Books Go Super-Interactive.

Do you love to read? I certainly do, though I unfortunately don't carve out enough time during the day, or weekends to read a "handheld" paperback novel. I'm reading Stieg Larsson's "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo" and "Super Sad True Love Story" by Gary Schteyngart (considered to be a 21st c satire, akin to Orwell's 1984).

For teens and young adult readers, there are a lot of interactive literacy opportunities. Stories go live online, or you can connect to your character through their twitter or facebook accounts....wow.

Here's a few new transmedia interactive literacy opportunities to check out:
Skeleton Creek interactive book series. Ryan is recovering from an accident, and writes in his journa while doing so. He gets emails from his friend Sarah who posts video clips which readers can access by entering passords found throughout the book.

Cathy's Book: If Found, Call 650-266-8233 is one of a series of books by Sean Stewart and Jason Weisman cotains an evidence packet along with a website for each book. The fictional character Cathy has facebook, flickr, and youtube accounts you can visit. There's even an iPhone App.

A web resource called DoubletalkWireless is available for fans to talk about the book.

Personal Effect: Dark Art is intended for mature teen and adult audiences. Written by JC Hutchins and Jordan Weisman, it introduces an interesting multi-media format. As a reader, explore Brinkvale Psychiatric Hospital to learn more about the staff. Get to know Zach Taylor, the main character through his MySpace page.

You can also see the work of his girlfriend, Rachel, and read New York Journal Ledger news clips related to the book here.

The Selected Works of TS Spivet by Reif Larson is an example of imaginitive writing combined with a unique presentation style. It would be of interest to high level middle school and high school readers. Check out the website here, to extend your reading experience.

There are just some of the exciting transmedia reading opportunities for teens and young adults. Transmedia really began with radio readings, movies, and made or TV adaptations. The media is interactive and therefore naturally extends to social media so readers can participate in the experience.

Note: content attributed to Teacher-Librarian Magazine (June 2010 issue)

Warning: These Sites Can Be Addictive.

Ever come across a site so addictive that you spend a bundle of your precious time on it, exploring, clicking, learning, and thinking? This is just what happened when I came across these two sites that I simply had to tell you about:

1. Geocube is a 3D virtual cube. When you click any side, it spins, and offers you choices in the blocks for any theme or topic on geography. This is no boring geography cube: you can learn about social displacement, environmental impact, geopolitics, and resource scarcity. A must try for both Sustainable Resources and Social Studies buff alike (though you

certainly don't have to be one!)

2. "Out of My Window" is an interactive peek into several of the world's highrise apartment windows. Inside, you'll see how people live their lives in some of the great cities of the world, including Johannessburg, Sao Paulo, Montreal, and much more. The lives are fascinating, funny, and in many cases tragic. A documentary is behind the site, so check it out; it promises to be more captivating than the online presence. See the trailer here.

All I Want for Christmas...

This week, I created about 20 new WIFI accounts for students who got a personal digital device for Christmas. Some of them even earned the money themselves, and bought one; some were given one by their grandparents who also bought one for themselves.
I'm talking about iPod touches, mainly, a few iPhones, 1 iPad, and two netbooks or laptops. Wow. When we're talking about buying devices for schools, and I see so many kids who have them in their hands, doesn't it make sense to use that handheld device for something other than entertainment?

How many of you have downloaded apps that relate to any of your classes, or help you get organized for your learning? How many of your teachers ask you to use your devices in class to help you learn (even if it's in partners, since let's face it, not everyone has one, or has to have one). It seems a shame that we don't use devices that have more brainpower than the first manned rocket sent to the moon in 1967.

If you're wondering how to use your iPod-whatever for something other than facebook and music or games (and that's not a bad thing!), then come in and see us in the LMC. We've got app manuals, we can talk to you about some cool apps to download, iTunes content beyond just tunes, and we have a few iPods ourselves that we can lend to you for class use (learning, that is!).