Roald Dahl’s Response Might Challenge the Best of Us

I hope Mr. Johnson’s sense of humour was equal to the task of presenting this response from Roald Dahl to his class for the best effect.

Via 22 Words

Grant Snider’s Literary Devices

Incidental Comics

Friday Funny: Teaching Library Skills (the futility of?)

A selection of Library Quiz Answers from Middle School (click here for more)

Information on dragons can be found by asking one of them in the office.

The purpose of OPACs is to say how much to sell crude oil for.

Reference books cannot be checked out because they are too big and heavy.

Fiction books are just a lot of stories, so they don’t get a rating number.

The Dewey System measures how cold it got overnight by measuring how much wetness is on the grass in the mornings.

When girls get their periodicals, they don’t go to swim school.

You can find words with similar meanings in Rogers Brontasaurus.

from the Warrior Libarian’s old site, new one is here.

Sunday Surfing Selection – e-Readers &Tablets

I collect so many great links that I want to share, that I thought I would copy the idea of many bloggers and create a weekly link dump. (And I can’t resist a corny alliterative title.) If you have or are thinking about e-Readers or tablets in your library you will find a very helpful selection of resources in this week’s collection.

Unshelved (Click)

The Truth About Tablets: Educators are getting iPads and ereaders into students’ hands—but it’s not easy goes into detail about the sticking points in the issue.

E-Books and Libraries: 25 Resources Collections, Purchasing, Vendors, Controversy and Miscellaneous.

Penguin Ends E-Book Library Lending And Relationship With OverDrive…at least until it finds a new partner. Also read Amazon’s Kindle Plays A Part In Penguin’s Library Decision.

Announcing OverDrive Help as of February 14th, OverDrive Help will contain ” hundreds of newly-written help articles covering everything users need to know to enjoy eBooks, audiobooks, music and video from your digital collection.”

The International Children’s Digital Library whose goal is “a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world.”

58 Sites for Digital Storytelling Tools and Information Information & Online tools

Best Kids’ Book Apps of 2011 Reviewed selections for toddlers through teens, from traditional titles to new creations just for tablets.

Goodbye Textbooks, Hello iPad “A technology shift is under way. The PC’s promise to transform how learning happens in the classroom is being realized by Apple’s iPad.”

ICT Magic just won a Best Education Wiki award for being “a truly inspiring collection of IT resources for students and teachers”.

We Have a System

It’s old but I love it……

Because it’s Important to Keep Your Sense of Humour

"gather 'round kids, it's story time!"

 

Photo by aye_shamus

No Decision Yet on e-Readers, but Required Features Determined

I had an exciting Saturday. I spent most of it trying to learn about e-readers and attempting to make a decision with regard to which model to buy for the school. I originally thought I’d be deciding between Kindle, Sony and Kobo, since those are the ones I have heard most about, but after nailing down the features I most wanted I was quite surprised at the outcome.

Image by John Blyberg

Since our initial purchases will be for struggling readers, I felt it was important that they had text-to-speech, font-size selection and an integrated dictionary. I also wanted an open source format so that we would not be tied to a particular e-book supplier and could access the plethora of free material available through our library system and on the Web.

In addition, I looked at the type of screen: eInk or ePaper, versus LCD. I have not had a chance to borrow a reader to check out the difference, but I find it difficult to read a lot of text on my computer screens and will need to discover if vision comfort is a make-or-break factor. Most dedicated e-readers have an eInk screen and most tablets are LCD.

A replaceable battery seems like an economically sensible feature so that one does not have to replace the entire unit if the battery fails. I considered a strong web browser more of a liability than an asset, in fact any internet access or games could be a distraction for reluctant readers, our target group. Almost all of those I looked at had some Internet applications and all had Wi-Fi.

Like several other brands I had not previously heard of, Sony, Nook & Kobo were eliminated early because they do not have text-to-speech capability: a must-have feature as I mentioned above. I took the Kindle off the list because books must be purchased through Amazon only, it is not library compatible and there is no replaceable battery.

The two that met all criteria were PocketBooks from the Ukraine and Pandigital. I still have to pin down Canadian suppliers and support. I may have to go back to my reject list! There is a decent, sortable comparison chart here Wikipedia. Pandigital is not even on it though. I found it first at Best-Buy.

So, no decision made as yet. I really want to hold a few in my hands and read from them. Hopefully then I’ll feel a little more confident.

Cartoon from Rhymes With Orange

I Did Say Transformation

From Unshelved. I subscribe to the cartoon for a daily giggle. Luckily I don’t actually believe that a library has to go that far to attract young adults!