Author Archives: slav

eBooks and Online Content Trade Expo

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Access and management of digital resources became a good deal clearer for the large group of school library professionals attending the School Library Association of Victoria eBooks and Online Content Trade Expo at Melbourne Girls Grammar on Saturday 27 July.

The aim of the Expo was to demystify the concept of ebooks and online digital content.  It was a fast moving day of presentations from providers of free and subscription-based content for schools through digital content management systems, some of which we already subscribe to but could use more fully, others that opened up ideas for future development.  Presenters included:

  • Soltlink – Overdrive
  • Oxford University Press
  • Read Plus/Links Plus
  • Access-It Software
  • Follett eBooks
  • Jacaranda
  • OCLC Worldshare
  • Wheelers Books
  • EBSCO
  • Bolinda Digital

Links to resources from the Expo are available at SLAVConnects.  Exploring the options available in this rapidly developing field can be bewildering, however, this list provides a starting place for exploring online services even if you were not able to attend on the day.

Weekly links (weekly)

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

We love learning – feature blog

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Classroom teacher Nicole McMahon at St Luke the Evangelist School in Blackburn has developed a blog for her Prep class.

It would be great to make connections with others through our blog. In the Prep Classroom, we have commenced a blog sharing our learning in the classroom.

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At the moment it is in its very beginning phase but the goal is to have children using this class blog as a tool to reflect on their learning – not quite an individual PLN but rather a class learning network to make connections with the outside world. Being that the children are 5 or 6 years old, the content of our blog reflects this in its colour and creativity.

Nicole has set up blogging guidelines for her students and parents to ensure safety and respect for every student and parent. What a great space Nicole has created for sharing the work and learning of students. A bright and inviting space that showcases and celebrates learning. Congratulations Nicole!

Edublogs awards thanks

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Thank you so much to all of the people who nominated and voted for Bright Ideas and other social media for the 2010 Edublogs awards. The awards are particularly useful for finding and connecting with other like-minded educators. I know that I found a wealth of amazing educators via the 2009 awards.

Congratulations to everyone, particularly to all of the Australians who were nominated. Congratulations too to all of the winners and runners up in the 23 categories.

It is lovely to be nominated by peers. And so humbling and yet exciting to be awarded the “second runner up” (third) in the “Best Library Blog” category this year. Here are the details on all placegetters for 2010. In my opinion, all worthy of inclusion in your PLN.

Slightly addicted to fiction

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Judi Jagger, the current Western Australian Children’s Book Council judge, has developed her own blog. It is a must read for anyone interested in children’s and YA literature. Judi explains how her blog came to be:

Slightly Addicted to Fiction was born on a wet Saturday afternoon in mid November. It has sprung from the Fiction Focus blog that I started while working in Western Australia’s CMIS as joint editor of the print journal Fiction Focus. When I moved away from the city, the late and much-missed Jill Midolo arranged for me to maintain the blog from home; a dream job.

Although I always knew it was too good to last, the sudden loss of funding for the FF blog still came as a shock. One minute I was maintaining a blog that had secured a global readership, the next minute I wasn’t.

The blog itself hadn’t ceased, just my role. The many comments of support that flowed in were both affirming and humbling.

For a day or two, I did nothing. Then I put my toe in the Twitter water and hastily withdrew. Too ephemeral. Tweeting the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards was fine, but I longed to set them in the context of other awards on the blogging record. So an impulsive decision on that wet Saturday afternoon saw me set up my own forum. Once a blogger…

On Slightly Addicted to Fiction, I will continue what had been a successful formula: news about literature-related matters. I will continue the weekly links, expanding them into a broader context to encompass news about literary and children’s and Young Adult fiction.

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I have also ventured back on to Twitter with a new identity (@readingjay) and am loving the cleverness of paper.li that publishes a daily newspaper http://paper.li/readingjay that magically selects interesting posts from the people I follow. Each day it produces an attractive publication that regularly surprises me with its useful content. Blogging and Twitter: the ideal couple.

Readership of Slightly Addicted to Fiction is building slowly but it is something I feel compelled to do, with or without a large audience.

My former CMIS colleagues have a heavy workload and are doing a great job maintaining the first blog. I see the two as complementary and together will provide a useful resource for schools to keep their finger on the pulse of the literary world.

What was a job has become a hobby, but remains my passion. Slightly addicted to fiction – it’s an understatement.

Congratulations to Judi on her past and present contribution to Australian and global children’s and YA literature. And may we all be “slightly addicted to fiction”!

Edublogs blog directory

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Edublogs has a community and blog directory, making it easy to find blogs that fit your area of interest:

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You can add your own blog to the directory, there is a Curriculum Corner for ideas on using blogs in the classroom as well as information on cybersafety and more. A great resource for any teacher who uses blogs either for professional learning and/or writes their own blog.

Strathmore SC library blog

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Aneta Curcija and staff at Strathmore Secondary College library have recently set up their own library blog.

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Like many participants of the Vic PLN course, my colleague here at Strathmore Secondary College, Wendy Moyle and I, learned so much about Web 2.0 tools and how to effectively use them, not just to encourage reading but also to promote our wonderful library.  We wanted a platform whereby we could recommend books through genres and also give students the opportunity to share their reading experiences by interacting with one another and discuss books they loved, hated or were just plain disappointed in.  We also hope to interest Year 7 and 8 English teachers to engage their students through this blog and encourage a love of reading.Â

This blog is fairly new and we are keen to start some kind of initiative with English teachers early next year.  For now we are content with posting book recommendations and interesting links and videos and using fabulous Web 2.0 tools to show our current library displays.  The response has been very positive from teachers and we are yet to hear what students think of it via the comments box.  Hopefully as the blog is promoted more and more, we might get some responses from the kids.  Here’s hoping!

I would also like to acknowledge the library staff at Sacred Heart College in Geelong for their creative way of naming their book genres which has given me the inspiration to do something similar and show that books can be categorised in fun and humorous ways.

Well done on the creation of your excellent blog Aneta and Wendy and I hope that the students and staff at Strathmore become as passionate about the blog as you are.