Book bonanza – buy online and save

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Judy O'Connell

Lot’s of people still buy books – interesting books! There are so many to choose from, but sometimes our local store/s may not have what we want – or we may just want to shop from home.

My friend Gary Molloy @chemedlinks is always on the lookout for an online bargain. Darcy Moore is also always on the lookout for an interesting read, and his latest purchase according to his FB status is Tokyo Vice. I should put those two into the same room!!

Perhaps Darcy purchased this book for his Kindle. That’s a whole different ball-game! But anyway – what if you do need to buy a book and want to same a few dollars too?

Gary pointed me to Booko ages ago for price comparisons – and I have to vouch for the value of this service. http://www.booko.com.au

I rarely need to shop at Amazon any more. Best service for me so far has been with the Book Depository. Books arrive quickly, and are often cheaper than Amazon – postage is included in the cost! Gary tells me that the UK and US online stores are the same source, but often better pricing from the US.com site.

You can even visit Book Depository Live – and watch the stream of books being purchased from countries around the world.

Of course, I still love to shop in a good book-store – that will never change! I also borrow books from my local library and my school library. But I also enjoy being able to get the book I want, delivered to my door, is good value.

Check it out next time you’re shopping around for that special book. There are also other good sites, which I have lost track of. If you have any more to recommend, please share the sites you know in the comments.

Looking for Music?

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Judy O'Connell

ccMixter is a web site providing samples and remixes that are released under various Creative Commons licenses. Now the site has a new addition: dig.ccMixter, available in beta at http://dig.ccmixter.org/.

Looking for music for a video, school project, game you’re developing, podcast or just for listening on your mobile music device?

Find exactly the music you’re looking for – podsafe, liberally licensed – using dig.ccMixter Music Discovery tool.

Dig allows people who are looking for music to find it more easily. What I listened too was fantastic quality too.

(information via ResearchBuzz)

Libraries and the Cloud

Posted on March 21, 2010 by Judy O'Connell

Learning Spaces and School Libraries

Posted on March 21, 2010 by Judy O'Connell

This time last year I was involved in a planning day with a large number of schools and their staff, on the matter of 21st Century School Libraries Learning Learning. There is so much to think about in the design or re-design of such facilities no matter what the budget.

Here is another presentation that piqued my interest, with relevance to school libraries.

‘Impressive new buildings are, on their own, NO GUARANTEE that improved learning will be achieved; although they may be useful in marketing terms, by helping brand an institution’.

“teaching and learning should drive design, rather than vice-versa”

Take a look as there are some good points to take away for your own deliberations…..

The future of digital diversity

Posted on March 21, 2010 by Judy O'Connell

Think digital – it’s a ‘doing’ technology. Trends from PewInternet Research Centre indicate that teens are digital denizens.

While the research is not Australia, it points the way to the behaviours or our own teens, and signals a need for some major shifts in thinking about learning and teaching contexts. The interactivity of the web allows students to move very quickly from one application to another – remixing, remaking and montaging ‘content’. Learning is promoted most effectively when students are making, creating, building, simulating, hypothesizing – all desirable higher-order thinking activities.

So, give these figures some thought!

Augmented Reality – it’s literacy!

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Judy O'Connell

While I’m really interested in all sorts of technology possibilities, as a person responsible for a huge library facility and resource centre I passionately believe that the first and most important ‘augmented reality’ option for children and youth are found in books, magazine, graphic novels and more.

Good books. Good literature. Good augmented reality!! Through books you can experience so many possibilities, so many passions and emotions, so much history, exciting mystery, and more.

This week has been a big one for us on the ‘augmented reality’ front!

As our visiting speaker Paul MacDonald from The Children’s Bookshop said to our Year 7 students: “A good book should leave you slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it”.

Paul challenged the boys for an hour with many exciting ideas, and reasons to get into ‘what’s hot’! He even got into quiz mode to capture every single boy – the prize? A Cherub beanie! You’ve never seen such a sea of hands desperate to answer a question about books and authors! Heaps of boys charged over to the library after getting out of the dining room at lunch time – and queued to grab or reserve the books that Paul had been enticing them with.

Patrick Ness

We also had a fabulous visit from Patrick Ness, who spoke to Year 9. Talk about mischievous but exciting! He also sat down for a literary lunch discussion with our Extension English students. Patrick was just fantastic at pitching the literacy message to active adolescents.

Oh, and don’t forget the magic of buying your own signed copy of an author’s book!

For me – the first and best form of augmented reality – guaranteed to impact on every aspect of a students learning future – is reading and more reading. More important than any other technology tool in the whole world!

A new look to your Second Life

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Judy O'Connell

Second Life Viewer 2, now in beta, is the next generation of Second Life viewers that makes it easy to explore and socialize in Second Life with a familiar, browser-like experience, enhanced search, and fully integrated web-based media capabilities. Test Drive Second Life Viewer 2, Now in Beta by downloading here.