Digitisation of text saves dying books

You see, lovers of real, hold-in-the-hand books, digitisation of text isn’t all evil. It saves lives.
I recommend you read the entire post by Maria Popova and browse the books. Yes, they’re Spanish but the experience is self explanatory.

Amplify’d from www.brainpickings.org

PICKED: Interactive Quixote

By Maria Popova

 

The digitization of text has been a topic of increasing cultural concern in recent year and may often feel like fighting windmills as some of humanity’s greatest literary artifacts crumble under the unforgiving effects of time, tucked away in the world’s disjointed libraries. Now, Biblioteca Nacional de España, The National Library of Spain, offers an ambitious vision for what the afterlife of dying books could hold. Quijote Interactivo is an impressive interactive digitization of the original edition of Miguel de Cervantes’ cult 1605-1615 novel, Don Quixote. Though the site is entirely in Spanish, the sleek interface, rich multimedia galleries and charmingly appropriate sound design make it a joy to explore whatever your linguistic nativity.

See more at www.brainpickings.org

What is the future of reading?

The connections to networks of people makes reading an enriching experience. This video has made me think about how we can make learning at school more engaging and meaningful through technologies which connect students to each other and popular interests and debate.

Amplify’d from vimeo.com
The Future of the Book.

Read more at vimeo.com

 

I agree, don’t blame the internet for your diffused attention span

Just as we used to blame TV, we blame the internet for our diffused attention span. People, what happened to taking responsibility for your own web browsing?

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk

I’m a bit fed up of articles in which journalists complain the internet is destroying their attention span. Many such pieces have appeared as reviews of the book The Shallows, which argues that spending hours online rewires your brain, bringing your most immediate and superficial thought processes to a fizzing, bubbling boiling point that eclipses the more meditative parts of your bonce.

Marshall McLuhan was wrong, back in the 60s, when he said “the medium is the message”. He was talking about television, but even as his ideas circulated, David Attenborough was commissioning Kenneth Clark to make the inspiring documentary series Civilisation. The vast differences between good and bad television, which still exist – and which were confirmed in the 70s by the rise of eloquent television critics like Clive James – showed the medium is not the message. What you put on the medium is the message.

Online culture is no more inherently brain-addling than television. It depends what you put online, and someone somewhere is putting anything you can think of on the web. It is clearly a lot less passive than TV at its worst: here you have constant choice and the instant ability to interact. Journalists and all professional writers have found this confusing, threatening, and sometimes maddening, but let’s not confuse our self-interest as people who have somehow found a way to get paid to write with the Death of Western Culture.

More harshly, when it comes to we journalists quoting The Shallows, well … people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I have written for all kinds of publications and in all kinds of sections of newspapers; while I love journalism, there is no doubt that you often have to filter ideas through a grid imposed by editors according to their definitions of what readers want. I still have an editor on this blog, but I have more freedom, and can address readers directly – which also involves you replying, often directly. I am not really sure how that is less intellectual, more superficial and shallow, than, say, being asked – as an art critic – to interview a famous flower arranger for a colour supplement, which happened to me once at another newspaper.

Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

 

Technology brings back the village doctor

[vodpod id=Video.4728413&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Thanks for Gabriela Grosseck for the link to the video.

This little talk grabbed my attention.

Arna Ionescu talks about change in the delivery of health care, but she may as well be talking about change in education.
Yes, Google has an immense store of information, but how do you make the decisions as to the right course of action? Just as health care is built on a foundation that’s personal and caring, so is learning. We accept information from sources we trust, but more often from people we know and trust.
Arna mentions the nostalgia surrounding the family doctor of the past. I often think that today’s personal and professional learning networks are moving closer to the notion of the family doctor. We feel more confident asking people we know than following a Google link.
Arna also talks about using technology to channel the motivational people in our lives -technology as the enabler that allows personal and human touch to spread; technology as a conduit.


Sir Ken Robinson animated

Here’s a great example of how visualisation enhances a very good talk by Sir Ken Robinson;

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U]

Some of the most disturbing parts:

  • Schools are trying to educate children like they did in the past, and consequently alienating millions of kids who don’t see any purpose in what they do in school.
  • Ritalin is overprescribed (in USA). We shouldn’t be sedating our kids, we should be waking them up to what they have inside themselves. They live in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth; they’re being besieged with information that calls for their attention from every platform, and they are getting distracted from comparatively boring stuff at school.
  • Schools are still organised on factory lines. We still educate our children by batches in age groups. Why is the most important thing kids have in common is how old they are. It’s essentially about conformity and standardisation.
  • Kids’ scores for divergent thinking deteriorate the older they become mainly because they become educated to accept that there’s only one answer and that you don’t copy.

Two concluding points by Ken Robinson:

  • Collaboration is the stuff of growth.
  • It’s mostly about the culture, the habits of our institutions.

What does this say to  me?

We can’t improve kids’ learning in schools by doing what we are already trying to do inside the current system. We can only improve their learning by changing the culture of schools, by changing the ways we do things – not within the current setup we have which is clearly not working because our teachers are really trying. What we need is a whole school system change which will discard the outdated factory model. I think this talk explains why we are trying so hard and yet failing on the whole.

What do you think?

Read about RSA here. How is it I hadn’t heard of RSA Animate before? It really does bring discourse to life.

Thanks to Sheryl A. McCoy for the link to this video.

Copyright isn’t right

Image: ‘meteora monastery, greece
meteora monastery, greece

Here’s another example of how copyright law just isn’t logical. In the article, US Library of Congress: copyright is destroying historic audio, the author refers to a 181-page in-depth study, which concludes

that apart from technical difficulties, US copyright law makes it virtually impossible for anyone to perform any form of audio preservation.

Not good, not good at all. Isn’t it time copyright laws were reviewed and made relevant to today’s world?  No wonder, according to the same article, it’s not only “pirates” and “freeloaders” who “rail against copyright laws”.

So let’s get off our high horses and stop thinking that we’re just doing the right thing when we follow the letter of the law and frown upon those who don’t.

“Were copyright law followed to the letter, little audio preservation would be undertaken. Were the law strictly enforced, it would brand virtually all audio preservation as illegal,” the study concludes.

And were you aware that

Sound recording preservation institutions are having problems finding the necessary funding for their expensive work because they are not allowed to grant access to the material they’re trying to preserve. Access has become such an important demand that organisations unable to provide such access will simply not even bother to preserve the audio in the first place. In addition, private collectors are unwilling to hand over their collections to institutions out of fear that their collections will not be made available to the public. As one participant in the study said, “The preservation of music is meaningless if this music is not accessible.

When laws are not only overly restrictive but illogical, people tend not to take them seriously. Here’s a good point:

In the perception of the public, copyright law has a reputation for being overly restrictive,” the study notes, “This perception fosters a dismissive attitude toward the law in communities that can hardly be characterized as rogue elements of society.

I think it’s time I bit the bullet and informed myself of Australian vs US copyright law and find out how these laws apply to us in Australia. Any good resource recommendations are welcome.

What do you think about copyright laws?

A link to a previous post about copyright here.

Interview with Judith Way, author of Bright Ideas

If you think about people who are a constant and inspirational support in your professional life, you know that you are indebted to these people on a daily basis.


I’ve decided to feature an interview with Judith Way, a Victorian teacher librarian who has made a significant difference in the professional lives of teacher librarians and others, and whose unassuming, friendly nature has endeared many, both in Victoria and globally.

Judith’s blog, Bright Ideas, which she writes for the School Library Association of Victoria, is one of the first things I check daily because I know that she is on top of what’s happening in the world of education. Although she may not need an introduction since so many are connected to her through the blog, Twitter and OZTL-NET, to mention only a few platforms, I’ve included a short biography as an introduction to a recent interview I conducted with Judith.

Judith Way is a teacher-librarian with a Graduate Diploma of Children’s Literature and a Master of Arts. Recently she was recognised for her work with the Bright Ideas blog through the  2010 IASL/Softlink International Excellence Award .She has also been the recipient of the School Library Association of Victoria’s John Ward Award for outstanding contribution to teacher librarianship in 2007 and the SLAV Innovators Grant in 2009. She was awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia Eleanor E. Robertson prize in 2003. She has presented at conferences locally and internationally. Judith writes the Bright Ideas blog for the School Library Association of Victoria.
How did you come to create and write the Bright Ideas blog?

Due to the success of the School Library Association of Victoria’s Web2.0 online program in 2008, there was a real momentum for more online resources for school libraries, and the idea that schools would showcase what they had developed to encourage others was a big part of that. I was honoured to be asked by SLAV to write the blog on their behalf. I had undertaken the ’23 things’ course through Yarra Plenty Regional Library in 2006.

What were your initial thoughts/feelings about the blog?

Excitement! What a fantastic opportunity to delve into the web 2.0 world and see what we could all make of it in school libraries.

Was it difficult to take the first steps in creating a blog identity and developing a readership?

The first thing was getting a body of work up on the blog. No-one is really going to read a blog with one or two posts on it, so building it up was vital. I then promoted it via the OZTL-NET listserv and down the track joined Twitter. That really developed the readership. Then I joined the ILearnTechnology blog alliance in January this year and that furthered readership again.

What were some of the difficulties you experienced along the way?

School library staff tend to be a modest bunch, so encouraging people that their web 2.0 efforts should be highlighted and shared with others was a challenge.

What were some of the highlights?

Getting lots of positive feedback from readers, especially in relation tothe school library examples that were shared.
Last year Bright Ideas also had the honour of being voted the “FirstRunner Up” in the Edublogs Awards for the ‘Best Library blog”. What a fantastic vote of confidence that was.
Notching up 200,000 hits earlier this year was also a terrific milestone and it was an unbelievable recognition to be awarded the 2010 IASL/Softlink International Excellence Award in September.

How is the role of the teacher librarian changing, if at all?

In one way it is changing dramatically. In another way, it isn’t changing at all. What do I mean by that? We are facing enormous changes in the way we present learning opportunities to students. Social media and eBooks have changed the landscape for many school libraries. But we still want to teach our students how to research well and to love reading- whatever the medium.

What would you say are the most important goals of the teacher librarian/ of educators in general in these times?

To remember the power you have to make a difference to the lives of your students. You have the ability to be a positive role model in terms of using information well, both content and morally. To teach students how to make a positive digital footprint and how to be cybersafe and cybersavvy. To pass on the love of reading. These are lessons they will carry throughout their lives.

Thanks, Judith, for your thoughts, and also for the untiring support you provide for teacher librarians and educators everywhere.

When are students leaders and experts? Listen2Learners @ State Library of Victoria

When are students leaders and experts?

When we hand over the stage to them to play in.

When we give them more to do than listen to us.

When we trust them to be responsible and capable.

Yesterday I saw evidence of this at The State Library of Victoria’s Listen2Learners. Thirteen school teams, some collaborative, presented their learning to adults. They were articulate, intelligent, knowledgeable and impressive. The buzz in the room was palpable.

Young people may be learners today, but tomorrow they are employees, employers, citizens, CEOs and community leaders so decision makers in government, business, industry and the social arena are taking notice of how young people learn with technology.

What young people think and have to say is helping to shape decisions and inform policies.

I was impressed and excited by the showcase of what kids – many of them primary – can do given meaningful, collaborative, real-life projects and connected through technologies to learn from and with real people. My excitement was tempered by the thought of them entering secondary school, the fear that this freedom to learn would be taken away from them due to a fear of technology and the restrictive nature of a score-centred curriculum.

The groups showcased a variety of focus, approach and location. Sacred Heart School, Tasmania collaborated with Pularumpi School, Northern Territory. A student from the Tasmanian school said that the best part of the project was meeting the other students, learning about how different people and places can be in your own country. They worked in Google docs, online social networks, and used Skype to communicate and collaborate.

Students from Prospect Primary School, South Australia, became teachers when they reversed roles to show more than 70 teachers and school leaders how to produce a movie.

Their work had all the hallmarks of good teaching and learning; planning and storyboarding, brainstorming an authentic enquiry question, setting assessment criteria, modelling and coaching.

Students ran an online radio station, they demonstrated how rural schools connect for the best science education, created video games, prepared a cybersafety program for incoming primary students for orientation day, created applications to help users develop numeracy skills, used technology to learn instruments and play in online bands, designed a Multi-user Virtual Environment (MUVE), connected with students from around the world in virtual classrooms, and more.

It was extraordinary to see what these young students were capable of doing, and inspiring to witness their passion, engagement and enjoyment.

These kids really knew what they were talking about. They had to ask the hard questions throughout the process, and in many cases they had to provide written applications for a place on the team. They knew what they were talking about because they worked through the process and were engaged, not because they had listened to what they teacher had told them or studied a text. When I listened to these kids it was obvious that they had worked through the what/how/why and understood the thinking around and inside their project and process.

This was by far the most inspiring learning opportunity for me this year. And, to boot, I got the opportunity to chat with Stephen Heppell.

Read about the schools taking part in this event.

 

Picture books no longer a staple for children – NYTimes

Picture by Anthony Browne

The New York Times article Picture books no longer a staple for children (7 Oct 2010) claims that

Picture books are so unpopular these days at the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees there are used to placing new copies on the shelves, watching them languish and then returning them to the publisher.

Apparently,

publishers have scaled back the number of titles they have released in the last several years, and booksellers across the country say sales have been suffering.

Now here’s the disturbing part:

Parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first graders to leave the picture book behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Publishers cite pressures from parents who are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools.

Okay, I’m not at all qualified to comment about the situation in New York, but the pressure on children to move ahead to ‘serious reading’ so that they make a head start on the journey towards the results-heavy secondary school education certainly rings a bell – an alarm bell.

Firstly, I am aware of the pressure on parents of very young children to start securing their future at a very early age. Even in preschool and child minding centres there is an educational program which is taken very seriously. Even when my boys were very young, I couldn’t help feeling nervous when we were missing out on a program which might retard their development in this or that area. Oh no, should they also take tennis lessons, but what about judo? And in primary school – should I be taking them to Kumon maths? Is one instrument enough?

By secondary school this view of the educational journey is even more entrenched, especially with the dreaded year 12 result looming at the end.

It’s a terrible pressure parents are feeling — that somehow, I shouldn’t let my child have this picture book because she won’t get into Harvard.”

Big mistake!

Focusing on test results, stanines, scores and the such devalue a real focus on learning and the joy of learning. Naturally parents want their children to find successful careers, and so doing well in school is usually a matter of doing your  homework, learning content and fulfilling prescriptive guidelines.

Picture books have traditionally been associated with very young children. Parents read picture books to their children before they start school, and teachers read them to children in the early primary years – or even throughout primary school – but once a child starts ‘chapter books’, everyone feels very proud. It’s a milestone. I remember in grade 3 we had to stop reading aloud and read silently because this was part of our ‘growing up’. Pictures then fall away, as if they somehow hold children back.

But this is faulty thinking.

Literacy experts are quick to say that picture books are not for dummies. Publishers praise the picture book for the particular way it can develop a child’s critical thinking skills.

“To some degree, picture books force an analog way of thinking,” said Karen Lotz, the publisher of Candlewick Press in Somerville, Mass. “From picture to picture, as the reader interacts with the book, their imagination is filling in the missing themes.”

Many parents overlook the fact that chapter books, even though they have more text, full paragraphs and fewer pictures, are not necessarily more complex.

I absolutely agree. With limited text on each page, the words in picture books are very carefully chosen, often lyrical, or employing alliteration, assonance or onomatopeia. In a good picture book, the sequence of pictures in developing the story is tight. And finally, there is much more to read on the page than just the words – children learn to read visual clues and make inferences. Overall, there is a special skill in reading a good picture book.

In today’s media-rich world, students are less text-centric. They have YouTube at their fingertips, and spend a lot of time watching videos. Animated series such as The Simpsons, American Dad and South Park are not aimed at young children although young children do watch them.

Comics have become acceptable and popular reading material whereas they used to be regarded as B-grade literature. Graphic novels have evolved, confusing those who are unable to see how they are different to comics. Are they different to comics?

Shaun Tan is one example of a picture book author who has pushed the boundaries of the genre. His picture books are so sophistocated that they could easily  be studied in senior years. More importantly, there are so many layers of interpretation to uncover, and that is the beauty of images. There is so much to observe and discuss. Visual literacy, making sense of picture clues, critical thinking are all important skills these days.

I’m actually surprised by the New York Times article. My observation is that picture books are still valued. In any case, secondary school teacher librarians in Australia take them very seriously on the whole. Teachers use them with older students. I don’t know anything about book shop sales, but I do know that the picture book areas are attractive and popular with parents and children. In my school, a boys’ secondary college, the graphic novel section is the most popular reading area during recess and lunchtimes.

Picture books are an important genre and I hope they are here to stay.

David Astle is puzzled

Last night I travelled to another planet. Sitting in a long, narrow room bursting at the seams with puzzle and palindrome addicts, I wondered where these people had been hiding? Out of body experience? No, just another Wheeler Centre offering. I had come to the session David Astle: Confessions of a Wordaholic.

Father holds six over least arrangement. (5, 5) A gibberish sentence for many of us, but an irresistible clue for those in the thrall of cryptic crosswords. And in the Australian scene, there are none more cryptic, more revered and more dastardly than the man known as DA.

To celebrate the launch of his new book Puzzled, meet David Astle and find out why Geoffrey Rush calls him the ‘Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords’.


As Harriet Veitch said in her Sydney Morning Herald article:

It’s scary inside David Astle’s brain. It’s stuffed full of words endlessly doing things. Palindromes and semordnilap run back and forth, spoonerisms climb up and own, thickets of anagrams form and reform and the tendrils of double meanings reach out to trip the unwary.

Even Astle occasionally wants to get out. “If anyone finds the exit, could you let me know? I’d like a rest sometimes.”

Despite the fact that I am not a puzzle person, that even when shown the answer , I remain puzzled, it was an immensely enjoyable and mentally exhilarating hour. I had expected David to be – dare I say it – more of a geek, considering the intensity of his word obsession, but in fact, he is  very sociable and entertaining, with a sharpened intellect and almost incapable of leaving a word alone, set on automatic pilot to continuously pull words apart, stretch them into new meanings and possibilities. In David’s own words, his gift for word play is ‘like synesthesia, only instead of seeing colours, I just see acrobatic letters’.

David’s new book, Puzzled, is surprisingly thick. Apart from chapters of clues, Puzzled is also a insight into David’s life and ‘how a seemingly normal boy from Sydney’s northern suburbs turned into a man whom people curse on a regular basis’ (Harriet Veitch).

In researching for this post, I discovered David Astle’s website and blog – both which have been added to my RSS now for titilating reading.

Thankyou, Wheeler Centre, for providing the opportunity to meet in person so many diverse and fascinating people. For free!