SLAV conference with Joyce Valenza

Posted on July 18, 2011 by slvadmin

Communicate, collaborate, create: and think critically!
School Library Association of Victoria Conference
29 July 2011 – Melbourne

Featuring: Joyce Valenza, dynamic, leading teacher librarian and school library ‘change maker’.
SLAV is excited that Joyce is returning to Melbourne to continue a journey we started with her in 2010. She is an inspiration to all educators and provides inspiration and ideas at a time when schools are moving to 1:1 computing and a digital learning. At a time when many are struggling with the survival of their school libraries, Joyce shows that this is an exciting time for learning and that the school library now has an expanded role with the focus on enabling the learning. She is an inspiration to all educators and provides a strong, positive message for the resourcing of learning today. Join us in continuing this journey of inspiration and enablement of learning in a time of communication, collaboration and creativity. See the registration form for details or visit the SLAV website.

Joyce’s presentation from the SLAV 2011 conference

Wizard of Apps

View more presentations from joycevalenza

Worth reading – Invisible professionals – Replacing librarians with iPads?

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Rachel

Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org posted an article definitely worth reading on 25th June 2011, titled Invisible professionals – Replacing librarians with iPads?.

Guest Post: BialikTV by David Feighan

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Rachel

David Feighan, director of Libraries and Learning Resources at Bialik College, Hawthorn, Victoria, has been kind enough to do a guest post about BialikTV. BialikTV is a place where the college celebrates learning, reading, and literature.

BialikTV was created in response to the fact that content is becoming more varied, more immediate, and more multimedia. Students are still working with text, but increasingly they are also working with images, sound recordings and audio-visual content. As a result there is a change in how people find information, with YouTube now recognised as the second largest search engine after Google. As a library that thinks about how information creation, distribution and use is changing; we need to understand and be on top of these major trends. What is the role of the library in a post text multimedia world? How do we collect and integrate text and multimedia? What metadata do we use to facilitate access to multimedia content? How do we include the growing amount of multimedia citizen journalist content into our collections? How do we ensure we are using authoritative content? What will a school library collection look like in 5 or 10 years’ time?

BialikTV is also where we celebrate learning, reading and literature at Bialik College. As such it is a platform where we can host and celebrate the student’s work, for example the book trailers students create. To protect the children’s identity, and to prevent inappropriate comments, no children’s faces are shown, and the ability to comment has been removed from BialikTV.

Further reading:

· http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-search-engine-domination

· http://www.smartinsights.com/search-marketing-alerts/youtube-as-search-engine

· http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2078931/YouTube-Updates-Logoless-Player-HD-Previews-As-Seen-On-Pages

· http://socialtimes.com/youtube-and-the-future-of-citizen-journalism_b15810

Well done to David and the Library staff at Bialik College for creating BialikTV and for using it in such a wonderful way.

Worth watching – Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Rachel

Jane McGonigal spoke at a TED conference in February 2010 on how gaming can be used to make a better world. This was a very controversial talk (as can be seen by the online comments).

Gaming could engage students in learning who are failing to achieve the required standards, yet in games are achieving fantastic results. Acknowledging their games and the skills required to play them may be a start. McGonigal talks about Wold of Warcraft, a game that requires great collaborative and problem solving skills where gamers are working to the best of their abilities. It wouldn’t hurt to let a student show the class how a skill they are learning, such as collaborating, is used in a game they are playing. Using components of games, such as exciting epic stories, can be a way to introduce a classroom activity that requires solving a real-world problem. Using web 2.0 tools that allow for global collaboration builds the collaborative community, and allowing students to achieve small goals along the way, may maintain their interest. Embracing gaming is embracing a student’s interest and learning strengths.

Dr. Joyce Valenza’s TLNing and SLAV conference

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Rachel

Educators around the world are benefiting from the work of Dr. Joyce Valenza. Dr. Valenza is a teacher-librarian at Springfield Township High School in Erdenheim, Philadelphia, USA. Dr. Valenza is an inspiration to many in her endeavour to provide the best learning opportunities for her students and to inspire educators to use ICT tools in their teaching and learning, to equip themselves and their students with the tools they need to evolve in the 21st century world of multi-information. Her work is accessible through her various networks. One of these is TLNing , a place ‘for those of us who connect, teach, share, and lead in new information landscapes’. There are close to 6000 members of the ning, and here you will find educators sharing their experiences with web 2.0, trying new things, giving tips on how to connect with students, creating networks, undertaking professional development, and being inspired by each other. Dr. Valenza created the ning, and is an active member. Once you register you will be able to access member pages, read blogs, view any videos and photos, access the forum, and more.

Dr. Valenza will be in Australia to speak at the SLAV conference ‘Communicate, collaborate, create: and think critically!’ in Melbourne on 29th July. There are still some places available at the conference. The registration form is below:

CC sMash amendment

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Rachel

The post on June 15th FUSE learning resource: CC sMash incorrectly stated that CC sMash had been launched. The post has been amended to state that the site will be released on August 18th, as advised by the project manager of FUSE education resources. I apologise for the confusion this may have caused.

Facebook for Educators

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Rachel

Facebook for Educators has been developed to provide educators with an overview of how to use Facebook effectively for teaching and learning, with a strong focus on safety and digital citizenship. The authors are professionals who have been asked by Facebook to be the bridge between the social networking tool and educators. The site covers everything from developing your school’s policy about Facebook use, to providing ideas for professional development, and suggesting communities where you can share your experiences of using Facebook in the classroom. Although the site has an agenda, they do a great job of reminding educators the need to embrace the learning styles of the 21st century student.

Housekeeping (for subscribers)

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Rachel

Hi to those who subscribe to Bright ideas. As most of you would be aware, the email that is sent to alert you to a new post has been sending twice. I know this is frustrating, so I am in contact with edublogs to rectify the situation and hopefully everyone will only be getting the one email soon.

Kind regards,

Rachel

Bright ideas coordinator

SLV’s ‘Shaun Tan: untold stories’

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Rachel

As a huge fan of Shaun Tan (Australian author, illustrator, and Oscar winner) I am very excited that I can view the video of Tan’s talk ‘Shaun Tan: untold stories’, that was presented at the State Library of Victoria on March 17th 2011. Living in country Victoria, it is hard to get to all events in Melbourne, so access to videos makes my life much easier.

During the illustrated 48 minute talk Tan shows pages of his sketchbooks and explains how a simple image can evolve into a complex story. I love his message to accept the messy creative process. A must view for art teachers, english teachers, teacher librarians, and anyone who is a fan! Teachers would be able to show excerpts of the talk in class to offer inspiration to many students. Also definately worth exploring, Tan’s fabulously illustrated website:

Sir Ken Robinson’s animated ‘Changing education paradigms’

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Rachel

The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) posted an amazing RSAnimate video of Sir Ken Robinson’s Edge lecture ‘Changing Education Paradigms’ (2009) (uploaded in October 2010). The animated video is an edited version of the talk and goes for 11 minutes. I love the animation. At first, I thought that the animation took my attention away from the what was being said, but soon it all mixed together and I was focussed on the content. Thankyou to Susan Warren on OZTL_NET for suggesting the video and to watch it with a nice cup of coffee.

The full-length lecture (goes for about an hour) can be viewed here.

School Library Association of Victoria

Category Archives: Professional learning