PLN for 2012

Personal Learning Network website

The next Personal Learning Network (PLN) program will run for 12 weeks beginning 5th March 2012. For more information visit State Library website page or email learning@slv.vic.gov.au

The program, run by the State Library of Victoria in association with SLAV, is part of a network of inspired and inspiring people embracing technology and social media in schools around the world.

This self-paced, online learning program developed by and for teacher librarians, teachers, and school library technicians features practical how-to sessions and online mentoring.

Anne Fraser, a recent alumni of the program created this Prezi – PLN Learning Network using comments and feedback from her new network, discussing the program itself but also using her PLN to do it.

Future of Education: search literacy

This Friday at 12pm AEST time, Steve Hargadon will be hosting a panel discussion on search literacy as part of his Future of Education series.

The panel for the session includes Google Search Education Fellow, Tasha Bergson-Michelson and Debbie Abilock, multi-award winning librarian, curriculum advisor and content developer for Noodle tools.

The group will be addressing questions like:

  • Is everything we need online?
  • How do you teach students to be resilient in their technology use, especially with web tools constantly changing?
  • What role to schools play in teaching search literacy skills?

Future of education

Sessions are run in Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate) so you can ask questions and be involved in the discussion if you’re able to log in at the scheduled time. Otherwise all the sessions are recorded and you can listen to them in your own time.

Future of Education is an interview series which features many significant thinkers from  international education and technology communities including the likes of Sir Ken Robinson, Will Richardson and Howard Gardner.

Reading Culture: SLAV & NGV conference

Reading culture

In collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria, SLAV is presenting a conference on Friday, 11th November called Reading Culture: collaborate, create, celebrate, exploring the place where visual literacy, story telling and technology meet. The event contributes to the NGV’s 150th anniversary celebrations.

The full day program includes some of the following speakers:

  • Sue McKerracher from the Library Agency discussing The National Year of Reading
  • Authors Alice Pung and Alison Lester
  • NGV educators on Surrealism, New Guinean art, Albrecht Düre, Indigenous and Medieval art and how to use art as inspiration for creative writing and inquiry based learning

A number of teacher librarians will also be speaking on the use of ebooks, iPads, online book clubs and digital story telling.

Some places are still available so if you would like to book, complete a registration form included in the conference flyer or contact SLAV directly on 03 9349 5822.

SLAV conference reflections: Hamish Curry

Hamish Curry, Education Manager at the State Library of Victoria shares his reflections on Monday’s SLAV conference where he presented on how to create with library data.

About 200 library technicians and assistants arrived at Etihad Stadium on Monday 17th October to hear more on SLAV’s theme of  ‘Activate the learning with emerging technologies’.

As always, the SLAV conference engaged us with tools, ideas, resources, and networks. There were a series of great presentations from the likes of Jenny Ashby (Epsom Primary School), Greg Gebhart (Australian Communications and Media Authority), and Camilla Elliott (Mazenod College).

Jenny Ashby took centre stage in the morning to help the audience ‘Activate your 21st Century Mobile Libraries’. There could have been no better example of this than in her great discussion of ways in which QR (Quick Response) codes could be adapted for and embedded in library practices. As her presentation progressed, with QR Codes displayed on the screen, audience members madly lifted their smart-phones into the air to decode and access the content.  My take-away from Jenny’s presentation is how easy it now is to integrate mobile phones into the normal business and learning of the school environment. Some of her great links included:

QR Code generators – Kaywa and Gorillascan

QR Treasure Hunt Generator – Class tools QR treasure hunt generator

After morning tea, Camilla Elliott did an outstanding job filling in for John Pearce, who was a late scratching. With a strong focus on motivating us to learn more about how Google works, Camilla also highlighted some excellent search tools that acted as great educational alternatives to Google, such as Boolify , Sweet Search, and DuckDuckGo.

Greg Gebhart from ACMA woke us all up with some startling realities about young people engaging with social media and various networks online. It was hard not to feel frightened of the online environment and worried about the growing numbers of primary school students participating online without guidance from teachers and parents. Cybersmart provides some useful resources and information to address these concerns, but ultimately it is the challenge of educators and libraries to model and mentor digital citizenship and digital literacy for all students.

The afternoon was a mind-blowing smorgasbord of presentations from Judith Way (Kew High School), Tania Sheko (Whitefriars College), Tony Richards (IT Made Simple), Vincent Trundle (ACMI) and Camilla Elliott. I attended Camilla’s presentation and it was chock-full of great sites and resources around maps. Highlights included NearMap, ScribbleMaps and Google Lit Trips.

My own presentation was titled “I’m a Library Hack!” and aligned with a number of the topics from the other presentations around the use of maps, augmented reality, social media, and library data to help engage and enrich the experiences of teachers and students within the school and online environments. A key focus was the Libraryhack competition run by the National State Libraries of Australasia earlier this year. My presentation is available here.

You can also follow some of the conversation from the day on the Twitter hashtag #slavconf.

FUSE interactive resources: Elluminate session

FUSE

Some of Victoria’s leading cultural and educational organisations have created a range of innovative digital learning tools now freely available through FUSE.

Heath Graham will be presenting an Elluminate session exploring classroom applications for these resources on 27th October at 4.30pm.

To find out more, visit the FUSE Projects blog or register at DEECD’s Educators’ Guide to Innovation website .

Free event with author of Brotherband, John Flanagan

On Sunday 23rd October, 2-3pm The Centre for Youth Literature will be hosting a free event at the State Library of Victoria with author John Flanagan, launching his new Viking series, Brotherband. John will be talking about the books and answering questions from the audience.

The event is free but bookings are essential. You can call 8664 7099, book online or via email, bookings@slv.vic.gov.au. More information about the event is available on the Read Alert blog.

Keep an eye out for Vikings at the event!

Brotherband by John Flanagan

School libraries and teacher-librarians in 21st century Australia

The Report of the Australian Parliament, House of Representatives, Education and Employment Committee’s Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher-librarians in 21st century Australia was tabled on 23 May 2011. SLAV welcomes the recommendations and is working in collaboration with the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) to formulate follow-up strategies at the state and national level.

The full text of School Libraries and Teacher-librarians in 21st century Australia can be found at http://www.apo.org.au/research/school-libraries-and-teacher-librarians-21st-century-australia
The SLAV Submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry can be found at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ee/schoollibraries/subs.htm (submission 114)
Be involved!

SLAV has established a Parliamentary Inquiry Reference Group that will provide input and support for its representatives in national discussions and also to identify and implement practical strategies that will ensure that what has come out of the national Parliamentary Inquiry will have a positive impact here in Victoria.

All SLAV members are invited to express interest in becoming a member of this Reference Group.
To express interest, please send an email as follows:
To: slav@netspace.net.au
Subject: Parliamentary Inquiry Reference Group
Message:
Please indicate your name, school and SLAV membership number
Briefly indicate how you would like to be involved – for example: attending meetings, collaborative online comments and discussion, skype hook-up, ….

SLAV needs input from as broad a range of members as possible!

Tell your good news stories!

To help build the evidence base regarding the positive impact of school libraries, members are encouraged to place their comments, stories and feedback on the following sites.

Facebook – What a difference a school library makes

http://www.facebook.com/pages/What-a-difference-a-school-library-makes/120543444695337

Wiki – What a difference a school library makes

http://schoollibraries2011.wikispaces.com/

What’s on in July?

Below are some of the events on offer by SLV and SLAV for the month of July. Some events may require registration.

SLV

 

 

Tuesday July 5th (4.00pm – 6.00pm), ASAL Conference keynote address and literary awards:

ASAL Conferene keynote keynote address and literary awards

Tuesday July 19th (6.30pm – 8.30pm), TEDxMelbourne: innovation networking event:

TEDxMelbourne

SLAV

 

 

Friday July 29th (9.30am – 3.30pm), Communicate, collaborate, create: and think critically!:

Communicate, collaborate, create: and think critically!

Dr. Joyce Valenza’s TLNing and SLAV conference

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:

Communicate, collaborate, create: and think critically!