hypermedia

While blogs, wikis and websites, etc. are invaluable in Library 2.0 as platforms for information dissemination and virtual communication services, Web 2.0 tools can also be used for clients' entertainment purposes (and they learn as they play). Various story spaces exist online on which the user/client/reader/writer/teacher/student/librarian can either collaborate on the construction of a story or interact with the story by following hyperlinks. This is a sophisticated Web 2.0 version of the ever-popular Choose-Your-Own Adventure storybooks.

The reader can read online and/or create online. It's storywriting Web 2.0. As they work they will gain understanding and skills in the capabilities of information communication technologies (ICTs) and be able to apply this in their informational and communication work.
Even considering the basics: what is a hyperlink? what is an anchor? Use of the hypertext media will also give Librarian 1.0 an insight into how 21st century clients gather and process their information. Explore.

DotLit Hypermedia: http://www.dotlit.qut.edu.au/hypermedia.html

Wacky Web Tales on Education Place: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/

Libby Hathorn's Let's Play: http://www.libbyhathorn.com/lh/letsPlay/letsPlay.asp

The Neverending Tale: http://coder.com/creations/tale/

Read Write Think lesson plan:

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=128

Even Victoria Police want your hypertext choose-your-owns:
http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?document_id=12441

Joel and Cat set the story straight: http://www.joelandcat.com/About.htm - the website on which virtual readers were invited to contribute a few lines each in a shared story that mirrored the tandem story captured in the book written collaboratively between Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow (probably using some email communication). Entrants wrote online or sent SMS.
Penguin certainly reached out to their client base on their own turf.

wordle and education

Wordle! My favourite cloud toy with some innovative uses in literacy education. See the Teaching with Technology Edublog. Free to share under a Creative Commons Licence.

brisbane libraries buzz

Brisbane has some top class libraries and we have been tramping all over them this week, learning about exciting library-type things. Our group of CSU students, from various Australian towns and cities (plus two from China and Fiji), came together from BASLIM and the two Masters courses with two of our lecturers, Roy and Jake. Over four full days we were led through many libraries by incredibly professional and passionate librarians.

State Library of Queensland - welcome to the 21st century! - I love The Corner and The Edge and the loungey InfoZone. And we could have done with stories round the Kuril Dhagun Fire Pit in this chilly weather.

Brisbane Square Library - vibrant, progressive, interactive, with an envy-making book sorting machine. And Fast Backs for popular fiction titles.

Supreme Court Library using the Moyes' Classification Scheme - enjoy your placement there Lea.

GoMA's art research library - librarians make significant supportive contribution to world-class exhibitions including the stunning Picasso collection on now.[Awe-inspiring Cezanne, Degas, Renoir and Modigliani on show from Picasso's collection].

QUT's law library and main student library - virtual reference services and information literacy skills embedded in the curriculum.

Qld Parliamentary Library- and I found my dream book room in the O'Donovan Library: floor to ceiling filled bookshelves with those tall roving ladders.

Other groups visited libraries at the Public Works, Mater Health Services and BGGS before we all celebrated with yum cha in the city.

Other highlights of the week - crossing the Goodwill Bridge (Brisbane has a pedestrian bridge across the river!), walking a lot which is a great way to explore a city, photographing more TSBs (I'll upload them from home), and I'm blogging this from another progressive BCC library in Fairfield. There's a writers' group going on across from me and lots of people are browsing and using the computers (mix of genders and ages). And BCC libraries were featured last night on Extra (tv show) - Chermside was one I think.
What do you like about your library?

street art

How lovely to have books delivered in the mail. This one is a must for anyone who loves what artists have done to those harsh traffic signal boxes in Brisbane. It's Brisbane Traffic Art.1 and it features 200 of the altered TSBs with artists' statements and they're listed by suburb alphabetically. I like best the paintings that incorporate some aspect of the local community, like trouts on a box in Trout Road, and kids' faces on a box near a school. I look around my city and see grey traffic signal boxes - not so engaging.I took this butterfly pic. a while back near Fairfield Road. The book was compiled by Queensland Urban Ecology, the people who organise the artists to do all this stunning work. And they invite anyone to apply to paint a box, you don't have to be a professional artist. In fact, their TSB work is a great career move for many.Buy the book, take the tour, and enjoy! Check them out online here.

verse novels

I’ve found YA verse novels to be incredibly powerful in imagery and emotional intensity, and certainly ‘social-realism novels’ as described by Margaret Cook in her article in The Age: The triumph of hope.Joy Alexander (2005) charts the development of the form from Brenda Seabrooke's Judy Scuppernong (1990) through Australia's first verse novel (is it?), Steven Herrick's Love, Ghosts and Nose Hair (1996), Libby Hathorn's Volcano Boy (the one I haven't read yet) and VNs from Americans, Karen Hesse and Sharon Creech (Love that Dog).
Catherine Bateson's His name in fire (2006) chronicles a short time in a high-unemployment/high-birth-rate country town. Like another of Catherine's verse novels, A Dangerous Girl (2000), this narrative in verse features an outsider coming to an established group. In both there are consequences of this intrusion, but in His name the consequence is more hopeful, or hopeful without the painful despair of a suicide attempt climax as in ADG. YA verse novels can be recognised as valuable reading material for all students. They show that poetry can be contemporary and real and reflective of one’s own life and culture. Using a first person viewpoint connects readers to the story, and the presentation of opposing viewpoints shows a fuller picture of each character – their responses, and others’ responses to them. His name in fire provides readers with a reference point to examine their own beliefs and values, question their own responses to situations. Would you be patient with Emma? Would you stay in this town? Would you participate in a circus? There would be so many activities you could do with this; Two students as Emma and Matthew intertwining their monologues, research on work-for-the-dole programs (and yes, I agree with Mozza, the circus did have more razzamataz than a planting native grasses project!) (although that would be environmentally positive…), podcasting some of each character's narrative, exploring the representations of family, place and fathers in YA verse novels (and YA fiction generally).... or, of course, just read them for fun.

Alexander, J. (2005). The Verse-novel: A new genre. Children's Literature in Education. 36(3) Septemberp. 269-283. Retrieved 29 March 2008 from EbscoHost.

Here's a link to YMRL's Youth Lounge with a list of verse novels, and here's my list of Australian verse novels that I have read, and can recommend (various ages/stages of development):

Cold Skin / Steven Herrick (most recently listed as an Older Readers' Notable in the CBCA awards, not quite making the shortlist)
The Spangled Drongo / Steven Herrick
Love, Ghosts and Nose Hair / Steven Herrick
A Place Like This / Steven Herrick
By the River / Steven Herrick
Lonesome Howl / Steven Herrick
The Simple Gift / Steven Herrick
Do-Wrong Ron / Steven Herrick
A Dangerous Girl / Catherine Bateson
The Year it All Happened / Catherine Bateson
His Name in Fire / Catherine Bateson
Jinx / Margaret Wild
One Night / Margaret Wild.

gallery notes

What a glorious life! I love Arnold Zable and I love Angela Nagel. My short story Gallery Notes was commended by AZ in this year's Daffodil Day Arts Awards - it didn't win win, but it was shortlisted with 29 others out of 130 entries nationwide. In '06 my short story Unfinished Business was Highly Commended in the awards but my haiku string didn't rate last year. That's okay. I know my stories are stronger than my poetry but I'm willing to work on that. Angela is the Arts Awards Officer, and if you're in Melbourne say a cheery hi from me. She'll be at the Exhibition Opening on Saturday 19 July (15W Gallery again) where all the stories, poems and artwork will be on display before touring regional Victoria. Go - donate to a good cause, and look for this first line: On their first visit her father invariably parked her too close to the artwork which distorted her view of the subjects he talked about. A
nd if you find yourself in Brisbane's Wesley Hospital (the setting of my story), I hope you too can forget your troubles by indulging in a little art therapy. And, just a side note... yay for wordbox - two years old yesterday and encouraging creativity all over the country more than ever! We've some strong opportunities for young writers available and that's good news for the arts scene. Thanks for using wordbox as your handy writing resource. Now, off with ye. I've a day off tomorrow, last assessment's been handed in, so I'll be writing. A little story inspired by fortune cookies from Simply Wok. Tomorrow!

little girl zine

We did it! The first Jacaranda zine! A fun collaboration via email with Nicole in Ohio, the little girl zine celebrates our friendship which began when we lived next door to each other in another place, another time.LGZ had a limited print run of two, one for Nicole and one for me.Production details: 7 pages handwritten and printed text (American Typewriter and Times) with colour and black and white photos and illustrations on pink and white paper, vellum and hammered card, all stitched together using Shar's pink tapestry cotton (great idea Shar!).#1 will be in the mail tomorrow. Love you Nic.
Click on the image to see the card detail. Tough to get a needle through :)