Your Neighborhood Librarian

(yes, I can spell Australian English, but she's American). A blog full of useful links and ideas and stuff to make you laugh (she's fugged the Britney Spears READ poster now, and I doubt I'll be able to look at a Harry Potter book again without a reminiscent snort).

Bung her on your bloglines list. You won't be sorry. Your Neighborhood Librarian.

How To Boost Your Creative Output

Again courtesy of lifehack.org, How to boost your creative output. As I read the ideas, I think of the many students I have known and know now, who let a fear of failure or its embarrassing cousin, ridicule, prevent them from making an attempt. There is, in their minds, less to lose by not trying at all than by trying and failing - however they define failure. And we can't know, as they enter our classrooms and school libraries, what their past history may be, and what may have bred or confirmed this perspective. Still, our job then is to create an environment where failure is OK, and an attempt is not a short road to humiliation - a safe place for learning to flourish and creativity and effort are rewarded. It's a verbal and nonverbal game, and sometimes the greatest value for students is when you are prepared to admit to your own failures - not as preachy sermons, but to show that we're all on a learning journey, and as with any worthwhile journey, obstacles are pretty much inevitable.

Quote from the lifehack article - read the tips (these points are expanded in the article):

• Churn Without Judgment.
• Creative Input.
• Be Patient.
• Use Large Time Chunks.
• Publish Garbage.
• Set a Quota.
• Hit the Challenge Zone.
• Aim With Your Challenge Zone.
• Nuke Those Assumptions.

Literature opens the door

Let us give thanks to librarians. When I was young and knuckleheaded, fighting against being poor, against being brown, against being an immigrant, against being rejected by my father, it was a librarian assigned to a tiny precinct in Central New Jersey who took the time out of her work and with care and arid enthusiasm introduced me to the wonder of books and in the process, I would argue, saved my life.

And

Literature is in my estimation best understood as a record of our human selves: of our frailties, of our follies, of our errors, of our limitations, of our fears, of our delusions, of our evasions and of our vulnerabilities. Literature when done right moves us beyond our myths of mastery and invulnerability and reminds us with inescapable force that all we are and all we shall ever be is human. Literature, in other words, bears witness to what it is to be human. Bearing witness to our humanity not only punctures myths and acts as an antidote to those who would dehumanise us through war, deception, the logic of capital and the daily quotidian practice of cruelty and indifference, it also helps to make us more human. And it is in this human-making that literature, like all art, excels.

Are from Literature opens the door to compassion in our brief lives by Junot Diaz, in the Sydney Morning Herald 26 May 2008

Link to article

Tinyurl for this article

I learned about this via the excellent nswtl list.

TED Tuesday: Redefining the dictionary.

From the TED resource of online talks, Erin McKean talks about the paper dictionary in the internet age.



To quote from the TED website:

Is the beloved paper dictionary doomed to extinction? When does a made-up word become real? And could you use "synecdochical" in a sentence, please? In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways in which today's print dictionary is poised for transformation in this internet era.

Fridge poetry online

I was talking with a colleague about creative writing with junior high school students, and we were discussing the possibilities of 100 word stories (I've blogged a site about these before).

Here's another option: Fridge Poetry, brought to you courtesy of the BBC. I harvested this image with Print Screen, but you can also email your poem (viewable online for a month).

Pay Attention

I'm doing some presentations at staff meetings this term, about technology and internet resources, and came across this. And said to myself, why are you spending hours putting together presentations, when someone's already done one like this? I'll still do some myself, but it was an object lesson to remember to use available resources too, not try to reinvent the wheel. Oddly enough, sorta kinda one of the points I want to make to my colleagues. Ahem.

This is a great piece from TeacherTube.



The website it sends you to at the end includes some very useful links pages to things like technology integration and online teacher tools. The site is from the Jordan School District in the US.

url for video above, if it doesn't show up for you:
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=40c570a322f1b0b65909&page=1&viewtype=&category=

NationStates: online simulation game

To quote from the website:

NationStates is a free nation simulation game. Build a nation and run it according to your own warped political ideals. Create a Utopian paradise for society's less fortunate or a totalitarian corporate police state. Care for your people or deliberately oppress them. Join the World Assembly or remain a rogue state. It's up to you.

Haven't yet created my own nation with it, but it has potential for History/Society and Culture/Geography (so I've pointed those teachers at it so they can see if it's useful). It was devised as a ploy to draw attention to a novel (Jennifer Government by Max Barry).

Check it out by clicking here.