SLAV Connects is a blog by the School Libraries Association of Victoria (SLAV), formerly named Bright Ideas when a collaboration between SLAV and the State Library of Victoria (SLV). Its aim is to share news from the Association and to encourage teacher librarians, librarians, school library staff, educators and all interested persons to actively engage with the school libraries, to share tools and experiences; to network on a global scale; and to embrace dynamic teaching and learning opportunities.
An Information Evening regarding careers in the Library and Information Industry is to be held on Tuesday 26 May at Experimedia @ the State Library of Victoria from 5.30 – 7pm. Representatives from the industry and representatives from tertiary institutions will be on hand to assist secondary students with advice and information. If you have students who are interested in information management, website design or any library field – please let them know! Please circulate this information to the careers advisor at your school and display the posters in your library.
Colour, black and white, A3 and A4 posters are available on the SLAV website.
If you are looking for a networking platform with all of the benefits of Facebook and the added security of introductions to contacts, then LinkedIn may be the site for you.
What is LinkedIn?
The LinkedIn website offers more details:
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.
When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments. You can then form enduring connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to a vast number of qualified professionals and experts. Through your network you can:
Manage the information that’s publicly available about you as professional
Find and be introduced to potential clients, service providers, and subject experts who come recommended
Create and collaborate on projects, gather data, share files and solve problems
Be found for business opportunities and find potential partners
Gain new insights from discussions with likeminded professionals in private group settings
Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
Post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your company
Relationships Matter
Your professional network of trusted contacts gives you an advantage in your career, and is one of your most valuable assets. LinkedIn exists to help you make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return.
Our mission is to connect the world’s professionals to accelerate their success. We believe that in a global connected economy, your success as a professional and your competitiveness as a company depends upon faster access to insight and resources you can trust.
LinkedIn is free, however, as per the usual, there are premium services that can be subscribed to. Here is a YouTube video that explains more:
Wolfram Alpha has now been launched. What is it? More than just a new search engine, Wolfram Alpha intends to answer your questions rather than direct you to other websites as per other search engines.
Homepage
Students are bound to latch onto this site quickly as it can answer mathematical equations as well as other school-related questions. Wolfram Alpha acknowledge this and as listed below, they encourage students to acknowledge Wolfram Alpha as a source.
What educational levels is Wolfram|Alpha suitable for?
Any level, from kindergarten to graduate school and beyond. On the elementary end, Wolfram|Alpha can do arithmetic showing steps, make clocks, work with colors, and so on.
Can I use Wolfram|Alpha to do my homework?
That depends on your teacher. If you do use it, don’t forget to cite it as a source.
Why does Wolfram|Alpha give a different answer from my textbook?
Check to see if your book’s answer appears under “Alternate forms”. It’s pretty common for some forms to look different but be effectively equivalent.
Should I cite Wolfram|Alpha when I use results from it?
Yes. For academic purposes, Wolfram|Alpha is a primary source.
How should I cite results from Wolfram|Alpha?
The citable author is Wolfram|Alpha. Don’t forget to include the time and/or place at which the query was made, as it can affect the result. You can reference results in individual pods by giving their names.
How can I find out what to cite when I use data from Wolfram|Alpha?
Wolfram|Alpha should be considered the source, just as an encyclopedia or other reference would be. If you include the Wolfram|Alpha URL in your document, your readers can go to the “Source information” button to get further references. Note that Wolfram|Alpha often combines and adapts data from multiple sources.
Is the content of Wolfram|Alpha peer reviewed?
Yes, the content is reviewed by domain experts. It is also extensively validated using automated testing. For external data, we strive to use the most reliable sources available.
Can I find out how specific results in Wolfram|Alpha were derived?
Elementary math results often have “Show steps” buttons, and combinations of data have “Details” buttons. “Source information” buttons give information on background sources for external data.
Does Wolfram|Alpha contain “adult content”?
No. It has no adult images or narrative. It gives only factual answers to factual questions.
This is the blog I set up for Year 7 English. Each class in Year 7 are spending a term on this Book Raps program.
Originally I set the blog up at another school and then transferred my ideas to Lowther Hall. The blog was designed to appeal to students as a new way to journal their ideas about their reading. The aim is for them to communicate with each other on the blog rather than just journaling in their notebook. They are able to share their thoughts and comment on other responses particularly if they have read that book.
One discussion page
This connectedness is one of the key goals behind the program. Once the program is finished then we will encourage students to evaluate the use of this blog. As I have used all their names in the pages, the top of the home page looks rather messy so I need to work on that element. I have also used the blog to practise using ‘image generators’. These were a fantastic tool that I found out about through the Syba Signs course. I also learnt in the course how to add in the live feed.
Congratulations to Glenys on developing a resource that is well used by her students. By reading their comments, it seems that they are engaged both in reading and communicating with each other via the blog. A terrific way to combine both reading and ICT.
The School Library Association of Victoria hosted a conference on 4 May 2009 entitled ‘Shared Perspectives’. Here are links to some of the conference presentations:
Are you looking for a totally safe way to use YouTube and other videos with your students but worried about them accessing stuff that’s inappropriate? Vodspot can help.
Vodspot homepage
Once you sign up to Vodspot, you can create your own video channel and drag and drop videos from YouTube, TeacherTube and many other sites to your channel. Then give your students your Vodspot channel address or even better, install a widget and link your selected Vodspot videos from your blog or wiki. Students will then only access the videos you have selected for them.
Student can add comments about their favourite videos and teachers are able to access statistics to see which are the most watched videos. Quite a useful tool for anyone who uses or is thinking about using the incredible video resources that are freely available on the internet.
The Digital Research Tools wiki is a collection of tools that is arranged by task, preceded by a definition of that task.
Wiki homepage
A great example is that of screencasting. The DiRT wiki gives the following information:
Definition: A screencast is a recording of actions taken on a computer screen, often with accompanying narration. It is essentially a movie of what is happening on a monitor. Screencasts are often used as tutorials or instructions of how to perform certain actions or operate certain programs on a computer.
Tools:
Adobe Captivate: Windows-based software that “enables anyone to rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations, scenario-based training, and robust quizzes without programming knowledge or multimedia skills” (commercial)
CamStudio: Open source Windows software records your computer’s screen and audio activity into AVI format. Can save into Flash format (swf) (free, GPL)
iShowU: Mac-based software for recording audio & video on a computer screen (commercial)
Jing: Available for Windows or Mac, Jing is “the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere” (commercial)
ScreenFlick: “features high performance screen capturing for smooth, fluid motion up to 60 fps” (Mac, commercial)
ScreenFlow: well-reviewed screencapture/screencast software for the Mac (commercial)
SnapZProX: make quicktime movie or screen shot (Mac, $)
uTIPu: Download the uTIPu TipCam, record a video of your computer screen, share online publicly or privately, and even embed into a web site (commercial)
WebSlides: Turn Diigo bookmarks and feeds into slide shows. Add background music or voiceover. (Free, web-based)
Wink: Wink is a freeware screen recording and editing software to create software tutorials (Windows/Linux, freeware).
DiRT is licenced under creative commons. The contributors include librarians and researchers. Well worth a look!
An Information Evening regarding careers in the Library and Information Industry is to be held on Tuesday 26 May at Experimedia @ the State Library of Victoria from 5.30 – 7pm. Representatives from the industry and representatives from tertiary institutions will be on hand to assist secondary students with advice and information. If you have students who are interested in information management, website design or any library field – please let them know! Please circulate this information to the careers advisor at your school and display the posters in your library.
Colour, black and white, A3 and A4 posters are available on the SLAV website.
Say goodbye to boring old slideshows with Animoto. Animoto takes your images, adds music and turns them all into a slick professional style video.
Animoto home
You can upload images from your computer, or select those already stored on Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, SmugMug and Facebook. You can add text and then you can select music from Animoto’s collection or upload your own from your computer. Images can be reordered at any time and text can be edited. Selected pictures can be ‘spotlighted’. When uploading music from your own source, you are reminded to check that you have the right to do so. If you decide to use a song from Animoto’s collection, the songs are arranged by genres and you can listen to a sample before you decide to select it or not. Before you know it, your images are presented in an engaging way, set to a rocking track.
Educational case studies
Animoto has a special ‘Education’ section, where educators can sign up and give students an access code. This enables students to upload videos to Animoto, purely for the class (or whoever is given the code) to see.
As per most Web 2.0 tools, Animoto basic is free, but there are upgrade options for people who want to make longer videos, burn videos to DVD and so on. For most of us, the basic package will suffice as it enables the user to get an embed or copy code for embedding into blogs and wikis or copying to a multitude of sites. The best thing about Animoto is that is is very easy to use. The site is extremely well designed and intuitive, making it a pleasure to use.
Have a look at this video, which was literally produced in ten minutes. Finalised videos can be uploaded to YouTube, as well as embedded in blogs and other websites.
ASLA and ALIA have just released research findings on Australian school libraries and teacher librarians. A copy of the report can be accessed here. Alarming trends regarding budgets and staffing, but many people already knew that from their own school circumstances. As the ALIA website states, “School libraries are hovering on the poverty line.”
A similar tale in the May edition of the AEU News (Victorian branch). An article about teacher librarians is entitled “On borrowed time”. Read the article here.
