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Book Reviews Book title: Digitisation Perspectives Type: book Author: Ruth Rikowski Year: 2010 Edition: 1st ISBN: 9460912982 Publisher: Sense Publishers Publisher's Description: This book examines various views and perspectives on digitisation. As Simon Tanner, Director Digital Consultancy, King's College London says in the Foreword: "Digitisation has become a cultural, scholastic, economic and political imperative and raises many issues for our consideration." Furthermore, that the book: "...seeks to address and answer some of the big questions of digitisation... It succeeds on many levels..." There are 22 contributors in the book, all experts in their fields. The book is divided into six parts: Part 1: 'Background and Overview to Digitisation and Digital Libraries' Part 2: 'Digitisation and Higher Education' Part 3: 'Digitisation and Inequalities' Part 4: 'Digital Libraries, Reference Services and Citation Indexing' Part 5: 'Digitisation of Rare, Valued and Scholarly Works' Part 6: 'Futuristic Developments of Digitisation' Topics covered include electronic theses, search engine technology, digitisation in Africa, citation indexing, reference services, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, new media and scholarly publishing. The final chapter explores virtual libraries, and poses some interesting questions for possible futures. The book will be of particular interest to information professionals, educators, librarians, academics and I.T. and knowledge experts. Ruth Rikowski concludes by indicating that: "...hopefully, the book will provide a source of inspiration for further research, leading to some more effective ways to proceed with the digitisation process. Also, that it will be possible to do this within a framework that can be used for good rather than ill, and for the benefit of many." Reviewer: Eric Jukes (Formerly of College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London) Book Rating: 5/5 Buy this book from Amazon  Review Summary

Spoken Tutorial aims to promote IT literacy, improve employment and to help bridge the digital divide. It is an initiative by the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) launched by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), Government of India.

I'm a so-so fan of Skype. I've used it on an infrequent basis and have had more than a few dropped calls. Audio and video alike. However, it's a cheap way to make long distance calls and seems to work better over wi-fi and the video quality is improving on a regular basis. So therefore it's probably a great tool for the classroom. But how can you use Skype to do more than just make calls? Well, there's a pantload of interesting ways! Check out these fun ideas: Collaborate! Meet with other classrooms: One of the most common projects educators utilize Skype for is setting up exchanges with classrooms around the world, usually for cultural exchange purposes or working together on a common assignment. The program's official site provides some great opportunities to meet up with like-minded teachers and students sharing the same goals. Practice a foreign language: Connect with individual learners or classrooms hailing from a different native tongue can use a Skype collaboration to sharpen grammar and pronunciation skills through conversation. Peace One Day: Far beyond classroom collaborations, the Peace One Day initiative teamed up with Skype itself and educators across the globe to teach kids about the importance of ending violence, war, and other social ills. Around the World with 80 Schools: This challenge asks participating schools to hook up with 80 worldwide and report back what all they've learned about other cultures and languages. Talk about the weather: One popular Skype project sees participants from different regions make note of the weather patterns for a specified period of time, with students comparing and contrasting the results. Collaborative poetry: In this assignment, connected classrooms pen poetic pieces together and share them via video conferencing. Practice interviews: The education system frequently receives criticism for its failure to prepare students for the real world, but using Skype to help them run through mock-up

"This graphic, http://www.minitex.umn.edu/Communications/Director/ shows the journey of a student from pre-kindergarten through the K-12 educational system and either into the workforce or on to a higher education institution. Along the way, school, academic, and public libraries are all available to provide services to the student and parents in support of learning and information literacy. This graphic was developed after attendance at various P-20 meetings where it seemed important to show that libraries play an important role throughout the life of students and adults. Minnesota libraries collaborate in sharing services and resources. Once in the workforce, information continues to be available through the public library for lifelong learning and recreation activities. Role of Libraries Pre-K & Beyond: Lifelong Learning - http://www.minitex.umn.edu/Communications/Director/RoleLibraries.pdf

The poetry Foundation site is a great place to find poems and information about the world's most famous poets Also, download the Poetry Foundation App for iPhone and Android handsets at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/mobile/ to get a great collection of poetry and information to use in your class. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English

Get children into the habit of structuring their formal letters correctly by using this template which prompts for information when required. There is no spell-checker available, so children will need to rely on a good old fashioned dictionary. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English