Tag: VALA

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VALA 2010 – I wasn’t there, but I learnt from you

I followed the Twitter hashtag from the VALA 2010 conference that happened here in Melbourne a week or two ago, but somehow I missed this gem of a video about what libraries need in today’s world. Thanks to Chris Betcher for posting it on his blog. We are in the process of reinvention with a new building due for construction this year. These are exactly the kind of things we need to be ingraining into our practice to make us the institution we need to be.

Despite what this young lady would have you believe, many of our students are not up with what augmented reality is, or geospatial and semantic tagging. But they just might be after we get stuck into their heads with the new space we are soon to create! That will require learning on our end too; time to get into it!

For those of you interested in a good summation of the ideas explored at the VALA Conference, take a read of Mal Booth’s post. Worth reading. Then take a look at the Library of the Future in Plain English video that he created with Sophie McDonald and Belinda Tiffen from UTS Library (University of Technology Sydney).

Another of the UTS videos I enjoyed was ‘The Library… OF THE FUTURE! With Mr. Hank and his good friend Chad…’

I’m impressed, UTS Library. Think I need to tap into your thinking a little more. I like what you have to say.

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School today VS Pew Internet advice

Sometimes I feel disconnected from other teachers. I think this happens when you envision a different future, away from pen and paper teaching and exams.

A recent conversation brought this home to me. I was advocating for an eportfolio contributed to by the students themselves, and the argument against me was for paper copies evidencing student achievement. The point being made was that the final exams students will face are pen and paper driven, so these were the examples teachers wanted to use for reference purposes. A comment was made to the effect of, “You come from a different world Jenny”.

Maybe I do. Maybe what I advocate is off the mark. It’s just that I don’t think that it is. I think I’m forward thinking and I think I’m advocating for the kind of world and workforce our graduating students will encounter. Regardless of whether or not they complete a pen and paper end of year exam.

I came across slides from Lee Rainie today, who was supposed to keynote at the VALA conference here in Melbourne, but was detained by inclement weather conditions in the United States. Lee is Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project and his presentation was for a public library audience. There is much in the presentation that can be applied to school libraries; it goes someway to addressing the skills we need to be imparting to our students. Lee’s slides and accompanying speech (linked to in this post) discussed the democratization of media and the rise of user-generated content. Take a look at the slides and see if you make the connection.