Digital literacy and The Killing

From time to time, I check out the Futurelab site and I always find something of interest. One of the current offerings is a report on digital literacy which starts by giving examples of what different teachers might define as digital literacy. As with information literacy, there is no one agreed definition. An excellent part of the report is where examples from schools are provided. These show how both primary and secondary schools have tried to incorporate digital literacy into their school curriculum and there are many useful ideas here. The subsequent sections deal with the curriculum, pedagogy and teacher’s thoughts on developing digital literacy. No need to read it all word for word, but certainly worth scanning – and passing on within your school.

The Killing in the title of this posting does not refer to any murderous crime committed hereabouts recently, but to the very popular TV series which has just ended here in the UK. It’s a strange success story as The Killing was shown in 10 double episodes on Saturday evenings at 9pm and was in Danish with English subtitles. So 2o hours of viewing with more twists and turns than an Alpine cycling route. It was riveting, with a mixture of whodunnit and political intrigue and some excellent acting, not least from the often persecuted detective Lund, as she determinedly followed every clue. It was one of these shows/films with subtitles which, at the end, you would testify in a court of law that you had hear the characters speak in English. If it comes to your country, rearrange 20 hours of your life.

Livebinders and lambs (and Lamb)

While doing some searching for material on digital school environments, I came across a new tool which may be useful for TLs and teachers –  Livebinders. This tool comes highly recommended as the AASL (US school library association) inlcuded it in their top 25 tools for 2010. It looks reasonably easy to use and you can use it to collect resources on a topic, organise them and present them. The format is presented as similar to a ring binder, although in reality, it is more like a series of topic tabs across the top of the website, which can be clicked to reveal the contents. For example, in the eBooks go to school  binder, the tabs include advice on formats, eReaders and eBook purchasing. Certainly worth a look.

At the weekend, on walk round St Abbs Head, one of the features was the new born lambs in the fields – see photo below. Walking along, I remembered my English teacher Mrs McKie getting the class to read Charles Lamb’s essay A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig which purports to tell of how we came to eat roast pork. The tale is of a clumsy Chinese boy who accidentally set his house on fire. The house was not only home to the family but also to a litter of pigs. When the fire went out, the boy touched one of the pigs, and because it was very hot, put his fingers in his mouth – and tasted roast pork for the first time! After that, many villagers (and the local judge) burned their houses down on a regular basis. The essay also highlights how we treat animals and has a decidely philosophical element as well as an amusing one.

Spring lambs at St Abbs

E-books and an intriguing boulder

A bit of a stramash over the last couple of weeks about e-books and publishers wanting to restrict the time period for an e-book which is sold to a library for borrowing. An article in the NY times yesterday reported that Harper Collins would only allow a book to be loaned 26 times before it expired. Now exactly where the publishers got this figure is fairly easy to see i.e. 52 weeks in a year, 2 week loan = 26 loans. However, this does not represent the average lifetime borrowing for most printed books in public libraries i.e. the amount of loans until the book has to be replaced. Publishers fear that if libraries have too many e-books and lend them out too often, that this will affect their growing sales of e-books. On the other hand, it could be argued that if people borrow e-books from libraries, this could increase sales – as it does with many printed books. However, the power appears to rest with the publishers. Most schools now have e-books and these restrictions will apply to them also.

I found this boulder – OK, call it a big stone if you think that a boulder has to be bigger in the photo below while walking across the rocks when the tide was out, in the vain hope of getting close to some shelduck. I was intrigued by the various holes in the stone face - some like little caves, others like bullet holes and there was a skull-like appearance of the whole thing, as if at one point in time, it could speak and see and hear. The moon craters or thumb prints on the top – the more you look at it, the more you see. Another seashore sculpture.

Seashore sculpture

TL videos and lighthouse run

Thanks to Margie Wallin at Southern Cross University (SCU which is confusingly an anagram of my university CSU), I can alert you to a series of videos made by the library staff at SCU and teacher librarians. The library guides for teacher education students, encouragingly called What your teacher librarian can do for you, include videos in which teacher librarians, as well as teachers and school principals, talk about the role of the TL, as well as aspects of information literacy and how important school libraries are. In the TL field, there are frequent complaints that trainee teachers don’t get much encouragement to know about school libraries or information literacy, so this is a very good example which I hope other institutions will follow.

Last weekend, I was helping to marshal a cross-country run which took place around Barns Ness Lighthouse, which is about 3k from my house. It was a cool morning, with the sun coming and going – although this did not affect the 60+ junior and 80+ adult runners from enjoying the route which took them over 2 stretches of beach as well as paths within the grass-covered dunes nearby. A very picturesque route, with the sea on one side and the Lammermuir Hills on the other. Before the run, when the route was being set up, I took some photos near the lighthouse and you can see one of the photos below.

Barns Ness Lighthouse

SIGMS article and Edinburgh in early Spring

Thanks to my colleague Joy McGregor, I can alert you all to an article in ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology journal, which you would do well to add to your favourites and to pass on the link to colleagues. The article - rather naffly entitled Not your grandmother’s library - gives some very good examples of teacher librarians using technology to very good effect i.e. by enhancing student learning. From the very well-known Joyce Valenza, to Keisa Williams and Wendy Stephens, the article highlights examples of the work of these three teacher librarians. Also in the issue of the journal are articles on tagging, Google sites, collaboration and advocacy. Well worth a look.

In Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city, yesterday. A glorious early Spring today in (relatively) warm sunshine and a big blue sky. Edinburgh is a city for walking and you can reach most of the eye-catching attractions with fairly short walks. The centre of the city is dominated, on Princes Street which is the main thoroughfare, by the Scott Monument, the largest monument to a writer in the world. It is in praise of Sir Walter Scott , author of famous novels such as Waverley and Ivanhoe. At this time of year, it’s a joy to walk through Princes Street Gardens and enjoy the masses of crocuses which line the banks. The picture below shows the flowers below the Scott Monument.

Scott Monument