Are you a Scoop.it!, Stumble Upon or Pin it, kind of teacher?

About a year ago, my husband made me a Tumblr account. It didn’t mean anything to me. It was like getting an offer from an alternative communications provider. I already have one of those – that is Facebook.

His tumblr account flourished and he has greatly enjoyed sharing his interests there. I don’t know what happened to mine. A lonely empty place in the virtual world.

But now, I have had an awakening. Thanks to my husband for opening my eyes to these ways of sharing images and ideas, outside of Facebook.

I now realise the potential of these social curation sites or “Pin-boards” and I can’t get enough of them!  ” I have joined Scoop.it! and Pinterest.

Here’s my Scoop.it! address;

http://www.scoop.it/t/learning-to-be-a-teacher-librarian

Scoop.it! is a pinboard or would you say corkboard? It works the same way other similar sites do, such as Pinterest. But it is a site mainly for professionals or businesses to share articles on their main interest or topic. You can create your own topic and “scoop” other people’s articles for your topic. You can also follow others and this will assist you in scooping ideas for your own topic. You can share it across most other social media platforms, such as facebook, Twitter, Google and Linkedin. You can link Scoop.it! with your blog and I am just working out how to do this.

I also have a pinterest account and just love the visually appealing images you can collect and repin on your board. This is my address;

http://pinterest.com/jmschmude/favorite-places-spaces/

I can imagine using Scoop.it! for this Teacher Librarian course and working as a TL. Whereas, I can see that Pinterest would be a great platform for students to view what is happening in their school library. Using the colourful images and posters to promote book clubs, e-books or Book Week in the library.

There’s another one that might interest you, it is Stumble Upon.I haven’t explored it yet, but it looks good.

Post-literate culture may have us up in arms

In my new subject about Resourcing the new curriculum, we are asked to consider the prospect of a virtual library. Henley High School in South Australia have done just that. Removed their physical library and positioned the library everywhere, to be accessed through the Net on laptops in the classroom. The former library’s fiction has been redistributed to the classrooms. After studying the first Teacher Librarian subject in the Masters, the idea of a virtual library does not seem so radical.

However, I was confronted by Doug Johnson’s (Johnson, 2010) view on the post-literate culture that we find ourselves in. He defines a post-literate culture as those that can read, but prefer to immerse themselves in alternative forms of media. He points to the fact that you don’t see many people reading magazines or books, in print now.

How could we be turning our backs on the printed word? It has what has kept me inspired my whole life so far. A deliciously crunchy newspaper, spread out on my table just waiting to be devoured. He speaks of the change in our culture from reading printed material, such as magazines and p-books to listening to music, watching online videos and playing games on tablets etc. Oh, this sounds like my family. Hmmmm. Should I be worried?

I am still confronted, but I keep reading. I comfort myself in the knowledge that we still read to the kids from books.

However, when he pointed to the fact that this post-literate environment will see a return to old art forms, such as speaking, story-telling, drama…I am interested. He suggests that these forms of literacy will thrive again as they can so easily be recorded and shared. I agree. I am able to connect with my family who live 600km away, through sharing videos our family life through Vimeo. The joy of watching a mini movie that my sons have made together on the iphone and then sharing it with people all over Australia, instantly. But I still love books.

Well, Johnson makes a good point for those of us who are biased towards print communication. Look at Plato. The way he despaired over the new form of communication in his time….writing! Those things that we most dread, may turn out to be the biggest blessings. This makes sense to me. Johnson has turned me from being up in arms over his post-literate definition, to waving my hands around in understanding. If we are going to see a return to the art of a good story, told with true depth of human emotion than I am all in. Yes, it may be shared with those who won’t appreciate it. But to know that we can still foster the art of speaking, listening and drama, through our technology then perhaps we haven’t lost at all.

References

Johnson, D. (2010). Libraries for a post-literate society. Connections Issue 72, pp. 1-2)