TL Virtual Cafe

Posted on March 3, 2010 by slav

The TL Virtual Cafe wiki is the home of Webinar events for teacher and school librarians worldwide.

These events are listed on the wiki and are free for anyone anywhere. As long as you have Java installed on your computer and you have a headset with microphone, you can be a part of the action via the Elluminate online conferencing platform. The events will be held on a monthly basis.

One nice little surprise is that these events are held out of school hours for US participants, which means they occur at around 12noon AEDT or 9am Perth time. The event held on 1 March (2 March in Australia) – School Library Web Presence – had 177 participants and was extremely stimulating.

All links for the Webinars are available on the wiki. Organisers are keen to have input on forthcoming topics, so stop by, join up and have your say.

Shahi visual dictionary+

Posted on March 2, 2010 by slav

Shahi is a fantastic tool for ESL students, language and literacy learners. “Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more!”

A number of definitions are provided and are categorised into nouns and verbs. Visuals from Flickr, Google Image and Yahoo assist users in grasping the meaning. Hover over a photo and the photo is enlarged. Click on a photo and that takes you to the photographer’s site.

Even words or phrases that are not recognised by the dictionary section are recognised by the photo section:

Thanks to the wonderful Audrey Nay for alerting Bright Ideas to Shahi!

Weblist

Posted on February 25, 2010 by slav

Joyce Valenza recently tweeted about this useful tool. Weblist is:

a social listing site that allows users to create smart lists from URLs, photos, music, videos, documents and files.

The smart list will then be displayed in thumbnail view for easy browsing, sharing, and organization.

Useful or organizing research.

You can also share your weblists and access weblists made by others.

With a very handy tutorial, Weblist is very easy and intuitive to use. The results are attractive and well organised. Some of the weblists already on the site that are suitable for schools include:

Evaluation of websites
Joyce Valenza’s Copyright image friendly search and
Romeo and Juliet resources

An excellent resource with lots of educational applications.

Gliffy

Posted on February 19, 2010 by slav

Gliffy is a very cool drawing and drafting tool. Free access and ease of use will appeal to many users including teachers and students.

With the ability to create:

floor plans
diagrams
flowcharts and
technical drawings

there are many possibilities for educational use as well as personal use. Visual Communication students may find it useful to create floor plans and technical drawings while Humanities, Science, Maths and English could take advantage of the flowcharts and diagrams for planning and mindmapping.

Gliffy offers a library with a large range of shapes and items. Once completed, drawings can be exported jpeg and png and files can be shared or published to the internet.

Library staff planning a new or updated library could use the floor plans and anyone designing or building a new home may find the floor plans worth while.

Gliffy has free and premium accounts. The academic account is free.

“School Libraries Seek Relevance Through Virtual Access”

Posted on February 12, 2010 by slav

The article “School Libraries Seek Relevance Through Virtual Access“, in which US school libraries are the subject, appeared on the Education Week website a few days ago and is certainly worth a read.

Some readers may know of the funding issues that have hit US school libraries in the last few weeks. This article, which quotes Buffy Hamilton and Joyce Valenza, outlines how some proactive school librarians have been changing the use and vision of school libraries and as such, how libraries are viewed by students, teachers and parents.

The advent of Web 2.0 tools and the way that some school librarians have embraced them are discussed, particularly with the view that these school librarians have kept their library relevant to their students:

In addition to teaching students and teachers how to navigate information, libraries have now become a place where students go to create and produce, said Carolyn Foote, the district librarian who works at the 2,500-student Westlake High School in Austin, Texas.

“Students are producing all sorts of products—YouTube videos, PowerPoint presentations, online slideshows, podcasts—and so as librarians, we need to have the skills to work with all those different formats and help students learn how to produce in those formats,” she said.

Consequently, it’s increasingly important for librarians to be familiar with new technologies and Web 2.0 tools, she said.

“There’s a lot of debate in the library field about whether you can even be a 21st-century librarian if you aren’t willing to embrace some of those Web 2.0 tools and be very proficient in them,” Ms. Foote said. “There’s a real need for us to be participating all the way through the [creation] process, and we need the skills to be able to do that.”

The library as both a place and a service, or a state of mind is discussed; the importance of a flexible, attractive physical space as well as the Web 2.0 tools which can connect students to the world through the library are vital. A great article advocating the excellent work many school librarians do.

Bringing experts into your classroom

Posted on February 12, 2010 by slav

It can often be problematic for students to gain access to authors and other experts in their field due to location, cost, time, travel and other issues. Technologies such as Skype can help. The ability to make free calls computer to computer with the added bonus of video conferencing if users have webcams has been a boon for schools.

But Skype is not the only method available. Richard Byrne’s (@rmbyrne) wonderful Free Technology for Teachers blog outlines three other free methods for Bringing Experts into Your Classroom:

Present.io

Wetoku

Vokle

Go to the Free Technology for Teachers post Bringing Experts into Your Classroom for some fabulous free tools to explore, thanks to Richard Byrne.

f2m: a collaborative project

Posted on February 5, 2010 by slav

Quentaris author and Ford Street Publishing representative Paul Collins recently sent Bright Ideas some information on an interesting way the new YA book f2m was written.

Authors Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy co-wrote the novel and collaborated via Skype using a webcam. By writing together online and using online conferencing, they developed the entire novel using web 2.0 tools. This is a great example of the power of online collaboration for our students. The result is that the writing is seamless; readers cannot tell which author wrote which pages or chapters.

f2m will be launched on 14 February in Melbourne. A media release about the book is available here. The novel is aimed at students aged 15+, it deals with female to male gender transitioning.

Ford Street Publishing also have a number of book trailers on their website.

Wallwisher

Posted on February 3, 2010 by slav

Wallwisher is quite a useful tool for both classroom teaching and feedback from whole school professional development/staff meetings.

Anything you can do with Post It notes can be replicated in Wallwisher. Tom Barrett (@tombarrett) provides some great examples of how Wallwisher can be used in the classroom.

Wallwisher seems like it could be another very useful and easy to use tool.

School Library Association of Victoria

Category Archives: Web 2.0 tools