SpineOut is a new Australian online magazine for young adults produced by the team responsible for the Good Reading magazine.
Currently the first issue is available online and it looks engaging.
Students also have the opportunity to contribute to the magazine.
Helen Boelens has passed on information about the Children’s literacy lab.
She explains
It is an interesting programme which is trying to investigate how children actually use digital books. It is hoped that the research will help school librarians and teachers to adjust to the way in which pupils use E-books.
With lots of resources, information, tips and news, this is an interesting site to peruse.
Australian publishers such as Penguin and Allen and Unwin are now providing some really great content on their websites for YA readers.
Between the lines blog is Penguin’s offering while Allen and Unwin’s Teen page is their home for YAs.
These sites are fantastic for promoting reading as they contain:
and more. All of these resources make it easier to promote reading to students. I would love to hear what other publishers are doing.
A couple of new YA fiction books about gaming have recently been published and are must reads for teacher librarians, library staff, teachers, parents and of course young adults themselves.
I recently read and reviewed For the win by Cory Doctorow. Covering a global approach to gaming, much of this book is actually based in fact. It’s quite scary to think that economies are influenced by the invisible and virtual gaming economy and that young adults can earn more money from gaming than their currently parents earn. For the win is available in paperback or ebook format and the ebook download is free. My review is here, thanks to CMIS.
Helen Boelens alerted me to another new book, this one by Salman Rushdie. Helen explains that “Luka and the Fire of Life makes references to Super Mario and there is a strong connection between the story and the video game.” Information about this book from The Huffington Post is available here and a review by The Guardian is available here.
It seems (and it is) a long time ago that Space Demons was published. However I think that these books are an excellent way of discussion and coming to terms with gaming and how it affects our young adults. We can build on this information. Remember that the 2010 K12 Horizon Report assessed gaming as becoming mainstream in education in 2-3 years. One of those years has almost passed.
The MeeGenius library enables users to read children’s books, personalise and share them for free.
A range of classic children’s books are available including versions of:
The stories have been recorded and are read aloud. As the story progresses, words are highlighted for readers to follow and learn. This makes the MeeGenius library perfect for young children learning to read and young language learners. Users can personalise stories for specific audiences, however if users wish to save these stories for use later on, they must register and login. Some stories appear to be abridged, others are not.
A MeeGenius app is available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch as well (A$2.49).
Thanks to Kelly Tenkely from i Learn technology for the heads up on this great tool!
ReadCloud is a fascinating free site that may be useful for teacher librarians and English literature teachers.
ReadCloud offers free eBooks to either read online or to download and read later. All books are those out of copyright, so expect classics like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations and War and Peace.
ReadCloud also offers online reading groups, and enables teachers to manage groups of readers, who can be added by invitation and kept private. Groups can add comments and make reading interactive and therefore more engaging and collaborative. There is also the opportunity to change the font of the text, search a dictionary and search the internet. This makes ReadCloud ideal for student use, however it could also be used for staff book clubs and private book groups.
This presentation explains more:
ReadCloud from LeBard on Vimeo.
ReadCloud is an Australian development and well worth investigating.
Audio Owl is a site that provides listings of audio book recordings that are in the public domain; that is out of copyright and freely available for anyone to download to mp3, iPod or iTunes formats. Genres include fiction, fantasy, children’s, young adult, adventure and mystery. Downloads are quick and if using iTunes are saved as podcasts.
Some titles include Anne of Green Gables, the Secret Garden, the Call of the Wild and the Getting of Wisdom.
Thanks to Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) from Free Technology for Teachers for passing on the link to Audio Owl.
The Interactive Content Corner blog is one worth checking out!
Author Emily Starr says:
My name is Emily Starr. I’m a former fourth grade teacher, President of StarrMatica Learning Systems, and an interactive content enthusiast!
I started integrating online interactive content in my classroom instruction five years ago, and teaching with technology has been my passion ever since.
This blog is dedicated to the “Now what?” of teaching with technology. My mission is to help you bridge the gap between knowing how to operate hardware and actually integrating technology into your instruction.
As Emily says, all of her posts are dedicated to explaining how to use specific tools in the classroom for learning and teaching. Although probably more appropriate for primary overall, there are tools and examples that could also be used in secondary. One example of this is Online Comics in the Classroom. There is also a free eBook for teachers to download that centres on teaching fractions using online websites. You can find Emily’s tweets at http://twitter.com/StarrMatica
The Apple iPad has landed. At 5am this morning (Melbourne time) Apple launched their latest creation, the iPad. It looks like a large iPhone or iPod touch.
It has a 25 CM display screen. One really cool demo covered the New York Times where users can read a copy that is laid out exactly like a real newspaper. It also has embedded video to add to the stories and menus to access other pages quickly.
A full size keyboard pops up when you use it in landscape. It has high definition video and lots of application for gaming. Photos can be added directly to Flickr and Facebook.
But the big thing for us guys is iBooks. The iBook store is on the iPad and Apple have already partnered with Penguin, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon and Schuster. Interestingly some prices for books were pictured during the launch. Although in US dollars, Twilight and The Lovely Bones were listed at $4.99. That’s very appealing. Obviously a full colour screen so covers display as per the real thing. Fonts can be changed and enlarged to suit individual readers.
Bad news though; iBooks is apparently only available in the US upon the release in March. This is a serious problem for any Apple market outside the US, but understandable really due to publishing territories. Wonder when other territories will come onboard? No doubt this will happen though, as iTunes wasn’t available to other territories at one stage.
But the most important and fairly basic question that we as library professionals and educators have to ask is will the iPad bring more people to reading? I think the answer is yes and surely that is what we are all about, what we strive for in our work every day.
A view of the bookshelf and eReader
iWork, a suite of applications has been added to the iPad. iWork includes speadsheets, documents and presentations and is compatible with Microsoft Office. The spreadsheets look amazing and a numeric keypad pops up for data entry. These apps will cost (US) $9.99 each, whereas the iWork complete suite for Macs cost a$129.
As there will be a full sized keyboard dock for the iPad, it makes using the iPad as a regular computer so much easier.
The device weighs approximately 680 grams and according to my calculations is just over 1 centimetre thick. The iPad will come in 16, 32 and 64GB. There are WiFi and 3G models. The 3G are unlocked and should be able to use any carrier.
Pricing starts at US$499 for 16GB, $599 for 32 and $699 64GB WiFi models. 3G models add an extra US$130. The WiFi model will be on sale in 60 days, this availability is worldwide. We won’t have to wait here in Australia. The 3G model will be on sale in 90 days, but international pricing for plans or prepaid accounts will take until June or July to be locked in. As the 3G model has a Sim card tray, here’s hoping that we’ll be able to use the Sim card for mobile broadband access.
The pricing here is important in terms of the Kindle DX. Currently at A$489, the Kindle will face stiff competition from the full colour multi-faceted iPad. Will be interesting to see how the availability of book titles pans out on the iPad. Perhaps it is no surprise that a free Kindle app for iPhone and iPod touch was released today.
Apple’s specifications can be accessed here. A VoiceOver screen reader should mean that vision impaired people can use the iPad. It seems there is no camera for video conferencing or Skyping and the rumour of solar power was just that. The Engadget people covered the iPad launch event live, so for lots of news, photos and specifications, head over there. And here is a short video of the launch:
Questions about how the iPad may impact on school libraries are pondered here.
Here is the official Apple video of the iPad.
The 2010 Horizon Report has been released. If you are new to the Horizon Report, it looks at the future impacts of technologies on teaching and learning.
The six technologies to watch that have been chosen for this year’s report are:
Near term (within 12 months)
Second adoption (2-3 years)
Far term (4-5 years)
Of particular note to school libraries is possibly mobile computing and electronic books. The Horizon Report adds that:
- Network-capable devices that students are already carrying, are already established on many campuses, although before we see widespread use, concerns about privacy, classroom management, and access will need to be addressed. At the same time, the opportunity is great; virtually all higher education students carry some form of mobile device, and the cellular network that supports their connectivity continues to grow. An increasing number of faculty and instructional technology staff are experimenting with the possibilities for collaboration and communication offered by mobile computing. Devices from smart phones to netbooks are portable tools for productivity, learning, and communication, offering an increasing range of activities fully supported by applications designed especially for mobiles.
- Electronic books have been available in some form for nearly four decades, but the past twelve months have seen a dramatic upswing in their acceptance and use. Convenient and capable electronic reading devices combine the activities of acquiring, storing, reading, and annotating digital books, making it very easy to collect and carry hundreds of volumes in a space smaller than a single paperback book. Already in the mainstream of consumer use, electronic books are appearing on campuses with increasing frequency. Thanks to a number of pilot programs, much is already known about student preferences with regards to the various platforms available. Electronic books promise to reduce costs, save students from carrying pounds of textbooks, and contribute to the environmental efforts of paper conscious campuses.
Some other important points made by the report are
- Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession.
- Institutions increasingly focus more narrowly on key goals, as a result of shrinking budgets in the present economic climate. Across the board, institutions are looking for ways to control costs while still providing a high quality of service. Schools are challenged by the need to support a steady — or growing — number of students with fewer resources and staff than before. In this atmosphere, it is critical for information and media professionals to emphasize the importance of continuing research into emerging technologies as a means to achieve key institutional goals. As one example, knowing the facts about shifting server- and network intensive infrastructure, such as email or media streaming, off campus in the current climate might present the opportunity to generate considerable annual savings.
- New scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching continue to emerge but appropriate
metrics for evaluating them increasingly and far too often lag behind.
It must be noted that currently Higher Education authorities in the US are not promoting the Kindle due to its limitations for blind and vision impaired students. Thanks to Helen Boelens for this article.