Bright ideas at my school: Ria Coffey

Ria Coffey from St Patricks College (SPC) in Ballarat talks about a simple but effective way to support broader staff use of technology and to increase the library’s profile in your school.

As part of our library’s strategy to be “fierce” (Dr.Joyce Valenza), to become experts in e-learning and to suggest tools to help develop information literacy school wide, I send out a weekly email to all staff called ‘SPC Bright Ideas’. It’s modelled on the Bright Ideas blog and talks about online tools and how to use them in the classroom.

I keep it short and consistent in style, it’s emailed at the same time each week and it’s always checked over by the school IT staff.  I get ideas from lots of different sources including Twitter, Bright Ideas and Dr. Joyce Valenza and Buffy Hamilton’s wikis. I also subscribe to a number of weekly feeds that generate heaps of ideas.

Staff at the school have been very receptive, especially those who’ve found an idea relevant to their work and have connected it to their teaching and learning. Ideally, I’d get to more Faculty meetings so I could discuss how and where these ideas could be implemented into curriculum.

All the SPC Bright Ideas are also added to the Library website for reference.

Here’s an example of a recent SPC Bright Idea.

SPC Bright Idea

This week’s SPC Bright Idea focuses on the use of Wall Wisher.  Wall Wisher is an online tool that allows contributions via sticky notes to a collaborative “wall”.  The teacher sets up a page, instructs students to access the URL and then contributions can be made by teacher and student.  (The notes posted by students must be approved by the teacher before they are displayed publicly).  A great tool for brainstorming and discussions, it is accessible at http://www.wallwisher.com/

Here is one my Year 9 class and I did this week:

Wall wisher example

danah boyd: debating privacy

danah boyd, academic and senior researcher at Microsoft, recently posted her responses to a Wall Street Journal interview on privacy and social media.

danah boyd blog

Some of the ideas she discusses include how people (particularly teens) use complex strategies to maintain their privacy when it matters to them. They’re still public but are deliberately ambiguous so they can control who understands their meaning. Will Richardson in a commentary piece on danah’s post talks about how these skills are a kind of literacy educators need to think about.

There’s also some discussion of how social media environments are easily as complex as day to day social interactions and require the same sophisticated skills we use to make sure our behaviour suits the situations and people we’re with.

danah boyd’s blog is definitely one to follow if you’re interested in social media, privacy and how communication is changing in an online world.

Reflection – SLAV Conference: Reading Culture

The National Gallery of Victoria was the perfect venue last week for the School Library Association of Victoria conference Reading Culture: Collaborate, Create, Celebrate. Presented in collaboration with NGV Education and Programs, the relaxed and collegial atmosphere for the day was set when delegates gathered in the morning sunshine for coffee and catchup chats. The blending of culture, literature, learning and technology amidst the treasures of the National Gallery once again proved to be an inspiring combination.

Bunjil's nest

Bunjil's nest

Sue McKerracher, National Year of Reading (NYOR) spokesperson opened the conference with an invitation to the audience of approx 210 to join the excitement of this special year that puts the love of reading and the sharing of its pleasures into the spotlight.  The range of resources and ideas on the official NYOR website indicate that 2012 will be an exciting year for reading in Australia.

Author talks are always an opportunity to get to know the person behind the story.  Alison Lester’s engaging conversation with Laura Harris of Penguin Books, gave us a glimpse of inspiration behind her career as an illustrator and writer.  Alison’s book Are we there yet? is the feature book for the 2012 National Year of Reading.  Her discussion with Laura focussed the book she wrote in collaboration with Coral Tulloch, One small island (set on Macquarie Island) and a special preview ‘peek’ at her forthcoming title Sally Scott goes south.

Petite and articulate author Alice Pung took the audience on a journey back to her father’s life as a survivor of Pol Pot’s Cambodian Killing Fields through her eloquent story telling.  She spoke of the lives that contributed to her books; stories of hardship and survival, full of emotion, yet shared in a way that emphasised humour and poignancy in the telling.  Her latest book Her Father’s Daughter has been a journey for Alice herself as she came to know and appreciate her father on a different level.

Workshops exploring the interaction between literature and art are always popular.  The linking of art, literature and Medieval history; explorations of the work of Albrecht Durer and the use of art to stimulate creative writing and thinking inspired a buzz of conversations.  I attended the inspiring session Bunjil’s Nest which had a strong focus on sustainability, Koori culture and environmental awareness.  It celebrates Bunjil the Eagle, creator spirit of the Kulin Nation and has involved numerous schools and community groups.  This is an ongoing collaborative project with resources available online that provide learning support and inspiration. A wonderful class activity.

After lunch in the beautiful Great Hall, delegates ventured into the ‘nuts and bolts’ activities of school libraries which included establishing an online bookclub, an exploration of apps, ipads, digital storytelling and the experiences of the SLAV/FUSE Web Elements Engaged Project.  At this time, I attend of the knowledge sharing session of SLAV members Joy Board of Beaconhills College and Anne Whisken of Carey Baptist Grammar School in an attempt, like many others present, to gain an understanding of the complex options available in setting up a library management system to handle the range of resources in today’s library.  The resources from these sessions will be available on the professional development link (past papers) on the SLAV website

The conference concluded with delegates being taken on a journey of the restoration of the painting The Crossing of the Red Sea by Nicholas Poussin with NGV Painting Conservator, Carl Villis.  Truly fascinating. You are invited to follow the progress of this major project online.

Presentation of SLAV achievement awards was the highlight of the conference.  The following awards were presented and our congratulations go to these worthy recipients:

 John Ward Award – Joy Whiteside, Overnewton Anglican Community College
Innovator’s Grant – Sally Sutherland, Melbourne Girls’ College
SLAV Research Fellowship – Pam Niewman,  Clairvaux Catholic School
School Leader’s Award – Julie Ryan, Principal, Our Lady of Mercy College

SLAV Awards 2011

SLAV Awards 2011

 This was another day celebrating the knowledge and ideas of library and learning professionals.

Camilla Elliott is Head of Library and eLearning Coordinator at Mazenod College, Mulgrave.  She is also Chair, SLAV Professional Development Committee.

Google Verbatim and search tools

A little reminder about the range of search tools now available on Google, which enable students to search much more actively and in a more targeted fashion. Some of these tools have been around for a while, but Google is always refining and enhancing (and sometimes removing) both the underlying algorithms and the functionality so it’s worth taking another look if you haven’t used these for a while.

Google tools

Students can explore the search tools in the left hand column on any page of search results. The options include some self-explanatory tools such as Dictionary and Sites with images (handy for homework), but also:

Timeline

This has changed recently, and as of last week you no longer get the graph of event dates (or the News timeline, sadly). Now, the timeline function allows you to refine your search results according to the date of publication or indexing. It does help you sift through results on broad subjects if you are looking for recent announcements, a particular historical event or something published in a particular year.

Verbatim

This new service allows you to search for the exact keywords you want, over-riding Google’s normally helpful attempts to correct your bad spelling or include synonyms and words from the same stem, which can clutter up your results. It still suggests correct spelling, but its default results are those that precisely match your keywords.

Social

This function focuses on search results that have been shared or linked by social and community networks. This is a taste of the future of search, as we move towards search engines placing higher value on web sites shared around between people and, specifically, shared by trusted people – that is, those in our own social networks. If you have a Google or Gmail account and are signed in, your results will include sites that have been shared by you or your friends, or from blogs to which you subscribe in Google Reader. As Google+ expands as a social network, and more people use the Google +1 button, you will see these intertwine with Google search results.

Reading level

Introduced late last year, Reading Level allows you to refine your search results according to very rough reading levels: basic, intermediate and advanced.

There are two ways to do this: either through the menu on the left-hand column, or through Advanced search – look for the little wheel icon in the top right corner of the search page.

Google reading level

Any more good books, Miss?

Continuing from our previous guest post by Bev Novak: a list of great tools that help students find books to suit them.

A simple but terrific site is What should I read next? Start typing the title or the author of a book you like and select the link that comes up to see heaps of suggested titles to read next. By selecting the little book icon next to the book title, the screen flips to Amazon where it’s possible to read reviews of the book prior to purchasing or searching for the book in your favourite library.

Maybe students would prefer locking into a social networking site such as You are what you read? Find out what others are reading – celebrities, authors, educators or librarians – by creating and sharing a ‘bookprint’ based on your five favourite books. See which books have been listed and liked the most. Search by book titles or people’s names and see others who have similar reading interests as the reader you are browsing. Alternately select a book cover to read more about it and then identify it as one of your favourites.

YAWYR

I also came across whichbook – a tool which allows you to find that elusive book to suit your tastes. Have fun playing with descriptors which help narrow down a book that fits with your taste or mood. Select descriptors such as ‘happy or sad’, ‘funny or serious’, ‘easy or demanding’ , ‘optimistic or bleak’ and then move the indicator tab to reflect how happy or sad you want the book to be, select GO and voila, book recommendations flow onto the screen. Not interested in creating your own book list? No worries! Just select anyone of the catchy categories such as ‘Slapstick’, ‘Short and sweet’, ‘Laugh your pants off’, ‘Weird and wonderful’ to see prepared recommendation lists. You’re bound to find something that tickles your fancy!

whichbook

Literature Map is another cool way to help put your hands on a next good read. To use, just type in the name of an author you enjoy reading and then watch a bunch of author names spiral onto the screen. The closer the names, the more similar the writers. It’s a great way to prod the memory for ‘like’ authors. And don’t be shy – add authors not already in the database so that the many quality Australian authors get recognized on this great website.

Use these websites and tools to entertain, impress, excite and entice students about the wealth of literature that is just waiting to be read. Answer students’ requests by not only recommending a good book that you’re pretty sure they’ll like, but by teaching them how to use these sites to find the next good book for themselves. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about?

Currently working as a Teacher Librarian at Mentone Grammar, Bev Novak is former Head of Library of two other Independent Schools in Melbourne. You can read more of Bev’s posts about books and reading on BevsBookBlog.

What’s a good book to read, Miss?

This week, a two-part post on encouraging reading, by Bev Novak

How many times have you been asked for a good book recommendation?

I don’t know about you, but often times, I go blank and quickly dive for the nearest computer so that I can trawl through my lengthy book log – the one I started many years ago – to jog my memory of books I’ve read.

But nowadays I find I can respond to that request in a much more exciting way.   There’s a plethora of sites out there that are fun, colourful, appealing and current. Not only do students get a kick out of exploring these sites, but along the way, they can be enticed and inspired to read.

One that immediately springs to mind is BookFlavor which greets you with an array of book covers – lots and lots of them – just waiting to be browsed and explored.

BookFlavor

By selecting a book cover, you will be taken to not only a summary, but also a host of reviews of the book – some of which are taken directly from GoodReads.

Know the name of a book?  Type it in and see what appears!   It’s amazing to see the range and number of book covers for the same title.  Don’t find anything enticing?  Just keep pulling the scroll bar down.  The more you scroll down, the more book covers load.

BookFlavor allows  you to search not only by title and author, but also by genre – science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller – you name it they are all there.   Try adding in the search term ‘Young Adult’ ahead of the genre.   You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

If you’re looking for something less flashy though, you may want to try Any new books?.  Simply register your email address, select from an extensive list of genres that interest you and enjoy receiving a list of new book titles emailed to you on a weekly basis.  How cool is that?

anynewbooks

We’ll bring you more of Bev’s recommended reading tools later in the week.

Currently working as a Teacher Librarian at Mentone Grammar, Bev Novak is former Head of Library of two other Independent Schools in Melbourne.  You can read more of Bev’s posts about books and reading on BevsBookBlog.

Google image search: advanced features

Drag and drop feature: Google images

Most students use Google’s image search but have rarely seen the advanced features of the engine. The advanced search option, which appears to the right of the search bar, lets you limit your search to line drawings, faces, specific colours, size, file type and more.

One example where you could use this feature is if you were looking for an outline of a country. By limiting your search to line drawings, you could very quickly find relevant maps without trawling through every other kind of image.

Google images also lets you drag and drop images from your desk top or other website into the search bar and gives you results for similar images. Google has a video you can watch demonstrating this feature.

QR codes: Ria Coffey

Guest blogger Ria Coffey, teacher librarian at St Patrick’s College in Ballarat, shares some ideas about using QR codes.

QR codes (abbreviated from Quick Response codes) are a great way to communicate with students and staff.  QR codes are a form of barcode you can link to things like websites and read with your smart phone.

They have become popular because they can transmit a lot of information, including geo-coordinates, urls and text.  You may have seen QR codes in magazine adverts, on a billboard or website.

To create a QR code, use a QR code generator like Kaywa.

Kaywa QR code generator

For example, this is a simple message I made for students at my school.

QR code example

To read the code, download a free application from the iTunes store to your smart phone.  QR codes are free and fun to use and the students love reading the messages.