Listening to Books

Neil Gaiman has a great little piece on NPR about his love of audio books. I love them too. I couldn't still be in my book club and be working on a graduate degree if it weren't for the occasional audio book to get me through.

"But you can read them faster than you can listen to them," my wife said. True, but not while driving, folding laundry, or doing other household chores.

Gaiman makes a great point about the importance of the right reader. It's true that it can be an issue. There are books that lend themselves to certain voices better than others. But on the whole I've been very happy. I still enjoy reading books, but I'm now a big fan of audio books as well. I'll be re-listening to Holidays On Ice for my book club this month. Sedaris is a master of the form.

By the way, Neil Gaiman will be here in the Atlanta area at my favorite children's book store. I recommend it--he's great live. Though I doubt I'll stand in what I imagine will be a very long line to get a book signed...

Actually, he won't be in that book store. Too many people are coming. They're holding it at the near by Agnes Scott campus. Check the link for details.

Thanky

Thanks, Mom, for taking this picture of me being there to catch Harper as she took her first big leap off the diving board this summer.

I'm taking a big leap myself (hence the sporadic-at-best posting). I'm in the final four or five month push on my graduate program to be that coolest of all things: a teacher-librarian!

Thanks to all of my family, friends and neighbors for their support. Thanks to the great program and professors at UGA. Thanks especially to my cohort and the members of my teams. They rock my world.

Thanks to all of you who read, comment and inspire. I learn so much from you and it's great to be in this circle of bloggers, parents, teachers, and other teacher-librarians. It keeps me going and I hope to offer much more after graduation.

It's been a crazy year. A flood, a car wreck, all kinds of silliness.

It never stopped me for a moment because of all the wonderful people in my life.

Particularly, My Lovely Bride who makes it all possible and is the best partner, mom, teacher, and friend anyone could have.

Thanks.

Have a good one!

H1N1 Special Report

Over at The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, the host, neurologist Dr. Steven Novella has done a special report with three other medical experts giving you 47 minutes of education on what you really need to know about the H1N1 flu pandemic.

These guys know what they're talking about, are on the front lines of this flu, and have a wealth of knowledge to share. It's worth checking out.

The Arrival Onstage

The Arrival as a stage play!?! Now playing Down Under. I certainly hope someone brings it here to the United States. It sounds magical. It would make a great animated film as well, but I'm sure Mr. Tan has had enough of it--it took him over four years to produce this fantastic book. A film of it would double that, I'm sure.

Roundup of Awesome Stuff

My Wonderful World is a fantastic site put out by National Geographic to give us parents and teachers better geography resources. Pass it on.

The Book Whisperer has a post on a great use on a Ning in a classroom. Ironically, Ning.com is blocked in my district. Oh, well. Maybe you can try it.

Awful Library Books was on TV recently and now I have another fun blog to follow.

I also just discovered The Moth podcast. Perfect for my commute. Now I have another podcast I can't get enough of!

Posterity

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is asking what authors you think will stand the test of time and what books you think will still be read in a hundred years.

To last that long, a book really needs to be timeless. One interesting thing I've noticed is that while not wildly popular, poetry seems to have good staying power. I think some Seamus Heaney is sure to last.

Nonfiction is harder, especially science. It changes so quickly that unless it's on a big subject or extremely well-written, little of it lasts. Luckily for us, Richard Dawkins tackles one of the biggest and best subjects ever with evolutionary biology and writes in a clear and compelling way. The Selfish Gene has already lasted

over thirty years and shows no signs of slowing down. With poetic description, dazzling arguments, and an inspiring passion for the subject, I think his biology books will definitely stand the test of time.

Fiction is a bit easier. I have two authors I'm sure will be read for awhile. One American and one English. They both build on the style and tropes of their countrymen, but push the envelope even further.

Cormac McCarthy is a master and I would argue that Blood Meridian is the great (yet dark and terrifying) American novel.

Philip Pullman has carved out his place with one of the great fantasy series of all time. The His Dark Materials stories are staggering in scope, imagination, and emotional impact and Lyra Belacqua is definitely a heroine for the ages.

Is That A Book I n Your Pocket?

Today's NYT has an article, Library In Your Pocket, about some people preferring to read their ebooks on their smart phones rather than buying a separate device for the purpose. Of course, I don't really care as long as they're reading but it is interesting to watch how this plays out. I'm thinking as computers get smaller and phones get more complicated, they'll basically become the same thing. So it's not really an either/or proposition. Well, it might be now, yet all the ebooks in the world are still a spit in the bucket compared to sale of actual, physical books.

But I can certainly see the attraction of having a few books on a phone. I almost always have my phone and I can see how it would be convenient to whip it out and scroll through a few lines as I'm waiting for the dentist or whatever. Of course, I have the simplest phone and usually carry around a book or magazine instead, so who am I to talk? Or my iPod. I don love listening to podcasts while out and about...

Catch the Wave?

This was written for the Georgia Library Media Association.

Empowering Learners encourages us to become early adopters of digital sources of information to better serve our stakeholders. I’ve never considered myself a “tech” person but have always liked to stay relatively current and aware of the exciting and ever-changing digital landscape. I blog, I wiki, I can hold my own in a discussion of cloud computing or mashups or whatever. But I’ve never considered myself an early adopter. I didn’t get a DVD player until the price came down and it was easier to rent a DVD than a VHS. I didn’t get a Gmail until 2005. My blog archive only goes back to 2007. I was a late adopter (and early abandoner) of Twitter.

But now I feel all special and “early adopter”-ish with my invitation to Google’s new digital platform, Wave.

I know, I know, some of you are saying “Huh? What’s that?” and a few might be saying, “I want in!”

Well, for those who don’t know I’ll explain a bit about it and what I think it’s going to be good for, but for those desperate others, don’t get too excited just yet.

Google Wave is in “preview” mode which is even earlier than “beta.” They say it’s their idea of what email would be like if someone were to invent email now rather than 40 years ago. It’s part email, part chat, part wiki.

There’s good and there’s bad.

The bad is that if you get an invite you may sign in and find there’s nobody else in your contact list available to “wave” with you and it can seem like a big lonely place. I’m sure that’ll be corrected as soon as they’ve tweaked it and are ready to roll it out to the public. But there are ways to get into the water, as it were, and soon enough you’ll find yourself figuring things out.

The other drawback to instant domination is that it’s not as immediately intuitive as, say, blogging or most social networking sites. With those you sign up, create a profile, and you’re off. With Wave, you would do well to read something like this which can give you the what’s what on the best way to get around. Yes, that’s an online book that will probably be updated constantly as the bugs in the system are worked out. But unlike most other platforms, Wave isn’t strictly chronological, so it takes a bit of a different mindset than a straightforward up and down list of posts or emails. At it’s best, it’s the best parts of the powerful collaboration tools you’ve been using online. At worst, it’s the worst parts of online chat and discussion forums.

So if you’re still reading, you’re probably asking what’s the good and why should teacher-librarians care?

The good is that when you get it going for you, you realize that this will be a fantastic collaborative tool on many levels and that’s what we are all about. It will blow some current tools out of the water.

When you open it up, it looks kinda like an email platform. You have an inbox and folders. You have contacts. You can use it like email, click on one of your contacts, type a message and send it. They can respond. But instead of separate emails, this “wave” can go on and on as long as you like. And if your friend is online at the same time you are it’s like instant chat. And I do mean instant because you can see each other type and edit live. No more “X is typing” messages as you listen to the clock tick. But it gets better because you can start a wave with one person and start collaborating on, say, a document. Then you can add another contact and they instantly have access to the entire wave and can immediately collaborate. So now it’s like email and/or chat and/or online document collaboration and/or a wiki all at the same time.

You think back-channeling at the AASL conference was cool with Twitter? Just wait until you have the ability to do a wave instead. I don’t have a Twitter account, but I wanted to see what I’d missed so I went there and did a search on #aasl2009 and scrolled through pages and pages of interesting but incredibly repetitive tweets and retweets. With wave a presenter could throw up a wave, and you could all collaborate, take notes, comment on and edit the entire thing live. As it’s happening. And keep it for future use or collaboration. No, really. Check out this post for more on that.

But that scenario won’t happen until Google Wave is out of Preview and at least up to Beta. So don’t rush into it yet unless you don’t mind a little mess and confusion. But do keep it on your radar so when it comes to you, you can be ready to catch the Wave.

Learning for ALL Students

In response to this article in USA Today, "NSSE changes how colleges judge success, weakness," Priscilla Gutierrez has this to say:

"How ironic that the five keys to learning identified as critical to college-level learning (i.e. academic challenge, active/collaborative learning, student/faculty interaction, enriching experiences, and a supportive environment) are the very same keys to learning for ALL students.

The irony is that Arne Duncan and the Department of Ed don't seem interested in how students actually learn. Rather they are only interested in the pseudo-accountability of what looks good on paper."

BAM! POW!

(via S. D. Krashen's mailing list)

Corey, The Short Pirate

Another fun cover project from 100 Scope Notes.

Happy Carl Sagan Day!

Here's the official site. Fitting that it's during the International Year of Astronomy. I loved the guy. He wrote one of my favorite books. You've probably heard the following speech, but that's ok. It won't hurt to hear it again. Enjoy.

Edwin Mullhouse

Booking Through Thursday's question this week is about biography/autobiography.

If you really like biographies or autobiographies than you might want to avoid this treasure of a novel. The full title is Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffry Cartwright by Steven Millhauser.

It's an amazing piece of fiction with soaring intellect, humor, and postmodern touches. Ok, maybe more than touches of postmodernism.

It's actually quite a wonderful depiction of childhood in the late 40s-early 50s but it is also a razor sharp satire of the biographical form. You'll never read another biography the same way again. And you'll learn more about writing than most creative writing classes out there.

Happy 40th Sesame Street!

Sesame Street

Sesame Street/PBS Kids

SesameWorkshop.org

Yes, I've grown up with these guys and can still, every once in a while, convince my daughter to watch it with me. When she gives up on it I'll have to find another excuse...

Distraction Devices?

Doug Johnson would like to know: "How do we deal with the distractive qualities of technology in schools?" Go to his post and answer him if you've got a good one. I'm sure it depends on if it's elementary, middle, high, or college and beyond. Different ages and technologies would lend themselves to different distractions. I've noticed this is true even without technology.

There's also the worry that the internet and all this texting and chatting and tweeting are all cutting us off from the real live, face to face people and groups in front of us. We're old to "get a first life."

But check out this great nine minute video from TED talks. It's sociologist Stephana Broadbent on how technology actually enables intimacy rather than putting us in our own little bubbles.

Now I know this isn't the same as the school distraction issue, but I think if we were a bit more open to allowing the technological chips fall where they may, we might find it's not as bad as we think it will be. I'm sure there are students using their cellphones to buy or sell drugs or whatever. however, I don't think banning cellphones is the answer. Maybe banning that kid's cell phone. But I'm also sure s/he is clever enough to use another. You may be shocked to know that I was aware of the occasional drug purchase at my own high school back in the days before cell phones and pagers. It didn't seem to be a problem to the truly motivated.

Going to graduate school for me (this time around) has been an interesting experience. This is the first time I've sat through classes in which everyone had their laptops out. Some professors apparently ban this practice. But tell me, if everyone in the class has no laptop or cell or anything other than a paper and a pencil to take notes with, how can you tell they're still not tuning you out? I know I did. I don't need a laptop with twenty-eight tabs open on my browser to zone out when you start to drone on.

It's not a competition either. I hear that one a lot too. "We have to compete with_____" (video games, texting, social networks, etc.) No. Like Ms. Broadbent points out., most of the people are probably going to quickly check on someone in their immediate circle and get back to the business of class. Like I said, this is new to me as well. I was surprised to see someone in one of my classes checking the score of a college ballgame during class last year. Then I thought, hey, s/he's more likely to pay attention now that that itch of curiosity has been scratched.

What do you think?

(image cc wikimedia)