Competition Idea

Check out this great little competition idea; quick, easy, fun.  This snap was taken at Brunswick Secondary College Library in Melbourne.

Term 3 Displays

Book Week: Champions Read

The Antonine Library pulled out all stops for Book Week this year; we celebrated champions reading in combination with the Australian Olympic triumphs.

Day/Date	Activity/Event	Role/Responsibility
Friday August 17	Book Week presentation in assembly	Josie and Ria will coordinate a presentation to give at assembly prior  to book week to encourage students and staff to be a part of the activities and encourage reading.
Friday August 17	Staff champion display	Staff are invited to bring a photo of them being a champion and share their favourite read for a book week display – photos in by August 17
Monday – Friday 20-24 August	Daily bulletin ‘Bronze, silver and gold challenges’	Each day homeroom teachers will read out the bronze and silver questions that can be answered in class. The gold question will be more challenging and entries can be completed by students writing the answer and their name and homeroom on a piece of paper and putting it in the gold box on the desk in the library.  The winning entry will be drawn at recess and the student will receive an award.
Monday – Friday 20-24 August	Book trailers on the TV	Book trailers will be played on the library TV to advertise great reads.
Friday 24 August	Champions Dress Up Day	Students and staff are invited to come dressed as a champion.  House Leaders will visit homerooms to collect house points for students in costume and to judge best costumes. Winners will be announced in the library at lunchtime and prizes awarded. Sister Rita to take photos?
Friday 24 August	Champions hour (no students)	Champions celebrate a big week with a lovely glass of wine.  Head to the Library after school on Friday for wine and cheese.
8A English class – any day during book week	Award and recognition	An award and recognition ceremony for the students in 8A who read the most books during semester 1.  A small prize for each student will be given out.

Special Guests

Wednesday 22 August	The Flying Bookworm	Year 9 will watch a performance of Romeo and Juliet from 9:15-10:15 in the Hall.
Wednesday 22 August	The Flying Bookworm	Year 10 will watch a performance of Macbeth from 10:30-11:30 in the Hall.
Wednesday 21 August	Writing Workshops	Year 7A and half of 7B will participate in a writing workshop with visiting author Robert Newton in the Library from 9:15-10:15.
Wednesday 21 August	Writing Workshops	Year 7C and half of 7B will participate in a writing workshop with visiting author Robert Newton in the Library from 10:30-11:30.
Wednesday 21 August	Visiting author presentation	Year 8 will attend a presentation by visiting author Robert Newton in the Hall from 12:30-1:30.

 The week was busy, fun, engaging and rewarding.  The Library was at the forefront of people's minds and reading the buzz word for the week.

I have some great photos from the dress up day to post too!!

Global e-literacy: leading the reinvention of learning

On Friday I attended the SLAV conference; I'm always impressed by the quality of these conferences and the great networking opportunity it allows.  Friday's event didn't disappoint.  The day kicked off with a keynote address from Judy O'Connell.  I'd been following Judy for sometime on Twitter and so it was nice to place a person to the tweet (@heyjudeonline).  Judy assisted me in understanding Augmented Reality.

Augmented Reality

AR is looking at a real world picture and seeing a modified version of this through a device like a smartphone.  I've had a bit of a look and experiment with "Spotcrime", which detects different crime hot spot areas, "StarChart", for identifying constellations, "SnapShop Showroom" for visualising furniture in your own home and "Acrossair Augmented Reality Browser" which has a surprisingly broad amount of information with everything from nearby restaurants, historically significant buildings and traffic info.   AR is really exciting and I can envisage many ways to enhance teaching and learning.

Jenny Luca spoke next and I was eagerly anticipating her presentation, (yes, I follow her on Twitter too! @jennyluca).  Jenny was straight to the point; she asked her audience what we were doing to make meaningful change to ensure longevity for school libraries and teacher librarians.  Jenny's discussion reignited the vision and I know our library needs to make our next game plan with a big focus on information literacy.

The sessions that followed morning tea were fabulous; roundtable discussions that focused on a particular topic, for instance Twitter, screen casting or Evernote.  I picked up a few ideas from Cameron Hocking at the screen casting table and David Feighan at the ebook table.  

Following lunch there was a panel discussion that included everything from lib guides to apps, curation tools and library design.  It really did prove that there is so much great stuff happening in school libraries and made me really proud to be a part of SLAV.

My only criticism of the day; I'm told repeatedly that we have to move with technology, embrace it, make it a part of our lives and our teaching.  And I wonder, what if we are already on board?  What is the next message?

Things to check out - 

All the presentations from the day:

http://www.slav.schools.net.au/slav.html

Jane Hart's top 100 tools for learning:

http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/

Horizon Report 2012:

http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/2012-horizon-report

Holiday reading and viewing...

These holidays whilst basking in the hotel room due to tropical downpours I put my book down and put the TV on.  The following is a list of movies I allowed myself to sit and watch.  I find it hard to sit and watch a full movie, considering I can relax whilst reading and this kills two birds with the one stone; I always have a huge stack of books to read for the library and book club and personal interest.  I did manage to read a few and I've listed these as well.

Movies:

• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - I had previously read the book - bit of a tear jerker - lovely perspective from a young boy with Autism.
• The Hangover - part 2 - very amusing!
• Safe House - predictable action packed Denzel Washington flick.
• Twilight - Breaking Dawn part 1 - I am usually more critical in my appraisal of YA fiction - but I've loved this series and all the movies (there I've said it!)
• The Warrior - some wrestling movie the boyfriend wanted to watch
• New Year's Eve - romantic comedy with an all star cast just not an all-star storyline

Books:

• Marked by PC Cast & Kristin Cast - more vampire teen stuff
• Fifty Shades of Grey - I thought this was appalling
• Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey - too long - but a good story - felt like "The Shark Net"
• The Coming of the Whirlpool by Andrew McGahan - great story - looking forward to the next instalment 
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - this is really good.  But we already knew that.
• To Hope and Back by Kathy Kacer - another very sad story from WW2.  The thing I appreciate is they are stories that will be accessible by younger students
• When we were two by Robert Newton - sad story set in early 1900s
• Ishmael and the hoops of steel by Michael Gerard Bauer - I love this series - soooo funny
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes - very poor start - very confusing end

Federation Square

I visited Federation Square twice over the weekend.  The first visit was at 12:30am Sunday morning to watch Black Caviar racing at Royal Ascot and, subsequently, her 22nd consecutive win.  There were thousands of people comfortably arranged; standing, sitting, huddled, to enjoy the event on the big screen.  The second visit was on Sunday night, on my way to Birrarung Marr, for Circus Oz (which was brilliant and I highly recommend), Fed Square was not so packed and I was able to enjoy the light and art installations scattered about the well used meeting place.  One that caught my keen librarian eye was the "Book-light installation" and I have a few photos of this to share.

Job opportunity

Sharing library photos

Digital storytelling

I've just found the Inanimate Alice series: http://www.inanimatealice.com/

I love it that reading a story is no longer simply reading a book and viewing the illustrations.  Digital stories combine watching, reading, contributing, listening, participating and more.  Multiple layers, split screens and variety are all elements of the Inanimate Alice series of digital stories.  

This type of story more accurately reflects the use of technology and personal devices that are a part of our lives.  I'm looking forward to showing the students and sharing feedback.  

Before I go to sleep

I just wanted to give a quick plug to S.J. Watson's "Before I go to sleep".   The main protagonist has a rare form of amnesia, she remembers nothing from the past 20 years and is retold every day by her husband her life story.  The reader is quick to become suspicious of the husband and the real mystery starts when Christine accesses her journal which begins - Do not trust your husband.
It feels like the movie "50 First Dates" but it's a book which makes it 10 times better.

Gambling in the library

Today at lunchtime a student asked for a set of chess pieces.  I assumed someone else had gathered the board and gave them to him without further thought.  Later I saw him and his mates playing the card game '21' and using the chess pieces as money to play.  I had to laugh at their inventiveness and at least no one lost their lunch money.

The Life of Flowers

This fabulous vimeo was created by Vorobyoff Productions.

New library displays

This week new pin board material was placed up throughout the library.  It not only looks great, absorbs sound and provides a convenient place to create displays it has modernised the feel of our library.

I was quick to put up displays as soon as the work was done:

Toilet Reading

Thanks to OZ-TL net I have taken up the idea of promoting reading and engaging more school community members into reading by attaching the first page of a range of books to the back of the toilet door.

I love this idea... thanks OZ-TL net.

Book Club

A colleague and I were discussing her new Breakfast Book Club and I thought I could assist by offering a list of the books studied as part of the Back Door Bookers Book Club I am gratefully a part of.  I also thought that sharing this list might help others.

Here are the books we've had thus far (I have forgotten some):

• The Red Tent - such a classic - women will really appreciate
• Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides – this was a beauty 
• Dirt Music by Time Winton – great story – incredible writer - good to do an Australian author/setting
• Monkey Grip by Helen Garner – great because it's set in melbourne 
• The Slap – we also analysed the tv series episode 1 - what a series!
• Big Love- TV series one
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemmingway
• Castle of Adventure by Enid Blyton – a children's classic - this was fabulous – focus on the changes in childhood and boy/girl stereotypes
• The Submission by Amy Waldman
• The Secret River by kate Grenville – set in Australia – colonial times and issues between white settlers and Aboriginal people – really moving
• The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald – we wanted to get this one in before the release of the film – such an incredible book and good for deep analysis
• How it feels by Brendan Cowell – this is actually pretty disturbing - but we wanted to do this one as an up and coming author - fairly full on themes 
• The Byron Journals  by Daniel DuCrou – we did this one because we had the author coming to speak at our book club - DuCrou was a real charmer and we enjoyed this book meet so much
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert 
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Book club is such fun!

Fabulous and innovative bookcases

http://flavorwire.com/287003/30-gorgeous-and-innovative-bookshelves?all=1

Check out the bookcases on this site.  I love the way people think, create and share.

Here's my bookcase:

SLAV conference: RESOURCES RESOURCES RESOURCES

SLAV conference: RESOURCES RESOURCES RESOURCES
Hosted at Melbourne Park Function Centre May 4 2012


My reflections and learnings...

The day started with Maureen Henninger talking about the need to utilise search engines other than google.
She recommended:
Exalead, Infomine, IPL2, INTUTE, AcademicInfo Subject guides
Also when searching to use the following search terms : intitle, inurl and filetype
For example a search on alcohol and drug abuse intitle: "substance abuse" inurl: edu filetype: pdf
This will ensure that you go past the common predictive search results that come up and begin accessing some of the 70% of information that is not reached via search engines like google.

Sandy Phillips then spoke about the need to move away from work tasks that require students simply to report on a topic.  Students have such easy access to basic information, they need to be challenged with what they do with that information.
She mentioned that World Book Online is available to all schools for free it just needs to be accessed - see EDUSTAR
She also recommended:

• Freeware for images
• Posti for cybersafety activities and information
• Scootle
• FUSE
• Connect
• Edublogs
• Storyboard generator - best on the web, created by ACMI
• 15 second place - great phone app for creation of short film
• Teach work right - great app for students starting work experience or employment 
• Playground finder - great app
• Travel bugs- International game (like Carmen SAn Diego- but 2012)
• Phat poetry- copyright free
• Inside a dog - I don't use this enough!
• Making history - museum victoria
• Zoos Victoria- great challenges for kids
• We solve it- question generator
• Cultural infusion - free music, copyright free, kids can mash up 
• Artroom 2.0 - sharing artwork
• Page to stage - drama
• Voice thread - record audio and computer screen 
• Check out Scholastic book flix for free children's e-books.
  

Free audio books:
http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/lit2gos_200_free_and_teacher-friendly_audio_books_.html

Google search education
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation




SCIS presentation
At the end of the day there was a presentation on cataloguing e-books (note it has a hyphen).  The basic premise is that they are catalogued like any other resource.
Access instructions from www.esa.edu.au/scis/help.html
If an e-book is only available on a website, in html form then it is catalogued as a website.  If the e-book can be downloaded to an e-reader requiring e-reader software then it is an e-book.

SCIS rathers that for any resource there is only one catalogue record and the different formats are listed in the notes section not as separate records.

SCIS PD days: www.esa.edu.au/scis/professional_learning.html for SCIS PD days

I asked a question of the group at the end regarding management of student and teacher text books.  In terms of the teacher text books we need to make sure we sign up for the e-resource and pass on the details to the relevant person so information is not lost at any stage.  In terms of student books everyone agreed there needs to be more than one year longevity in the e-resource - some librarians are keeping records of logins to ensure they are safe.  Others think that as it only lasts a year it is not worth it.  One TL is photocopying the back page of student and teacher books where the information is stored.


I have invited the guys from tag-alert to come out and give us a free quote for a security system to be installed.  I think some of our new books are walking out the door.

I caught up with Dylan from Bolinda - he said they've signed up Brighton Grammar and MLC.  He is run off his feet with school visits.  He also gave me four free audio books and some bookmarks and other bits  (one of the audio books is Mao's Last Dancer).  Thanks Dylan.

I'm convinced that paying large subscriptions to newspaper databases and encyclopaedias is not necessary.  TROVE and the State library have it covered. SO much good free stuff on the net that we are not utilising to full potential.
We need to look at what we're spending our $$ on.


SLAV conferences are always tip top.

New furniture

I've recently ordered some new furniture to create a reading area in the library.  It looks great and seems to be having the desired effect.