The Looking Glass

It is great that Shaun Tan, one of Australia’s leading illustrators and graphic novelists, was invited by the Australian Society of Authors to deliver the 2009 Colin Sompson Memorial Lecture. Speaking about the visual narrative, Tan noted in his concluding remarks that:

Words have a remarkable gravitational pull on our attention, and how we interpret attendant images, like captions under a press photo. Without words, an image can invite much more attention from a reader who might otherwise reach for the nearest sentence, and let that rule their imagination… I think this invitation to interpretation is the key to the success of any illustrated story… and the thing most likely to fire up the imagination of both adults and children, something that should never be underestimated.

You can watch/ listen to Tan’s lecture and download a PDF at The Australian Society of Authors .

• Leave a comment... (0)

Joyce Valenza’s blog post ‘When You Tube is blocked (eight ways around)’  has created some hot debate. The blocking of You Tube is a problem in many (perhaps most?) schools and denies teachers and students access to some wonderful information. Just yesterday I was able to source a video from YT that a teacher has been desperately seeking and which is seemingly unobtainable elsewhere.

Fortunately our teachers have access to YT and so to save the teacher’s students having to view all those ads and comments that accompany the video, I’ve embedded the videos in a Google site  (which BTW seems to be a more user-friendly way to create a wiki than through other options). Of course, if teachers don’t have access to You Tube, then there’s a problem.

Like many of those who’ve commented on Joyce’s blog post, I’m concerned about the ethics of using a file converter so that the YT clips can be downloaded. And while Joyce is fairly convincing in her argument that downloading for temporary class use is okay, I’m eager to see the response she is waiting on from the You Tubers. If the word from them is that it’s okay to download for educational reasons, then her “eight ways”, along with all the other suggestions offered, will be extremely useful.

• Leave a comment... (0)

It would take me hours and hours to put all the things on here that I find interesting. So many thanks to those at SLAV (School Library Association of Victoria) for creating, maintaining and sustaining Bright Ideas – a blog that is chock-a-block with web 2.0 learning and teaching ideas and provides access to a number of excellent examples of schools putting these ideas into practice. 

Also a source of some fantastic “bright ideas” is the cooltoolsforschools wiki.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Thanks to Judy O’Connell over at HeyJude for highlighting some tools that I’m sure will be popular with all students, but especially those with a penchant for the visual.

According to the creators of the Boolify Project:

…the Boolify Project offers a piece of software that helps model Boolean operators. Its primary audience is Elementary and Middle School children, but it may find relevance with others. Ultimately, its goal is to increase a learners’ ability to perform effective web searches. Just how will it accomplish this?

It is hypothesized that the visual cues Boolify provides will help learners build a mental model of the search that they are performing. A mental model is an internal visualization that can be used to guide practice and, in the case of Boolify, the software helps make explicit and graphical the formation and the results of their search.

The mental model is visualized as puzzle pieces that fit together, demonstrating how search terms and operators are linked, and a table that provides real-time feedback to the learner about the efficacy of the search.

And what about searchcube! I’ve had some tremendous fun with this and especially like being able to preview a source without having to navigate from the page and having websites, videos and images included in the one search result. Here’s what its creators have to say:

searchcube is a graphical search engine that presents search results in a compact, visual format. It searches the World Wide Web for websites, videos and images and displays previews of each result on a unique, three-dimensional cube interface.

searchcube … displays the first thirty-two (32) results for each of websites, videos and images. The maximum total number of results returned is ninety-six (96) results. Where a preview is not available, the search result is not shown.

 And, if you’re looking for a short and simple video clip to show students how to make the most of their Internet searching, then check out Web search strategies in plain english.

• Leave a comment... (0)

I have a couple of conferences coming up and rather than churn out paper copies of resources that might be useful for participants, I decided to place them here. This list is a work in progress, so keep an eye out.

Developing a graphic novel collection An article examining the issues surrounding the development of a graphic novel collection in the school library. (Laycock, D 2005, Synergy, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 50-54)

Going graphic: Using graphic novels to engage boys in school reading An article looking at an action research project focussed on the use of the graphic novel version of Macbeth in an English classroom.(Laycock, D 2007, Access, vol. 21, no. 1, pp13-17)

Graphic novels: The kapow factor An article considering why graphic novels should be considered for inclusion in the curriculum. (Laycock, D 2008, conference paper, 2008 ISASA Librarians’ Conference)

Graphic novel resources-March_09  An annotated list of useful resources for those wanting to know more.

Graphic novels @ Barker A list with reviews of 50 or so of the most popular graphic novels in our secondary library (posted Nov, 2009).

YALSA 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens nominations An extensive list with annotations of graphic novels published in 2009.

DC Comics has an extensive list of graphic novel reviews divided into age recommendations.

Presentation Notes  Newcastle Grammar, August, 2009.

Graphic novels: Different texts for different times (2009 SLAV presentation notes)

• Leave a comment... (3)

And so the journey ends… or at least the official one does.  I’ve learned about some great new Web2.0 technologies and have been reminded about others. As I’ve said all along, I won’t be using all these tools, but at least I know where to find them. I hope to keep this blog going as a place where I can continue to record my discoveries and reflections on the next 23, 24, 25…. “things”.

• Leave a comment... (2)

I’m impressed with the Kindle, Amazon’s popular e-book reader, and am keen to give the e-book reading experience a go.  Imagine being able to carry over 100 books on something as big as a paperback!  However, at the moment you can only download books for the Kindle if you’re a resident of the United States.  So, on a recent trip to Hong Kong, I enquired at several places about the Sony e-book reader.  The blank stares I got in return weren’t just a result of the language barrier.  When I explained what I was after, a couple of people asked why I just didn’t download the books to my computer and read them there?   I guess they had a point. However, after reading a recent article in the Courier Mail, I’m still convinced the e-book reader has a big future.  

In the above article Deakin University lecturer Robin Freeman points to the difficulties that many of us will have in abandoning paper books… “For the current generation of readers it is going to be hard, but Generation X and Generation Y are used to reading from screens and should take to the technology,” she says. And won’t our students be pleased.  Instead of lugging around backpacks full of weighty textbooks, they’ll only need an e-reader (or an ipod or mobile phone).  Australian booksellers and publishers are already wading into the e-book market. Nine months after the launch of its digital book website, Dymocks – in partnership with Macmillan - now offers more than 135 000 titles for download.

Of course, you don’t have to buy your e-books. According to the New York Times (in Wikipedia), by March 2007 Google Books had digitized over a million books. Meanwhile Project Gutenburg offers over 25000 free titles. For more free book sites, check out Friedbeef’s tech.

As for audiobooks, these are no longer the sole domain of the visually impaired or struggling reader. With many of us feeling time-poor as we spend longer at work and longer behind the wheel getting to and from work, the audio book provides the perfect opportunity to “escape”.  However, care needs to be taken that you don’t miss the turn-off!

• Leave a comment... (0)

On the Second Life Library blog I read that by 2011, some 80% of Internet users will particpate in some form of virtual world.  That may be so, and it’s certainly a warning for schools to get in touch, but I can’t help feeling that to reach this point we will have to give up something (the one in, one out philosophy).  It’ll be fine if it’s the housework that goes, but I’d be reluctant to replace my face-to-face relationships with virtual ones. 

I imagine that Second Life could become “all consuming” – something like the Dungeons and Dragons of yesteryear when people became so immersed that they forgot to eat and sleep. However, if you go in with a specific purpose, as you would if you were using it with your students, then Second Life presents a wonderful learning environment. For example, watching a performance of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre by the SL Shakespeare Company is only one step away from the real thing, whilst the Science Center offers access to some fanatstic interactive exhibits.

• Leave a comment... (0)

What a pity that so many schools continue to block student access to You Tube… it’s a wonderful resource that’s going begging.  Not only are students being denied the  opportunity to view some excellent curriculum-related videos, but they are also being denied the chance to participate in making their own and sharing their efforts. Let’s hope “the powers that be” will soon recognise the value of You Tube and trust that their students are well informed enough to discern the meaningful from the not-so-meaningful.

I find You Tube more useful than Teacher Tube – a result of the greater range of videos on the former and the usefulness of the links to ‘Related videos’.  And you’ve just got to admit that You Tube is much more fun!

Here’s one of my favourites from You Tube – a promo film made in 1946 on the incredible benefits of taking up a career as a librarian. Your Life Work: The Librarian . I like books and people, so I guess that’s a good start!

• Leave a comment... (0)