I love the shots from the Fubiz site, “a staircase that builds within the framework of a library of arrangements: the books are placed between the steps. Original and very practical, the whole of furniture was conceived by the studio Levitate Architects based in London.”

Have a look at more of their fantastic photos of this amazing staircase here.

I was reading a post (MP3 players in class) on the Grumpy Old Teacher blog. In this post the oft discussed topic of classroom use of MP3 players but it struck a cord with me. The idea of using the many and varied mobile devices that our students use (outside the classroom/school) in the classroom to enhance and enrich their learning in an engaging way seems a “no-brainer” to me.

This is an argument that seems to have been going on forever. At my school we have discussions about what various tools should be allowed in class on a yearly basis. In fact we had one in a meeting just a week ago!  There have been many arguments for appropriate use of phones, iPhones, MP3 players, etc. at my school. Many teachers would like the students to use their personal devices in classroom situations. These teachers see such tools as mobile learning devices and that if the students are engaged by their learning, find that they enhance learning experiences. The answer about what to do if a student does the wrong thing is deal with that student in a manner that is appropriate to the “crime”. In other words teach the students about appropriate use and their responsibility in the learning process. However other teachers prefer that they are banned from the classrooms because they see the devices as a distraction to learning. The decision is still left with our school leaders who, at the moment, are resistant to the change. Personally I believe that teachers should be allowed to decide their own position on these devices. It is also interesting to note that one of the reasons that teachers against mobile devices want the ban to be school wide is that they fear that their classes will be unfavorably compared to those that do. They want to teach their way, the ways they are comfortable with. This is a shame that, rather than reaching out to students and combining the best of their teaching with some of the newer learning options that students are familiar with, they prefer to ignore the outside world and the classroom seems the same as the one I learnt in 30 years ago…

Jenny Luca wrote a good post with the title “Adapt or die“. This is a very good post and worth reading but I must quote the final paragraph here:

“You only die if you don’t adapt”. In my mind, technology will never replace a good teacher, but good teachers need to understand how to use technology well to support good teaching.  For many, it’s time to start the process of adaptation.

The post also  pointed out another interesting TedTalk about sound: Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us. The post also mentioned a recently published TED Talk, that may have fuelled new arguments of those of us who, for instance, would like to have students listening to their music while they do their work. This video seeks to explain sound. By playing sound effects both pleasant and awful, Julian Treasure shows how sound affects us in four significant ways. Some interesting facts about sound include information about noisy open-plan offices and the power of music, especially when used well. He describes the four major ways sound is affecting us all the time: physiological, psychological, cognitively and behaviorally. he discusses how each of these affects us on a daily basis. It is an interesting video that would be great at raising awareness about sound and that could be a good discussion starter about how sound can be used to help, motivate, manipulate or/and control. The more you understand about sound, the more control you have.

• Adobe® BrowserLab Adobe BrowserLab is a browser compatibility service that provides designers exact renderings of their pages on leading browsers. Results are fast, with powerful tools to spot issues. You can learn more at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/browserlab/

• Demos | Publications Demos publishes a wide variety of pamphlets, reports, collections and papers. Everything we publish can be downloaded for free. You can find out about buying printed copies, subscriptions and copyright here .

• Strait Kcab – Free Font ”Download free Strait Kcab font from SearchFreeFonts.com. Available in True Type format for Windows and Mac. Preview Strait Kcab font by typing your own text, zoom in on characters, write comments, or add to favorites for later download.”

• Brain Games | Brain Teasers – Games for Kids and Adults by BrainGames360.com 

• Shareable: Cory Doctorow on the Shareable Future of Book Publishing In this PublishingPoint interview, Cory describes a new shareable book project he’s launching in which he serves as author, publisher, distributor and bookseller–and involves dozens of collaborators. “He also shares his thoughts about the ways in which traditional roles in publishing are becoming blurred,” says PublishingPoint. “And he touches on strategies that have made the popular on-line community Boing-Boing (where he serves as co-editor) so successful, including how he and his co-editors started Boing-Boing at almost no cost.” It’s a fascinating overview of state-of-the-art cultural production in the age of sharing. tag

• Jing training videos | Teacher Training Videos Free on-line training in using technology in teaching A tool that allows you to take a screen shot of what you are doing, add your voice to it and then upload it to the web as an instructional video for others to watch.

• Twitter Links @ Educators A good set of links to useful tips on using Twitter for teachers and groups to join or follow

• Home – Suzanne Collins Homepage of the “Hunger Games” author

• Welcome to the website of Simmone Howell Homepage of the Australian author of “Everything Beautiful”  

• Spike Magazine: Book Reviews, Interviews, Music, Art, Self Publishing, Travel and More SpikeMagazine.com is a website about books, culture and ideas. Spike has been online in various forms since 1996. Thanks to a small army of contributors over the last 11 years, Spike has hundreds of book reviews, interviews, music reviews and features with writers, artists and musicians.

• 15 Free Guides That Really Teach You USEFUL Stuff Initially available only for subscribers of the site, there are now multiple manuals released every month, for everyone to enjoy. After releasing 15 manuals and nearly half a million downloads we thought it was about time to look back and review what has been published so far. Enjoy! No sign up need, downloads are free, no strings attached.

• 7 Things You Should Know About Google Wave | EDUCAUSE Another in the series of two-page, simple explanations of new ideas and concepts as they relate to education (mostly college).

• The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave The Complete Guide to Google Wave is a comprehensive user manual by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash. Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that’s notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help. Here you’ll learn how to use Google Wave to get things done with your group. Because Wave is such a new product that’s evolving quickly, this guidebook is a work in progress that will update in concert with Wave as it grows and changes. 

• kuler Create custom color palettes for great presentations

• Publish Digital Magazines and More Online for Free | YUDU Yudu is a free library of digital content to read and explore. Find eBooks, magazines, and other documents as well as photos, music and podcasts and bookmarks and add them to your own library.

• Inkmesh – Find Ebooks Inkmesh is an ebook search engine that collects data from multiple websites to make it easier to find new and interesting ebooks. Choose your format and at the price that suits.

• Read.gov: Exquisite Corpse Adventure exclusive online story 

• Terabithia.com – The Official Site of Author Katherine Paterson Author homepage

• Ranger’s Apprentice Homepage All things connected to the series

• House of Legends (Random) House of Legends is a site devoted to the best fantasy and science fiction out there for young readers today.

• Michael Pryor Website Australian aYA uthor homepage

• School chooses Kindle; are libraries for the history ‘books’? – USATODAY.com Article  about kindle and where it leaves libraries  

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

After my Inkys shortlist post I had a comment about  Simmone Howell suggested that I take a look at her novel, even though I work in a school populated by teenage boys. My comment about how powerful covers can be I think is relevant. Not one of our regular book suppliers brought this book in for us to have a look at. I suspect they looked at the cover with the heart and that had a great bearing on their decision. I also did not give it any thought and did not notice it on the book shelves.

Since then I have looked at some reviews including the one from Magpies Magazine below

Riley Rose thinks of the Spirit Ranch Holiday Camp as more a concentration camp than a chance for spiritual revival. What she believes is nobody’s business. Clever and observant, with a reckless courage and disregard for consequences, Riley creates a stir that changes the outlook of several fellow campers.
However, it isn’t all one way because after many incidents when Riley has a chance to escape with her crazy best friend Chloe and gorgeous hunk Ben Seb who have come to rescue her, she chooses to stay with fellow camper Dylan and face the music.
The two are in trouble because they have stolen a car and runaway into the desert to a salt lake supposedly with healing powers. Dylan is in a wheelchair after an accident no one will talk about. Although Riley has no apparent disability she is still broken-hearted after the death of her mother and expresses her feelings through angry recklessness. Anger brings them together and each give way enough to find a relative peace, and hope for the future. An unusual romance tale with a complicated and likeable heroine.

Having made the Inkys shortlist and after reading various reviews I thinks I have been remiss and will now read the book. I know some boys who would be interested in reading something that is like the above review. Afterall if they can read Twilight …..

The interesting little one-handed book trailer for her novel is by Simmone Howell.

The Inkys short list was decided a few weeks ago. These are all great books. The highlighted ones are those we have at our school and, although a couple of stories I liked have not made the cut, I am quite satisfied with those that have (I should say - Of those I have read, I am happy with their inclusion).

Golden Inky (for Australian titles)

• Broken Glass (Adrian Stirling) This is a dark story of life in a fairly remote country town, with a confronting conclusion that makes this novel more suitable for older or more mature readers. It has a grim scenario involving violence and intimidation. I found Broken Glass a good read but it is also very confronting at times and I find similarities with the book Wake in fright as it shows a less savory view of Australian male friendships.
• Jarvis 24 (David Metzenthen) This the story of 15yr old Marc Jarvis, who is from the very comfortable Melbourne suburb of Camberwell. He, like many of his contemporaries, spends a lot of time dreaming about girls and his future. Work experience brings him into contact with Electra, a verygifted runner, from another very different world and his life will never be the quite the same. It is a gently told story that touches the emotions as well sees the humour in life.
• Where the Streets had a Name (Randa Abdel-Fattah) The Middle East is still a rare setting for YA literature. This is an interesting, intelligent and thought-provoking novel that is told through the stories about the protagonists and various people they meet. The reader learns about a human side of the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem and the Middle East ‘conflict’, one which has often been reported about in our daily media. It is interesting that the author has managed to be funny, despite such heavy content. This story is one of family love, survival and hope.
• Worldshaker (Richard Harland) We only recently purchased Worldshaker and it forms part of the collection of steampunk fiction that we are building. I have only skim read it as yet but it looks good. The Worldshaker is a juggernaut, an enormous city that moves around the world, through sea and over land, crushing all in its path under giant rollers. It and the juggernauts of other nations were created after the Industrial Revolution, and exist in a world that has turned out very differently to the one we know. The story starts with an exciting incident and then, after many twists and turns, it builds inevitably towards a violent conclusion.
• Everything Beautiful (Simmone Howell)

 Silver Inky (International titles)

• Exposure (Mal Peet)  An interesting and good adaptation of Othello, set in the world of today’s football (soccer). It could make a good companion novel for a study of Othello. 
• Paper Towns (John Green) The College fiction blog has a good discussion about John Green and his writing  (with links) here
• The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) (My favourite) Dystopian societies seem to have become the next major after vampires. This was a gripping story. In this dystopian world teens, between the ages of 12-18, are all possible candidates for what are called the Hunger Games, a contest to the death. It is a bleak world with enough of a reflection of our current reality to see how this might have come about. However the power of humanity also shines through some of the chacaters
• Skim (Mariko and Jillian Tamaki)
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian (Sherman Alexie)

These are great books and I want to encourage all our students to vote. 

To vote you go here and there are very simple rules: Voters must be aged under 20 and they can only vote once. They can live anywhere in the world. Voting closes on Nov 20th.

For library staff: Don’t forget to go to shelftalkers for help in getting your students started.

• Waller on the relationship between Google and public libraries In a research paper, Vivienne Waller from Swinburne has examined the relationship between Google and public libraries. It’s very well researched and written, and will provide anyone with plenty to think about. The challenge now is to get the right people to read it – especially the “everything’s there on the Web” crowd.

• Smarthistory: a multimedia web-book about art and art history This is a free multi-media web-resource/book designed as a dynamic enhancement for the traditional art history textbook. The authors decided to create a multi-media survey of art history web-book. They created audios and videos about works of art found in standard art history survey texts, organized the files stylistically and chronologically, and added text and still images.

• EyeWitness to History – history through the eyes of those who lived it This sie can help you to get a more personal perspective on history through this site. It is a site that would engage kids with first-hand accounts of historical events, photos, audio and more. 

• History Timelines on the Web … The History Beat If you need a timeline then this might be a usefule site.

• History Games and Animations This site offers a list of resources to find tools that will help you teach your students about everything historical from ancient times to the present day.

• ANYDAY Today-in-History PAGE of SCOPE SYSTEMS. Put in any day in the year and find out what major events happened on it through this helpful tool. This could be a good way to begin a class – by finding out what happened on today’s date that is significant.

• Clickable Mummy Kids are very often interested in mummies and using this interactive site they can learn about the process of mummification.

• Calaméo – Publish and share documents Upload all major file formats and convert them into online publications. Can be used to: -Create digital books, e-zines, etc. -Students can become “published” authors -Alternative strategy for reports and presentations -Develop and share tutorials, study guides, etc. -Embed projects into a class site, blog or wiki -Connect with others that share your interests 

• Tap Into The World Of Comics 

• Interactivate: Activities Interactive games. Maths – 2 player, individual, class activites. Teacher or pupils can pick level and which types of questions are asked in quiz. Time limit to challenge pupils. Element of competition. 

• Building Maker – Create 3D buildings online ”Building Maker is a 3D modeling tool for adding buildings to Google Earth.”

• Flickriver – A new way to view Flickr photos and more… Offers one continuous stream. You can view thousands of photos without ever needing to hit ‘next’ and waiting for the next page to load!

• Visual Editors – The classroom for visual journalismThe non-profit that promotes visual journalism literacy in graphics, photo, video and design.

• 100 Blogs Every New Teacher Should Read | Online Schools An article on relevant teaching blogs 

• Thirty-Four Interesting Ways* to Use Search Engines in the Class Google docs resource. Lots of fabulous links to browse through when looking for ideas on information searching and using search engines.

• Free Online Graph Paper / Lined 

• Online tools – maths online Powerful collection of online tools. A good online function plotter (graphing calculator) is here.  

• Science Podcast Collection | Open Culture Many different science podcasts on Open Culture – the best free cultural and educational media on the web.

• Math Forum – Ask Dr. Math 

• Inclusive Science & Special Educational Needs Resources ”A drawing resource for producing neat, accurate diagrams of experimental apparatus. Students who struggle to draw neat diagrams for assessments can be encouraged to use this resource to produce high quality results independently. Teachers may wish to use it to draw diagrams that can be used on worksheets.”

• The Steampunk Workshop | Technology and Romance – Sustainable Rebellion  Steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The site of Jake von Slatt. and it has some great posts and offers all sorts of interesting ideas and projects. Working in a school populated by teenage boys, it is a great site to get their attention. There are links to many things”steampunk”, from links to literature and reviews, projects, technical links , ephemera (that includes all manner of things that have caught the author’s attention) and even music.,

• Videoraptor – search, find and download free videos and music clips Videoraptor downloads videos directly from websites and it can also convert the files into the formats I need in order to be played on other music players, even on cellphones

• KeepVid: Download and save any video from Youtube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm and more! Another website that lets you download Youtube videos in high quality mp4 format besides flv.

• TubeLeecher.com ::: Download youtube videos directly to your computer TubeLeecher is a very simple website which lets you directly download youtube videos to your computer. You just have to copy paste the youtube video url in the download box and hit download.

• Valuable expertise on demand – rich business content and presentations | myBrainshark This is a useful way of hosting online presentations. Free to use, presentations such as powerpoints can be uploaded, narrated, saved, shared and embedded. Documents can be uploaded and narrated and photo albums can be made.

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

Tom Barrett has been sharing his class ideas and tips about using various tools in GoogleDocs presentations for quite a while and I have been collecting them in my bookmarks. He has now put all of them together in his blog. The presentations are in easy to use in their Google docs format and he invites others to share ideas. They are worth looking at/using and, if you have some tips that have not been mentioned, think about contributing.

The latest one I found was Ten Interesting Ways* to Use Audio in your Classroom. We have been doing some work with audio and I recently listened to a discussion on music in the novel, so I am interested in exploring this area some more.

 The other presentations are listed below but don’t be surprised if the numbers have changed.

•  10 Interesting Ways To Use a Wiki in the Classroom
• 13 Interesting Ways To Use a Visualizer in the Classroom
• 27 Interesting Ways To Use Twitter in the Classroom
• 40 Interesting Ways To Use Wordle in the Classroom
• 40 Interesting Ways To Use Your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom
• 21 Interesting Ways To Use Google Docs in the Classroom
• 24 Interesting Ways To Use Google Earth in the Classroom
• 23 Interesting Ways To Use a Nintendo DS in the Classroom
• 34 Interesting Ways To Use Search Engines in the Classroom
• 42 Interesting Ways To Use Your Interactive Whiteboard in the Classroom
• 5 Interesting Ways to Use Prezi in the Classroom
• 17 Interesting Ways to Use Voicethread in the Classroom

Still in the early stages are:

• 4 interesting ways to use Wallwisher in the classroom
• 3 interesting ways to support writing in the classroom
• 5 interesting ways to use an iPod touch in the classroom
• 4 interesting ways to use Nintendo Wii in the classroom
• and so far Zero interesting ways to use Google Wave in the classroom

Since first hearing about Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan about 6 months before it was published I have been looking up more information about the “steampunk” concept, trying to get a better understanding of the literature that has been classed as “steampunk”. The Steampunk librarian’s blog is an interesting site to read that gives you many links to all things “steampunk” as is the blog Steampunks links. Recently the later site highlighted art by James Ng. I really liked his artwork but it has information about many other visually interesting sites as well .

Another  site I really like is The Steampunk Workshop. It has some great posts and offers all sorts of interesting ideas and projects. Working in a school populated by teenage boys, it is a great site to get their attention. There are links to many things”steampunk”, from links to literature and reviews, projects, technical links , ephemera (that includes all manner of things that have caught the author’s attention) and even music.

The projects the author, Jake Von Slatt, takes on, ranging from the Steampunk keyboard to the Victorian camper to the Victorian PC, are amazing. I am not sure how he thinks up his ideas but as this photo is from a post about creating a “steampunk” PC  it is all quite fascinating. 

This is a comprehensive site that also features many other people’s works and anything else the author discovers. It is a good site to keep tabs on to get solid overview of whatever is happening in the steampunk community.

The Guys Read site has had a revamp (Thanks to Tristan Bancks on the Boys, Blokes, Books and Bytes site.) It has a completely new look and feel and it has a lot of cool boys’ book “stuff”.

If you have not been to the site before, their mission is stated as being “Our mission is to motivate boys to read by connecting them with materials they will want to read, in ways they like to read.”

They have a number of points about encouraging boys to read but the second one (and one that I have been arguing for) is

2. Expand our definition of reading.
Include boy-friendly nonfiction, humor, comics, graphic novels, action-adventure, magazines, websites, audiobooks, and newspapers in school reading. Let boys know that all these materials count as reading.

I also really endorse their third point as well and that is the one about giving our boys some choice, they thrive on it! I also believe that role modelling reading, especially male role models have a great effect on boys. I can’t do the male bit but I try to read and discuss the books , and whether I like them or not and why.

Talking with some boys yesterday they asked me about reading. For instance, had I read the Twilight books? I answered yes but…. I find them interesting but not the greatest reads although they are somehow compelling when you are reading them. So what did I like to read, blood, guts and gore like a few of them? I talked about some of the historical books (they did have some blood and gore in them), science fiction and books set during in wartime (yes bg&g there) and crime/detective and mystery stories (often a murder or two) so we all had to agree that my reading did involve often involve blood, guts and gore. I hadn’t quite thought of it in that way before but they seemed quite satisfied that I read stuff like them!

From the Guys Read site boys can get tips for great reads, rate their favourite books and there are plenty of links to other fun sites. 

Some of the ideas for engaging boys include:

• Great Book Suggestions. “This is the place to come if you’re looking for something to get a guy reading. We’ve collected recommendations from teachers, librarians, booksellers, publishers, parents, and guys themselves.”
• The Author page is good for finding the author’s homepage or about books they have written
• If you prefer to listen to a book being read, try Guys listen.
• The readers of the Guys Read site are asked how they rate the books found in the site. The results are given here on the Guys Read Top 20.  To vote you, visit any book page and vote in the “What Do You Think?” section. You can vote as often as you like and the votes tell us which books the readers  think guys should be reading!
• Stats and Facts on Boys and Reading. Odd details and ideas.

If you have not been here it is worth having a look and better still take your boys there.

• #howitworks Interesting web 2 application. Online presentation creation and sharing tool. Add video and audio to your uploaded presentation, share your PowerPoint (PPT), OpenOffice (ODP), and Keynote presentations!

• Essay Map This site provides information for students to write essays. There are templates that will help students outline essays and walk them through the important pieces in an essay. It is structured as an interactive graphic organizer that includes introductions, supporting paragraphs and conclusion

• Kerpoof Studio Creative activity studio that allows you to make cards, stories, movies, doodles, pictures etc. Looks easy and fun and similar to Scratch.

• Book Parodies: See The Funniest And Send In Your Own 

• Math Games Games for all levels of mathematics.

• NZ Interface Magazine | If you can’t use technology get out of teaching! Article by David Warlick 

• Special Reports – eSN Special Report: 21st-Century Teacher Education Responding to a key need, schools of education are ramping up efforts to prepare future teachers to integrate technology into their instruction

• Special Reports – Learning without limits How the rise of online instruction is changing the nature of schooling; from eSchool News April 3, 2009

• Balzac’s Paris – A Guided Tour Wander through the heart of Paris in the time of Balzac, as described through some of his works, and as documented in maps and engravings ofThe Vernon Duke Collection Special Collections Department, University of California Library 

• Educypedia, The educational encyclopedia is the most complete Encyclopedia in the world with access to the very best Web Resources for Education. The best free resources on the web!!! The aim of this site is to provide a resource of technical and scientific information. There is a huge amount of links for math, science and even history, etc. Includes interactives & animations. , It was designed to help educators search for internet material appropriate for their classrooms, autocad, educypedia, computer hardware, datacommunication, microprocessors, motherboards, audio, electricity, biology, botany, chemistry, climate, geographic, geology, mechanics, mathematics, space, worldwars.

• Stephen Michael King Australian Illustrator’s website

• YouCube by Aaron Meyers This tools allows you to map six YouTube videos to an interactive 3D cube. Once you make your own YouCube, you can save it to the database and share it.

• toptentools – home Top Ten Free Technology Tools For Young Learners from Kathy Cassidy

• data.australia.gov.au – beta data.australia.gov.au is the home of Australian government public information datasets.

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