Smik's Learning Space

decommissioning of edna - the loss of a vision

2011-06-16T21:15:00.003+09:30

On Tuesday this week we heard
edna is to be decommissioned commencing 30 June 2011 and be completed on 30 September 2011. This decision is the outcome of a recent review.

The seeds of the decommissioning go back quite a long way and will mark the end of an era. EdNA, Education Network Australia, renamed edna a few years back, has provided a range of quality and innovative services for nearly 12 years.

While perhaps it might be thought it had outgrown its usefulness, with the establishment of regional portals especially in the larger states, it is the loss of vision that we must mourn more than anything else, along with the loss of employment to a number of people, some of whom have worked on various parts of edna for a long time. For many of the smaller education systems edna "filled the gaps" with services they could not, and still do not, provide.

The extent of the outreach of edna services will only become apparent as targetted newsletters cease publication, RSS feeds that provided a range of ever updating Australian content into portals and education websites here and overseas die, and the edna calendar and edna database disappear. Other casualties are OzProjects and me.edu.au

Services like edna Groups (based on Moodle) and edna Lists (based on Lyris) will be rebadged under the ESA (Education Services Australia) with a greater DYI flavour.
See further

The vision of a cost saving service that connected with all Australian education portals (and promoted them) began diminishing some years ago as those who contributed to edna's funding knuckled under through new calls on their overcommitted budgets.

Make no bones about it, the loss of edna brings with it too the loss of an expertise in the implementation of ICTs in education, particularly in more technical aspects of service provision, that exists nowhere else. Members of the edna team provided workshops and shared expertise Australia wide.
edna provided a high quality flagship service and enhanced the international reputation of Australian education.

A sad day.

The chicken or the egg?

2011-05-04T15:31:00.001+09:30

That caught your attention didn't it? as you scratch your head to fathom what I am going to write about it in this post?

I don't believe that many schools that are considering implementing e-books and e-readers have given enough thought to getting their teachers "experienced" first. In many of the presentations that I have given recently about e-books I have recommended that teachers/librarians/principals set up "proof of concept" projects where they invest in a few Kindles or iPads that they can then lend to staff or students to build that pool of experienced users.

I do believe that successful implementation of an e-book or e-textbook programme relies on a shared pool of expertise/experience. If a school or education system is going to go the considerable expense of kindles or iPads or another brand of e-readers then they need to be used in such a way as to invoke a greater level of productivity than the mere use of made-from-paper books do. Teachers need to be experienced enough to feel "converted" to their use, and to be able to build a bank of pedagogically sound practices.

Many are going into e-book and e-text book programmes on the assumption, largely false, that doing so will save money. They have in mind that e-books will be cheaper because they are digitised text, so we are saving ink and paper. But make no mistake, publishers need to get their money out of this venture too. And add to that the expense of whatever device you are going to use to display the e-books. They are not cheap either although prices are still coming down, for dedicated e-readers at least. (here's a new Kindle-like device that has just come onto the market in Australia). So we shouldn't be adopting e-book programmes on economic grounds. It would be easy to prove that, in the immediate sense, staying with what we've got will be cheaper. We need to be implementing e-books because pedagogically it makes sense.

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The end of an era

2011-04-29T08:39:00.001+09:30

Today I am retiring. I reached that magic 65 a couple of months ago but today has arrived faster than I thought it would.

Retirement for me means the end of formal employment, but I'll still be blogging here and there. Perhaps a little more there than here, because that really is my passion.

I've been in teaching/education now for 43 years and that is a long time in anybody's language but when you add the years when I was a teaching scholar/pre-service teacher it comes to nearly 50.

I have been lucky that I have always enjoyed what I have been paid to do, and particularly, in the last 10 or so years when I have worked with Education.au/Education Services Australia, there has been considerable overlap with the work I have done and my private learning curve. Working here I have represented a great ministerial company and travelled all over Australia and represented the company twice overseas. I have worked with great people, both face2face and virtually, and been given great latitude.

So, no regrets. Don't shed any tears for me. I'm not. I'm looking forward to the future. A rosy one, with some travel coming up next week - off to Abu Dhabi to meet the new grandson, then to a crime fiction convention in Bristol, and then back to AD for my daughter's 30th birthday. And then back to OZ to deliver about 6 presentations on e-books.

So I'll be back here on this blog. Hang around.

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Productive in the classroom with e-books

2011-04-27T15:46:00.001+09:30

One of the topics I'd like to explore in the coming months is classroom productivity using e-books. As I've commented before, if all you are doing in your classroom with your e-reader or e-reading App is reading the book just as it if were made of paper, and ignoring all the productivity tools you have on your device, then you are not doing enough.

So what I'd really like to do is to collect some short descriptions of what teachers are doing in the classroom with e-books.

I suspect some northern hemisphere people, in the US in particular, have more tools attached to their e-book readers than we down under do, so I'd like to hear from you in particular.

One of the things I do on a regular basis is review books that I've read on my Kindle. You can see the resulatnt reviews on my crime fiction blog MYSTERIES IN PARADISE. So I'm including some of my tips for writing the reviews below.

Writing Book Reviews using the Kindle

I highlight/bookmark memorable bits as I'm reading
I write comments about passages or ideas that strike me as I'm reading - just highlight some text and then press the space bar to begin making your annotation.
Your book marks and annotations are stored in a file called MyClippings. When you attach your Kindle to your computer, it shows up as an extra drive. Look for a file called MyClippings. This is a text file and the annotations etc for the book you are currently reading will be at the end of the file.
I copy and paste the relevant parts of the MyClippings file into a new text file and then save it on my computer by the name of the book.
Once you've saved the text file you can disconnect the Kindle from your computer and then on the Kindle use MENU>View my notes and highlights to check the passages in the e-book that the notes and highlights are connected to.
From the text file you've saved, you can use highlighted passages in your review as quotes, and hopefully the notes you've made will jog your memory about things you wanted to discuss in your review.
Sometimes the e-book also includes information about the author and other titles they have written. I often highlight that information and then use it in an "about author" section at the end of my review.
You'll notice from my reviews on MYSTERIES IN PARADISE that I often use the image from the Amazon site, the product description, and the publisher's blurb in my review, but I always have a section where I talk about my impressions of the book.

So what can you tell me about or point me to?

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Amazon launching Kindle Library Lending

2011-04-21T09:40:00.001+09:30

You've probably already caught up with the announcements by Overdrive and Amazon that they are collaborating on a Kindle ebook lending service.

The details are not very clear at the moment but it seems to me that it is simply an extension of Amazon's existing Kindle ebook lending service which allows those in the US who've bought Kindle e-books to lend them once. While the book is lent (for two weeks) the purchaser can't access it on their Kindle. The book can only be lent once, and it doesn't necessarily apply to all purchases - publishers need to give permission.

Crunch Gear has basically republished the media release word for word.

Not much joy here for non-US Kindle users though. Of course Amazon's Kindle e-book lending does not extend outside the US at the moment, so perhaps in the future...

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How to help teachers do it better

2011-04-18T10:26:00.001+09:30

The Australian newspaper today points to a new report:

The Grattan Institute's report Better Teacher Appraisal and Feedback: Improving Performance, released today, shows that a system of meaningful appraisal and feedback for teachers will increase their effectiveness by 20 to 30 per cent. It will address teachers' concerns about the current systems of evaluation: 63 per cent of teachers report that appraisals of their work are done purely to meet administrative requirements; 91 per cent say the best teachers do not receive the greatest recognition.

When I was much younger, there was a system of annual assessment, where an "inspector" visited, sat in on a few lessons and then wrote a report. I don't remember any remedial action being taken with me or colleagues as a result of the comments on the report. Perhaps it was done discreetly. I know there were people who used to get panic-stricken about their impending inspection though, and you really did try to put your best foot forward on that day.

These days there is a real tendency to judge teachers on things like student exam results or national test results. A more 360-degree assessment seems a lot fairer, but really only if the resultant report can lead to better remediation rather than punitive steps.

This can be achieved by schools choosing four of eight methods to assess teachers and provide feedback. These are: student performance and assessments; peer observation; observation of classroom teaching and learning; student surveys; parent surveys; 360-degree assessment; self-assessment and external observation.

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A book you should read: A THOUSAND CUTS by Simon Lelic

2011-04-13T17:56:00.001+09:30

I'm re-publishing here a review for a book that I think at least every teacher should read.

This edition, an ARC from VIKING, published as A THOUSAND CUTS in 2010

aka RUPTURE

ISBN 978-0-670-02150-5

294 pages

Publisher's blurb

In the depths of a sweltering summer, teacher Samuel Szajkowski walks into his school assembly and opens fire. He kills three pupils and a colleague before turning the gun on himself.

Lucia May, the young policewoman who is assigned the case, is expected to wrap up things quickly and without fuss. The incident is a tragedy that could not have been predicted and Szajkowski, it seems clear, was a psychopath beyond help. Soon, however, Lucia becomes preoccupied with the question no one else seems to want to ask: what drove a mild-mannered, diffident school teacher to commit such a despicable crime?

Piecing together the testimonies of the teachers and children at the school, Lucia discovers an uglier, more complex picture of the months leading up to the shooting. She realises too that she has more in common with Szajkowski than she could have imagined. As the pressure to bury the case builds, she becomes determined to tell the truth about what happened, whatever the consequences . . .

My take:

I came to this with my teacher's hat on, but it could just as easily have been my parent's hat. For either of those hats this is a horrifying tale. What turns a mild mannered history teacher turn into a lethal killer?

The blurb on the back of the edition I read begins:

It should be an open-and-shut case. Samuel Szajkowski, a recently hired history teacher, walked into a school assembly with a gun and murdered three students and a colleague before turning the weapon on himelf. It was a tragedy that could not have been predicted. Szajowski, it seems clear, was a psychopath beyond help.

From a police point of view, it looks like a case that you can wrap up quickly. Samuel Szajkowski walked into the assembly and opened fire. He is to blame for the deaths of 5 people including himself. Detective Inspector Lucia May is given the job of interviewing the witnesses and writing up the final report.

But then Lucia begins to ask why? What pushed Samuel Szajowski over the edge? Who is really to blame? And just who is pushing her boss to get the case wrapped up?

Events like this one have happened in "real life" world wide in recent years, and A THOUSAND CUTS leads us to ask whether the investigators really ever get to the point of understanding the "why".

We know right from the beginning that there is something wrong with the culture of this school. The basic structure of the novel is transcripts of interviews by the investigators with witnesses, and the very first one is with a student who should have been at the assembly but was "down by the ponds, pissing about.."

The interview transcripts are really one-sided conversations. The reader is left to deduce the questions being asked from the actual answers. It is a very arresting narrative technique.

Detective Inspector Lucia May unearths a culture of bullying that extends throughout the entire school: student to student, student to teacher, teacher to student, and teacher to teacher. The worst part is that those who should be preventing the existence of this culture, the principal for example, don't see that as their responsibility. But even the parents don't recognise the bullying happening.

Another aspect of the whole investigation is that Lucia May is herself the victim of bullying, in her personal life, and, in particular, her workplace. It makes us ask whether this is an endemic part of the Western society, regardless of the profession.

A very thought-provoking read.

My rating: 5.0

Shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2010.

Shortlisted for the Galaxy National Book Awards 2010.

Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize 2010.

Selected for Financial Times Books of the Year 2010.

Selected for New York Times notable crime books 2010.

Selected as one of Amazon’s Rising Stars 2010.

Top 20 Books of 2010 – Lovereading.co.uk.

Blog posts to check:

Simon Lelic's website

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Most of us don't re-sell our books

2011-04-11T12:05:00.001+09:30

One of the problems schools have struck in implementing e-textbooks relates to the re-sale model.

While in the "real", entertainment world, most of us don't want to re-sell the books that we buy, we often do hand them on. In schools though the textbook scenario often operates on one of two premises.

individual students buy the text book, new or used, and then sell it on to the next year's cohort.
the school purchases the books and then hands copies in various stages of "batterment" to students until they either fall apart or the school decides to invest in the latest version.

So a textbook that originally is quite expensive, say as much as $80 or even more, may be used over a period of 5 years bringing the actual cost per year down to $16. There is no problem in handing the book on as you know, you just hand it over.

The problem with e-text books is that they are not designed to be handed on. Stringent DRM (Digital Rights Management) often prevents an e-book from being shifted from one device to another.

Even when there is no DRM in place, the format of the file (whether it is Kindle-compatible or epub) will often be an effective preventive measure.

However I have discerned what I think is another problem. It seems to me that many publishers of e-textbooks are seeing this format as a bit of a cash cow. The most "generous" offers that I have heard from Australian publishers is where a student will have the right to use the e-text book for 2 years, but that the price will be the same as for a paper version of the book. This flies in the face of what is happening in the entertainment market where e-books are very much lower than the paper euqivalents.

A call by the Washington Post for publishers to make e-books DRM free won't solve the transferability problem, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

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On the lookout for e-book trials

2011-04-04T08:31:00.001+09:30

That Australian educators and educational administrators are very interested in how e-books and e-readers might be incorporated into the implementation of the curriculum is being demonstrated by the number of invitations I am receiving to conferences and workshops to talk about e-book scenarios.

As a consequence I am constantly on the lookout for information about trials and projects in schools, in Australia in particular, with e-books, e-readers, and e-text books. As 2011 progresses schools will be making decisions about budgets for 2012 and will be wanting to consider the experiences of others. I am interested in both formal reports and anecdotal ones, so if you are able to point me to anything I can get to on the web, leave a comment.

If you would like to email me about what is happening in your school (or leave a more public comment on this post), I do need a bit of "depth" in the description: what seems to be working, what isn't. What hurdles have you come across, what seems insurmountable, what are you planning for 2012?

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e-readers are not "shared" devices

2011-03-31T11:08:00.001+10:30

Many schools implementing e-reading devices, whether they are dedicated e-readers like the Kindle or multi-purpose devices like the iPad, have built up cases for buying batches of them, storing them in the library, and then lending them out as class sets.

While you can manage the sharing of them quite well, in reality once the device has to be handed back at the end of the lesson or the day then the following factors come into play.

no one student takes reponsibility for looking after the device
- if something "happens" to its functionality, then it is easy to shift the blame onto the previous user, and not so easy to work out what has actually happened
making sure the battery is charged becomes the responsibility of the lending "authority"
there is a lot of down time - the device sits in the library storage between lessons, overnight, and on weekends.
there is a lot of intervention that goes into managing them
nor does their real potential ever get realised, simply because they are used for specific and limited purposes, and the users rarely have time to explore.
even worse the "class set" scenario assumes that even in use they are shared - one between 2, 3, or even 4 students

Most of what I have written above really applies to the multi-user devices, and when it comes to 6" dedicated e-readers like Kindles or Kobos, then use should not be shared.

That's why I was so glad to read Camilla Elliot's blog post today and her conclusion

that makes me convinced an iPad is NOT a shared device, but a single owner tool.

Will I eventually have to upgrade? - my Kindle, that is

2011-03-30T13:19:00.001+10:30

My Kindle is a Kindle2, one of the white ones that has been around for over 18 months.

The Kindle3, which is the graphite (greyish) one that was released in time for Christmas giving last year, is slightly smaller, has better text contrast, and more importantly from my point of view, a slightly different "operating system" if that is the right term.

Already Kindle3 has released some upgrades. I've put the differences mentally on the backburner until this morning until I had to install the upgrade on the "work" Kindle which is doing the rounds of the office.

The features the upgrade brings don't seem all that important to me at the moment:

Public Notes
Real Page Numbers
Before You Go = Rate the Book
New Newspaper and Magazine Layout

But there are some other features to Kindle3 that I don't have, and so I'm trying to work out whether they are important.
The upgrades for Kindle3 are not available to Kindle2, so the only alternative really is to buy a new device.

There are other differences between Kindle2 and Kindle3, such as the fact that Kindle3 has double the storage capacity.
Kindle3 is slightly smaller and a little lighter.
Page turning is "faster".
You get a choice of US or UK dictionaries.
Apparently has a better web browser.
More of the screen is used for text display.

I already know that I can't download to my Kindle2 some of the "apps" Amazon has on offer, but are they important? They seem to just be games.
Or am I just suffering from device-upgrade envy? You know the feeling, you have a perfectly good functioning computer, but the newer one looks so much better, and you have thta feeling that oyu are missing out on something really important.

But I guess that some time in the next 12 or so months I will come to a cross roads. Or do I wait for Kindle4?

Perhaps if you have experience of both, you can tell me some of the differences you've noticed.

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Doing it a bit differently - teaching with blogs

2011-03-28T10:53:00.001+10:30

Many teachers will tell you that they don't have time to blog, on top of everything else that they do.
But these have missed the point that blogging isn't just spruking on the street corner, hoping others will listen. It can be a useful classroom tool as well.

My first blog, also named You Are Never Alone, was a company blog for Education.au limited, and existed Spetember 2006 until earlier this year when it was "turned off". The aim was to run a commentary on educational issues and to promote company services like edna.

I created my first personal blog, Smik's Learning Space, nearly 4 years ago, as a space where I could park materials for workshops that I was conducting. That blog now duplicates my Posterous posts via an RSS feed. From that starting point I went on to create another personal blog at beginning of 2008, geared to my interest in crime fiction.

One of the things that I'm really convinced of is the capacity of a blog to allow the writer some creative reflective space. You are also writing for a critical audience, and that influences the content. Now that is true whether you are a classrom teacher or a student. The second purpose of the blog might be the one I originally had for Smik's Learning Space - a place where you can deposit content for others to use, as in a teacher providing materials for a class.

Teachers might want to consider whether in fact they need two blog spaces - one for personal exploration and reflection and being part of the educational community, and one for use by their students to collect links and work.
And then of course, there would be the matter of having students create blogs for themselves. Writing a daily blog can create the same cathartic effect for your students, providing a reflective space, writing for a purpose knowing they have an audience (and responding to other student's blogs'), and developing a variety of literacy skills.

So here are some more blogs for you to explore:

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Has Twitter changed the way you communicate?

2011-03-24T09:40:00.001+10:30

I wasn't amongst the early adopters of Twitter, and I had seen it demonstrated as a "back channel" at a couple of conferences before I finally tried it out.

An article in Tuesday's Sydney Morning Herald starts

Dismissed as a joke when it began five years ago this week, Twitter has revolutionised the way we communicate.

This morning when I wanted to send a friend a birthday greeting, I did it on Twitter.

As part of the work I do at Education Services Australia I tweet as findingmyfuture. Three times a week I send out messages about careers, about 10 messages a week. I follow 58 other "careers" tweeters, and nearly 100 follow my tweets. It is proving an effective way of delivering our messages about myfuture, and the resources that students, teachers, and parents can find there.

Creating short pithy messages can be a bit of a challenge, it really makes you think about what you want to get across.
I add the hashtage #myfuture to each of the messages to help people find them.

I follow the tweets through TweetDeck, which works like an aggregator, where you can create "search" columns to follow particular hashtags.
I also use TweetDeck to re-tweet my #myfuture messages to the community that follows me in my "educational" Twitter identity of smik09. Actually the 09 indicates when I created this particular Twitter account, so I guess I could be seen as a bit of a veteran.
One of the early criticisms of Twitter was that so many signed up and then dropped off active tweeting within days.

In fact I created a Prezi about 12 months ago that asked Is Twitter in Trouble?

Is Twitter in Trouble? on Prezi

The other thing I've done is use my Twitter followers list to create a "Daily" newspaper that can be delivered to subscribers by email. This uses a free tool at Paper.li

The myfuture Daily gives a daily summary of the tweets in the previous 24 hours by findingmyfuture and those that we follow .

I also created The Kerrie Smith Daily which is based on tweets by smik09 and the 224 people I follow in that persona.

Just a note: one of the things that I learnt to do early was to separate my personas. I blog on educational matters about 3 times a week, and I blog about crime fiction daily. I had originally thought that I could use the same persona in both communities, but I soon learnt there is little overlap and merging both communities in my twitter account just muddied the waters.

So just as I have a personal email address, and a work/educational email address, so I have 2 different Twitter accounts, and 2 differently purposed blogs.

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Will books ever die?

2011-03-23T12:12:00.001+10:30

A tongue-in-cheek article I discovered today Product Review: Will 'Paper' Replace E_readers starts

We were given some review samples of a new technology called ‘paper’ earlier this week. Paper is a natural material that can be produced in bulk, relatively cheap, and some people think it will replace e-readers such as the iPad and Kindle.

There has been considerable publicity given to headlines like E-book sales surge at Amazon, with e-book sales first of all outstripping hard-cover books in the middle of last year, and, in the last quarter of 2010, outstripping paperback sales.

For every 100 paperbacks the company shifted, it sold 115 Kindle books.

We've also had a lot of publicity about the demise of a number of book stores, particularly specialist ones.

From where I stand though, I don't see made-from-paper books disappearing anytime soon, despite a growth in sales of e-readers in the last 9 months. In considering the Amazon statistics, it occurs to me that while I go to Amazon to purchase my e-books, I don't go there to buy either hardbacks or paperbacks. I get them at my local bookstore.

New research on UK eReader sales, from the Publishers Association. We already know that 2010 eBook sales accounted for just 0.4% of the UK book market. So what changed at Christmas? The Publishers Association polled 2,000 people recently, and found that 7% of British adults had some kind of eReader (smartphone, iPad or ereader) for Christmas. source

There can be no doubt though that e-books are making their mark in the US, doubling from January 2010 to January 2011

I'm not sure that we are seeing the same here in Australia.

Trevor Cairney who blogs at Just in Case lists some good reasons why the book will survive.
He also lists some changes we will probably see in the publishing industry.
Among them

Scientific journals will cease to be produced in paper form within 5-10 years.
Increasingly, authors will publish e-books themselves, creating major problems for publishers and even bookshops.
Bookshops will only survive if they change to become places where lovers of books meet, chat, eat, share books (in whatever form) and purchase e-books and paper books as well as associated products. Some are already moving down this path.

The remainder in the list are worth checking.

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What are your top 10 ICT tools for education?

2011-03-22T11:54:00.001+10:30

I am interested in knowing which are the ten ICT tools that you use most often (or are the most useful).
Think about what you've used most often in the last 10 days.

Here are mine

Email: I have 2 different tools
blogging tools: Blogger, Posterous - I use both
MS Word
MS Excel
Prezi - I can't imagine going back to Powerpoint for my presentations
Twitter in combination with TweetDeck - again I have 2 accounts
XnView - I used this all the time for capturing screen dumps, creating images.
RSS reading software: again I have 2 different tools
Browser - combined with Google Search. Again I use 2 differnt browsers.
editing html - I often look at the raw html for a blog post especially when the blogging software doesn't readily enable a feature like indenting or whatever I've done creates line spaces I don't want.

You'll see I am listing more than 10... mainly because I've also used these in the last few days.

MS Access
MS Picture Manager
Second Life

So what do you use regularly that I don't have on my list? A comment would be great.

Some sites that may be useful to you

Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, Directory of Tools
Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, Top 100 tools for 2010
Go2web20 - a fabulous directory of online tools

On his blog Chris Betcher talks about the skills 21st century teachers need to have.
He says there are 5 skills that affect our ability to function with fluency:

Learn to Search
Learn to resize and crop a Digital Photo
Learn how to edit video
Learn to use an html editor
Learn to think in hyperlinks

What do you think? Are there any of those that you can't do? I must admit the video one is on my still-to-be-learned list. You might like to pop over to Chris' post and leave a comment there.

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Observing ALL BLACK DAY March 22, 2011

2011-03-21T14:11:00.001+10:30

On February 22, 2011 Christchurch was devastated by an earthquake. Lives were lost and others irrevocably changed. The city centre sustained massive damage and the landscape will never be the same.

Many in Australian schools have strong ties to New Zealand, and particularly, Christchurch.

Therefore, to help them cope and contribute we have launched

ALL BLACK DAY

On March 22, 2011. on the one-month anniversary of this event

we are asking the staff and students of Australian schools to wear all black

and to contribute a gold coin for the privilege.

All money raised is to be donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal

Christchurch Cathedral after the quake.

Photo by Geof Wilson

You can help by

helping to co-ordinate this event within your school
promoting this event in your school and community
playing this video on a continuous link
donating money raised to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal
contacting your state co-ordinator advising the amount raised
watching this page to see the total grow
sharing photos of the events in your school

If your staff and students need assistance in dealing with the events in Christchurch

please consult these resources for advice.

Co-ordinators

New South Wales

Jill McGeorge (primary schools)

jill.mcgeorge@det.nsw.edu.au

Lara O'Donoghue (secondary schools)

LARA-DALE.ODONOGHUE@det.nsw.edu.au

Queensland

Margaret Forbes

forbesm@mbbc.qld.edu.au

Victoria

Judith Way

judithway1@gmail.com

Western Australia

Jill Oats

Christchurch@bilbies.iinet.net.au

Tasmania, South Australia, Northern Territory, ACT

Barbara Braxton

barbara.288@bigpond.com

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40 years of e-books

2011-03-16T10:24:00.001+10:30

You might like to check the rest of the infographic above on TeleRead.

I hadn't realised until looking at that, that Project Gutenberg was that old, or that the digitized Declartion of Independence was the world's first e-book. You'll see also on the infographic that only 10 e-books were created on Project Gutenberg in the first 18 years, but that the Project has tripled output in the last eight years.

A number of factors have given the e-book project a real dynamic in the last 3 years.

I saw an e-book reader at Microsoft in 2001 but in today's terminology it was a real "brick" and didn't take off. Before the launch of Amazon's Kindle nobody could really take e-book readers seriously, and the only place you could read your Project Gutenberg e-book was on your computer, and even then it was often an unfriendly text file with peculiar line lengths.

With the advent of the Kindle came new technology and new features

e-ink
text sizing
a new way of acquiring the books through wi-fi download
text to voice
lighter in weight and smaller in size than earlier e-readers

Some of the other technology that has made the e-book (and e-textbook) revolution possible has almost passed us by without notice because it is has been so bound up with what we have come to expect.

faster computer processing
larger capacity storage chips
widespread uptake of wi-fi
file size reduction - we tend to think of file sizes as being bigger than they were, but that is true only to a point - in fact the file sizes being used in pdf, mobi, and azw files is pretty small. While the photos you take on your camera are often pretty large (4 MB+), the digital images used in e-reading software are much smaller because of the file compression software being used

With the arrival of the iPad on the scene in the middle of last year, then the idea of viable tablets/ computers where one of the applications was an e-reader really took hold. Dedicated e-readers like the Kindle still have the upper hand in terms of battery life and basic cost. The 3G Kindle retails at $189, and it seems that the iPad2 costs nearly twice that to manufacture and retails at approximately 4 times that. These are serious issues for educational institutions, but already we have seen contenders who are promising much cheaper tablets. Prices for the iPad in Australia are all over the place.

So now it is really coming down to an issue of whether you are happy with a dedicated e-reader, or you want, and are prepared to pay for, a tool that can do a lot more. I'm not sure that those who say that consumers won't buy both are right. There are already examples of people who are buying both.

Last week, March 6-12, was read an e-book week. So a belated happy birthday e-books!

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iPad trials in Australia

2011-03-11T10:00:00.001+10:30

2011 has seen the proliferation of iPad trials in Australian schools and Universities.

In most of these cased the iPad has been adopted as much for the Apps available as for its e-reading tools.

Here are some sites and reports to look at.

iPads for Learning: Victorian government:
This website is for educators who want to learn about using iPads in education. Here you will find
information about the Victorian school iPads for Learning trial including specially selected apps,
classroom ideas and technical tips. The 10 participating schools are diverse, including primary, secondary, Prep to Year 12 and specialist settings.

St Peter's College Adelaide
In the Senior School, 338 Years 11 and 12 boys have been provided with wireless iPads to support an eBook program. Licences have been obtained to supply all students with e-textbooks via personalised secure access. A user friendly interface, Keystone, has been developed. Users have the ability to download and purchase eBooks, upload and share their work and ideas.

Other schools trials:

Queensland state schools: Throughout Semester 1, Kedron State High School and Doomadgee State School will explore the teaching, learning and business potential.
At least five independent Sydney schools will trial iPads in select classes this year.
Two schools in Singapore: A secondary school in Singapore, where the youngest students are aged 12, has spent S$135,000 ($100,000) to buy 150 iPads for 140 students and 10 teachers as part of this project.

In 2011 Adelaide University has given out iPads to to 750 students in first year science.

Other university trials

RMIT
Trinity College Melbourne pilot report - phase1 completed, a 6 months trial
Report on the Step Forward iPad Pilot Project (you need to be able access Google Docs)
blog: http://ipadpilot.wordpress.com/
University of Kentucky begins an 18 month trial on an iPad curriculum.
The University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce is working with Apple to run an 18-month trial in which students, faculty and staff will all use iPads to complete course work. The department will use iPads for everything from student recruitment, admissions, seminars, graduation, and classes. Apple is supporting the school throughout the trial, with things like program development and strategy, as well as training users. The goal of the project is to explore how to take advantage of the device in the classroom setting and to discover which applications work best for studying diplomacy and international commerce. In February, about 50 Patterson School students, faculty, and staff began using the iPad trial, and another 35 students will join the trial program once the 2011 students are chosen. The program will include both first and second-generation iPads.

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e-textbooks in schools: what do you need to think about?

2011-03-10T09:56:00.001+10:30

Here in Australia school administrators and teachers are already beginning to think about next year.

In terms of converting over to e-textbooks for 2011 they've already missed the boat, but are beginning to think about what would be involved in implementation in 2012.

So what factors need to be considered?
The list below is by no means complete and you may like to suggest things to be added.

are you happy with the text books that you have?
Do you want to replace any of them? Source new ones?
If you convert to e-textbooks what device will you deliver them on?
netbooks, laptops, iPads, other table device
What specs will the device need?
who owns the device? will the school buy it and lend it out? or can the students get the text on a device of their choice?
What sort of budget do you have?
There is an impression that converting to e-textbooks will save money.
Unfortunately that is not the way it is working at the moment.
In general your e-textbook will cost approximately 50% to 70% of your made-from-paper one. You are basically leasing it and at some stage it will expire or self-destruct, probably at the end of the school year, but perhaps after 2 years.
who will supply devices for the teachers? And how will you encourage them to explore the productivities that come with e-textbooks?
Are you aware that your e-textbook has no resale value? And unless it actually comes originally as a CD that oyu own, then oyu won't be able to transfer it from one device to another because of restrictive DRM practices.

My advice:

Talk to your current textbook suppliers, tell them you are interested in the e-text scenario, and ask them what they can do for you
Talk directly to the publishers of your current text books and ask the same questions. Be sure to include questions about cost.
Ask your teachers to look for alternatives to their current text books.

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Where do you get it? Calibre launches DRM free

2011-03-09T11:27:00.001+10:30

calibre introduces Open Books, a site for easy browsing of DRM-free e-books (e-books without DRM) that are not in the public domain.

Open Books is a compilation non DRM e-books from various sources linked to enable readers to browse and download them.

So far the e-books are generally coming in via Smashwords, Closed Circle, BeWrite Books, and Carina Press. The cost for each e-book is fairly small, generally under $5, sometimes much less than that. The user is asked to abide by an "honesty" system that does not encourage piracy.

The e-books are generally available in .mobi (Kindle), epub and pdf.

For DRM-free public domain books visit the Project Gutenberg website. The Project Gutenberg catalogue contains public domain e-books free of cost as well as DRM-free in various languages.

One of the great pointers to e-books on the Project Gutenberg site is the Magic Catalog.

Amazon has a few DRM-free e-books. Look for "Simultaneous Device Usage" under "Product Details" and if it is set to "Unlimited" then the book is DRM-free.

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March 8, International Women's Day

2011-03-08T09:05:00.001+10:30

Google is celebrating the 100th anniversary of IWD with this new logo

Their link takes you to

We invite you to join tens of thousands of people coming together on bridges all over the world -- from the Millennium Bridge in London, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, to the Grand Barriere Bridge joining Rwanda and Congo -- to show your support for women's causes and celebrate women's achievements.

Each year around the world, International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8. Hundreds of events occur not just on this day but throughout March to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Some years have seen global IWD themes honoured around the world, while in other years groups have preferred to 'localise' their own themes to make them more specific and relevant.

This year's United Nations theme is Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women

In Australia

- Australia, UNIFEM: Unite to End Violence Against Women
- Australia, Queensland Government Office for Women: Our Women, Our State
- Australia, WA Department for Communities: Sharing the Caring for the Future

Sites to check / teaching activities

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/default.asp
http://www.internationalwomensday.org.au/
Gender Equality - Global Education resources
- a teaching activity examining gender equality in 3 to 5 contrasting countries
- teaching activity: Improving the lives of women in the Solomon Islands
- a teaching activity: Women in Fisheries
- a case study: Women and Fisheries: Opening access in the Marshall Islands
http://www.unifem.org/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
http://hdr.undp.org/
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/indwm/indwm2.htm

Messages to give girls about careers

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New version of My School released - Australia

2011-03-04T09:50:00.001+10:30

New features in this release of My School include:

an easy-to-use profile page with key facts and figures;
financial information for each school;
an indication of students' literacy and numeracy achievement as they progress through school; and
students' NAPLAN performance over a number of years.

The My School website has two main purposes.

Firstly, it provides parents and students with information on each school – its view of itself and its mission, its staffing, its resources and its students’ characteristics and their performances.

Secondly, it provides schools and their communities with comparisons of their students’ performances in literacy and numeracy with those of students in other schools, most importantly those in schools that serve similar students. These comparisons provide information to support improvements in schools. Among schools with similar students, those achieving higher student performances can stimulate others to lift expectations of what they and their students can achieve. The schools with higher performing students can be a source of information for others on the policies and practices that produce those higher performances.

My School enables you to search the profiles of almost 10,000 Australian schools. My School is an Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) information service. ACARA is an independent authority with functions including the publishing of nationally comparable data on all Australian schools.

Key changes that have been made to the website in 2011 include:

Providing an easy-to-use summary page with key facts and figures, including an expanded commentary on the school context, information about students from language backgrounds other than English, and more nationally comparable senior secondary outcomes information
Reporting financial information for each school, including recurrent income and capital expenditure broken down by funding source
Enhancing depictions of NAPLAN results, including a new depiction of students’ literacy and numeracy improvement as they progress through school.

Interestingly the search for specific schools is protected by a Captcha and "accept conditions" button. I can't help wondering why?
Is it a literacy test or an information literacy test?
I can't see any place where I can insert any spam (should I want to)

All sorts of interesting info available though, including lots of graphs, how many students it caters for, and financial information showing how much the school budget is, and recurrent income per student.

However one not so good sign - the site froze temporarily during my exploration. - heavy load?

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2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes - celebrating school science

2011-03-03T09:56:00.001+10:30

Entries for the 2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes, Australia's premier national science awards program, are now open.

Celebrating school science in two ways:
1. For the students
Have your students create a short film on any science topic to be in the running for cash prizes and fame. Enter the University of Sydney Sleek Geeks Science Eureka Prize for primary and secondary students.
For info go to http://eureka.australianmuseum.net.au/enter and select the primary or secondary category. And don't forget that there are resources online to help get you started
http://eureka.australianmuseum.net.au/news/sleek-geeks-science-eureka-prize-teacher-resources

2. For the teachers
Do you know an outstanding secondary science or mathematics teacher, one who motivates and inspires students? Enter yourself or nominate a colleague for the Industry & Investment NSW Eureka Prize for Science or Mathematics Teaching.
For info go to http://eureka.australianmuseum.net.au/eureka-prize/science-or-mathematics-teaching

Entries close midnight AEST Friday 6 May.
Do you have a question about our school science program, or need help with an entry or nomination? Contact eureka@austmus.gov.au or phone 02 9320 6483

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ALL BLACK DAY, March 22

2011-03-01T10:55:00.001+10:30

I received this from Barbara Braxton this morning.

If you are at an "overseas" school and want to participate, I suggest you contact Barbara direct.

It is one week since the devastating earthquake that has shattered Christchurch and its people and there would be few schools in Australia that do not have a student or a staff member with a Kiwi connection.

Psychologists say that the trauma can be intensified by a feeling of wanting to help but being unable to do so, so to help overcome this a group of Kiwi teacher librarians teaching in Australia are proposing

ALL BLACK DAY

We are suggesting that on March 22, 2011 students be allowed to wear all black instead of their regular school uniform and pay a gold coin for the privilege.

If school regulations demand students remain in uniform, then an alternative could be to create a coin trail over the words ANZAC, Aotearoa, Christchurch, or Otautahi (Maori for Christchurch).

Any other form of fundraising would also be welcome. If you have ideas, please share them with us to share with everybody.
The money raised will then by donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal http://www.christchurchearthquakeappeal.govt.nz/ through whatever financial procedures schools have to follow to do this.

Amounts raised would then be reported to a state co-ordinator who will tally them so we can determine the total contribution of Australian schools and share this with participants. We are planning to establish a Facebook page so state and national totals are available and even photos of students participating can be posted.

We need you to
•    publicise this event as widely as possible, sending it to any network you belong to
•    consider volunteering to be your state co-ordinator which will just involve receiving emails from schools with their tallies and sending the total to a central co-ordinator. We already have co-ordinators for NSW and Queensland, but no doubt they would appreciate help.
•    spread the word about your school’s activities with any media connections you have

If you have any questions, or are willing to act as a state co-ordinator, please contact one of us.

Barbara Braxton
Teacher librarian (retired)
COOMA NSW 2630
barbara.288@bigpond.com

Jill McGeorge
Teacher Librarian
Willoughby Public School
jill.mcgeorge@det.nsw.edu.au

Lara O'Donoghue
Teacher Librarian
Lake Macquarie High School
LARA-DALE.ODONOGHUE@det.nsw.edu.au

Margaret Forbes
Teacher librarian
Moreton Bay Boys' College
forbesm@mbbc.qld.edu.au

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Days/events to celebrate, particuarly in Australian schools

2011-02-28T07:59:00.001+10:30

Many thanks to edna's Global Education newsletter for the following information.

Visit http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/news to subscribe to the newsletter or to read the latest issue online.
Global Education News is published by the Global Education website, funded by AusAID to support its Global Education Program and compiled by education.au limited.

Schools Clean Up Australia Day, 4 March

Join the thousands of school students across Australia on the Friday before the National Clean Up Day. Registration provides you with an education kit. http://www.cleanup.com.au
Read the Case study, The power of many, Waste management in Wewak, Papua New Guinea to find out about students in PNG cleaning up their environment and writing about it.
http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/152

National Seaweek, 6-12 March

Seaweek is the Marine Education Society of Australasia’s (MESA) major national public awareness campaign. In 2011, the theme is ‘Spotlight on Marine Science’. Through a spotlight on the work of scientists we can learn more our marine environment to understand its complex ecosystems and become better equipped to preserve it. Information and teaching resources are available at
http://www.mesa.edu.au/seaweek2011

Try the global education website’s Global Learning Quest, Prawns the global delicacy.
http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/2556

International Women's Day, 8 March

On International Women’s Day, we can review the progress made towards equal rights, and equality of political and economic participation, for women. The UN CyberSchoolBus has accessible information on equality, discrimination, and access to education for women, and contains some useful links for the celebration of International Women’s Day.
http://www0.un.org/cyberschoolbus/womensday/index.asp
Choose activities from the global education website to help students explore the consequences of discrimination on the basis of gender and understand how the empowerment of women and girls leads to improved living conditions for all.
http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/1886

Commonwealth Day, 9 March

The aim of commemorating Commonwealth Day is to promote understanding on global issues, international co-operation and the work of the Commonwealth to improve the lives of its 2 billion citizens. The theme for 2011 is Women as Agents of Change'
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/148532/commonwealth_day/

Harmony Day, 21 March

‘Living in Harmony’ is an Australian Government initiative designed to promote community harmony, build relationships between people and address racism where it occurs in Australia. It coincides with the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and promotes the values of harmony, community, diversity, commitment, goodwill, and understanding. The theme for 2011 is ‘Everyone Belongs’. The website provides useful links to resources, classroom activities and lessons plans as well as free posters, button badges, Harmony Day temporary tattoos, stickers and balloons.
http://www.harmony.gov.au/harmony-day/

World Forestry Day, 21 March

World Forestry Day, helps us focus on the International Year of Forests. It helps us consider the benefits of forests - such as catchment protection, providing habitat for plants, areas for recreation, education and scientific study, and as a source of many products including timber and honey. World Forestry Day also aims to provide opportunities for people to learn how forests can be managed and used sustainably for these many purposes.
http://www.fao.org/forestry/en/

World Water Day 2011, 22 March

The theme for 2011, Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge, aims to focus international attention on the impact of rapid urban population growth, industrialization and uncertainties caused by climate change, conflicts and natural disasters on urban water systems.
http://www.worldwaterday.org/

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Is IWD 2011 on your calendar?

2011-02-24T09:44:00.001+10:30

Some years have seen global IWD themes honoured around the world, while in other years groups have preferred to 'localise' their own themes to make them more specific and relevant.

This year's United Nations theme is Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women

In Australia

Sites to check / teaching activities

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/default.asp
http://www.internationalwomensday.org.au/
Gender Equality - Global Education resources
- a teaching activity examining gender equality in 3 to 5 contrasting countries
- teaching activity: Improving the lives of women in the Solomon Islands
- a teaching activity: Women in Fisheries
- a case study: Women and Fisheries: Opening access in the Marshall Islands
http://www.unifem.org/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
http://hdr.undp.org/
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/indwm/indwm2.htm

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e-book management strategies for schools

2011-02-23T10:36:00.001+10:30

One of the problems in managing e-book use in schools is that we are dealing with a number of scenarios as the top of this diagram indicates, and the solutions required, or possible, will vary.

The other is that the e-reading devices are not always owned by the school. The school may be providing devices for experiential reasons, or social/economic equity, but often you'll need to manage download to not only a variety of devices, involving 3 main formats (see yesterday's post), but also allow access to school resources to privately owned devices.

What I've tried to show in the bottom diagram Repositories are the solutions being attempted in Australian schools. It is a sort of tiered approach, although the elements run in parellel to each other, and it is possible that not all 4 elements will be present. The Third Party Solutions for example may well be financially beyond the school as setting them up and then paying an annual licence fee are expensive. The Third Party Solutions won't replace the hard copy holdings of the school library, and if the school ends up with nothing to show for their spending on e-books, then higher authorities may not regard it as money well spent. The other thing with a Third Party Solution is that implementation in a school has to be accompanied by quite a high level of usage to present an economically valid argument. Anecdotal reports I have heard about implementation in public libraries for example have talked about an initial flurry of borrowing, then a slackening off, and the need to build up a clientele through pro-active measures.

Is your school doing something that doesn't fit this diagram? Or does it cover everything you are doing? I'd love to know. Leave a comment please.

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A classroom with e-books

2011-02-22T09:58:00.001+10:30

There are logistical problems (page numbering, battery life, power, using text to voice) but they are not insurmountable.

Bigger problems are going to come from getting copies downloaded onto the various devices, but even those are solvable.

Some of my thinking is that the teacher will need to think the pedagogy through carefully. Each of these devices has its own set of distractions and disruptions.

My main question is, if the hard copy option exists, whether the students will learn to, or be encouraged to, use the productivity tools that e-books and e-readers afford the user.

My fear is that one of the hard copies will be the teacher.

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Rate of change in the e-reading world

2011-02-21T10:51:00.001+10:30

I'm building up to some e-book presentations in the next few weeks and beginning to assemble my thoughts.

I wrote an article on e-readers for teacher librarians and cataloguers which was published at the end of the year.

I began

2010 will be seen as the year of the advent of the e-book and the e-book reader. Toward the end of the year teachers and libraries worldwide, and in Australia, had begun pooling their experiences with the new devices, trying to wrap their heads around how e-books could be used in schools, and libraries in particular. The opportunities are enormous, but so are the challenges.

E-books and e-readers have become a topic of special interest to me, and it became obvious from responses to articles that I wrote, presentations that I delivered, and webinars and forums that I participated in, that it is of great interest to others as well.

I suspect that by the end of 2011 we may well have solved some of the challenges, and e-book use will be well-entrenched in our schools and our libraries. We may have to resign ourselves to the insolubility of the other challenges at least for the moment.

So now I'm trying to analyse what progress we've made since I wrote the article. One of the things I'm conscious of is that in a sense nothing has changed, and yet at the same time the rate of change has been huge.
I think by "nothing has changed" I mean that the overall issues are still there, particularly if you are talking about libraries lending e-books and schools issuing e-text books. The barriers still exist as do the management problems. If you have money, then there are solutions within reach, but they may not take you down the path you wanted to travel on.

On the other hand if you are talking about e-readers themselves then the rate of change is enormous. I have a Kindle2 and already Kindle3 has had an upgrade and my Kindle2 is obsolete, if you are talking in terms of the "improvements".
Mind you, a number of the improvements, as far as I can judge, have been cosmetic, and my Kindle2 still does what it always did, provides the service it always has. It seems a pity that Amazon has no intention now of upgrading the functionality of my Kindle2.

I'll witter on a bit more tomorrow...

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Horizon Report 2012

2011-02-16T10:51:00.001+10:30

Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years.

The areas of emerging technology cited for 2011 are:
Time to adoption: One Year or Less > Electronic Books & Mobiles
Time to adoption: Two to Three Years > Augmented Reality & Game-based Learning
Time to adoption: Four to Five Years > Gesture-based Computing & Learning Analytics

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/2011HorizonReport/223122

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Australia's National Year of Reading 2012 - NYOR

2011-02-15T09:45:00.001+10:30

Australian libraries and library associations are behind a campaign to turn 2012 into the National Year of Reading, NYOR, linking together all the great things that are already happening around books, reading and literacy, and giving them an extra boost, with fun programs and activities taking place across the country.

Upcoming events listed on the website Love2Read include World Book Day on 3 March, and World Read Aloud Day on 9 March.

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Library Lovers Day, 14 Feb

2011-02-14T09:05:00.001+10:30

Show your library and librarians a little love today!

Here are some ideas and resources

From WASLA - a quiz and other ideas

Great ideas from Library Lovers at ALIA

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Australian National Professional Standards for Teachers

2011-02-11T09:24:00.001+10:30

Australian Education Ministers announced the release of the National Professional Standards for Teachers on 9 February 2011. The Standards were endorsed by Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) in late December 2010.

The development of the Standards are seen as a crucial milestone in the national education reforms of Australia.

The Standards aim to promote excellence in teaching and provide a nationally consistent basis for recognising quality teaching. They make explicit what teachers should know, be able to do and what is expected of effective teachers across their career.

Find the standards here:

AITSL National Professional Standards for Teachers.pdf (515 Kb)

Frequently Asked Questions

AITSL National Professional Standards for Teachers - FAQ.pdf (372 Kb)

Media Releases

Tony Mackay, chairman of AITSL, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, writing in The Australian: Teachers Make a Difference

Justine Ferrari of The Australian: What happens next is critical

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Virtual worlds in the classroom: taking the tyranny out of distance

2011-02-10T10:06:00.002+10:30

Australian's are generally familiar with the term "tyranny of distance" but many won't realise it was used as the title of a book about Australian history by Geoffrey Blainey

The Tyranny of Distance' is the classic account of how Australia's geographical remoteness has been central to shaping our history and identity--and how it will continue to form our future.

As well as being hailed as a work of enduring scholarship, 'The tyranny of Distance' brings our history to life. Geoffrey Blainey recounts the fascinating story of Australia's development, from Captain Cook's bold voyages and the hardships of the early settlers, through to the challenges we face in the world today.

'This revised and updated edition examines how distance and isolation, while tamed, have always been and will remain vital to Australia's development, even in the twenty-first century 'global village'.

Next week I will be attending the DEHub summit in Sydney.
The focus is Education 2011 to 2021- Global challenges and perspectives of blended and distance learning.
The Symposium panel that I am part of on Wed 16 Feb at 3.25 pm is posing the question: Can virtual worlds take the distance out of education?

My contribution relates to what Education Services Australia has been doing in the Distance Education arena:

ImmersED in Reaction Grid 2009

* Provided an environment for educators to explore virtual worlds.

Two completed activities were 3D Safari (explore educational sims) and Job Interview Roleplay – where teachers and students could take the role of interviewer or job applicant to experience the use of virtual worlds as a role play tool.

* Supported by an edna Group http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=2420

* Video created: Immersive Learning: It’s Game On! Available via the edna Group

MyFuture Australia on Second Life 2011
* Supports delivery of career education materials by myfuture.edu.au

* Aimed at career education practitioners and Australian SL visitors

* http://bit.ly/myfutureSLhelp

Today I have been given an interesting ACER publication: Virtual Worlds. Learning in a changing world by Judy O'Connell and Dean Groom.

It begins: Virtual worlds - shared graphical spaces on the Internet - are an exciting new medium for the 21st century. They are the natural evolution of the digital technologies that are defining the 21st century, just as telephone, radio, film and TV helped to define life in the 20th century.

From the final pages: Virtual worlds challenge educators to re-evaluate teaching methods, curriculum, pedagogy, resources, beliefs, attitudes, environmnets, assessment methods and policies that have been the foundations of learning and teaching environments.

The book (51pp) will be valuable to educators for the descriptions of what virtual worlds can offer and for the selected lists, particularly of virtual world environments, where they can learn more and add online communities to their own personal learning networks. There are compelling arguments for why educators should be dipping their toes in virtual waters.

What is an e-book?

2011-02-09T08:47:00.001+10:30

Searching out e-text book initiatives in Australian educational institutions, particularly schools, has led me to the conclusion that in some cases we are not using the same terminology and that there is a wide spectrum of what people mean by the term e-book, depending on where they are coming from.

I like this definition from Wikipedia:
An electronic book (also e-book, ebook, digital book) is a text and image-based publication in digital form produced on, published by, and readable on computers or other digital devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the e-book as "an electronic version of a printed book," but e-books can and do exist without any printed equivalent. E-books are usually read on dedicated hardware devices known as e-Readers or e-book devices. Personal computers and some cell phones can also be used to read e-books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-book (check the link for further information)

What I like about that definition in particular is that it points out that an e-book is usually read on a dedicated device, and I would add to that, that the e-book can be read off-line.
In Australia where good bandwidth is still a pipe dream in some areas, this feature is really important. Anything else assumes that the device will have 3G connectivity rather than wireless.

It appears that some publishers are supplying what they call "e-book versions" of existing text-books on CD for installation onto netbooks or laptops. The cost is basically the same as a print version of the text, and in fact, in some cases they say they are throwing the CD in for "free", as a justification for charging the same.

Another the scenario is the one where the publisher is supplying a pdf of the text to the school at "half-price". They are supplying the school with a limited download (number of copies) of the pdf, and the school has agreed that the pdf will expire at the end of the academic year, and in the following year they will need to pay the same licence fee. Once again it does not seem to me that this is really an e-book. The responsibility for downloading the pdf to the student laptop/netbooks has been thrown on to the school and the netbooks require Adobe software for the e-books to be read.
Another version of this is the publisher supplying the school with a list of codes which enable the download of a pdf to an individual computer.
Where the publisher is supplying the pdfs at "half-price", they will recoup the profit margin on supplying the books over 2 years, and then continue to reap profit in ensuing years. I can't see any ongoing costs for the publisher unless they are promising to update the e-book on an annual basis.

Here are my calculations:

Scenario 1: continue to buy paper books
The school buys 200 copies of a paper text book at $60 per book - the cost is $12,000
Under normal circumstances these text books will last 4-5 years.
If 4 years, the cost is $3,000

Scenario 2: embark on the e-book scheme
Year 1: Buy 200 "digital versions" @ $30 = $6,000
Year 2: Buy 200 "digital versions" @ $30 = $6,000
At the end of this period the school has nothing to show for $12,000, no books to hand on, no stocks on the shelves.
They will continue to pay $6000 a year for the scheme.
At the end of 4 years the cost has been $24,000

The other e-book scenario that is beginning to emerge is the "cloud computing" one where the e-book is supplied online and is never downloaded to the device.
The recipient's "library" is admittedly always available online but again this scenario assumes "always-on" connectivity and good to high bandwidth.

What are your thoughts?

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Use the calendar for more than dates

2011-02-08T09:19:00.001+10:30

Calendars can be a great classroom resource and inspiration for research.

The Australian Schools Calendar on edna and this one from New Zealand both alert teachers and students to special days that can be "observed" in the classroom.

Student activities can be as simple as working out how old the person whose birthday is marked on the calendar "is", or looking for websites that are celebrating the day, the month or the year. Many of those sites have an educational focus and special activities for students.

Students will often get a real kick out of finding out who shares their birthday or if any significant events have happened on that calendar date. Once they have located some basic information they can research to find out more and present it to the rest of the class. Extended research could be turned into a powerpoint presentation or an e-book. They could create an online e-book at issuu.com

Another interesting source of information are the Google logos. You have probably noticed these occasionally when you use a Google search. The Google doodlers have become more adventurous over time and the logos more interesting.

For example today, Feb 8, the Google logo celebrates Jules Verne's birthday in 1828. Classroom research might start with how old he would be, but then get on to why we want to remember him. The library might have a copy of one of his books or you might find a movie based on it. If you have e-readers, then the Gutenberg Project may help you out. Around the World in 80 Days is here. You could create an e-book using ereadups.com or simply search Wikipedia or similar to find out what has been named after Jules Verne. Classroom discussion could centre around the role of visionary authors in pointing us to what might be possible.

So why not get started today? Print a calendar or two out. Festoon your classroom or your library with them, and start celebrating!

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e-books in classrooms

2011-02-07T10:06:00.001+10:30

I'm looking for a bit of feedback with this post.

There have been a number of newspaper articles now about schools, particularly in the USA, taking delivery of e-book readers, in the main Kindles. But I haven't seen much in the way of post-adoption reporting.

Here are just a couple of the articles:

In September 2010 ClearWater High School in Tampa Bay distributed 2,100 Kindles (spending roughly $600K) to students and teachers.

Nashua High School in Arkansas is using 200 Kindles in English classes in hopes that it’ll be possible to use them in other subject-areas as a replacement for paper textbooks. article.

So far, the adoption of Kindles or any other e-reader in Australian classrooms seems to be minimal.
But I could be wrong. Maybe I am just listening to the wrong grapevines.

What I'd like from you, if you come across this post, is some more evidence of usage (anywhere).
In particular I'd like to hear about some post-adoption reports, that help me answer questions like these.

how are the teachers using the e-books & e-readers in the classroom?
what devices have they decided to use? Did they have to change their original plan?
Is the pedagogy different? What stumbling blocks have there been?
Is it working out cheaper for the school to use e-books?
specific details - are the e-books they are using supplied by a publisher? What are the terms and conditions? How are they distributed? Do they expire after the academic year?

I came across an article today related to a proposal by the Florida State Board of Education to transfer over to digital textbooks by 2014.
The writer gives many good points supporting the move:

they will replace heavy books
And e-books will make it less expensive than ever before; many of the classics on reading lists, for example, can be downloaded for free.
In addition, e-books have the potential for other broad, interactive uses in the classroom.
Most important, students gain access to books they never would have before.
Finally, being electronic, and therefore intriguing, young people might become more interested in reading, and learning.

But, the writer says, there are some questions that need to be answered:

how will the students acquire the books, and who will pay
will using e-books affect the way text books are chosen
will the system of state-wide (in Florida) use of the same texts still continue?
will teachers be given the freedom to choose their own e-texts

The writer concludes:

The transition will be an expensive one, but well worth the investment and effort as long as we do our homework and base our decisions on thoughtful research as opposed to over-excitement.

What do you think?

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Online Projects for school students

2011-02-04T09:19:00.001+10:30

2011 the International Year of Forests

A new global project Forests: a global perspective is now available at http://www.ozprojects.edu.au/course/view.php?id=172

This project aims to engage students in a celebration of forests and increase their understanding of the global issue of sustainable use of forests for 2011 the International Year of Forests. It includes activities and resources for students from lower primary to lower secondary.

For more information or assistance please email ozprojects@edna.edu.au

2011 International Year of Chemistry

Water-A Chemical Solution: A Global Experiment for the International Year of Chemistry is an activity that unites students around the globe to participate in activities that highlight the role that chemistry plays in issues of water quality and purification. A project for both primray and secondary students.

http://www.chemistry2011.org/participate/featured-ideas/global-experiment/

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Australian Schools Calendar 2011

2011-02-03T13:45:00.001+10:30

2011 Australian Schools Calendar - now available!

The Australian Schools Calendar provides a comprehensive list of events and celebration days with each date linked to additional information about the event making it easier for teachers to plan classroom activities.

Beautifully illustrated to commemorate the International Year of Forests and to raise awareness, the calendar includes month-by-month 'Be a Detective' activities to encourage students to identify how people are protecting forests and the environment.

A range of options are available for downloading the calendar including:
•    iphone and android downloads
•    iCal dates
•    PDF files of complete year and individual months.
Visit http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/schooled/calendar to download the calendar.

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Safer Internet Day 8 Feb worldwide

2011-02-03T10:01:00.001+10:30

Safer Internet Day in 2011 will help children and teens learn essential skills about safe social networking. This annual international event is coordinated by Insafe, the European network for internet safety. In 2010 Safer Internet Day was celebrated through over 500 events in 65 countries all over the world.

The theme for 2011 'It's more than a game, it's your life' will be used to promote safer and more responsible use by children and teens when using social networking sites and will highlight the importance of protecting privacy and digital reputation as well as the need for good online etiquette.

A recent Telstra survey of parents has revealed Australian parents are equipping kids with latest technology gadgets, but not providing preparation on how to deal with cyber safety / bullying issues / digital etiquette.
More than a third of the parents surveyed with children aged 10 to 17 will send a child to school this year with both a laptop computer and a mobile phone.

There is an table on the report page comparing state statistics showing some staggering figures e.g.

Have a child who will take a mobile to school this year
74% (NSW)
72% (VIC)
75% (QLD)
75% (SA)
74% (WA)

In all states, over one third of parents have not spoken recently to their child about securing their mobile. Just under one third of parents in each state have not spoken to their child about how to respond to a cyber-bully.

Perhaps parents have a false sense of security because in the majority of Australian schools, based on anecdotal evidence, students are required to keep their mobile phones turned off once they are inside the school gates, and in quite a large number the child is required to hand the phone in at the front desk at the beginning of the day and collect it at the end.
When these are often also children who are dropped off by Mum at school, and collected at the close of the day, one can't help wondering why they are carrying a mobile phone. Is the mobile phone becoming a status symbol?

Resources for Safer Internet Day 2011 can be found on Australia's CyberSmart website.

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Building a new school library

2011-02-01T09:50:00.001+10:30

My feature today is a Photopeach presentation of the construction of the new library at Penrith Public School in New South Wales.

The creator Ian Mclean has documented the whole process which came under Australia's national economic stimulus package BER (Building the Education Revolution), the brain child of the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Minister for Education Julia Gillard, who is now Australia's first female Prime Minister.

I think the slideshow is also a testimony to Ian's foresight in documenting the progress of the site, as well as his and colleagues' vision of what the new library could be.

See it here.

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As Australia returns to school

2011-01-31T09:23:00.001+10:30

It was noticeable as I came to work this morning that here in South Australia the school population is again on the move. Traffic was more congested.
Government schools in South Australia open their doors to students today, the teachers having "gone back" on Thursday.

And here in Adelaide, what a day to return!
42C promised for today, so presumably things will be complicated by "hot weather policy".

But Australia wide school term dates are not the same, and the starting dates for independent and Catholic schools will vary from thoseof thegovernment systems shown below:

ACT:
Staff commence: Friday 4 February
New students commence: Monday 7 February
Classes for all students commence: Tuesday 8 February

NSW:
Term 1: Friday 28 January – Friday 8 April

QLD:
Term 1: Monday 24 January – Friday 15 April

NT:
Term 1: Monday 24 January – Friday 1 April
Students resume Tuesday 25 January

WA:
Term 1: Wednesday 2 February – Tuesday 21 April

SA:
Term 1: Monday 31 January – Friday 15 April

TAS:
Term 1: Tuesday 15 February – Friday 3 June
Schools in the North and North West start Tues 15 Feb, Schools in the South start Wednesday 16 Feb

Resources for teachers returning to school:

edna for schools newsletter

There's a Hippotamus in the Playground Eating Cake - thanks to the author Hazel Edwards.

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Mind Maps - a key to learning?

2011-01-24T09:54:00.001+10:30

We all know the adage "a picture is better than a thousand words" and it seems that research is now supporting the concept that learning can happen more easily with a visual prompt.

Or is it that the creation of a mind map makes the learner think more carefully about the concept, as well as involving a sense other than reading?

An article Beyond Rote Learning by Massie Santos Ballon in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (22 Jan 2011) begins

FOR MANY people, the word "learning" is synonymous with "memorization."

For these people, the true test of how much knowledge they’ve gained from a class is dependent on being able to recall, and parrot back, as many facts and figures as possible.

A recent study by American psychologists suggests, however, that when it comes to retaining information, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Their data indicate that teaching students to develop methods of recalling information, instead of relying on lists, could help them learn complex ideas, such as, those presented in science classes.

Mind mapping tools

I've culled these from a larger list of Personal Productivity Tools at Jane Hart's Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.

i2brain
Not just another mind mind mapping program. It is multi-dimensional. It visualizes your thoughts and plans in depth
£, Free Trial, Download
iMindMap
Mind mapping tool from the creator of mind maps, Tony Buzan
£, Free Trial, Download
MindGenius
Mind Mapping Software that helps students and educators to plan more effectively, can provide a focal point for class discussion, and help improve memory recall for exams.
£, Free Trial, Download
MindManager
Helps you capture and organize every detail in one trusted place and use the power of visual organization to uncover hidden gems of information and unexpected insights.
£, Free Trial, Download
MindNode
MindNode Pro and MindNode are elegant and simple-to-use mindmapping applications for the Macintosh that help to visually collect, classify and structure ideas; and organize, study and solve problems.
£, Free Trial, Download
Nelements
3d Mind Mapping tool that you can use to organize your knowledge in 3d.
£, Free Trial, Download
NovaMind
Mind mapping software
£, Free Trial, Download
Seavus DropMind
Smooth, flexible and creative mind mapping solution
£, Free Trial, Download/Hosted
TopicScape
Concept mapping and mindmapping in 3D
£, Free Trial, Download
Visual Mind
Software based on the mindmapping technique to visualise your thinking an quickly arrange and organise your work
£, Free Trial, Download

What are the best mind mapping tools you've come across?

Do you use mind mapping in your teaching and learning?

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Educators: taking advantage of e-reader capability

2011-01-21T16:02:00.001+10:30

Using e-readers in the classroom should prompt some pedagogical changes.
Reading a book with an e-reader or e-reading software/App is not just the digital equivalent of reading a made-from-paper book. It opens up a whole world of possibilities, student engagement, and, at the next level, of creativity.

Most teachers will be familiar with the first level of possibilities:

text re-sizing
dictionary/thesaurus
portability and the potential of carrying a very large number of books on a single device
animation and interaction if you are using an App
search function that enables the user to search the book for specific text - e.g. to check up on the first time a particular character appears and so on
text to speech synthesis - usually a "computer" voice but sometimes still useful

There are tools that the user can use which both personalise the device, or, if it needs to be shared, enable more streamlined use. (Here I will refer mainly to the Kindle because that's where my area of "expertise" lies, but perhaps you could adopt the approach of "if that can be done on a Kindle, how can I achieve something similar on my e-reader?)

tools like Categories in the Kindle enable the user to put the e-books into a sort of "folder" system. In this blog post I explain what I've done on my Kindle, but you could easily use categories on a shared device to store books for specific users. I would imagine that other devices/software have the ability to sort books into labelled shelves. (if you know of anything here, leave a comment)

But there are tools that allow the user to take use of their device to a new level. Let's take the scenario of a student who is required to write a book report, or an analysis of a particular section.
The student may need to be shown how to use the bookmarking and annotation tool, how to transfer those notes to a text reader on a computer, and then to manipulate them for a book report.

My point here is that the teacher needs to take a bit of an interventionist role, set post-reading assignments that challenge the student to make use of the extra capabilities an e-reader provides.

If you have a Kindle, you might find EduKindle a useful place to browse and monitor.
Of course there is always the Kindle User's Guide.

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Twitter is for old people!

2011-01-20T15:28:00.002+10:30

I have again got some anecdotal "evidence" as a result of discussion of yesterday's post.
It appears that, while teenagers are hooked on FaceBook and texting on their mobiles, they are less than impressed with Twitter.
This appears to be a fairly typical response (this by a 13 year old female)

daughter: Dad, only OLD people use Twitter.
Me: But it's used by lots of the celebrities that you follow - Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, some of those Gleek kids...
daughter: (rolls her eyes dramatically) Da-ad, you only use Twitter instead of Facebook because it is simple. Like the smoke signals you used to send from cave to cave when you were young.

and another

My own 15 yo daughter thinks Twitter is embarrassingly stupid. I handed her my phone the other day as I was driving and dictated a message for her to send... it was only afterwards when she realised it was Twitter that she said "Eww, I used Twitter?!" :-)

This time the ancedotes are supported by research.

This report dated September 2009: Only around 15% of all the Twitter users are less than 25 years old, who would know? An official report from Morgan Stanley says that teenagers just don’t use Twitter.... people under 25 years are the main Internet users, only this group of people takes the 25% of all population; but they also just represent 16% of all Twitter. more
In December 2010 a Pew Internet report said "Eight percent of the American adults who use the internet are Twitter users. It is an online activity that is particularly popular with young adults, minorities, and those who live in cities."
In a post Teens Don't Tweet in mid 2009 Nielsen estimated that 64% of Twitter growth had come from the 24 to 55 year old age range

So, it may be that if you are hoping to sell Twitter to a bunch of teenagers in the classroom, that you've already lost the battle, just when you've found a technology that you like.

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Twittering in Education

2011-01-19T10:24:00.001+10:30

This is an old web posting: http://www.emergingedtech.com/2010/02/100-ways-to-teach-with-twitter/

But it raises an interesting issue and your chance to correct me.

My impression is that, in Australian schools at least, Twitter, for a variety of reasons, gets minimal use.
Am I right?
By and with students that is, but a different scenario exists with teachers.

Do you Tweet?

Jane Knight lists it as a key tool for professionals
http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2010/02/twitter-and-facebook-and-buzz-oh-my-fb.html
http://c4lpt.co.uk/140Learning/twitter.html Publish
It came out as #1 in her Top 100 tools for Learning in 2010 (and it was #1 in 2009 too)
http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/top100-2010.html
It still looks like #1 so far on her 2011 list
http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/2011.html

Twitter apparently grew hugely in 2010

http://blog.twitter.com/2010/12/stocking-stuffer.html

In the past 12 months, Twitter users sent an astonishing 25 billion Tweets and we added more than 100 million new registered accounts.

http://sysomos.com/insidetwitter/twitter-stats-2010/

If you have time to look
http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2010/12/100-most-popular-twitter-apps.html

Where I tweet

I found it necessary, even essential, to separate my work and personal personas.
I would describe myself as an occasional tweeter.
I have set things up so that my blog postings automatically get posted into the appropriate Twitter account.

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Seducing our students with e-readers

2011-01-18T08:56:00.001+10:30

It seems that many students can be turned off reading by the physical characteristics of made-from-paper books, like

size of the font - we expect them to "graduate" to smaller type fonts before they (or is it their eyes?) are ready
page layout - not enough white space, print density, no pictures
the size of the book - too small, too big
the weight of the book

One of the interesting things emerging from discussions about e-reading experiences is that it seems people who already read a lot are reading even more. Here is an article that explores that theme.

All of this is the fault of my ereading device. Like the muses of ancient lore, the device has seduced me. I can’t wait to sit in my recliner and read on my Sony 950; I simply do not want to pick up a printed book. The screen is easy on my eyes, the touch screen a pleasure, the ergonomics excellent for me, and the weight significantly less than most of my hardcovers. It oozes pleasure and an enjoyable time to be had. ... I’m reading three to four times as many books as I did before I had an ereading device

Perhaps that ties in with what I touched on yesterday: the impression that they are able to read faster.

Amazon for example are citing rising books sales, particularly of e-books.

Of course in education it isn't really the established older readers we want to get to. It is the younger readers who in the past have been turned off reading for reasons like those I cited at the beginning of this post.

And the jury is out on whether these people need a dedicated e-reader or an App on an iPad or e-reading software on their computer

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Can we make things too easy to read?

2011-01-17T10:36:00.001+10:30

Anecdotal evidence from friends and comments about their e-reading experiences include an impressions that they are able to read faster on their e-readers than they can with a "normal" made-from-paper book. We have all thought that had something to do with the ability to manipulate the size of the font.

This phenomenon has been noted elsewhere, for example, a study of US middle school students who were all using Kindles, where their teacher found that nearly all were choosing to read their e-books in one of the larger size fonts.

Again this is anecdotal "evidence" - but there have been suggestions made that e-books are abridged versions - people unable to believe that they were able to read the book so quickly!

A colleague borrowed the company Kindle for the holidays and got on famously with it, far better than she thought she would. She said that she quickly forgot it was a device and settled down to reading with it easily. She read 3 books, all fairly long. However the time came to return the device and she reported that she had made the transition back to p-books just as easily.
She reported having a strange experience. The print on the p-book was a bit small and so she thought she would "bump it up bit", until she remembered she was not reading it on an e-reader.

So this post from TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home, a blog that I follow regularly, Are e-readers too easy to read? makes interesting reading. A neuroscience blogger suggests that easy to read fonts interfere with information retention. I guess if that were an educationally sound conclusion, then we would have made our readers and text books much harder to read long ago.

What do you think?

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Teachers and librarians lead the way with e-books

2011-01-14T12:33:00.001+10:30

New Research Report Just Released
eBooks: K-12 Educators’ Usage and Attitudes

A new research report has just been released that surveys teachers and librarians to find out how they are using e-books—personally and in the classroom—and to identify purchasing usage, attitudes, and trends.

The report presents the results of a survey conducted among 700 teachers and 600 school librarians in the US.

The survey shows that school librarians are leading the way in bringing e-books into our nation’s schools – in large part because they have funding available to support their E-book purchases. The top-line results show that 40% of K-12 teachers and 50% of school librarians have purchased E-books for either personal or professional use.

The survey was conducted by educational consulting firm Egremont Associates, with support from co-sponsors edWeb.net, MCH Strategic Data, and TecKnoQuest Inc.

Points from the survey results:

educators who have not already jumped on the bandwagon appear to be unlikely to do so in the near future.
70% are paying for eBooks out of their own pocket.
School librarians are more involved with eBooks than teachers - partly because their eBook purchases are more likely than teachers.
most popular foramts of books purchased are .pdf or .azw (Kindle)
if educators own an eBook reader it is most likely to be a Kindle

Join Exploring eBooks for K-12 on Edweb Net and download the executive summary free.

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E-books in education in 2011

2011-01-13T15:32:00.001+10:30

One interesting report that has come my way is the Price Waterhouse Coopers report on ebooks, published at the end of 2010.

While it is not specifically related to education, it does give a good overview for those who haven't yet begun thinking about e-readers and e-books. It contains some very persuasive arguments for why teachers and librarians need to try eReaders and eBooks. It is the way the world is headed.

It compares data from from the US, UK, Germany and the Netherlands (what a pocket of resistance that seems to be)

I was particularly interested in the final pages which described the Situation in the Year 2015. (check page 32 onwards)

Here are the main points:

Books will still be printed. Books made from paper are not going to become museum pieces any time soon. However the book industry will be transformed by eBooks and eReaders.
Printed books will continue to account for the majority of sales. At the end of 2010 eBooks accounted for only 7% of the US market and much less elsewhere.
Prices for eReaders will fall.
Colour screens and Internet connectivity will become commonplace.
eReaders will remain less expensive than tablets and have fewer "disruptive" features.
Dedicated eReaders will continue to be more popular than tablets, although the sales will flatten out where they are already established.
Tablets will be lighter and have longer battery life than currently.
Tablets will gradually take the place of printed magazines and newspapers.
More publishers will offer multimedia content in eBooks.
"special interest books" will be sold on a chapter by chapter basis (this has interesting implications for text books)
Cook books and Travel guides and other special interest books will be offered as tablet Apps, and also with interactive feautres, online updates, and subscriptions
Libraries will be lending both eReaders and eBooks
As demand decreases for print books some titles may no longer be available in print, although printing on demand may still happen.
By the end of 2012 most avid readers (in the US at least) will own an eReader.
The eBooks market share in the US will be 22.5% in 2015. In the UK it will be 14% in 2015, and in Germany 6% and in the Netherlands 4%
Closures of physical bookstores so far have probably had more to do with the economic downturn than with the rise of eBooks. Physical bookstores will need to look at the services they offer in order to ensure survival.

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Creating P.C. reading by whitewashing the classics

2011-01-12T10:38:00.001+10:30

An interesting issue has arisen

Publisher to release versions of 'Huck Finn' and 'Tom Sawyer' without the N-word, prompting strong but mixed reaction.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/01/11/whitewashing-of-literary-classics-paints-controversy/
The internet is abuzz with reaction to a publisher’s controversial decision to replace the N-word with “slave” in Mark Twain’s classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in an effort not to offend readers.

You probably remember that Agatha Christie’s TEN LITTLE NIGGERS became TEN LITTLE INDIANS which always seemed to me to be a very strange choice, and now it is the much more sanitized AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.

The interesting thing was that in the Agatha Christie novel the "niggers" in question were ten soldier boy figurines on the dining room table. As the book evolved and people were murdered the figurines disappeared. The title of the book was based, as you will remember, on a nursery rhyme.

I remember (you probably don’t, being mainly much younger than this geriatric) reading Joseph Conrad’s THE NIGGER OF THE NARCISSUS.
Should we hunt down all books with similarly offensive titles?

But the Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer books are to be reprinted using “slave” instead of the n-word.
The count is apparently 219 times
Is this madness? What do you think?

What would the Australian equivalent be? Is it better to replace politically/socially offensive words with more sanitized ones, or should we be teaching our students to recognize the offensiveness, but also to undePublishrstand how the author was reflecting common usage at that time?

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Let go of the paradigms of the past

2010-12-16T08:44:00.003+10:30

In her talk for TED this year Diana Laufenberg says we must let our students learn from their mistakes: to actually fail sometimes and learn from failure.
Her talk is about the importance of experiential learning, empowering student voice and embracing failure. Teachers need to recognise that students aren't actually coming to school to get the knowledge, that is the paradigm of the past. They are coming to communicate and collaborate and put ideas into practice.
It's a great video: just 10 minutes of your time.

24 Tips for e-Learning

2010-12-15T11:18:00.002+10:30

24 Tips for eLearning Professionals, is an advent calendar of elearning brought to you by the eLearning Network.
14 great posts so far

How to design thought-provoking interactions
5 tips for running your own Alternate Reality Game
Screencasting
We’re Yamming…
The ten commandments of learning design
Ask a question before you tell a fact
Avoiding Crapathy in Your eLearning
Using tab interactions for knowledge check questions
Lend me your ears! Tips for effective use of audio in eLearning
Do the impossible – design compliance e-learning that engages users and changes behaviours
Thou shalt not convey meaning by colour alone…
Tips for successful online discussions
10 ideas to use social media for professional development
How to write a voiceover script

Throughout the run-up to Christmas, go back each day for practical, helpful or just plain fun tips from people across the industry.

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As the year rolls over..

2010-12-10T09:02:00.001+10:30

For many teachers and students in Australia today is the last day of the school year. Senior students sitting for public exams vanished long ago, final assemblies and prizegivings have been held, and if people are at school today, it is likely to be a short day with students on their way at lunch time, and teachers breathing a sigh of relief.

But, befitting a country that had problems even getting its railway tracks the same distance apart, the school year dates are not the same Australia wide, nor even from deployment to deployment. Just recently Tasmanian teachers seemed to win the battle to be the only state sticking with a 3 term school year that gives them longer summer holidays. There's always been a disparity between the school term dates for government and independent schools. Some systems have their teachers come back a week earlier than students and use the time to get ready for the coming year. Invariably government systems give teachers one or two days chock full of meetings prior to the coming of students.

Of course the beginning of a school year is complicated by the observance of Australia Day on January 26, with government systems known in the past to insist that teachers return just before Australia Day, to do their preparation days, so schools can be open for students immediately after.

I didn't really mean to witter on about the beginning of the year, but rather to think about what has happened in 2010.

For me it has been a fairly significant, can I even say traumatic, year with a company merger between Education.au and the Curriculum Corporation into one ministerial company Education Services Australia. For me the euphoria of a merger quickly vanished with the departure of my immediate boss, former CEO of Education.au Greg Black, in March. As a result my job changed significantly.

For me, this has been the year of the e-book and e-reader. I've given 4 presentations and participated in 2 online forums on using digital texts, and I have 3 more lined up in March next year. These are interesting times we are living in.

On Wednesday the Ministers of Education, meeting at MCEECDYA, endorsed in principle, the implementation of the Australia curriculum, but it is clear that the process is going to be a slow one, with each of the states adding different content. Full implementation won't occur until at least 2013. As I said, interesting times

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Are e-books the biggest paradigm shift since the printing press?

2010-12-08T10:43:00.001+10:30

This blog post in some measure owes it's existence to some thoughts developed after reading online text forwarded to me by a friend. The original came from Mark Treadwell but I have been unable to locate it. The quoted material is from something he has written titled Foreword: "Whatever! Were we Thinking?

What the world is experiencing towards the end of the first decade of the 21st century is the first ever global macro-paradigm shift. This event is unique and without precedent. The last time we came close to an event like this was on a regional scale, resulting in the Renaissance period 500 years ago.

The invention of the printing press, in particular the Gutenberg press with it's system of moveable type, in 1450, had a huge impact.

The printing press was the technology that would drive the first paradigm shift in learning. The printing press did this via its dramatic capacity to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of learning by making knowledge dramatically more portable and reducing the cost of access to knowledge.

What the printing press essentially allowed to happen was the sharing, and building on, of ideas. It also stressed the importance of reading and writing. It's social impact was enormous.

e-readers and e-books have the potential to take this sharing of ideas to a new level.

e-book technology brings the book to the reader. One of the attractive features is the ability to purchase an e-book online and have it delivered wirelessly almost instantly to your e-reader. No putting it on a list to check when next in your favourite book shop, or even placing an order for it. If it is available as an e-book then you purchase it then.
in addition, most e-readers have a tool which allows the reader to annotate and bookmark while reading. If you are connected wirelessly then you can view "popular" highlights, even share your own comments and those of others. Currently many users don't take advantage of this capability because of the effect on the battery life of the device.
a third feature that will revolutionise how books are used is that comments and highlights in an e-book are stored on the device and can be transferred to a document on an attached computer and thus become the basis for creative thinking and writing. This places on the user the need to understand the boundaries of plagiarism and copyright.

Most of my presentations on e-books just recently have ended up with a plea/challenge to teachers and teacher-librarians to bite the bullet and buy an e-reader and find out what this technology has to offer. It needs to be more than a passing acquaintance too. They need to understand and be able to use the tools that come with the devices.

Sure, made-from-paper books are not going to disappear but digital technologies used in this way offer a new depth to the sharing of ideas and the creation of new understandings.
(And I'll scream if one more person says I'm happy to be Luddite! not the least because Luddites actually stood in the way of progress not by passively ignoring it, but through active protest which involved more often than not the destruction of the new mechanised looms.)

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e-books: will Google ebooks make a difference to me?

2010-12-07T09:27:00.001+10:30

Watchers are tipping that the recent plunge by Google into e-books is going to change the way the e-book market works.

Well, for those of us In Australia, not much is changed as yet.
Here is the first thing I saw as I explored the Google eBookstore.

The latest Google eBooks are not available for sale in your location, yet...

Google is working with publishers around the world to let you buy the latest ebooks from top authors. In the meantime, you can still browse millions of free and public domain Google eBooks and read them effortlessly across your devices.Learn more

It looks like you're located outside of the United States. Although you're welcome to read about Google eBooks, please note that Google eBooks are only available for sale to customers in the U.S. at this time.

So my question on availability was answered.
My other question was - what format are the books in?

Google eBooks can be read with any dedicated eBook reader that supports the Adobe eBook platform, including the Barnes & Noble Nook™ and Readers™ from Sony. More than 85 devices support the Adobe eBook platform today including Reader™ from Sony devices (PRS-300 - PRS-700), Aluratek Libre, Astak EZ Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook™ and Nook Color™, BeBook, Bookeen, COOL-ER, Elonex eBook, HanLin eBook, IREX Digital Reader, Neolux Nuut, and more.

Currently, Google eBooks are not compatible with Amazon Kindle devices, though we are open to supporting them in the future.

So the format is not really epub - it is Adobe Digital Editions.

So in answer to the question I posed at the beginning in my subject line: no, Google ebooks will not make a difference to me at this stage.

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A collection of e-book links

2010-12-06T12:03:00.001+10:30

The e-book e-reader cyberworld is really a fast changing one and I thought I'd pass on some information and tips that have come my way recently.

First of all from Nick:
A new online reader – the FlexBooks System promised to minimise the issues with ebook readers and copyright issues. Read more about this in my short blog here or on blogger.

There are number of Webinars happening soon, so visit the CK12 website for the schedule starting from Nov. 23 to Dec. 16th.

FlexBooks seems mainly to be about free Science and Maths text books available as e-books. There is an introductory video you can watch.

Another interesting one is COPIA. This one has the byline "If a book is worth reading, it's worth discussing", and is a site that enables social interaction through reading. This seems similar to the comment system that Amazon has been developing on the Kindle, which works if you are connected via the wireless.

One of the interesting things with this sort of development is that in most of the discussions that people are having about e-books and e-readers at the moment, particularly in an educational context, such as the one I have been participating in on Your School Library for the past few days, they are focussing on whether you can lend e-books, and whether there can be such a thing as a lendable e-textbook. Many miss the concept that the e-reader is a personal device, and they are not aware of the social networking aspects at all.

It seems to me that much of the development is around the epub format, with the idea of inclusion of the e-book onto the iPad through an App. As the Kindle is really the only viable e-reader that uses the Amazon format, and if Amazon's real interest is in selling books, e-books among them, then I think this is going to push Amazon into retailing e-books in epub format as well as .azw. The day is not long off when Amazon asks the buyer what format they want the ebook delivered in.

For those who want their e-reader to handle colour then the NookColor looks like a winner, with a ready market here in Australia if Barnes & Noble ever decide to release it for international users. You might be interested in this review.
The writer gives the NookColor the following ratings, with an overall B

Hardware/screen/physicality: A
Battery: B+
General interface/navigation: B
Book reading: A-
Newspaper reading: B
Magazine reading: C+
Kids’ books: A
Shopping/periodical selection: C
Search, highlighting, dictionary, lookup: A
Note-taking/account syncing: F
Music and video playback: B
Library books: B+
Web: B+
Social/LendMe: A-

and a prediction that major problems with be fixed with a software upgrade in January/February along with the launch of a NookColor App store.

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With my other hat on: careers

2010-11-26T09:36:00.001+10:30

One of the jobs that I do at Education Services Australia is to seed twitter and facebook with posts about the myfuture careers services.

I thought readers of my blog my be interested in some of the links I've posted in the last few weeks.

I've done a series called OCCUPATION OF THE DAY:

Audiologist: Are you confident, sympathetic, tactful? Good analytical skills? You might make a good audiologist. Audiologist http://bit.ly/audiologist
AutoElectrician: Do you love cars, electrical wiring, playing with computers? What about auto-electrician? http://bit.ly/auto_electric
Auctioneer: Love the idea of selling things? The excitement of an auction? Check out auctioneer http://bit.ly/sell-at-auctions
Bus Driver: Love driving, being out & about, meeting people. What about becoming a bus driver? http://bit.ly/bus-driver

Leading up to the Melbourne Cup in November, I ran a series of very popular posts

Be a Melbourne cup jockey? View a winning video. http://bit.ly/jockey_vid
What does it take to be a jockey? http://bit.ly/be_a_jockey
Where would the Melbourne Cup be without trend-setting fashion? Be a fashion designer. http://bit.ly/fashion_designer
Love to work with horses? Why not become a stablehand? http://bit.ly/stable_hand
Where would the Melbourne Cup be without an event manager? http://bit.ly/event_manager
Where would sporting events be without gardeners? http://bit.ly/horticulturalist
Interested in working in a take away shop? http://bit.ly/fastfood_cook
There is a lot of variety in catering: supervising, planning, organising. Does that appeal? http://bit.ly/caterer

And then there have been the career information related ones

Explore some occupations. What is important in choosing an occupation? Use a learning object and take a quick quiz http://bit.ly/mfexploreoccupations
Choosing school subjects. Make informed decisions about your school subjects. What should you do next year? http://bit.ly/school_subjects
Occupation videos Watch a video for a bird's eye view of what working in a particular occupation would be like. http://bit.ly/occupation_videos
Green Careers Are you a greenie? Green careers contribute to a more sustainable world, and they exist at all education and skill levels. http://bit.ly/green_careers
What is a Career? Have you started on yours yet? http://bit.ly/what-is-a-career
Are you controlling your career development or just careering through life? http://bit.ly/career_development
Is your career a puzzle? How do you plan? http://bit.ly/career_planning
Why do people work? Is it more than the money? http://bit.ly/why_people_work
What is a career pathway? Do I need one? How will it help me? http://bit.ly/career_pathway
By the time it’s become toast on your breakfast table, wheat's been on quite a journey. Work Connections. http://bit.ly/road_to_toast

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2010 Horizon report: Australia New Zealand edition: e-books

2010-11-24T12:10:00.001+10:30

This volume examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative enquiry within higher education in Australia and New Zealand over a five-year time period. The report identifies electronic books and mobile devices as the near term horizon technologies with the likelihood of entry into the mainstream for institutions within the next 12 months.

http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2010-Horizon-Report-ANZ.pdf

Some of its points

reading electronic books will be more than simply viewing a digital version of a printed volume - there will be interactive content and dynamic media
e-books and e-readers will be offered on mobile devices
students will be able to buy or rent whole books or just chapters
the e-content will update often
students will be able to share their annotations and commentary
institutions must commit to supporting tools
pedagogical practice must change to take the new tools into account

Technologies to Watch

On the near term horizon - within the next 12 months: e-books and mobiles
second adoption horizon - 2 to 3 years out - augmented reality and open content
far term horizon - 4 to 5 years - gesture-based computing and visual data analysis.

As the technology underlying electronic readers has improved and more titles have become available, electronic books are quickly reaching the point where their advantages over the printed book are compelling to almost any observer. Already firmly established in the public sector, electronic books are gaining a foothold on campuses as well, where they serve as a cost-effective and portable alternative to heavy textbooks and supplemental reading selections. The availability of an increasing range of portable electronic reading devices, as well as the many book-reader applications designed for mobiles, has made it easy to carry a wide selection of wirelessly updated reading material. New, highly interactive publications demonstrate that quite apart from their convenience, electronic books have the potential to transform the way we interact with reading material of all kinds, from popular titles to scholarly works

The Overview is worth reading for expansion of the following:

e-books have now reached the point of mainstream adoption in the consumer sector
to what extent can content be separated from the device?
what makes e-books potentially a transformative technology is the new kind of reading experiences they make possible - audio visual and social elements
standards for e-publications are still in the development phase: there is huge change happening in the publishing industry
tertiary education campuses have been slow to adopt, but many of the earlier constraints are fast vanishing, although availability of e-books in Australia & NZ is still an issue

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e-readers boost enthusiasm for reading

2010-11-18T09:37:00.001+10:30

A newspaper article today claims a school district library project to interest students in reading books by providing them with Kindles has been very successful. The librarians say that the devices have been directly responsible for increasing the number of minutes students have spent reading and also the number of books that have been read. The library has bought 30 Kindles and are using them with students in Kindle Clubs. Students estimate that they have read 30% more books over the last year.

Participants in the official Kindle forum (adult readers) have been making similar claims.

For example

Here are some of the things that people at the official kindle forum are mentioning -

They are reading more books than they used to.
They’re also reading books that earlier they wouldn’t.
A tendency to buy too many books.
A tendency to hoard books.
Downloading and reading a free book and then reading the other books from that author.

There seem to have been three main changes in reading patterns -

The number of books read in main genres of interest seems to have gone up.
Reading has made its way back to being a top 2 leisure activity for a significant number of kindle owners. For a lot of the others it was always #1 or #2.
People are beginning to explore other genres and are reading lots of books that they wouldn’t have without the Kindle Store.

Earlier this year a report revealed that the availability of free e-books was having an unexpected impact on the sales of print books. A growing number of authors and publishers freely distribute their books electronically to increase the visibility of their work. These books, for both academic and general audiences, cover a wide variety of genres, including technology, law, fantasy, and science fiction. Some authors claim that free digital distribution has increased the impact of their work and their reputations as authors.

A pilot study, admittedly with a very small cohort, recently aimed to consider the e-book reading experiences of young children and their families, with currently available portable e-reader devices: Amazon Kindle, Nintendo DS-lite and Apple iPod Touch. Among other factors, there were indications that the one reluctant young reader (a boy aged eight years) was inspired to read by the Kindle.

Yet another article claims :"Ebooks have already proved particularly successful with low-ability and reluctant readers. Not only do they reflect the young learner’s world more appropriately than paper books but children still find technology ‘cool’. Therefore, reading on personal EDAs or laptops individually or together on a whiteboard makes those who are reluctant more interested, particularly when they can click through to relevant websites listed in bibliographies and discover more about a topic for themselves."

Lotta Larson, a Kansas-State assistant professor of elementary education, is finding that electronic readers allow children to interact with texts in ways they don't interact with the printed word. In particular she cites the role of features that enable the reader to make the text audible, increase or decrease font size and let readers make notes about the book.

You'll have noticed that many of these articles are about the Kindle but I don't think that matters. That is simply because the Kindle has been around longer, long enough for teachers and parents to make observations. The evidence linked to e-readers in general will come.

Someone at the conference I was speaking at last week asked about whether the e-book would inhibit those in her class who were already avid readers (I think she was really asking why the evidence appears to have such a focus on the reluctant or slow reader). I responded with the anecdotal evidence I've seen about avid readers consuming more books, bumping the print text size up a little to facilitate faster reading, and using tools like the note taking tool and the dictionary/thesaurus.

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World Toilet Day is 19 November

2010-11-17T08:37:00.001+10:30

Did you know that nearly half of the world's population don't have access to toilets or proper sanitation?

November 19th is World Toilet Day. It is a day to celebrate the importance of sanitation and raise awareness of this problem. Here in Australia we laugh about the "outback dunny" with its "long drop" but we also recognise how essential they are. Check them out on Wikipedia.

We even have them listed on a National Toilet Map.

More information about World Toilet Day is available from http://www.worldtoilet.org/wtd/

The Sanitation and Disease project at http://www.ozprojects.edu.au/course/view.php?id=19 has activities to help teachers and students understand the connection between clean water, sanitation and disease.

You can watch the Adventures of Super Toilet on the Water Aid Splash Out website and then draw one of the characters using Kerpoof Studio.

There is also an online crossword and discussion forums in which students can share their knowledge about sanitation and discuss the world water crisis.

For more information or assistance to get started in this project please email ozprojects@edna.edu.au

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Class sizes and teacher quality

2010-11-15T12:52:00.001+10:30

Why does the glee with which the media grabs onto reports that say class sizes don't matter make me grind my teeth?

In my teaching life, which began over 4 decades ago, I began with huge classes, the like of which we don't see these days. Teaching 44 exceptionally bright 14 year olds for English, History and Maths in my first year on the job, in a large metropolitan high school, was fortunately not something I had to repeat much in ensuing years. But as time went on, the classes became smaller. Just as well, or I certainly would have been the victim of early burnout.

I certainly believe that, although there is a critical mass of brains to rub together that you need in a class, the smaller the class, the better outcomes the teacher can deliver. Somewhere between 20 and 25 students is what I prefer. It makes preparation and marking manageable, as well as getting to know your students in detail.

Today's media posts are both related to the publication of the Gratton report.

The Australian says GOVERNMENTS waste millions of dollars in education on expensive and ineffectual programs to reduce class sizes. While the Adelaide Advertiser headlines SMALLER classes are a waste of money and do not improve students' results as much as having higher-skilled and innovative teachers, an education policy expert says.

Worth discussing though are the listing by the Grattan Institute's director of school education, Ben Jensen, of five main mechanisms to improve teaching standards:

improving the quality of applicants to become teachers;
improving the quality of their initial education and training;
evaluating and providing feedback to teachers once they're in classrooms;
recognising and rewarding effective teachers;
and moving on ineffective teachers who are unable to improve.

I don't think there would be one teacher who wouldn't like to see the last 3 happen.

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Student commemorative project launching on Remembrance Day

2010-11-10T12:06:00.001+10:30

Funded by the Victorian Government's Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 1000 Poppies.org is an initiative of the History Teachers' Association of Victoria and the Shrine of Remembrance.

This project aims to create a space where students from around the world can share stories and experiences, linking the local and the global in an on-line environment and create their own response to honouring the service and sacrifice of veterans and those affected by war to express their hopes for lasting peace.

On this site you will be able to plant a poppy (one symbol of remembrance) in a field to commemorate those who have been affected by war.

The site launches on Remembrance Day, 11 November 2010

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Resources for Remembrance Day

2010-11-09T09:32:00.001+10:30

The original for the image above is the header for the resources for Remembrance Day located at the Australian War Memorial.

The AWM site reminds us that "Remembrance Day (11 November) marks the anniversary of the armistice which ended the First World War (1914–18). Each year Australians observe one minute silence at 11 am on 11 November, in memory of those who died or suffered in all wars and armed conflicts."

You might be interested in particular in the information under the heading Tradition which tells how the ceremony was established. On that page also there is a list of the common features of the ceremony including this recitation.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

There is a video on YouTube that you may also like to use.

For further resources check out this edna search

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Why you should grow some digital wings

2010-11-08T10:35:00.001+10:30

This week I'm talking about e-books twice: on Wednesday to a local teacher librarians hub group, and then on Friday at the SLAV (School Librarians Association of Victoria) conference.

Here is the prezi that will be the basis of my talk on both occasions - I'm hoping they have losts of questions to ask. My starting focus is what I get out of having a Kindle.

Why you should grow some digital wings on Prezi

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Can you start school too early?

2010-11-03T09:09:00.001+10:30

It is amazing how we interpret figures differently according to our viewpoint isn't it?

In an article in the Victorian Herald Sun today we are given the following information about students who have had to repeat a year in Victorian state schools:

Almost 5300 students were repeating last year,....... Last year, more than 1200 kids repeated prep, followed by 824 year 11 students, 689 in year 12, 479 in grade 1 and 323 in year 10.

OK - let me put a possible interpretation on the figures:

the prep cohort, that is, the school starters, mostly probably 5 year olds, 1200 of them (22.5% of the stats), are likely to be children who started school too early, who had inadequate preparation for a full school day, possibly limited experience of kindergarten, who were socially immature, or had other settling in problems.
They will include children who have almost no command of English, and are trying to learn the language at the same time as learning to read and write.
There has been considerable debate over the years about the correct starting age for school. The Australian states have generally settled on a child being enrolled in school at some time during the year in which they turn 5. In some states they can only start at the beginning of a year immediately after their 5th birthday, in others they can start in the next term after their 5th birthday.
In Victoria a child starting prep must turn 5 by 30th April in the year of enrolment.
if you add to that figure the 479 having to repeat grade 1, I think you are seeing the same reasons. That brings the total of "early repeaters" to 1679, nearly one third of the total. Early childhood teachers will tell you that there are a variety of reasons why these children benefit from repeating the year. Sometimes it is as simple as the fact that they have been in reception for less than 6 months when the school year ends and school/departmental policy determines that they must put in the extra time.

There are many reasons why students take longer than 2 years over years 11 and 12, but perhaps we could say "thank goodness they do", because they and their parents have recognised the benefits of completing their education. The repeaters in the sample total 1513, again nearly 30%, but these figures need further clarification about what repeating actually is.

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e-books: What your school needs you to do (if you are a teacher or a TL)

2010-11-01T10:28:00.001+10:30

The e-book/e-reader scenario is the perfect illustration of the hype cycle. We are not so far up from the "technology trigger". The Gartner Hype Cycle July 2009 put e-book readers into the 2-5 years to mainstream adoption and we are quite a long way from that.

The emergence of the latest cab off the rank, the Nook Color e-reader, which is a touch screen device, will throw an interesting cat among the pigeons. I'm sure it will hasten the development of other small colour devices perhaps even a colour Kindle. Many are predicting there will be even more device releases in time for your Christmas spending.

What teachers and teacher librarians should be doing is developing some experience in what an e-reader can do. Please don't sit around waiting for the right one to come along.

I am sure we are just at the beginning of the e-book scenario, and that cheaper colour touch screens etc will become available in the next few months, and that makes sensible arguments for holding off.
On the other hand we desperately need teachers and TLs who have joined the "advance guard" and are developing some expertise in what an e-reader can do, what they might offer to a school library.

I'm sure the issues with how to lend books, and possibilities for e-textbooks will be worried at for at least the next 12 months.

The deal with Amazon and Borders is that multiple copies of a purchased e-book can be downloaded to devices registered to your account. With Amazon it is 6 devices and I thought that was the case with Borders too.
This includes being able to read the e-book on a laptop or PC.

My appeal to TLs is to at least download Kindle for PC or the Borders software to a laptop or desktop PC, and get some experience in how of what e-reading is like.
It is not quite the same as a dedicated e-reader but the functionality is similar.

Just as we have Apple enthusiasts in our ranks, and PC enthusiasts, those who rally behind the e-book / e-reader banner will probably always speak highly of the device they have spent time with (unless they totally hate it). In my own case it is the Kindle2 which I have been using for 15 months now and have read 35 books on.
But my experiences have given me a view of what we need to look for in an e-reader or e-reading software. I am unlikely to buy a new device anytime soon, although I do have Kindle for PC on my computer, as well as the Borders software. My husband has the Kindle for PC App on his iPad.

If you are thinking about your next step, then the criteria that I listed in my blog post at http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2010/09/08/e-books-and-e-readers-criteria-for-choosing-your-e-reader/ might be a good starting point.

As with most technology decisions, it really comes down to what you want the device to do and how much you are prepared to pay for it.

I have explored the topic in these blog posts
Teaching with an e-book: http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2010/09/14/teaching-with-an-e-book-part-1/
And this one about how we are unlikely to see wholesale adoption of e-texts in schools in 2010: http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2010/10/26/so-youre-thinking-about-e-text-books-2011-may-be-too-soon-in-australia-anyway/
If you explore my blog you'll see that e-books is a focus topic for me.

If you are attending the SLAV conference on November 12, I will presenting a session on why I love my Kindle, and e-books in general.

If you are in Tasmania Jill Hutchins is organising a conference for 11-12 indep schools, catholic colleges and Academies/Polytechnics, where e-books is one of the topics: Jill's email address is Jill.Abell@hutchins.tas.edu.au I'll be there too.

You could think about tuning into the YSL round table on e-books in early December: check it out at http://yourschoollibrary.org/

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iNet online conference on digital literacy

2010-10-29T09:27:00.001+10:30

The iNet (International Networking for Educational Transformation) online conference for education professionals in all countries will commence next Monday 1 November at 12.01am (* UK time). The topic for this eight-day conference is ‘digital literacy’.

This interactive conference will feature, in addition to a range of excellent papers and multimedia presentations from around the world, online discussion boards that will be open 24/7. There are also two ‘question and answer’ ‘hotseats’ - the first hosted by Professor Yong Zhao and the second by Mr John Davitt.

To participate in this internet e-vent, which is provided by iNet at no cost, please register online at: http://www.cybertext.net.au/inet2010educator.php

*The conference website address will be emailed to all registrants a few hours before the conference commences on Monday. No passwords or user names will be required.

Please don’t hesitate to contact Debra Brydon if you have any queries about this conference or suggestions for future online conferences. * Late contributions may be considered for possible publication if they arrive via email by Sunday 31 October.

Best wishes,
Debra Brydon
iNet online conference manager
Email: brydon@cybertext.net.au
Skype: brydon.d
Mobile: Int. + 61 413 009988
Hotseat ‘question and answer’ sessions

Professor Yong Zhao 9.00–10.00am (GMT) Wednesday 3 November 2010
Read Prof. Zhao's think piece — Technology and the virtual world are the new reality
View Prof. Zhao's presentation — Schools as Global Enterprises: Cultivating Global Competence

John Davitt 2.00–4.00pm (GMT) Thursday 4 November 2010
Read John Davitt's think piece — Playing 'Difference Bingo'

Papers

1. Literacy for all
Byron M. Lawson Jr. St Mark's School of Texas, Dallas, Texas, USA

2. Computers meet classroom, classroom wins
Jim Fanning, Tideway School., East Sussex, England, United Kingdom

3. Playing 'Difference Bingo'
John Davitt, United Kingdom

4. Digital literacy and 21st century learning
Gail Bousaleh, Global English Teaching Pty Ltd & Hunter Community College, New South Wales, Australia

5. You can teach a dog new tricks (they just don't have to be too tricky!)
Gina Blackberry and Debbie Koh, Griffith University & St Aidan's Girls School, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

6. Digital literacy: what skills do teachers and students require?
Riaz Ahmed, Aga Khan School, Garden, Karachi, Pakistan

7. 'We are of the internet'
Anne Mirtschin, Hawkesdale P-12 College, Hawkesdale, Victoria, Australia

8. Using new technology to transform learning
Sadia Khan, Aga Khan School, Garden , Karachi, Pakistan

9. Assessing 21st century skills with digital portfolios
Ralph Jasparro & Joseph Maruszczak, Rhode Island, USA

10. Becoming digitally literate
Jillian Dellit, J & J Dellit and Associates, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

11. Digital literacy: key questions
Jill E. Margerison, Queensland, Australia

12. Intelligent and safe use of new learning technologies
Kiran Fareed, Aga Khan School, Garden, Karachi, Pakistan

13. Digital literacy: a reality at our doorstep
Nivedita Shori, Corliss Public School, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

14. Digital literacy and 21st century learning
Gail Dyer, Belmore South Public School, New South Wales, Australia

15. Encouraging the intelligent and safe use of new technologies
Akhter un Nisa, Aga Khan School, Garden, Karachi, Pakistan

16. Technologically supported learning: what some children think
Henry Gray, Leanyer School, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

17. Developing the use of new technology to transform learning
Mirza Hadi Ali Baig, Aga Khan School, Garden, Karachi, Pakistan

18. New technology: bridging the rural-urban educational divide
Sembuya Serunjogi Hakim, Baitiredi, Northern Cape Province, South Africa

Videos and stimulus resources
1. Digital literacy: some provocation questions
Anna Craft, University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom

2. Digital literacy and trust: a provocative think piece
Margo Greenwood and Claire Craft, University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom

3. Digital literacy: what's real? A provocative question
Margo Greenwood and Claire Craft, University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom

4. Empowering learners and learning through ICT
Students, Aga Khan School, Garden, Karachi, Pakistan

Slide presentations

1. Digital literacy — How to build it in teachers through professional development
Jason Cooper

2. Technology and transformative learning in the 21st century
Daithí Ó Murchú, Scoil An Cheathrair Álainn – Ladyswell National School, Dublin, Ireland

Poster display
1. Evidence-based physical guidelines for wise use of computers by children
Leon Straker, Pete Johnson, Jack Dennerlein & Robin Burgess-Limerick, Australia and USA

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Using the Melbourne Cup to talk careers

2010-10-27T09:39:00.001+10:30

Events like the Melbourne Cup provide a great opportunity to launch discussions in Australian classrooms.

One focus you could take is careers. Here are some suggestions for classroom resources already available at Australia's best career information service for school students: myfuture.edu.au

What does it take to be a jockey?
There’s a great short video made as part of the myfuture video comp last year:
http://bit.ly/jockey_vid

How do you get to be a jockey?
http://bit.ly/be_a_jockey

Love to work with horses? Why not become a stablehand?
http://bit.ly/stable_hand

Where would the Melbourne Cup be without an event manager?
http://bit.ly/event_manager

Where would the Melbourne Cup be without trend-setting fashion? Be a fashion designer.
http://bit.ly/fashion_designer

Where would sporting events be without gardeners?
http://bit.ly/horticulturalist

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So you're thinking about e-text books? 2011 may be too soon... in Australia anyway

2010-10-26T10:03:00.001+10:30

Many teachers and librarians have told me their principal has asked them to investigate the possibility of using e-text books in 2011.

Now, we've been trying to get our heads around at least a couple of stumbling blocks and now at least one more has cropped up.

The 2 issues we've been trying to get our heads (previous posts) around have been

which device to buy?
what format for the e-books? (very much determined by the device)

and the 3rd one: how do we lend e-books either as library books or text books?

Currently many libraries are resorting to lending the device, in the absence of affordable schemes that facilitate the lending of the e-books themselves. It seems there are schemes (like Overdrive) available if you are willing to put all your eggs in one basket, and cut your cloth to what they can provide. - mixed metaphors I know, but the end result is that you are severely limited in your purchase to what they can provide, not what you want to buy.

Now a 4th obstacle has come up:
geographic restrictions on sale of e-books by publishers. It is yet another illustration that publishers do not "get" the requirements of the e-book market.
An Australian friend has until yesterday been able to buy e-books for her Sony reader through Waterstones UK. Yesterday she was notified by them that they are no longer allowed to sell e-books outside the UK and Ireland.

I have been used to encountering this problem with buying books through Amazon, but had not realised the extent of it until now.

In the course of my investigations this morning I have come across a useful site. Three posts have caught my eye:

The upshot of it all, is that, considering where we are in the school/academic year in Australia, if you were thinking of bringing e-text books in at the beginning of 2011, there are probably just too many imponderables, too many unresolved issues.

If you've made a decision on the device, then that probably determines the format of the e-books you will purchase, then you are only part way through finding a solution.
The main question then becomes one of whether you can get the text books you want as e-books. If you are talking English novels and your students read a number of the "classics", including Shakespearian plays, then you can probably get some of them free through the Gutenberg Project Magic Catalog, but that is not going to help in major areas.

I'm sorry to sound like a Jonah, and I'd love to be proved wrong, but I think 2011 is just too early.

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Really ubiquitous technology

2010-10-22T09:33:00.001+10:30

As I travelled in to work yesterday on the bus, smugly reading on my Kindle, I was struck by how many of my fellow passengers were displaying tell tale signs of iPod connectivity - thin white cables leading from a pocket to earbuds. A couple had their volume turned up quite loud so the rest of us on the bus could hear the crackle without being able to actually hear them. Others were texting on iPhones.

As I came home in the afternoon, again on the bus, again reading on my Kindle, I noticed that the girl standing in the aisle immediately in front of my seat had her Kindle3 in hand.I was tempted to start up a conversation about the differences between Kindle 2, which is what I have, and Kindle3. But then she was shuffled further into the bus as more passengers got on.

Then the woman sitting next to me got a call on her iPhone, and then a video call. She began talking loudly, complaining she couldn't hear what the person at the other end was saying (she didn't have earbuds in) because of the noise of the bus. She began waving madly at the small screen and making kitchy noises to a child on the screen who seemed to be making similar noises back to her.

The man standing immediately to my left got 3 phone calls during our 15 minute bus ride. He carried his mobile in a pouch on his belt, so we all got the benefit of the alarm-clock like sound of his phone ringing, as he took a moment or two to get it to his ear. He then talked extremely loudly to get his voice above the cacophony of the bus passengers. Meanwhile the lady on my right continued to give advice to the person on the other end of her phone about childcare and responsibility.

The joys of bus travel where we have no inhibitions about sharing our world with our fellow passengers. I didn't get a lot of reading done.

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2010 Top Tools - which are blocked on your site?

2010-10-20T11:45:00.001+10:30

Yesterday I posted about Jane Hart's Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 list.

I've seen several comments elsewhere on other blogs, including one by someone who said that he has realised he needs to re-think his opinions of Twitter, given that it has survived the usual web 2.0 "discard" so well.

Another comment that I saw was one that said that it was one thing to list the tools, quite another thing to access them from his school.

So which of the top 12 can't you get to? I know for example that many education deployments in Australia block access to Google Docs, YouTube, and Facebook.

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Top tools - nothing much has changed!

2010-10-19T09:11:00.001+10:30

Jane Hart has compiled her Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 list.

With Twitter coming out on top for the second year in a row, the list (well the top 10 or so) looks as if nothing much has changed. Some new tools have emerged, but they are all relatively low on the list so far. There's been a bit of a shuffle in the top 10 and Facebook, Prezi, and Drop Box have made quite big gains.

Jane has some good sub-lists such as the 2010 Best in Breed List which categorises tools according to what they actually do, so if you are looking for something for a particular task, then this will be useful.

You might also like to look at the 2011 list which has quite a few new additions. One of the useful features of this list is that each is linked to an explanatory page on the site. Yoy can contribute to the compilation of the 2011 list.

Try the slide share on the site: this describes each of the top 100.

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Blog Action Day 2010: Water

2010-10-15T09:42:00.001+10:30

One of the foci for today's Blog Action Day is Water over-consumption in industrialised countries.

That means us here in Australia!
Being an island we tend to assume we are isolated form some of the world's problems, but our water management has an important effect on the rest of the world's ecology, whether it is just the way we use/waste our money in creating solutions to water shortages, or whether it is because we buy products that require heavy water usage for their production.

Here are some of the pointers that the organisers of BAD2010 have sent me.

Water over-consumption in industrialized countries:
While the developing world faces a water crisis, those in industrialized countries consume far more than their fair share.

• Food Footprint:
It takes 24 litres of water to produce one hamburger. That means it would take over 19.9 billion litres of water to make just one hamburger for every person in Europe.
• Technology Footprint:
The shiny new iPhone in your pocket requires half a litre of water to charge. That may not seem like much, but with over 80 million active iPhones in the world, that's 40 million litres to charge those alone.
• Fashion Footprint:
That cotton t-shirt you're wearing right now took 1,514 litres of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 6,813 litres.
• Bottled Water Footprint:
The US, Mexico and China lead the world in bottled water consumption, with people in the US drinking an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled.

Water and the environment:
The disregard for water resources in industrialized countries impacts more than humans – it causes environmental devastation.

• Waste Overflow:
Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water sources. This not only negatively impacts the environment but also harms the health of surrounding communities.
• Polluted Oceans:
Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year.
• Uninhabitable Rivers:
Today, 40% of America's rivers and 46% of America's lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.

Water solutions:

The good news is that there are great organizations working on solutions and new tools that empower people to do their part to address the water crisis.

• Building Wells:
Organizations like Water.org and charity: water are leading the charge in bringing fresh water to communities in the developing world.
• Technology for Good:
Do you want to measure how much water it took to make your favorite foods? There's an app for that.
• Conservation Starts at Home:
The average person uses 465 litres of water per day. Find out how much you use.
• Keeping Rivers Clean:
We can all take small steps to help keep pollution out of our rivers and streams, like correctly disposing of household wastes.
• Drop the Bottle:
Communities around the world are taking steps to reduce water bottle waste by eliminating bottled water.

Australian Classroom Resources

Mission H2O game: there are 8 online games here at SaveWater. The focus is to discover water saving tips for every room in the house. You can submit your highest score for prizes.
Yarra Valley Water has a range of online educational materials
17-23 October is National Water Week in Australia. Visit the site for resources, water conservation tips, educational activities, and conservation tips.
Yarra Valley Water has been conducting a short film competition leading up to national Water Week. The 2010 winners will be announced on 18 October and you can see the 2009 winners here.

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Be Aware - Blog Action Day is tomorrow

2010-10-14T09:26:00.001+10:30

The focus for BAD 2010, tomorrow 15 October, is water.

Here in the driest state in the driest continent, we are very conscious of water restrictions and the fear of not having enough, but there is probably still quite a lot we could still be doing.

Water and sanitation are fundamental human rights. Everyone should have sufficient, affordable, physically accessible, safe and acceptable water for personal and domestic uses.

Water-borne diseases are responsible for 80 per cent of illnesses and deaths in the developing world, killing a child every eight seconds.

The human body is about 70 per cent water. Water lost through bodily functions needs to be replaced within a couple of days. Diarrhoeal diseases increase the rate of water loss causing the deaths of many babies. A simple mixture of sugar and salts, Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT), reduces infant deaths

If you are looking for resources why not try edna's Global Education website? There are a large number of teaching activities available on the site.

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Get into the action on 15 October

2010-10-12T11:28:00.001+10:30

15th October is Blog Action Day worldwide and this year we are thinking about water.

Here are some messages to think about:

Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it's no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.
More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.
Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted. Aside from putting a great deal of strain on their bodies, walking such long distances keeps children out of school and women away from other endeavors that can help improve the quality of life in their communities.
It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that's just one meal! It would take over 184 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.

Water riches, water poverty

The top five biggest average daily users of water are the U.S., Australia, Italy, Japan, and Mexico - all five of these use well over 300 litres daily. The countries where water poverty is the worst and water usage is the lowest are Mozambique, Rwanda, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Uganda - these five use 15 litres or less daily. While some parts of our water footprint, including how much corporations and agriculture use or waste water, are not under our control, we can find simple ways to cut our daily water use, and even save money.

Average national water footprint per capita (m3/cap/yr). Green means that the nations's water footprint is equal to or smaller than the global average. Countries with red have a water footprint beyond the global average. Period: 1997-2001.

Check some more resources here.

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Free iPad App from ESA

2010-10-05T13:24:00.001+10:30

Pirate treasure hunt: eight challenges

Join forces with Pirate Jack. He needs your help to solve eight problems and find the hidden treasure. Use the map to work your way through the obstacles one by one and in the right order. Apply your maths and literacy skills to make sure you collect the correct item before tackling the next obstacle. For example, you’ll need to order a set of words from coldest to hottest to find a lantern before you can explore a dark cave. Use different strategies to solve the clues, and you’ll find the booty. This learning object is one in a series of three objects.

Key learning objectives:

- Students analyse problems by using a range of strategies, including interpreting clues, intuition, and trial and error.
- Students solve problems by using literacy and numeracy skills.

Educational value:

- Provides opportunities for students to solve problems using their literacy and numeracy skills within the context of a pirate treasure map.
- Encourages the use of trial and error to discover the correct sequence of problem solving.
- Includes a variety of problem types which focus on, for example, spelling, shapes, visual cues, word knowledge, addition of numbers and time.

New OzProject- Delhi 2010

2010-10-01T11:29:00.001+09:30

The Commonwealth Games have been held every 4 years since 1930 except during World War 2. They have changed a lot over the years. Only single competition games were featured until team sports were introduced in 1998.

There are currently 53 members of the Commonwealth of Nations, and 71 teams participate in the Games.

A new project has been created by the OzProjects team to celebrate the 2010 Commonwealth Games which will be held in Delhi, India from October 3-14.

This project for middle primary to lower secondary students provides a range of activities and resources centred around the Games.

Activities include links to information about the host city (Delhi) and country (India) and participating countries and the sports which will be played. There are several online puzzles and quizzes suitable for use on an interactive whiteboard.

Students can learn about the mascot for the 2010 games and create a talking mascot for the 2014 games which will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Delhi 2010 project is available at http://www.ozprojects.edu.au/course/view.php?id=161 .

The OzProjects team can provide teachers and students with assistance to get started. Please email ozprojects@edna.edu.au

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Blog Action Day 2010

2010-09-29T09:02:00.003+09:30

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action.

This year's topic is Water.

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us who are subject to preventable disease and even death because of something that many of us take for granted.

Access to clean water is not just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue. An animal welfare issue. A sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, and it affects all of us.

After all, clean water is essential for our survival, but dangerously scarce. Nearly one billion people in the world today don't have access to clean water and 42,000 people die each week from water-borne diseases. And the issue doesn't stop there — water availability impacts a wide variety of issues from the environment to women's rights and from technology to fashion. If you're unsure what to write about on October 15th, there are some great suggestions on the Blog Action Day site.

Registrations for Blog Action Day have now opened.
Why not make blogging about water a class project for October 15?

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Steps towards e-text books

2010-09-28T09:10:00.001+09:30

Japan will soon start trialling electronic textbooks in primary schools, enhancing the role of IT in the classroom for a generation of "digital natives" born in the wired age.

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-technology/japan-to-pilot-digital-textbooks-in-classrooms-20100925-15qw0.html

Free high schools text books for Maths and Science - available from Amazon, or as pdf - could be loaded onto the iPad

http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com/2010/09/update-on-free-ck-12-textbooks.html

CK-12 Trigonometry
CK-12 People's Physics Book Version 2
CK-12 Life Science
CK-12 Geometry
CK-12 Engineering: An Introduction for High School
CK-12 Earth Science
CK-12 Chemistry
CK-12 Calculus
CK-12 Biology I - Honors
CK-12 Algebra I
CK-12 Advanced Probability and Statistics
CK-12 21st Century Physics: A Compilation of Contemporary and Emerging Technologies

Comment from a teacher on a list I belong to:

I have had a look at the Chemistry ebook. It is a good reference for senior students (and their teachers) seeking extension and deep understanding. The illustrations are informative and attractive. It pre-supposes a thorogh year 10 knowledge, and does not build concepts from
the ground up as is necessary for the NSW Syllabus. It includes terms that NSW students do not encounter until the HSC course in Year 12. The book also provides students with extra calculations, extra readings on the web and sources of videos. If my students could answer the questions in this text I would be ecstatic (and redundant)

Create your own textbooks?

Have you seen e-readups?
It basically allows the user to select resources from wikipedia (more available if you ask for an account) and then generates an e-book in .mobi and epub formats. The resultant e-book has a hyperlinked table of contents. I could imagine it could be very usful on almost any topic, so long as you trusted the content.

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Creative Minds of 21st Century Librarians: an e-Book Project

2010-09-24T13:38:00.001+09:30

Today I am just passing on something I've come across

http://digital-literacy.syr.edu/projects/view/83

Author: Marilyn P. Arnone

From the Creative Minds of 21st Century Librarians is CDL’s first e-book project made possible in part through an IMLS grant awarded to CDL in 2008 to update the AASL standards in the S.O.S. for Information Literacy database. This 275-page free downloadable resource contains dozens of lesson plans that implement AASL’s Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in the context of the curriculum. Contributing authors include more than 30 teacher-librarians. The book, edited by Marilyn P. Arnone, Ruth V. Small, and Barbara K. Stripling, was more than a year in the making and features a foreword by Barbara Stripling and graphic design by Marguerite Chadwick-Juner. If you are looking for creative ideas that target the standards to implement in your school library, this book will help you jumpstart the process. Download the publication and please pass on this link to your colleagues in the school library field.

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Presentations that may interest

2010-09-22T09:58:00.001+09:30

The first two are presentations that I gave yesterday.

They are both produced in Prezi, a tool that if you haven't yet tried, you should.

e-books: the state of play, barriers & challenges
http://tinyurl.com/ebook-barriers

Virtual Worlds: why we need to allow SL access in our libraries
http://tinyurl.com/ALIA-vws

A Scholar Gets a Kindle and Starts to Read
James J. O’Donnell, Provost as well as Professor of Classics during Georgetown University, talks about a intensity of e-books as well as e-readers.
http://cosmolearning.net/a-scholar-gets-a-kindle-and-starts-to-read/

An interesting talk where he talks about his needs as a scholar, and how e-readers, the Kindle in particular (because that's what he's been using), are like a paprus roll, giving linear access to text. He says all the current e-readers have selected a form of reading that is old-fashioned, and not what the modern scholar needs. They are better for "ludic reading" - reading for pleasure - rather than academic.

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Reading more with e-readers?

2010-09-20T15:59:00.001+09:30

It is probably a little early to consider the impact of e-readers on reading habits but already US sources are claiming a surge in reading with the new devices.

A recent survey from Marketing and Research Resources found that 40 percent of those questioned now read more on their Kindles and iPads than they did with print books, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A study of 1,200 e-reader owners by Marketing and Research Resources Inc. found that 40% said they now read more than they did with print books. Of those surveyed, 58% said they read about the same as before while 2% said they read less than before. And 55% of the respondents in the May study, paid for by e-reader maker Sony Corp., thought they'd use the device to read even more books in the future. The study looked at owners of three devices: Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle, Apple Inc.'s iPad and the Sony Reader.

The Wall Street Journal article continues... because e-book gadgets are portable, people report they're reading more and at times when a book isn't normally an option: on a smartphone in the doctor's waiting room; through a Ziploc-bag-clad Kindle in a hot tub, or on a treadmill with a Sony Reader's fonts set to jumbo. Among commuters, e-readers are starting to catch up with BlackBerrys as the preferred companions on trains and buses.

Committed readers are also saying that their e-reader won't totally replace paper books in their hands but the following characteristics of e-readers are without doubt contributing to their growth in popularity:

the portability of the devices. Earlier attempts at e-readers were not successful because they were basically software on a computer. Until recently computers were not very portable and so the user was tethered to the desk, using a back-lit screen.
- for me this is where those who claim that netbooks or laptops with e-reader software are a satisfactory substitute are still missing the point. The clue lies in the instant availability, lightness, portability, and dedicated nature of the device.
the ability to acquire a new book in a moment, on a whim - Amazon for example are saying that sales of e-books has spiralled upwards - "its customers buy 3.3 times as many books after buying a Kindle" - but is that just because they are now able to track the book purchases more readily?
Certainly if my own behaviour is anything to go by, I see a book advertised and think I wonder if Amazon has it for Kindle
the ability to scale a font larger or smaller to suit your eyesight. I hadn't realised how important that was becoming to me until I struck a paper book where the font is just a little small for me. A friend recently revealed that she can't read a 550 page book in bed, not because it is heavy, but because the print is too small.
There's another point to the font issue: there is some evidence that now suggests that a child with reading difficulties may find the lines of larger font easier to follow, and even be completing books, a new experience for them. See more
There's a suggestion that the voice synthesisers available on e-readers and iPad apps may help the reader bridge the text/meaning gap by appealing to visual and auditory sense simultaneously. A case in point might be an iPad app that allows child to touch a story and have it read to them, similar to the "bouncing ball" technique we used to use in computer prohgrams to teach reading.
if you are travelling, or studying, then an e-reader can replace the several books you would carry about with you.
Many of us were surprised when the recent Jacob Nielsen survey claimed that we read more slowly with e-readers. Anecdotal evidence was suggesting to me that we are actually reading faster with an e-reader. When I checked on what text Nielsen used in the survey, I wasn't actually surprised. I still think an e-reader encourages you to read faster.
And here's an article that suggests that e-readers allow us to read in non-linear ways that actually enhance the reading experience
availability of free books - again from the Wall Street Journal - E-reader users also say that 52% of their e-books were ones they purchased, while 48% of their e-books were free because they were sample giveaways or out-of-copyright.

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Teaching with an e-book - part 1

2010-09-14T17:06:00.001+09:30

As in schools the e-book and e-reader debate continues, and hovers on the "which device?" and "which format?" sticking points, it also strikes me that we need to think about what we will do in teaching and learning if e-books become a reality.

I saw something recently where a teacher was talking about the difficulties of using e-texts in a classroom where you have some students using a traditional paper book, and some using a text book via the e-reader.

I am hoping that this post will attract some comments from teachers who have actually "done it" - some classroom teaching where some students are using an e-reader of some sort.

In case you are not experienced and don't understand what difficulties we could be seeing, here are just a few.

A "paper" book has page numbers, and it is a relatively simple exercise to tell everyone what page to go to.
The Kindle format uses location numbers (but not page numbers). The number of locations a book has remains constant regardless of font size. So if the whole class is using the same size Kindles then being at the same location is also relatively simple.
- However I have discovered that Kindle for PC does not use the same location format (as a Kindle device) for the same book. So then to be at the same location, you will need to use the Table of Contents (if there is one). Currently Kindle for PC does not have a "search" facilitiy, although it does Have "Go To"
- Today I have compared e-copies of A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens. Until that practical experiment I had assumed that the Kindle formats would be the same.
I've also experimented with another title THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Conan Doyle on both the Kindle for PC and the Borders e-reader (on my computer).
- The Borders application uses epub, so although the source of both copies is probably the Gutenberg Project, Borders numbers its pages according to how many there are in the chapter, and, just to complicate things, if you change the size of the font on the screen, the number of pages changes.
- On Kindle for PC, the number of locations remains constant even when you change the font size.
- Neither the Borders e-reader on the computer, nor the Kindle for PC have a search tool. Borders has a "table of contents" for this novel, as does Kindle for PC.
- But how would you get on I wonder if the "table of contents" was not recognised? Sometimes, I have noticed that the Kindle version of a book has not been formatted to show a table of contents. This is the case in the Kindle version of THE MEMOIRS.
If we add a fourth e-reading device to the mix, namely the iPad, and you have running on that one of the above Apps or iBook, then life just gets a even more complicated.

But - it can be done! I guess what it boils down to is that the e-reader is just the vehicle for the text. What happens in that context, with a variety of e-readers is up to the teacher's management strategies. It would certainly help if the teacher was aware of the limitations of each device.

But we really can't assume that a particular text will be delivered the same way on a variety of devices.

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10 second grabs and 140 characters

2010-09-10T09:17:00.001+09:30

There's an interesting re-surfacing of the debate about whether going digital is making us dumber, or at the very least reducing our concentration span, making us cyber butterflies.

On one of my blogs I monitor what visitors do when they arrive. Many alight on a post from a Google search, and then, less than a minute later, they have departed on a link they have found on my blog. I've never thought of that in the light of reduced attention span. I've always thought it was a sign that they had found what they were looking for. Google Analytics tells me that even on this blog, the average visitor spend only 1:03 minutes before they bounce off somewhere else. Can they, I ask, get the meaning of my post in that time?

Critics of Twitter, who are invariably not persisent users, deride the fact that tweets have a 140 character limit. After all, what of import can you say in such a short space? They obviously don't understand the lengths you have to go to in reducing your message to the 140 character limit and yet still get your meaning across. Most of us can read 140 characters in 10 seconds or less.

In a recent article in The Age, How the internet makes us stupid, Nicholas Carr writes "A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers." He's writing a new book The Shallows: How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember, and he says he was stimulated to write the book after realising his own capacity to focus and concentrate was changing. He attributes it to some sort of internet addiction. [Factors like advancing age, eyesight, and pressures of work crop up in my mind.]

Of course there are those who object strongly to this point of view. Computer World echoes "Digital Doesn't mean Dumb. It’s a myth that we have all become Twitter-brained visual grazers with no appetite for prose."
PC Advisor makes a similar point, claiming that It’s a myth that we have all become Twitter-brained visual grazers with no appetite for prose. I’m with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who said: “There is no such thing as an attention span. People have infinite attention if you are entertaining them.” The article goes on to claim that good digital design helps us locate what we want to know more quickly.

It all reminds me a bit of the debate between the skim-readers and the rest. Those of us who can't skim-read a book for any length of time claim that those who do must miss a lot of meaning and nuance.

I'm more inclined to think that the pressures we are under to cope with information overload, and at the same time appear to be on top of it all, means that we have to be able to flit like cyber butterflies. The important this is to be able to recognise the good oil when we've found it, and to be able to think deeply about the issues.

That's why information literacy is so critical in education, more than ever before. Our students have to be taught to skim, to recognise, to select, and then dwell when needed.

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e-books and e-readers: criteria for choosing your e-reader

2010-09-08T10:15:00.001+09:30

There are some common questions that educators and librarians ask about choosing an e-reader.

Which comes first the e-reader or the variety of e-books that I have access to?
What was the process that you used to select an e-reader?
What criteria would you suggest in choosing an e-reader a) for ourselves and b) for our primary students?

Current evidence seems to suggest that many are waiting for answers to these questions before deciding to see which way to jump. I actually think teachers/librarians need to be a bit more pro-active than that and try to get some experience in using e-readers and in reading e-books.

For myself, I bought a Kindle because they were virtually all that were on the market here in Australia a year ago. Purchase was easy, delivery was quick, and I've added about 100 fiction books both manually and through purchase from Amazon.

Mine is the Kindle 6” which is fine for reading fiction, and I would say, suits both adult and secondary school readers, and perhaps even middle school.
There has been some research done with middle school students in the US particularly in relation to the effect on reading of being able to vary the size of text.
The research seems to say that for children/older readers with reading difficulties, being able to increase the size of text is beneficial, because they then have a better ability to “hold the line” with their eyes.
I’ve blogged about this at http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2010/05/12/e-book-readers-and-reading-competence/

In my opinion though, the 6” Kindle (or any other small e-reader for that matter) is for reading fiction, not text books where you would expect graphics and charts.
That is where the larger device, say the Kindle DX or the iPad or the Dream Books (http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/info.asp?c1=183&c2=184&id=3172) probably comes into its own, and then you have to think about whether you want colour.
The bigger size (10 or 11 inches) and colour both add to the cost (although the Kindle DX still uses “black” e-ink)
And it becomes a question of whether you want the device to do other things as well as contain an e-reader.

In a poll that I ran recently here is what people chose from the criteria I listed
Colour - 1 (6%)
adjusting text size - 7 (41%)
note making – 4 (24%)
dictionary – 3 (18%)
images - 2 (12%)
bookmarking (keeping your place) – 7 (41%)
audio -2 (12%)
not applicable - no experience – 9 (53%)
Other - 0

Now, I left cost off the criteria there, although I expect that for schools anyway that will be an important factor.
Whether you can justify buying an iPad for more than $600.

There is another factor to consider here at least in secondary schools: many students now have a laptop or a netbook.
What about if they had Kindle for PC software or some other e-reading device such as Calibre on their lap top – can you justify buying e-readers at all?

So I’d suggest you try drawing up a matrix with the important criteria on it (similar to the one below), and then rating them to see if that helps you make a decision.

Criteria for selecting an e-reading device

Importance	Most -5	4	3	2	Least -1
colour
Text size adjustment
Note making
dictionary
Images
Bookmarks
Keeps your place
Audio
Cost
Read fiction
Text books
Do we already have laptops?
Availability of particular books
Size and weight of device

However on top of these criteria you need to look at ease of use (and that's where the teacher/librarian's personal experience comes in, and the ease of adding new books, or isolating access to the account from students.

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e-books and e-readers: devices and formats

2010-09-07T13:05:00.001+09:30

There seems to me a number of issues emerging and I think we are just on the cusp of dealing with them.

• the first is - which device?
There are a number of e-readers available here in Australia, the commonest being the Kindle 6" (attached to Amazon),
the Kobo e-reader (attached to Borders),
the Kindle DX (this is the larger version),
the Sony e-book Reader (based on e-pub),
the Kogan e-book reader (available late August - and looks like it will support a very wide range of formats)

Then there are the devices like the iPad or the iPhone where an e-book reader is just one of the Apps.

And then there are computers/net books - you can download Kindle for PC for free, or Adobe Acrobat for reading pdfs or Adobe Digital Editions (epub), or the Borders application to your computer.
If you'd like to read more about any of these there is lots of information at http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/view.php?id=77812

• the second is – how do you obtain books?
If your device has 3G or wireless then you can connect directly to the online store, purchase an e-book through your previously set up account, and download that way.
Some devices (like the Kobo) rely on you being able to connect it to a computer and then using the online facility there.
Your computer will see most of the devices as an extra drive and you can load documents like pdfs directly onto to your device.
Most of the e-book readers now handle “native” pdfs quite well, but I’ve found it depends on the format and layout of the pdf and whether it has been locked in some way.
If you have an iPad or iPhone then you use iTunes to manage your downloads just like you would for music or podcasts.
Once you have purchased a book and have it on your device, you read it from there – it is stored on the device, and you no longer need to be online.
I’ll come back to this question later though: whether you own the book or just the right to read it?

• the third is – which format?

The main formats are
for Kindle - .azw (Amazon's proprietary format), .mobi, and pdf
epub - The EPUB format is a standard eBook format recommended by The International Digital Publishing Forum. It is essentially a ZIP format. It is the format used by Sony and Apple. EPUB is designed for reflowable content, meaning that the text display can be optimized for the particular display device used by the reader of the EPUB-formatted book. The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale.

Many of the non-Kindle devices are saying they can accommodate a range of these formats.
For example the Kogan e-reader says it will support PDF, CHM, EPUB, TXT, HTM, HTML, RTF, PDB, DJVU, DJV, IW44, IW4, FB2, OEB, PRC, MOBI, TCR, OPF

There is software available on the market now that allows you to convert files from one format to another providing the inbuilt Digital Rights Management (DRM) allows that to happen.
For example Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/ and
Mobi Pocket Creator: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp
Amazon has a free service that allows members to send a pdf for conversion to .azw – I have used it several times

Where the arguments seem to have got stuck at the moment is on the device issue - which seems to have boiled down into an Amazon/Apple war.
There's a comparative table here: http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=41823
This device war though is fast becoming a “bang for buck” war – Amazon has lowered the original price of Kindles considerably, and many are predicting that Apple will do the same for iPads, although their sales have been remarkable.
Many of the new devices coming onto the market are trying to beat these “big boy” prices.
The pundits are saying that Amazon is no longer making a profit on its devices – they are simply a means of getting people to buy books.

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Out of the pond...

2010-09-06T11:31:00.001+09:30

I like this metaphor from today's Sydney Morning Herald..

For most of us, school was a sheltered educational pond largely removed from the wider world.
.... Now new technologies and attitudes are helping to create learning communities that encourage students to work collaboratively.

The article goes on to give examples of teachers and students working collaboratively with other schools and organisations like the Taronga Park Zoo, and universities.

The aim of such collectives is to promote public education, but the benefits go beyond publicity. Teachers say they improve camaraderie, revitalise learning and improve student attendance.

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The importance of conversation & collaboration in learning

2010-09-03T08:46:00.001+09:30

I am indebted to Stephen Downes for this prompt today. I am a subscriber to his OLDaily and can't recommend it highly enough.

Today he pointed to Harold Jarche's post titled The Evolving Social Organisation. Admittedly Harold was really talking about how to implement social learning, but a bit of it resonated in my mind with what needs to happen in formal learning organisations.

It struck me how well this analysis fits what should happen in educational institutions, in classrooms, whether we are talking about students or their teachers:

Listen & Create:
Being open to self-education is the foundation of individual learning. Part of this is the development of habits of continuous sense-making by recording what we hear, read and observe; e.g. personal learning environments (PLE) & personal knowledge management (PKM).

Converse:
Sharing is an act of learning and can be considered an individual’s responsibility for the greater social learning contract. Without sharing, there is no social learning. Through ongoing trusted conversations we can share tacit knowledge, even across organizational boundaries; e.g. social learning.

Co-create:
Group performance enables the creation of new knowledge and is a source of innovation; e.g. collaborative work, customer experience.

Formalize & Share: Some informal knowledge can be made explicit and consolidated through the formalization and creation of new structured knowledge; e.g. taxonomies, document management, storytelling.

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Online Professional Development Courses are effective

2010-09-02T08:59:00.001+09:30

Teachers who took online professional development courses improved their instruction and subject knowledge, as well as produced gains in student achievement, says a new study by e-Learning for Educators, a 10-state consortium funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Ready to Teach program.

The 330 teachers in the study participated in three 30-hour online professional development courses developed by the Education Development Center's EdTech Leaders Online, or ETLO. The teachers included elementary and middle school math teachers, as well as language arts teachers.

The series of four randomized controlled trials examined the effect that a series of three Online Professional Development (OPD) courses had on teachers’ knowledge and instructional practices, and subsequent effects on student achievement. Collectively, the four trials provide strong evidence that participation in a coordinated series of three OPD workshops has positive effects on teachers’ instructional practices and content knowledge.

"While a growing body of research demonstrates online learning's effectiveness at the college level, very few studies focus on K-12 and track the impact of teacher professional development to student learning," said EDC's Barbara Treacy, director of ETLO, in a press release. "It's extremely gratifying to see that the online model we've developed leads to such positive results across all states, grade levels, and teacher groups."

The research was culled from 330 teachers and 7,700 students

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myfuture 2010 User Survey

2010-09-01T15:26:00.001+09:30

Complete the myfuture 2010 user survey to go in the draw for a chance to win a weekly prize of a Kindle Reader.

The myfuture annual survey seeks user feedback to ensure the provision of services and website information layout meets the needs of all users.

The user survey covers aspects of the site such as the quality of information and services, site usability – ease of navigation and look and feel, and user views of how the service could be improved.

If you are a career practitioner, teacher or someone who uses myfuture for your own career development we would greatly appreciate your feedback.

The survey is available here

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e-book essentials for educators

2010-08-31T08:46:00.002+09:30

A recent online forum that I led for over a week has brought me to the conclusion that the most essential thing for educators and educational librarians is to get some experience in using e-book readers and reading e-books. The cause needs some champions in their ranks, otherwise it will drown in the "which device?" debate.

The following shows the result of a mini-survey that some of the discussion participants responded to.

To be quite honest I had anticipated a much greater level of experience, and it certainly seems to me that educators are lagging behind the readers in the real world.

I know, reading a book takes time, and that is a pretty valuable commodity in the educator's world.
But without experience there will be no vision, and there will be no experimentation with pedagogy. Changes in education, particularly the adoption of new devices and new practices, is a horrendously slow process.
But if anything, 2010 will be the year that the e-book in education became a possibility, whichever device you settle on. We desperately need people in our schools, TAFEs and universities who know what they are talking about when it comes to e-books. It is only from there that other issues can be identified and solutions found for their use in education.

This discussion is one that is going on around the world, so it presents an opportunity for Australian educators to be at the cutting edge about the use of one technology in their pedagogical practice, and to show leadership in their own local situation.

And at the very least it will help us with this problem:

As always, your comments will be very welcome.

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The School Uniform debate

2010-08-30T09:08:00.002+09:30

Every now and again the issue of school uniforms crops up.
This morning the Sydney Morning Herald claims that Australian students are "growing up in a society where the dominant and long-held view is that school uniforms instil discipline, a sense of self-worth and equality." It says that strict uniform codes have been cited as a contributing factor for a growing shift to private schools in recent years. It also implies Australia might be out of step with the rest of the world. (Although perhaps the journalist has not observed students overseas, particularly those on school excursions.)
Certainly in my experience many Australian parents support the wearing of uniforms, and neat and tidy ones at that, until it comes down to a confrontation with their own rebellious offspring. Then it becomes the school's problem.
Back in the dark ages when I was in secondary school we had a basic uniform, and, in my memory at least, most wore it with good grace. Then when I left my rural high school to go to a city one for my final year, I was horrified to find that the basic uniform had been augmented with hat, gloves, and stockings. (Year 12s at XXXX don't wear socks!) And all I could think of was that those accoutrements effectively stopped me from playing tennis at lunchtime.
Within my city school the uniform was definitely seen as a status symbol and I was constantly in trouble for forgotten gloves and hat, conveniently languishing overnight in my locker. I was paraded before Year 8s as a recalcitrant who didn't have the good name of the school at heart, and tackled by former teachers in the street about where my hat was and what a disgrace to the school I looked!
Me, who was definitely amongst the most conservative of students!
Later, as a teacher, I was expected to enforce the wearing of the school uniform too, and monitor the length of hair, and the type of shoes (no sneakers permitted), and earrings - the list went on. Whether or not I could get my class to comply was seen as a reflection on my abilities to inspire.
So, a bit of a personal rant today - but this is what the SMH article brought to the surface.

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IFLA WORLD REPORT 2010

2010-08-24T09:27:00.001+09:30

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the library and information profession.

The World Report series is a biennial report series that reports on the state of the world in terms of freedom of access to information, freedom of expresion and related issues. The reports are available online at http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/iflafaife-world-report-series and can be downloaded free of charge. The 2010 Report has been designed as a customizable interactive electronic publication and can be accessed in different formats through maps.

a country-oriented map interface allows users to produce a full or partial country report or comparative country reports, depending on choices.

A question-oriented interface allows users to get information on a single question for all countries that have participated in the 2010 Report.

There is a single report for Australia with selected facts supplied by ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association)

Population: 21,262,641 (July 2009 est.)
Internet users: 17033826
Internet penetration: 80.10%
Estimated number of public libraries in the country: 1515
University research libraries: 39
Estimated School libraries: 9000
Government funded research libraries: 200+
Check the report itself for further information

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Book Week Australia celebrates 65 years

2010-08-23T14:09:00.001+09:30

Book Week is the longest running children's festival in Australia, celebrating its 65th birthday in 2010.

The date for Book Week 2010 this year is August 21st - 27th.
Each year, many schools and public libraries from all over Australia spend a week celebrating books and Australian authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians develop activities, offer competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading.

2010 CBCA Awards

Winners of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards have been announced today in Brisbane. Congratulations to all winners, honour book authors and illustrators as well as those who were shortlisted.

2010 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers:

Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen

Honour Books

The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke
A Small Free Kiss in the Dark by Glenda Millard

2010 CBCA Picture Book of the Year

The Hero of Little Street by Gregory Rogers

Honour Books

Isabella’s Garden by Glenda Millard illustrated by Rebecca Cool
Fox and Fine Feathers by Narelle Oliver

2010 CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers

Darius Bell and the Glitter Pool by Odo Hirsch

Honour Books

Running with the Horses by Alison Lester
Pearl verses the World by Sally Murphy

2010 CBCA Book of the Year, Early Childhood

Bear & Chook by the Sea by Lisa Shanahan illustrated by Emma Quay

Honour Books

Kip by Christina Booth
Clancy & Millie and the Very Fine House by Libby Gleeson illustrated by Freya Blackwood

Eve Pownall Award for Information Books

Australian Backyard Explorer by Peter Macinnis

Honour Books

Polar Eyes: a Journey to Antarctica by Tanya Patrick illustrated by Nicholas Hutcheson
Maralinga: The Anangu Story by Yalata and Oak Communities with Christobel Mattingley

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19 August, World Humanitarian Day

2010-08-19T11:49:00.002+09:30

Humanitarian Principles represent the foundation of humanitarian action. Key humanitarian principles include:
Humanity: Human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found. The purpose of humanitarian action is to protect life and health and ensure respect for human beings.
Neutrality: Humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.
Impartiality: Humanitarian action must be carried out on the basis of need alone, giving priority to the most urgent cases of distress and making no distinctions on the basis of nationality, race, gender, religious belief, class or political opinion.
Operational Independence: Humanitarian action must be autonomous from the political, economic, military or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented".
UN site.

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The device is less important than the principle

2010-08-17T12:14:00.001+09:30

In my news items today - reports of a North American university giving iPads away to its students, and another giving students a choose between a free iPhone or iPod Touch.

Recently Reuters commented "It's the old razors and blades thing. You give away the razor and sell the blades in perpetuity", commenting that the price war in e-book readers stil l has a way to go. Amazon is hoping the e-books sales will be the revenue driver, rather than the devices themselves.

Just recently Amazon announced that their e-book sales were booming, and the sceptics commented that it was probably not just the availability of Kindles, but of the Kindle App on the iPad, plus the Kindle for PC software for laptops and computers that have driven the sales.

I see the which device? discussion as a bit of a barrier at the moment. The problem is that no-one really seems to have come up with a cheap enough device that will handle all e-book formats at the moment. The iPad comes close, but involves downloading a number of apps, and several different methods of acquiring books, none of which involves borrowing. Laptops and netbooks and tablets come close too, particularly if you don't want to have number of electronic devices to cart around.

We really need two things:

a device that will read all formats
a vendor that will sell all formats

And after that we need to solve problems of lending e-books, copyright restrictions, geographic restrictions.

But above all we need to agree that e-books are a good way to go in education, and we need to recognise that we can be not just consumers, but creators of e-books.

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Australia's biggest generation heads for retirement

2010-08-13T14:57:00.001+09:30

The Baby Boomers are categorised as those born between 1946 and 1964 - that means the first of them basically turn 65 next year. Many of them, like me, are on the cusp of retirement. Currently they constitute 36% of the workforce, and, from my own experience, may actually constitute a bigger percentage of the teaching workforce.

We have already noted the impact on schools, where some baby boomers who have been in the school for a decade or even more, have retired and left a giant hole.

An article headed Retiring baby boomers spur rapid change in workforce points out that Gen Y, the next generation, has very different expectations of their working life. It has often taken Gen Y longer to get qualifications and begin paid work, and they are often beginning their adult life already in debt.

86% of Gen Y expect a promotion within 2 years - as Baby Boomer teachers will know, promotion avenues have been absent for much of their working life, and it has often been a case of early promotion, and then nowhere higher to climb.

With the torch set to pass to Gen Y, employers are being encouraged to revise their workplace culture and initiatives in order to attract and retain the new work force powerhouse.

According to McCrindle research the top 5 attraction and retention factors for Gen Y are:

Work-life balance
Workplace community
Management style
Broad job description
Training & development my source

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I love my Twitter Daily

2010-08-12T11:47:00.001+09:30

If you take a look at my personalised twitter Daily what you are looking at is an aggregation of twitter and RSS feeds from people I follow.

The Daily is divided up into "interest" categories and each displays a number of posts. In the top right corner of the categories a number tells me how many more items I can find there.

I do have Tweet Deck running on my computer, in the background, throughout the day but, like most of the people who read this blog, there is no way that I can justify doing more than glance occasionally at it, and sometimes contributing.

What Twitter Daily does is

aggregate in newspaper form items from a number of the people whom I follow on Twitter. You can see who they are under the snippet.
Every morning I get an email alert from Small Rivers to tell me my new "daily" is available.

So I probably do miss stuff, but the Daily at least provides the tweets in an interesting format and I can pick items that interest me at a glance.

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Why do educators feel time-poor?

2010-08-11T10:11:00.001+09:30

If you talk to teachers, most will tell you they never have enough time to do all that they would like to do. I was reminded of this when I saw the title of a webinar: Tips, Tricks, and Time -Saving.

You may have your own theories about what causes this situation and I invite you to comment.

Here are some of my thoughts

in some ways it is a state of mind - teachers/educators are so busy, particularly when they have a large number of contact hours, that they literally feel run off their feet.
Some of the activities required of them in the course of their pedagogy are very time consuming (marking, researching, preparation) and almost impossible to complete in the course of a working day.
In schools at least most teachers have a number of administrative chores that they carry out on a daily or weekly basis, that often take significant time, and which haven't been simplified by technology.
Add to that many "legacy" tasks which are leftovers from pre-technology, and then "duty of care" tasks (such as yard duty which in both the USA and the UK have been given to assistants rather than teachers)
pressures of professional learning and professional development mean that teaching is not a job that stays behind when you walk out of the gate. Professional learning these days often has to take place "after hours", and then is likely to generate pressures when you try to fit in doing "something new".
pressures generated by the need to develop ongoing relationships with students (some secondary teachers have upwards of 150 students to develop these with), parents, and colleagues, makes teaching very different to most other occupations. My doctor probably has a similar number of patients (probably even more), but he doesn't see all of them every week, nor, in most cases, is he engaged in teaching them something new.

So there's a start to the list. Why do you feel time-poor? Or don't you? Any solutions?

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