TED talk by inspirational School Librarian, Dr Joyce Valenza

Dr Joyce Valenza is well known worldwide by Teacher Librarians for her innovative use of technology in schools and her contributions to the development of Web2.0 tools integrated into school research practice. She regularly visits Australia to share at our professional development conferences.

iPad Apps – Bloom’s Taxonomy

Kathy Schrock’s Blookin’ iPad has a wonderful chart organising iPad Apps according to their use within Bloom’s Taxonomy . She would like more people to fill in the Google Survey if they have found other useful Apps.

Having looked for some time for a simple ‘mindmapping’ tool, I was excited to trial the one suggested here and then upgraded for $2.99 for added features.

Books or ebooks?…. or both?

Our students have just had three weeks of holidays. Staff have been back for a Professional Development week, learning new technologies, planning and building the learning community here.

Our IRC has a comprehensive print collection but digital ebook resources for some curriculum areas are being purchased as funds allow. According to Kindelizaton: Are Books Obsolete? by Stephen Krashen,  the sales of paperback books are declining in comparison to the sale of ebooks.  This is based on the Amazon sales figures for January 2011 compared to January 2010. The point is made in this article that ebook readers and ebooks are less available to students of “high poverty families and under-funded libraries” and states that Ebooks are allowing the print-rich to get even print-richer”.

On the other hand in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 July, 2011 an article by Faith Sands looks at the merits of books and compares the reading experience of books with that of ipad and ebooks. Her opinion is that “There’s no substitute for books”.

As we constantly weigh up library budgets and the reading experience versus convenience and innovation, research based decisions have to be made.

Books go interactive – a TED example

Mike Matas demonstrates an interactive book on an iPad in this ‘TED’ clip. The book demonstrated is “Our Choice”,  Al Gore’s sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Schools these days are weighing up the use of digital books on iPads as an alternative to hardcopy textbooks and this gives valuable insight into possibilities. The comments on What this e-book is missing are also worth reading and provide further issues and possibilities.

Are you creative?…. Do you want to share your work or use the creative work of others?

The Bright Ideas Blog published this poster explaining the Creative Commons Licence. It was created by Karlisson Bezzera (Brazil), a blogger who goes under the name of Nerdson. Bezerra manages to explain creative commons in an easy-to-follow comic strip.

nerdson_CC_licenses

K-12 Online Conference

K-12 Online Conference

Teacher and interested parents – here is a free online conference dealing with:

“innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2010 conference theme is “Cultivating the Future.” This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 11, 2010. The following two weeks, October 18 and October 25, forty presentations will be posted online to our conference blog and our conference Ning for participants to view, download, and discuss.”

Experience taking part in a Ning, join the organisational Wiki, read the Blog and follow on Twitter!

Google Sets

One of the Teacher Librarians who has helped me the most in my learning over the years is Barbara Braxton. This morning she shared this new Google tool in a list serve email and I now pass it on to you:

Google Sets allows you to insert a term and it will generate a list of words that are connected with that topic which can serve as an initial brainstorming activity for areas to be explored in relation to the topic. Each term was a hyperlink to websites about the topic.
For example ‘rainforests’ produced: rainforests, forest, nature, ecology, eucalypt forests, climate, semi arid, savanna, heathlands, woodlands, global warming, deserts, ecology research, environmental science, environmental issues

Give it a go – a great start for mind maps

“Go to Google, type in a search term, and then, when the
results display, click on More Options.  Wonder Wheel is in the menu on the
left.  I find this so useful for suggesting sub-topics and narrowing
searches.

The Timeline tool is also fascinating. Search for your town.” Thanks Barbara

YouTube & Commoncraft videos to the rescue!

Commoncraft videos on YouTube are very useful for a quick overview on new technologies. Check out these videos – most only a few minutes in length. Start with

World Wide Web in Plain English if you are not already familiar with exactly how it all works. Go on to learn about:

Wikis in Plain English

Blogs in Plain English

Twitter in Plain English

RSS in Plain English

Social Networking in Plain English

Google Docs in Plain English