action Research Project on this topic this term. I'd love to get some input from the collective wisdom of our group. Feel free to give any advice...and as much as possible...!! If there is anyone who would like to join me for a group effort that would be great too!
Frances

Joining the blog

Hi, I am Suzanne Singleton-Brown . I work as a Teacher Librarian for three days at Wakehurst Public School and .3 days at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Primary school. In a week I connect with 500 students through the two schools. Originally I was a Science Teacher ,so changing to being a Teacher-Librarian was an exciting learning experience. My initial experiences were mainly in reorganising both libraries to make them more user friendly. One is housed in a huge space while the other is in a tiny classroom. Both spaces now provide areas for children as they move through their school life, having separate beginning, intermediate and senior reading and research sections. Resources are nearly all computerised and we have experienced three different computer systems Oasis, Alice and Athena. This term I am going onto Client in the State system so my transition from Science Teacher to Librarian has certainly offered me challenges.

VoiceThreads in the Classroom

I have just been exploring the possibilities of VoiceThread. This website allows you to upload photos and add an oral commentary to a photo. If you don’t wish to record audio you can add text instead. Clear video instructions are given to set up a microphone for both Mac and Windows XP. VoiceThread is free for educators and students.
What a great place to store book reviews for your school!

What for....?

During the week I had a really grounding experience in relation to my use of Web2.0 tools and the reasoning behind it. I thought it would be worth mentioning, as I read with interest the comments earlier in the term about the use of the Bibliosphere Blog. I am also an avid reader of different blogs and articles on the use of Web2.0 tools in education…and how we, as educators need to keep up with the ‘digital natives’.

Here is ‘my story’! I had just finished a lesson with some six year olds where we had made a wiki about animal homes .We put the work in a wiki, to show their parents, all the things they had learnt, (skills & ‘content’). We also discussed how the students could look at that work in the classroom or over the holidays…etc etc. After the lesson I had another student bring me some work on ‘Dragons’ he had done on his own. As a reward, I offered to help him put the work on a special site on the Internet so that his parents could see it (I ran off all the ideas we had listed in the previous lesson with the six year olds.)

He simply said “What for…” & that statement ended up haunting me for the rest of the day!

“What for…” Are we asking these questions BEFORE we enthusiastically ‘embrace’ these tools in the classroom? Don’t get me wrong, I fully support their use and will continue to do so……

But are we being discriminative in our use?
Are we really using the best tool at the time for the intended audience?
Who are we anticipating IS our audience?
Who is meant to be using the social networking sites we construct and how do we set these up so that they ARE exploited to their fullest potential?
Why are we using these tools in particular educational contexts, is there a real purpose in that they will enhance student outcomes?
....Are we starting from the ‘right’ perspective?

I know I have a great looking library blog that has never had a comment, (although our parents do view it as they mention this to me). I also set up, with a Year 6 teacher, a Blog for the class where the intention was simply to give them a forum to have a voice. The Year 6 blog is used all the time. One student even made a comment one Saturday night within minutes of me posting! Do we simply accept that different blogs/Web2.0 developed sites have different purposes and leave it as that?

…..I posted a quote from a blog entry called 'A Problem with Blogs' on our staff blog. I’d like to hear what other TLs think! As TL's we often lead our staff in adopting new technologies, do others experience these moments?

Maybe we could start ‘a conversation……’ about it!
-Frances

Medieval helpdesk with English subtitles

I thought I'd introduce myself with this great video. Liblogger is my blog name-I'm Frances Manning a Primary Teacher Librarian. My Blogs are INFOZONE and hfsconversations and I am involved with a few class blog projects. I believe in our job you've got to have a sense of humour....this video really spoke to me! How do others feel about the message?

Love letter to a favourite book

Whilst searching for a picture book activity on Read Write Think today I made a couple of happy discoveries. The first was an activity which involved making a book which was an artwork in itself and came from Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord's Making Books With Children site. There are several beautiful free projects to run with there as well as books to buy with more ideas.

Susan also has a blog and this is where I read about a project she was involved in earlier this year called Love Letters to Our Favourite Books. The Newburyport Literary Festival ran this last April with an exhibition of hundreds of these love letters, mostly from children and through several local libraries and schools. The idea is to use an A4 or letter sized sheet of paper and present a tribute to a favourite book. Original text, quotes, drawings and all manner of art work can be used. It is feeling and imagination that reign supreme in the final product.

Read more about the project and see examples of the Love Letters in this PDF flyer from the Literary Festival. This is a very elegant activity which could be tailored to a number of celebrations for a wide age range.

Photo by Bellah