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Kids Prefer Reading Online

The unending debate over whether or not reading on the Internet is “really” reading gets played out once again in this New York Times piece titled “Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?” It’s the story of a “typical” family where the kids are online some six hours a day reading and writing at FanFiction.net among other places.

Read the whole thing. All in all, it’s a pretty interesting back and forth between old readers and young, and the bottom line is that it’s obvious that’s it’s something we need to be thinking of as we think about reading curricula and pedagogy.

del.icio.us

I have used del.icio.us for a while. It is a social bookmarking site where you can keep all your bookmarks in one place, share them with family, friends and colleagues and check out what other people are bookmarking.

I have set up an account for the library that I use to help our users. Feel free to visit Emmaus Library’s bookmarks on del.icio.us. I have tagged sites about studying, the HSC, literary awards and the web. There is a link to it from our school library homepage, which you can access via Emmaus Online. The students also have access to this.

In the future, if you want me to locate Internet sites for year group assignments I will put these on del.icio.us.

Miles Franklin Literary Awards

The winner of the 2008 Miles Franklin Literary Award is Steven Caroll for 'The Time We Have Taken'. The short list was as follows:

The Fern Tattoo	David Brooks	University of Queensland Press
The Time We Have Taken	Steven Carroll	Fourth Estate (HarperCollins Publishers)
Love Without Hope	Rodney Hall	Picador (Pan Macmillan Australia)
Sorry	Gail Jones	Vintage (Random House Australia)
Landscape of Farewell	Alex Miller	Allen & Unwin

If you want some quality Australian literature to read over the holidays, mayybe read the winner or one of his competitors.

The How 2 of Web 2.0

After I attended the "Blogs, Wikis and other Web Tools' seminar I enrolled in The How 2 of Web 2.0 online learning program, which started this week. Unlike a traditional inservice or training it is all done online and is proving to be both interesting and fun. Check out the original Learning 2.0 blog. Maybe it will inspire you to start learning.

I am also extremely interested in passing my learning on to you. Is anyone interested in learning about blogging or getting their class involved? Maybe your students need to journal their learning - a blog would be a perfect tool for them.

Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day

Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day is a worthwhile blog to visit regularly. It has a daily item of e-learning interest. Each item is short, precise and details a great resource. Visit it soon.

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Hope to hear from you soon :-)