I’m in a surreal phase this week, my last week at the school where I’ve been almost 5 years. An unwelcome illness kept me from school for 2 whole weeks (can you believe?) and helped begin the distancing process. Now it’s just 5 more days, and I really do feel like I’m in a strange half-world (although I think the prolonged illness is probably to blame).

The last couple of months have been very strange indeed. Our overseas trip during the last week of term 2 and the 2 weeks of holidays was full on, then major jetlag, followed by extreme tiredness and then the couple of weeks of fever and general unwellness, interrupted the normal routine. Somehow I managed to miss one son’s 18th (hiding out in the bedroom but very aware of noise and hilarity) and make it to the other son’s 21st last Friday which was very enjoyable.

Back to school for one last week, and Book Week will ensure that this week will not be without dramas and hopefully good times.

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As I think forward to my new school, new library team, new students and staff, I’m grateful that some things will carry across without any fuss. I’m talking about my online resources – my blogs, wikis and Google Sites which can be adapted to resourcing the new school’s curriculum, and can also still be used by teachers and students at my old school. At this point I can justify my determination to keep resources in the cloud and not just within the walls of the intranet. This way everybody wins.

I’m also very pleased that I’m seeing the fruits of a student blogging initiative. The blog I started as a library blog, Fiction is like a box of chocolates, mainly to promote reading, started to expand in different directions. Firstly, I involved staff in reviews to show students that their teachers read and diversely, and secondly, I pulled students in to write reviews. I wanted students to take ownership of the blog, and so a small but dedicated and talented group began expanding reviews to include film and games. I encouraged them to find their own style, and I’m happy to say that this is what occurred. The blog has become a platform for students’ interests, opinions and writing. One of the students went out on a limb and wrote about something close to his heart, depression and people’s attitude to it (in this post). The blog stats attest to the readership these boys attract, and I’m very proud of them. The boys also have big plans to write a Science Fiction story collaboratively which will be published as a serial in the blog. I’m looking forward to seeing how this project develops, and I’m happy that I can leave knowing that that this group of boys have taken ownership of the blog, that they can work together to keep this project alive.

I leave my school knowing that I can keep in touch with friends and colleagues online, and that we can continue to share ideas and online resources. Although I’m moving on, I’m looking forward to bringing ideas and skills to my new school as well as continuing to share with my old school.  My zone of collaboration is expanding.

                                                                          from Things to Think About

Some people have the gift of being able to energize a conference room full of people. Dr Joyce Valenza is one of these people and that’s precisely what she did at yesterday’s SLAV conference: Communicate, collaborate, create: and think critically!  Joyce is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring, creative, passionate and personable teacher librarians to exist. At the end of the day, instead of trudging home wearily after a full day conference, I wanted to start on ten projects simultaneously. And I wasn’t the only one.

Joyce compares the library to a kitchen with the librarian as Masterchef. The kitchen is the hub of the house, the place where people gather to create, to share discussions and enjoy each other’s company. I like this image of the library as a dynamic place for people. Yes, libraries house books but the books are also created by people.

Joyce also adds the analogy of the librarian as a curator. At a critical time when lack of understanding of the times in which we live and the teacher librarians’ role in curating the information deluge threatens the role of teacher librarians and sees them being replaced by non teaching staff precisely when more human intervention is needed,  Seth Godin’s words ring true – “We need librarians  more than we ever did. What we don’t need are mere clerks who guard dead paper.”

So how do we go about re-educating principals, teachers and everyone else about the crucial role of teacher librarians in education? Joyce talks about the need for parking stations for our lessons and resources. Record, document and share everything you do. Park your stuff in slideshows, wikis, blogs, wherever people can see it. Share everything with everyone and you have provided yourself and other teacher librarians with evidence of what you do and why it is crucial for teaching and learning. This is how we lead, and we don’t need to be in obvious leadership roles. But we don’t hide behind the circulation desk. We go out of the library and we bring the school into our library. We show people how diverse our role is, what connections we have across the school, what skills we bring and what skill sets we teach students and teachers.

Everything you need is housed in this wiki Joyce put together for her downunder visit. That will keep you very busy. The backchannels were busy too so you can find a summary of ideas and resources through the Twitter hashtag #slavconf (click here) and also on Todaysmeet/melbourne. I didn’t take notes; there was no need. I just watched Joyce deliver not just a presentation but her testament to a lifetime as a passionate teacher librarian who is also a change agent. She demonstated our role as something vital to schools, something fun and rewarding. She encouraged us to be fierce (and Joyce, I never did wear any of those holiday sweaters you mention), she passed on to us the confidence and courage to take our rightful position at the centre of learning and teaching.

Thankyou, Joyce, for sharing your wonderful resources – amongst these, your TL Guides, your research tools, your 21st century tools. I was fortunate to be present at last year’s conference too, and I hope we will be able to see you again soon. Thankyou to SLAV for organising this very successful conference.

Creating pictures in your head from text in a book is one way of reading. I’m finding more examples of online reading experiences which combine animation and interactivity and transform the reading experience. Whether you lean towards lamenting the loss of private headspace or not, you must admit that some of the story apps are beautifully crafted, and even you might not be able to keep your hands off them once your start reading.

One such iPad app is the Morris Lessmore story –

Put yourself in Morris’ shoes as you dive into the story of Mr. Lessmore and his flying friends through Moonbot Studios’ first Interactive Storybook. In this reinvention of digital storytelling you can repair books, tumble through a storm, learn the piano and even get “lost in a book,” flying through a magical world of words, giving you a dynamic journey through the story. This iPad App has been touted by Apple as one of the “Top New Apps for the iPad,” and will surely be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Using rich CG animation, innovative interactivity, original composed music, and unique games sprinkled throughout the book, this App will revive a love of story in all.

I’ve included 3 short videos about the making of Morris –

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/21823500 w=400&h=225]

The Making Of Morris: Part 1 (The Power of Story) from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/23216951 w=400&h=225]

The Making Of Morris: Part 2 (Animation We Cherish) from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/24570687 w=400&h=225]

The Making Of Morris: Part 3 (Thousands Of Books) from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Although the story is obviously suitable for younger students, I think that there is also so much a middle school teacher could do with it, from the perspective of storytelling, illustration and animation. It could be used as a writing prompt or studied for film technique. Students might create their own illustrated story or animation. I love the marriage of art and story! I remember how upset I was when, as a young child, I moved from picture books to pictureless books. Now with graphic novels, animations for all ages and increasing interactive and animated book apps, I’m happy again!

“Watching from the outside, Twitter is like the dumbest thing you’ve heard of: “Why would anyone want to tell others what they are doing in 140 characters?”

Since I have a Twitter presentation to staff coming up, I thought I’d collect my thoughts about Twitter in a blog post. I’m not aiming to write a comprehensive guide to Twitter, just in case you’re wondering. Other people have done that.

Twitter is a community you build like any other community. You can’t tweet into a vacuous space and expect a response. Twitter is a conversation, a sharing of ideas, information and resources, which can only happen if you develop relationships with other people on Twitter. Follow people you know on Twitter, people who share your professional interests if you’re on Twitter for that reason. Then have a look at who they’re following; follow some of those people, and start joining in the conversation, sharing what you think/write/know/want to know. You will come across other people in these conversations, and you will want to follow them too. Before you know it, you will have a sizeable Twitter community.

When you start – prepare to feel confused, invisible and frustrated. Until you build your network – and that takes time – you will feel that Twitter is a waste of time. You will say to yourself, I tried, nobody answered, I don’t have the time to spend following people, commenting and retweeting. This is very much part of the initial process, unfortunately. But hang in there and all will be revealed! It’s very much worth it, Twitter is a lifeline to many people. I don’t know what I would do without Twitter.

How many people should you follow? there are no hard and fast rules here, it’s really about personal preference. Some people say they prefer to limit the number to keep it manageable. True, but with lists you can easily control a large network. I like to remain broad, and every day I find people I can’t resist following. As soon as I follow them, I add them to a list so that their tweets don’t drown in the gush of tweets in the general column. As teacher librarian, I resource the curriculum, and so my scope is broad. I have lists for most areas of the curriculum. Tweetdeck is good for displaying these lists in columns. You can also follow a particular person and their Twitter conversations if you like.

Even the lists can get out of  hand. Currently I’m having a serious talk with myself about getting my act together and weeding out all my Tweetdeck columns. I’m very greedy, but this kind of greed comes back to bite you. You have to let go. You can’t keep up with all the conversations, no you cannot.

Of course, don’t focus on getting followers just for the sake of it. Your network has to be real, and the connections you make have to be real. Even in 160 characters people can tell if you are genuine or not. How you develop your relationships is vital to the quality of networking you will have.

It’s good to expand your twitter network to include people outside your workplace, your city and even country, to have the advantage of an international breadth, but it’s also important to maintain connections with people closer to home, and to have face to face contact with these people whenever possible. Just when you think you are happy with an exclusively online community, a face-to-face meetup will remind you that you still need to see somebody’s face. In  the flesh.

Like any society, Twitter has developed its own set of rules and etiquette. This has evolved naturally as these things do in any society. There is good behaviour and there is annoying behaviour, and although we’ve all been there with initial overtweeting on days when we’re passionate about something every 2 minutes and just have to share it, we should probably reign ourselves in to stop losing followers.

What you can and should do: share finds/posts/questions; retweet the good stuff; retweet to support your friends; encourage and thank; respond to requests for help and support.

What you should avoid doing: just retweeting without sharing anything that you’ve found, riding on the backs of people; tweeting every 2 minutes unless you’re tweeting at a conference; and here’s a good one –

Avoid Banal Food Updates
Unless you narrowly avoided death by eating a puffer fish, nobody really wants to know about what you
are eating today. If you ate at a cool restaurant and want to recommend it, that is fine. Dissecting what
you had for lunch if you just went to McDonalds is not. Just ask yourself if this is interesting to your
followers – if the answer is “yes”, then it’s OK to tweet.

(http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/the-ultimate-guide-for-everything-twitter/)

Don’t underestimate the bio:

There’s a lot you can learn about a person from their bio (160characters) and link (to blog or whatever), and by looking at the top 6 or so tweets in their profile.

The bio challenges you to compose something short, sharp and very you. I’ve changed my bio a couple of times – every time I read it and feel embarrassed, or if I discover something more vital to include. I think there’s a skill to writing the perfect bio but I haven’t discovered it yet.

It’s a good idea to have an online presence, eg a blog or wiki, Flickr profile, for people who want to check you out. Your blog displays your interests, areas of expertise, your personality, your work. If you’re on Twitter with no link to anything else about you online, you’re really not giving people much of an insight into who you are. If you don’t have a blog, try a wiki, Flickr, Linkedin, or something like that.

One of the great things about Twitter is using hashtags during a conference. I concentrate better on a keynote when tweeting this way. People appreciate it, and it’s a great way to discover who is present at the conference, and have a quick hello chat. Even if you’re not able to attend, you can participate and have a window into the conference by following people’s tweets with the conference hashtag. I feel less envious of people at international conferences when I take part online.

Hashtags are great when you follow what people are saying during extraordinary events, eg floods/fires/hurricanes; elections; royal weddings; Eurovision, etc. Just be careful – although people will sometimes get information and photos out before official news (because they happen to be on site), it’s unconfirmed information, and people will retweet unconfirmed tweets, suddenly that tweet has been retweeted hundreds of times which makes it look convincing when it may not be true.

Okay, so I haven’t covered everything – I could talk about #followfriday, about the convenience of mobile Twitter, but then the post would be ridiculously long. Take a look at Sue Waters’ comprehensive guide (@suewaters). Have a go, take the time to make it meaningful, then come back and tell me what you think.

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