ASLA Tasmania Blog

Lorene Furmage awarded Doreen Hopkins Medal and School Library Research Fellow of the Year 2010

2010-05-09T13:07:00.003+10:00

On Friday 7th May, at the annual ASLA-Tas State Conference Dinner at the Boathouse Restaurant, Invermay in Launceston, there were two awards announced - the Doreen Hopkins Medallist and the School/College Research Fellow of the Year Award for 2010.

The ASLA-Tas Executive, Judging Panels and members present at the state-drawn conference were able to share the news and give congratulations to Executive Officer, Lorene Furmage for the well deserved awards.

Details of the Award criteria aand nominations are at the ASLA-Tas website. The citations have been sent to members' lists.

Training teachers and teacher librarians

2010-05-05T23:09:00.004+10:00

A US article of interest follows. The focus of this article reminded a few of us attending the Hobart hearing of the Inquiry last week and the conversations with members about the beginning teachers being in survival mode for the first year or two of teaching. Do you agree?

https://webmail.hutchins.tas.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=daaed996cb914290ac2f76aa458ec871&URL=http%3a%2f%2feducation.change.org%2fblog%2fview%2fwhat_should_we_teach_the_teachers
“A constant complaint from graduates of teacher education programs (myself included) is that they do not prepare teachers for the real world of teaching. My own teacher education program taught me the theories of adolescent development, curriculum design, and of schooling in general, but did not tell me what to do in front of a group of 25 screaming 9th graders when I wanted to get their attention. Now I am on the other side, as a teacher educator, and I struggle with the best ways to prepare future teachers.

Teacher education programs generally have three components: Foundations courses (courses in the history, philosophy and/or psychology of education), Methods courses (how to write curriculum), and a Practicum, or what is commonly called student teaching (usually a semester or a year of teaching under a mentor teacher). Teacher candidates take between one and two years to complete the course of study for which they are awarded a master's degree. Then they enter a classroom.” ....and more in the article.

This would be similar in Australia. The thought of adding into a course the digital literacy component for teachers to skill them to take over this aspect of the role of the TL is beyond comprehension!!!

the Inquiry

2010-05-05T22:33:00.003+10:00

Representing my school, a verbal comment that I made to the Australian Parliament House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Training Inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians in Australian schools at the Hobart hearing on 30th April follows:

The role of the Teacher-librarian has never been more critical in our schools. Their roles can epitomize the shift in thinking to the new learning spaces, and the teaching and learning styles that have been brought about by embracing technological change. The thinking curriculum, the growing evidence about how students ‘learn to learn’ as well as the importance of growing good leadership in resourcing schools adequately, all underpin our call for new staffing roles and funding for school library services.

This investigation demonstrates that research has always said there is a direct relationship between improving student achievement and adequate resource allocation - well-stocked and professionally led school library instructional programs designed and delivered by teacher librarians have an important impact on the [whole] school effects, not just the classroom effects.

The many faceted roles of the school library staff incorporate areas such as:
* reading for everyday literacy, pleasure, well-being and school engagement;
* ICT skills, competencies, digital literacy, and technology based learning;
* self-directed learning and independent study for academic integrity as well as lifelong learning;
* resource allocation for the effective management of learning spaces and the school's assets;
and what we now call across school, college and higher education
* a ‘learning commons’ for information literacy programs – whether inquiry based learning, creative and critical thinking, cross curricular literacy and new media literacy, technology rich learning spaces; and differentiated instruction.

What does a Teacher-librarian do? TL’s teach all students, not just classes as they are the key providers of the everyday literacy programs within schools, ranging from handling information, using traditional print media through to the sophisticated critical literacy and new media literacy skills. Teacher librarians teach all students every year, so they develop ongoing relationships with students.

Schools require new libraries, new teams, new systems, new services, new licenses and permissions that encourage safe and remote access. The new discovery interface technologies that better school library information management systems provide, allow effective and efficient information handling skills across a vast number of the world’s electronic databases and quality digital educational content beyond the access of the search engines such as Google. Libraries provide a managed gateway to world knowledge.

Good libraries have been providing more access to far more digital resources than the physical resources for a decade. As books are increasingly digitized, there will be less reliance on low quality and controversial online resources from the internet or the ‘great library in the sky’.

In response to the ‘format shift’ for books and other curriculum resources to e-books, the need for an ICT skills continuum and competency frameworks will ensure that school libraries and teacher librarians pay special attention to information literacy as a cross-curriculum and over-arching set of 21st century and transferable skills. Whilst the Australian Curriculum embeds digital literacy, national ICT reports focus on these emerging technologies and new media literacy skills . Fluency in the new media literacy skills is not automatic and it requires explicit teaching and development across the curriculum.[i]

In summary, Teacher librarians need to be available for their facilitating roles in partnership with classroom teachers to ensure the integration of information literacy, ICT and literature programs as well as supporting all students on personalized bases in their research, study, online learning and recreational reading.

[i] Australia. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Strategic ICT Advisory Service (2009) Collaboration in Teaching and Learning (CTL) Dulwich, SA: Education.au Available at http://www.educationau.edu.au/sites/default/files/2009_SICTAS_CTL_1.pdf

2010-05-01T12:32:00.003+10:00

ASLA Tasmania State Conference
The Boathouse on Northbank
55a Lindsay St Invermay Launceston
Friday 7 to Saturday 8 May

Professional learning for all education library staff: Teacher
Librarians, Teachers, Library Managers, Technicians and Assistants

Friday
8.30 Registration / Tea & Coffee
9.00 Welcome
9.15 Opening Address – Steve Wilkins
10.00 National initiatives and ASLA engagement
11.00 Concurrent Sessions
· Resource Description & Access – C Denholm
· Excel: Introducing spreadsheets tor library reporting – J Fielding
11.45 Concurrent Sessions
· Historical research and the picture book - Corinne Fenton (author)
· Managing the transition from print to electronic resources – Chair: D Morris, J Abell
· Database Searching – A Mills
1.30 Concurrent Sessions
· Communication, collaboration & community: Web 2.0 @ library information services – K Bonanno
· School Libraries of the Future – R Sussman
· Creating a Clever Clickview Community - K Nielsen-Creeley
2.50 Concurrent Sessions
· Dipping A Toe Into Web2.0 - K Reid
· Leveraging school library partnerships from a social perspective – R Sussman
· E-books – General introduction and discussion on library services issues
3.50 Close
6.30 for 7.00 Conference Celebratory Dinner (with award presentations) Gourmet BBQ with desert. The Boathouse. Full bar service available.

Saturday
8.30 Registration

Teacher librarians @ work: aspiring to professional excellence
Library technicians @ work: developing expertise and building networks
9.00

10.00
National standards: Political goobledegook or fair-dinkum professionalism – K Bonanno

Clickview: The Package: what are you doing, what are they doing? - K Nielsen-Creeley

Advanced Book Repair and Product demonstration – Raeco representatives

Moving forward: Merging practice and new technologies – J Bales

AV Equipment: The basics – j Fielding

11.30
Practice around Australia – inspiration from across the continent Web 2.0 tools for desktops and social bookmarking – J Fielding
1.15
What’s common about Learning Commons – A Research Study - S Chaplin, S Ludford
Cybersafety – J Fielding
2.15
Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians: How do you rate? K Bonanno
Developing expertise: Professional learning non-teaching library staff – Chair: H Chapman, R Rathbone
3.30
Plenary – Moving forward (open to all delegates)
4.00
Close
8.50 Welcome & Housekeeping

Libraries 2L - Learning and Literature

2008-07-03T23:33:00.004+10:00

ASLA Tasmania and CBCA (Tas branch) are collaborating this year for members and colleagues statewide to attend a 2008 joint conference Libraries 2L: Learning and Literature, which will take place in Hobart on 15 and 16 August 2008. All details are included in the attached flyer and registration form.

This is a significant event for Tasmania, and we urge you to support it with your attendance. See you there!

All information will be uploaded onto the two branch websites.

Keynote speakers include Dr Susan La Marca, Kevin Hennah, John Heffernan (Book Week celebratory dinner), and Carole Wilkinson. Young Melbourne author Jack Heath will speak to students on Friday 15 August at 11.00am. Jack is an entertaining, lively speaker who published his first novel at the age of 18. This will be a great motivational session for students in Years 8 to 10. Other speakers include Tony Flowers and Peter Gouldthorpe, Isobel Williams and Dr Ken Price.

School Library Learning 2.0

2008-06-05T15:04:00.003+10:00

Many are talking about "the 23 things"
click here http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/2007/02/23-things_27.html
and try:
Welcome to School Library Learning 2.0.
This tutorial is ...by the California School Library Association (CSLA) 2.0 Team. On the following pages, you will encounter the tools of the new Internet: Web 2.0 tools that are bringing our kids in touch with the entire world through social networking, video, audio, and gaming sites. The CSLA 2.0 team encourages you to take time to explore and enjoy all the tools of this new Internet. CSLA is offering its members a "Summer 2.0 Fun" session from June 1 through September 1, 2008.

ALIA Education & Workforce Summit

2008-03-26T23:17:00.005+11:00

ALIA Education & Workforce Summit

A number of ASLA related submissions to the ALIA Education and Workforce Summit to be held on March 28th are now available for reading. The list includes:

Teacher Librarians - Submission from Barbara Combes
Library Technicians - Submission from the ALIA National Library Technicians Group *** School libraries / Teacher librarianship - Submission from ASLA & QUT
Submission from Charles Sturt University School of Information Studies

Submissions have also been received from ACOC, CAUL, Public Libraries NSW, ALIA National Library Technician’s Group, and the Victorial Library Technician Educators, on cataloguing, academic libraries, teacher librarians, graduates, VET education and pathways and more.

*** worth reading

Skills Act

2007-08-16T14:55:00.000+10:00

Thanks Isobel for directing us to http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslissues/SKILLS_Act.cfm - an interesting US development to monitor:

" The SKILLs Act
On Tuesday June 26, 2007, Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) introduced the Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLs) Act that guarantees students across America will be served by highly qualified, state-certified school library media specialists and will have the library resources they need to succeed.

Requires school districts, to the extent feasible, to ensure that every school within the district employs at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in each school library;

Defines highly qualified school library media specialists as those who have a bachelor’s degree and have obtained full state certification as a school library media specialist or passed the state teacher licensing examination, with state certification in library media in such state;

Establishes as a state goal that there be at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in every public school no later than the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year;

Broadens the focus of training, professional development, and recruitment activities to include school library media specialists;

Ensures that funds will serve elementary, middle, and high school students; and

Requires books and materials to be appropriate for and engage the interest of students in all grade levels and students with special learning needs, including English language learners."

This text has been sourced directly from the website: http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslissues/SKILLS_Act.cfm

The Australian School Libraries Research Project

2007-08-16T14:48:00.000+10:00

The Australian School Libraries Research Project is a partnership between the Australian School Library Association (ASLA), the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and
Edith Cowan University (ECU).

All school library personnel eg. teacher librarian, librarian, teacher, library technician, library officer/assistant/clerk, library volunteers are requested to take time to complete the survey.
Survey dates: Survey 1: Australian School Libraries – State of the nation - Runs from 6 – 20 August 2007.
Survey 2: Australian School Library Personnel and roles - tba.

Visit the website to see more background information - http://www.chs.ecu.edu.au/portals/ASLRP

As the infomration notes: ...."Within the teacher librarianship profession, the lack of national data about school libraries has long been recognized as a factor that limits the effectiveness of advocacy. Lonsdale (2003 p.32) in the ACER Report commissioned by ASLA on the Impact of School Libraries on Student Achievement: a Review of the Research pinpointed the serious nature of this gap. She commented:
Perhaps a useful starting point for Australian library professionals would be to gain a more accurate picture nationally of the current state of school librarianship … Before embarking on a sustained and systematic program of research, or even a promotional campaign to highlight the positive contribution that school librarians can make to student learning, it would be useful to have an accurate snapshot of what is currently happening around the country in regard to school library staffing."

Californian School Library Learning 2.0

2007-05-24T23:59:00.000+10:00

CSLA blogging http://www.schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/ has some interesting trails and innovative discovery learning. These professional learning ideas for school library personnel in online communities have universal relevance. Much more than the '23 things' naming the post and PD program.

Web2.0 and school library2.0

2007-05-07T17:41:00.000+10:00

Thanks to ABC's Big Ideas on Sunday and advice from Christopher Riley, I've just listened to a podcast by Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia and more.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/default.htm

And then a colleague at school sent me this site to peruse: https://flatplanet.wikispaces.com/ - about two schools in different countries doing a an environment project and sharing all the experiences on a wiki.

Earlier, I had a chance to watch this online video http://www.glumbert.com/media/web20

It is all a reminder to me that we have to continue to address affordable high speed broadband in our schools for accessing quality digital content.

How can one not be passionate about exploring Web2.0 and the school library's role?

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales in Australia

2007-05-07T17:01:00.000+10:00

A couple of weeks ago, Lorene and I were fortunate enough to attend education.au's seminar with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. The seminar was called Challenging how knowledge is created and that's certainly what Wikipedia is all about. Early on in his presentation, Jimmy Wales spoke about the democratisation of information. With that kind of talk I thought we were onto something good, and the great ideas continued to flow: nurturing community, a culture of sharing, reappraisal of copyright, free access to information, developing resources in languages other than English ('monocultures are unhealthy'), and the whole free culture movement. The seminar was inspiring and rather than me waffling on, have a listen yourselves. There's a great program on Radio National (God bless the ABC) called BigIdeas and they aired a recording of Jimmy's talk. Here's a link to the podcast. education.au have also put some podcasts on their site.

When another presenter, Mark Pesce, spoke about how he understood what Wikipedia was all about, he did a content comparison between Britannica, Wikipedia and Uncyclopedia (a Wiki spoof). You HAVE to look up kangaroo in Uncyclopedia. It's just too funny.

There's so much to think about after listening to Jimmy Wales. I certainly need to spend more time playing with Wikipedia and wiki open source (of course!) software in general. Hmmm, I can feel a new gadget coming on!

Christopher Riley

Interesting US legislation

2007-05-01T20:36:00.000+10:00

April 18, 2007 press release on the ALA site:

LIBRARIAN Act of 2007 introduced in Congress
WASHINGTON ...coinciding with National Library Workers Day, the Librarian Incentive to Boost Recruitment and Retention in Areas of Need (LIBRARIAN) Act of 2007 was introduced in both the U.S. Senate (S. 1121) and the House of Representatives (H.R. 1877)....“Librarians play an essential role in our schools and public libraries and help to foster a lifelong love of reading in our young people,” stated Sen. Reed. “With a shortage of librarians across the country and with many more set to retire, we must urgently encourage more people to enter the library science field and work to retain valuable librarians who are already serving our communities.”

http://tinyurl.com/2jcfxs

2007 ASLA Tas School Library Conference

2007-03-29T22:31:00.000+10:00

When members of the ASLA Tas Executive meet March 31st in Launceston, they will be discussing ideas for this year's annual conference mid-year. Please comment to this blog if you have any ideas or offers for calendar options, themes, speakers and workshops.

Harnessing the Web 2.0 tools

2007-03-24T22:43:00.000+11:00

Keeping up-to-date with the new interactive web is exhausting, so Will Richardson's book, Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for the classroom Corwin Press, 2006 $US27.95 is a perfect source and much more than an introduction.

Chapters cover all aspects of the read/write web - weblogs and blogging across the curriculum, wikis in schools, using RSS in the classroom, social bookmarking, Flickr and using images online, and podcasting.

Visit Will Richardson's website too, if you have not been there before: http://weblogg-ed.com/book-recommendations/

The Connected Library - an inspiring new book

2007-03-24T21:49:00.000+11:00

It was a great surprise this week to receive our library's copy of The Connected Library: A handbook for engaging users by Suzette Boyd ISBN 0-646-46138-9Price A$60.00 Published by Utopia Press. PO Box 6120 Hawthorn West Vic 3122 © 2006 Utopia Press: email: utopia.press@yahoo.com.au

I had only read about it on OZTL_NET in late January and have looked forward to receiving Suzette's book since then.

As a distinguished school library leader in Australia, Suzette is currently Head of Library and Information Services at Scotch College in Melbourne.

As John Marsden says in the introduction, it is a 'flight manual' for librarians.

This book is an outstanding and inspiring read for teacher-librarians about best practice and everday concerns for school library staff in a Web 2.0/Library 2.0 age. Even the publication presentation and format is novel, so readable and refreshing. There are eye-catching vignettes on every page, invitations for self-reflection and summary in every chapter with a 'tips and tactics' at each end-section. The attractive layouts of of exemplary ideas and practice as well as strategic thinking throughout makes it a book that is hard-to-put-down!

Looking forward to your responses?

New Librarians' Symposium: Talk on NLS 2006 -

2006-12-04T22:48:00.000+11:00

Kate Gordon reports on a recent conference attended

Over the weekend, I attended the 2006 New Librarians’ Symposium, held at the University of New South Wales, in Randwick. I’d never been to Randwick before. In fact, I’d never been to Sydney before, so it was all rather exciting – if a little bit scary!

The New Librarians’ Symposium is held every two years and, seeing I only graduated 2 years ago, this was my first one – also rather exciting if a little bit scary! As I am so deeply committed to my work at St Virgil’s, I missed out on the first day of talks, but I did make it to the cocktail party – just! Who knew it took 40 minutes to get a taxi from the airport to the State Library of New South Wales – according to Whereis.com, it’s a 9 minute journey! Anyway, the taxi ride was pretty cool. The shops in Sydney are open 24 hours leading up to Chrissie, and there were people EVERYWHERE, and I had a very cool taxi driver, from Iran, who gave me a running commentary, and espoused the gloriousness of Sydney life, while at the same time comprehensively bagging out Tassie. Apparently all we have down here are trees. I told him at the rate we’re going, we won’t even have many of those left any more soon!

Anyway, the cocktail party was great fun. I even mingled and made small talk, which I’m usually horrendously bad at – and that was even after missing the Networking 101 session that was held on the Friday, so go me! After the cocktail party, we headed out en masse down to the Rocks – I totally embarrassed myself by yelling out very loudly things like “Oh my goodness! Look at that! It’s the Opera House!”, “Good grief, look at that! It’s the bridge!”, “Wow, look at that! It’s where they film Kochie and Mel!”

After fish and chips – just chips for me – and a really cool and completely inexplicable fireworks display (we liked to think it was for us!), about 20 of us proceeded to take on the Sydney nightlife & party hard …. And, at 12 o’clock midnight, ended up in a late night bookshop. Talk about your librarian clichés.

We must have looked a sight, too – we were all still frocked up from the cocktail party. For anyone who has ever been in my office, I shall now amaze you with a statement: I was out at 12 o’clock at night, wearing just a dress. No coat. No scarf. No beanie. Sydney rocks.

Anyway, we got home … eventually … and the next day it was time for the “real” reason we were there – the conference.

The first keynote speaker was insanely good, talking about the role of the modern librarian. A lot of what she talked about was stuff that’s very close to my heart. Libraries are not just about books any more. They are about information. Information is no longer our cash crop – it’s everywhere, ubiquitous. The ability to access, manage, synthesise information is where it’s at. She also believes strongly that a library should be a place of pleasure, which I completely agree with. If the library is a fun, safe place to be, patrons or students are more likely to want to come there, and work there. She said the traditional view of libraries as strict, oppressive and all about enforcement of rules is no longer the case & it scares people off. The measure of our success as librarians is a) if people enjoy the experience and b) if they get good results from their work. We need to publicise our skills as information retrievers, as well as empowering patrons to find information for themselves. At St Virgil’s, that is one of my main aims. A student may spend a whole lesson trying to find a piece of information that I, with my skills, could find in a minute. I don’t believe, though, that librarians should be the guardians of the holy grail of information. I truly believe that the way to end oppression, free people and empower them is to inform them, and teach them to inform themselves. That’s what I aim to do here.

My favourite quote from her talk was “Librarians like searching, everyone else likes finding”. That is so true! One interesting thing she said was why she believes that people have a misconception about librarians. They believe we are unskilled. We “check books in and check books out”. As my friends always used to ask, “Why do you need to go to uni to scan barcodes”? She believes that the reason for this is that we are the one profession that does not require appointments to access our services. We sit at a counter like retail staff. Librarians have to go to uni for 5 years to be qualified, and yet, unlike lawyers, doctors, accountants, we give our time all the time, without appointments. She said that in libraries where librarians have begun to set up appointments, they are valued more and sometimes their pay is even increased! Unfortunately, I just love dealing with the boys too much to try this practice. I love being a jack in the box!

The next session that really interested me was a talk on the portrayal of the librarian in popular media. As you can imagine, there was much talk of pearls and specs and buns, but also reference to a few more funky librarians: Rachel Weisz, the sexy librarian in “The Mummy” – apparently every man’s fantasy (“Why, Miss Jones, you’re beautiful!”) ; Giles from “Buffy”; and even Weird Al Yankovich’s “Conan the Librarian”. As the speaker said, it’s not worth caring if everyone thinks you wear spectacles and cardies and are an unmarried spinster with a cat. The only people who care how librarians are seen are librarians.

The most relevant speaker for me was John Chisolm, who spoke about “falling up the career ladder” – the librarian as manager. This year I have kind of taken on the management role for the first time, so what he said hit home for me. He believes that, in general, librarians aren’t geared to be big, capitalist, CEO-type managers. In his words, by nature of our chosen profession, we aren’t “captains of industry”. We’re “pinko lefty librarians”! We’re commies who give stuff (information) away for free. He also had lots of good tips for how we can turn our natural dispositions to our advantage, though.

Another quote which I thought really encapsulated the importance of librarians and our role today was one from the final speaker, Christine Bruce, from her talk on Information Literacy: “Information technologies are no longer a luxury, but a basic human right … information reduces inequities, promotes tolerance and mutual understanding”. Last week Julia came to me asking for a DVD on spin doctors & propaganda and their role in how the public view war. Informing the public gives them power to make change, gives them empathy. Makes them better understand what’s going on in the world, their place in it, and the place of others. The role of the librarian is so important in this.

The NLS has heightened my enthusiasm so much for the job I have at St Virgil’s, given me heaps of ideas and recharged my batteries at a time of year when they were running slightly flat! As the keynote speaker said, for the librarian, giving information is the way we show love – each time we provide information, we are giving a little gift of love!

I’ll just finish now with something a little bit lighter. We each had to produce a creative piece on why it’s great to be a young librarian. I wrote mine in approximately 3 minutes, so it’s rather naff but, I hope, a little bit of fun. The form actually said “tell us why being a new librarian rocks”, so that is the theme of my piece. Here goes:

That “ooh” moment.
That lightbulb flash.
Proving it’s true it
comes out in the wash.

Oh, so that’s why I’m like this!
Odd one amongst men.
I’m not really a freak.
I’m a librarian!

That’s why I like searching –
Solving mysteries – by gooey!
I’m actually not bizarre!
I’m excited by Dewey!

That’s why I like giving
Gifts of info! By gov!
It’s my way of helping
It’s my show of love!

I don’t have a bun.
I love Opeth, Metallica.
I’m a little bit gothic:
Slayer Bibliographica!

I’m not a stereotype
But I finally belong.
I’m normal amongst you,
New librarian throng.

So rock on, librarians.
Be proud of yourselves!
Don’t hide under desks!
Don’t cower under shelves!

Say “I am Librarian!
I’m invincible!”
Have your own “oo” moment.
Go hard & go well.

by Kate Gordon

ASLA XX - Adelaide, October 2007

2006-12-02T16:58:00.000+11:00

Hearts on Fire: Sharing the Passion will explore the place of Learning, Literatue and Literacies in schools. Find out details about the ASLA XX Conference on the ASLA website.
The themes embrace a wider perspective of education than school libraries and experts beyond the profession will be both presenting and participating.

Future comments to this posting will keep you up-to-date and informed about the program as it develops. The ASLA website is being updated regularly.

Book Discussion

2006-12-02T16:51:00.000+11:00

An ASLA Tas blog reader has suggested that this forum would be useful for sharing good literature and raising any issues that emerge in regard to books in our libraries. An extract from the initial comment, found under the Welcome post, follows:
"I have just finished reading The Cry of the Heron by Lian Hearn, the completing book of the Otori Trilogy. It was great, full of pomp and ceremony, intrigue and surprise. It had a very satisfying ending."

If you have other areas of interest, please contact one of the moderators - we are happy to start a new post on recommended themes.

Wikipedia, online encyclopedias and read/write web

2006-10-14T16:16:00.000+11:00

Wikipedia versus Britannica - free versus subscription
How are you dealing with Wikipedia in your school/college? Are your students favouring it and citing it as their main or only reference in secondary classes? I have been preparing a comment for staff at school and found these useful links:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Schools_FAQ
* short article in the journal Nature about a survey of quality in the articles in the publications Giles, J. (2005) "Internet encyclopaedias go head to head." Nature, (438), 900-901. http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/pdf/438900a.pdf

At a conference recently, we spoke to Encyclopaedia Britannica representatives and invited them to Hobart early in 2007 to showcase the wealth of Tasmanian content and customising for early learning, primary and secondary levels in the online version which delivers remote access very well from school intranets for all students enrolled.

At school at the moment, students are blocked from uploading and contributing articles to wikipedia as well as their own sites on myspace.com... simply for their bandwidth quota issues. Students are requesting a reversal of this decision, and I suspect we will! What about Flickr www.flickr.com and Del.icio.us www.del.icio.us - are you using them?

Recent conferences

2006-10-11T22:04:00.000+11:00

Some fortunate Tasmanians have just returned from the recent Australian Computer Educators conference held in Cairns. A stimulating and varied program covered a range of ICT possibilities. We look forward to contributions that will inform others of your experiences. Information about the conference can be found at ACEC2006

The School Library Association of Queensland held a state conference in Mackay a week earlier that also reflected a strong ICT theme. The SLAQ blog provides information on a number of sessions that may be of interest to readers.

Posting comments to the blog

2006-10-11T19:09:00.000+11:00

Members' comments made to any of the ASLA Tas Executive's posts will be live on the web. Comments need to be suitable for a general readership rather than addressed to the originator of the post. The blog is moderated. Posts will not go live until the moderator (Jennie) has processed them.

Refining our curriculum

2006-10-10T21:50:00.000+11:00

ASLA Tas executive members will compiling a short response to the invitation to Tasmanian teachers by the Minister, Mr David Bartlett to provide feedback to the document "Refining our curriculum" - particularly on Information Literacy across the curriculum. (A response will be emailed - curricrefine@education.tas.gov.au by 31 October 2006). Any contibuting comments to executive members would be welcomed as soon as possible.

ASLA Tasmania Blog: Welcome!

2006-10-08T23:16:00.000+11:00

ASLA Tasmania Blog: Welcome!
When the minutes of the ASLA TAs AGM Sept 28th Teleconference are published this week, all members will have the opportunity to begin conversations about some of the recommendations for action in 2006/2007.

There are immediate directions and actions suggested, including:
* the response to the Minister on the new curriculum construct,
* planning for the ASLA Tas professional learning program for 2007 and speakers' fund,
* this blog,
* the TL of the year Award guidelines for 2007, and
* the updating of the website.

In additon, two A4 pages were tabled at the teleconference that document ongoing tasks and 'unfinished business' arising during 2006 - ie priority tasks and ideas to be picked up variously by the Executive, working sub-committees or other interested members.

The dissemination of information through Taslib-Link, the membership list and/or other distribution lists or groups, such as the proposed EdNA group will need a clear direction as well. The strategic decisions taken on these issues will assist to clarify the intention of the website as well.

As a new Executive member, doing a handover with the President this week, I am amazed and inspired by the breadth and depth of work by the Executive members in the most recent year. Hopefully, as Jennie suggests, this blog can inspire ASLA Tas members to feel informed and get involved!

RSS Feeds - Conference follow up

2006-10-03T21:46:00.000+11:00

What an exciting technological world we live in! As a follow up to the Professional Learning Day we enjoyed in July I made a commitment to set up a blog to explore ideas and learning, initially in regard to RSS feeds. My first hurdle was to learn more about blogging, and now that is done, the ASLA Tas blog is up an running. Many of us made a commitment to set up RSS feeds to improve information services and delivery on our return to schools. How did you go?
Share your experiences here so that others can learn and be inspired.

Welcome!

2006-10-01T22:12:00.000+11:00

This blog provides members of ASLA Tasmania with a communication tool to support collaboration and shared learning. The ASLA Tas executive look forward to your contributions and suggestions for post topics to be generated.
If you are a member of Blogger your comments will be identified with your name. Non-members can reply to posts, but will be listed as anonymous. In the spirit of collaboration and a shared community you may wish to add your name at the end of the post you compose.