Talking Reading

With a recent study indicating that approximately 44% of Australian adults have a literacy level below the minimum required for everyday life, promoting reading and literacy has never been more important. The Talking Reading project on ABC Pool is a wonderful resource for anyone with an interest in developing literacy skills and promoting reading.

The project brings together interviews with literacy experts, librarians and authors. The episodes were recorded during the National Year of Reading and are hosted by Tony Wilson, Paula Kelly and Sally Rippin. One episode features the fabulous Miffy Farquharson, who talks about her love of reading and reveals that she has read close to 15,000 books!

Other episodes explore young adult literacy technology (featuring our own Kelly Gardiner), apps for literacy (with Dan Donahoo) and author profiles with authors such as Leigh Hobbs, Cath Crowley and Alison Lester.

You can view all of the episodes and find out more about the project at the Talking Reading site. It’s an excellent resource full of ideas about promoting this critical skill and fostering a love of books in young people.

New and improved site from State Library of Victoria

The State Library of Victoria has just relaunched its website. With an amazing wealth of information, activities and events, checking out the new SLV website is a must.
Homepage

Homepage

Hamish Curry, Education & Onsite Learning Manager in the Learning Services area of the State Library of Victoria explains:
This revamped site opens up a great deal of new opportunities to bring our collections and services to the surface; be sure to check out the ‘Learn’, ‘Explore’ and ‘What’s On’ sections.
Professional learning
Online learning resources
Online learning resources such as:
are included.
Professional learning
Professional learning
The professional learning page (above) caters for:
slv 4

Student and teacher resources

The Student and teacher resources page (above) provides resources related to:

  • Specific websites for schools (such as ergo, Insideadog)
  • SLV blogs
  • Audio and video resources
  • Education kits

So many fantastic resources available in the one place, the newly revamped SLV website is an absolute treasure.

AudioPal

AudioPal is a free website that enables you to easily add audio to your blog or website.

AudioPal homepage
AudioPal homepage

Users can record and use their own voice on their website, or select from numerous voices available on AudioPal. If you select to use a pre-recorded voice, you simply type in the text of what you want your visitors to hear. If you want to hear you own voice, you can record via microphone or upload an audio file. (US users can dial a US phone number and record audio via the telephone.)

You are then emailed a code to that lets you access a widget that can be embedded into your site. There is an example in the right hand side of this blog. (For edublogs or globalteacher, select “other” and “embed” to get the correct code to embed.) Here is an example:

 AudioPal also has speaking characters, similar to Vokis.