Virtual Bonfire with Crackling Fire Sounds

Instant campfire ambiance

http://safeshare.tv/w/dFBMEKNfCc

Are you looking for a way to create more ambiance when sharing First People's stories and legends? Do you want to bring a more intimate and connected feeling to the group? Gathering in a circle is part of setting the scene, but gathering around a campfire can make for an even more meaningful experience.

I recently retold a First Nations story about Glooskap to a group of preservice teachers. We turned off the lights, drew the blinds and gathered in a circle. I also set up a little pyramid of three back-to-back ipads in the center of the circle with a clip of an outdoors campfire burning, complete with snapping and crackling sounds. It made all the difference. (Make sure to select full-screen for the video-clip - it looks quite real!)

(It also works for campfire songs!)

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Christian Boer’s "Dyslexie" is a typeface for people with dyslexia.

Makes reading clearer and more enjoyable

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/11/10/christian_boer_s_dyslexie_is_a_typeface_for_dyslexics.html

"Dutch designer Christian Boer [has] created a dyslexic-friendly font to make reading easier for people with dyslexia, like himself. Designed to make reading clearer and more enjoyable for people with dyslexia, Dyslexie uses heavy base lines, alternating stick and tail lengths, larger openings, and semicursive slants to ensure that each character has a unique and more easily recognizable form."

He has recently made it available for home users to download for free.

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Google Ngram Viewer

Who said what when?

https://books.google.com/ngrams

Ever wonder when a phrase made it into written use? Enter a word or phrase (or two or three) and see how popular the item was over time. You can even click on the date range and see titles, and snippet view of works that feature your search phrase.

"When you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books (e.g., "British English", "English Fiction", "French") over the selected years. "

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Red Cedar & Stellar Award website open!

Read, rank, review, and discuss your favourite nominees

http://stellaraward.bclibraries.ca

http://www.redcedaraward.ca

 

Registration is now open for the Red Cedar and Stellar Book Awards!

Get your readers together and register your club!

Red Cedar Award website:  http://www.redcedaraward.ca/ (for best viewing try in Firefox!)

(Activity sheets will be added shortly – please feel free to send any of your own creations to redcedaraward@gmail.com to share with the rest of the clubs out there!)

Stellar Award website:  http://stellaraward.bclibraries.ca/

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Middle Shelf digital magazine - by Shelf Unbound

Interviews with authors and illustrators, book reviews, excerpts, and more

http://issuu.com/middleshelf

http://issuu.com/middleshelf/docs/middle_shelf_september-october_2014

Read online, via laptop or iPad.

"Middle Shelf curates the best fiction and non-fiction books for readers 8 to 14. Read by parents, teachers, and librarians as well as kids, visually dynamic Middle Shelf features interviews with authors and illustrators, book reviews, excerpts, and more. Since launching in 2013, Middle Shelf has received more than 400,000 impressions on the digital newsstand and is a 2014 Maggie Award Finalist for Best Digital-Only Magazine."

"Everything is a Remix"

The old is made new again

http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/

"Everything is a Remix" is a multi-part series produced Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker. He offers many insightful observations on the role of remixing existing material in pop culture.

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Being skeptical when presented with information (Gr5-9)

Check the credibility and adequacy of textual and visual information

http://tc2.ca/uploads/PDFs/TIpsForTeachers/Raising_doubts_Tutorial.pdf

"With the "Raising doubts: Tools for Thought" tutorial (download link above), students (Targeted grades: 5-9) learn how to be skeptical when presented with information, and to differentiate between cynicism and raising doubts. They learn to generate probing questions about the credibility and adequacy of textual and visual information. The tutorial includes instructional suggestions for teachers, student resources and samples as well as a self-assessment rubric."

Find out more about the Tools for Thought collection.

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Sharing Social Media as a Family

The joys and perils of...social media

http://mediasmarts.ca/blog/sharing-social-media-family

Andrea Tomkins writes about her family's approach:

"I think every kid should know how to swim. It's one of those crucial life skills that must be in everyone's arsenal. [...] Our kids learned that water is fun, but also dangerous, and we told them they had to be careful around water. [...] I think our approach to social media should be the same as it is for swimming. Shouldn't we teach our kids about the joys and the perils of it, instead of just tossing them in and hoping they can keep their heads up above water – swim, not sink?"

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