Useful sites (weekly)

  by  gcouros 

• How Online Education Is Changing the Way We Learn [INFOGRAPHIC]| The Committed Sardine An infographic posted by Jolie O’Dell on Mashable concerning the effects of online education’s development on today’s (2009) learning. Still a valid source although now 18months on.   

• The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education – 2010 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…An annual post from @Larryferlazzo that summarizes the best tools. Links to earlier posts as well  

• Libraries and the Future of Electronic Content Delivery | American Libraries Magazine “Libraries are about content plus community,” says Michael Porter. “What does that mean in a world where in 5, 10, or 20 years the vast majority of content is electronic?” Porter draws on two decades of experience as a librarian, speaker, and writer to envision an organization that will take a leading role in charting the future of electronic content delivery for libraries, with expert information professionals and industry leaders at the helm   

• Space Shuttle Discovery – 360VR Images A 360 degree view/tour of the Space Shuttle   

• 50 Informative and Well-Designed Infographics These brilliant and informative infographics have been created by various talented individuals. It is a collection of 50 infographics that are creatively designed, colorful, lively, shocking and educational.  

• Ebook Developments Were HOT at ALA  Looking over the program of presentations and panels and at the vendors exhibiting at the recent American Library Association Annual conference, it’s clear that librarians are focused on embracing the expanding digital world and specifically on providing ebooks as part of library services. Along with that, of course, come all the issues and considerations involved: copyright/DRM, rising costs of digital collections, format issues, and the rapidly evolving publishing market.   

• The Power of Open The Power of Open collects the stories of those creators who took advantage of that infrastructure to share work that enriches the global commons for all humanity. Creative Commons began providing licenses for the open sharing of content only a decade ago. Now more than 400 million CC-licensed works are available on the Internet, from music and photos, to research findings and entire college courses. Creative Commons created the legal and technical infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art and data by individuals, organizations and governments. The breadth of uses is as great as the creativity of the individuals and organizations choosing to open their content, art and ideas to the rest of the world. 

• PLN Challenge #5: Using Blogs as Part of Your PLN | Teacher Challenge 

• Animaps Animaps is a new service that was built for the purpose of allowing users to create animated Google Maps. The basics way of creating maps in Animaps is very similar the process for creating maps in Google Maps. The main benefit of using Animaps over Google Maps is that you can create a tour of your place marks that plays through according to the timing that you specify. Another benefit is that you can build in coloured shapes to expand and contract to demonstrate patterns. You can also import images to your map from Flickr, Picassa, and Facebook.    

• 15 Useful Online Mind Mapping and Brainstorming Tools – tripwire magazine Concept mapping and Mind mapping software are used to create diagrams of relationships between concepts, ideas or other pieces of information. It has been suggested that the mind mapping technique can improve learning/study efficiency up to 15% over conventional note taking. 

• Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For? ”Google+ could work well. There is a lot of potential with Google+: better student collaboration through Circles, opportunities for blended learning (a combination of offline and online instruction) with Hangouts, project research with Sparks, and easier school public relations with targeted photo-sharing, updates, and messaging”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Inky Awards – 2011 long list

It is not long before the CBCA winners are announced and so it is also the time for this year’s Inky’s  awards to be considered. Friday saw the announcement of the long lists. The Inkys are international awards for teenage (or YA) novels and are co-ordinated by the Centre for Youth Literature via insideadog.

This year we will be celebrating the fifth year of the Awards that are voted for online by the readers (who are under 20) of insideadog.com.au from anywhere in the world. You can read about the history of the Inkys (the winners and the books that have made the long and short lists) here. There have been many wonderful titles that have made these lists so all are worth a look even if they are not the eventual winners.

If you have not read some of these books you can go to this part of the site to find out more about each of them. We will know which titles have made the final cut on September 1 with the online voting open until October 18.

The winners will be announced at the Inkyfest on October 25.

You can read about the 2011 judges with interviews and links on the insideadog site. Lucy Christopher is on the blog already and the other judges will be interviewed each day this week.

Gold Inky 2011 long list:

• Pig Boy by  JC Burke. The “Tom Brennan” book was such a great story and a well read book in the library. It was also one of the books our VCAL boys had to read. They are boys who, on the whole, do not  usually like reading but it was one they could relate to.  This story is again one that has very strong Australian characters and it is a very honest story about boys, bullying and violence.
• Good Oil by Laura Buzo. 
• Just a Girl by Jane Caro.
• The FitzOsbournes in Exile by Michelle Cooper.
• Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley. A book whose characters were very recognisable to many of our students.
• This is Shyness by Leanne Hall.
• Black Painted Fingernails by Steven Herrick.
• Silvermay by James Moloney. This one is new to us. We have all of James Moloney’s books for secondary school students. The fantasy ones have been very popular and this looks to be no exception.
• The Comet Box by Adrian Stirling. Adrian Stirling’s first book Broken Glass was a very a contemporary story about rural Australian life. The Comet Box  is another look at Australian life. It is a suburban mystery that examines life in 1986  Geelong. Told through the stories of a number of different characters as they are touched by one family’s traumatic event but experienced by many within the community.
• All I Ever Wanted by Vikki Wakefield. We only bought this book last week and another member of our staff has it for the holidays. It another first novel and what an achievement to make it to the Inky long list

Silver Inky 2011 long list:

• Clockwork Angel (Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare. Part of a fantasy series that had a strong following here. The boys that got into this series loved the world (and enjoyed the romance as well!)
• Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan.
• No and Me by Delphine de Vigan.
• Where She Went by Gayle Forman.
• Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen.  
• The Agency: The Body at the Tower (The Agency #2) by YS Lee. This was one of the books I used when our year 8 students were studying the crime genre and they had to choose any book from the genre.
• Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.
• First Light by Rebecca Stead. This is one that other members of staff have read and enjoyed and on my reading list.
• Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork. Again read by others and one that I must read these school holidays

We have some of these books, some we have not seen and some we have looked at but decided not to buy. As a school for teenage boys, we have to work out what to spend our money on to get the “best value” for our money. Books may be very well written and interesting but literature that looks to “girlie” on the cover will not get read. The boys all have to bring wider reading books to all English classes and the covers matter. Science fiction and fantasy can get away with certain symbols on the cover but in general the boys are very sensitive to how the book looks to the others.

This is the great thing about having books in e-book format. The boys who are interested in reading beyond the traditional “boys” literature, who are willing to give different stories a go, don’t have to worry about message the covers will give to their school mates.

There are others here that, after reading the on-line comments, I must get my hands on and read. I will also be encouraging our boys to vote for their favourites.