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In April 2012, Softlink conducted the third annual Australian School Library Survey. This paper outlines the findings from the 2012 Softlink School Library Survey into Australian school library budgets, qualified staffing levels and NAPLAN literacy results. Principal findings from the 2012 Softlink Australian School Library Survey include:  There is a positive relationship between well-resourced libraries and higher student literacy outcomes  School library resourcing is inconsistent across school type (primary, secondary, P-12) and education provider (Government, Catholic, Independent)  The majority of school libraries had no change in budgets in the past 12 months  Very few school libraries received additional resources for implementing the National Curriculum  Staffing levels remained unchanged for the majority of school libraries during the past 12 months  There is a strong intention to purchase eBooks in the coming year  Mobile technology (iPod, iPad, smart phone and tablet) use by students is widespread across all school types and education providers and is having a greater impact on the role of the school library  Access to resources outside of the library is considered important by 75% of teacher librarians  80% of all teacher librarians understand the need to integrate with their Learning Management System but only 43% have done so  Teacher Librarians see opportunities to remain relevant and current to staff and students through embracing eBooks and mobile technology  Challenges continue to be: gaining funding, finding a balance between the physical and digital collection, collaboration with teaching staff and the recognition of Teacher Librarian's skills and their evolving role The outcomes from the 2012 survey again show the correlation between school library budgets and literacy levels. This link between funding and literacy is an issue facing schools and their libraries worldwide.

Australia's National Year of Reading 2012 starts here, with the opportunity for you to vote for the book that you think should represent your state or territory as one of the eight on our national recommended reading list for 2012. You can help decide the eight books that are the National Year of Reading 2012 collection.

An introductory guide to iPads for Teachers Posted on Apr 3, 2012 in iPads and Tablets, Useful

A colleague of mine recently shard these 10 great ideas to impove literacy skills in the classroom. They are simple to play and can be applied to nearly all year levesl. Enjoy.

A few years ago I wrote about using CAPL (Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon) as a resource for locating images to use in language lessons. Over the weekend Larry Ferlazzo wrote about CAPL's Pictolang service which prompted me to look at it again. CAPL now supports thirteen languages. Browse through the CAPL collection if you're looking for images to use in a world languages lesson. To find a Creative Commons licensed image to use in your lessons visit CAPL, click browse, then select your language to search for images that represent common words in that language. Pictolang is a CAPL service that offers four image-based language learning activities. The Visual Word Trainer is simply a flashcard activity that shows students an image and the word or words that picture represents. The Picture Match Game shows students one word and they have to find the picture to match it. Word Match Game shows students one picture and they have to find the word to match it. The Analyst Game is probably the most challenging of the activities. The Analyst Game shows students a picture and they have to identify where that picture came from.

Why Picture Books Are Important by Jackie French Picture books are "twofers" - two for one. You have the story in words, and in pictures too, but never quite the same story, so it's richer than either text or pictures alone. But mostly, picture books are magic. In a picture book, turning every page is a new adventure. Every page is a smile.

* It develops creativity and critical thinking * Students who are shy or afraid to talk in class get a chance to speak out their minds * It empowers students voice to deliver rich, deep message that is capable of conveying a powerful message. * It helps students explore the meaning of their own experience, give value to it, and communicate that experience with others. *It promotes the notions of life long learning and independent learning * It develops students communicative skills * It is a reflective process that helps students reflect upon their learning and find deep connections with the subject matter of a course or with an out-of-class experience. * It fosters students sense of individuality * It also gives students an opportunity to experiment with self-representation and establish their identity *Students creating digital stories develop proficiency with multimedia applications

"After weeks of buildup, the Department of Justice sued Apple and five book publishers today and accused them of conspiring to set e-book prices. This is a big story and publishers, consumers and retailers may see the ramifications of today's lawsuit for months or even years to come. Here's what you need to know now."

@karenfalcs: 21st Century Tools Through the Lens of Bloom's Taxonomy http://t.co/9wIH1vE7 via @skrabut #edtech #edchat #teaching #rcjs #ibpyp #gtchat

"Citing resources is an important skill for the 21st century students and for any other learner or researcher. I have already included it in my ebook " The 21St Century Skills Teachers and Students Need to Have ". It is a fact universally acknowledged that citing resources nowadays is way harder than it used to be when technology was not a huge issue."

101 Digital Tools for the 21st Century Classroom Just what we need, another 101 list. This is the part where I attempt to convince you that this one is different. Friend and colleague Kyle Wood (@jkylewood) and I wanted to make a different kind of list, a list not just of tools people mentioned on twitter or we saw on wikis, but a list of solid educational tools that we have personally tested in an actual educational setting! The list was created as a component for a conference we are presenting at this summer. Below is the Google Presentation that we planned to use with the list. You are welcome to use it as you see fit. If you reuse/modify the list or presentation, please give attribution.

The following is a guest blog post by Dr. Greg Farley. Greg is the Director of Technology at Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District and an Adjunct Professor and course developer at the Graduate Schools of Education at Monmouth University and Drew University. Greg also conducts workshops at K-12 schools and universities and mentors doctoral students and administrators in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Check out his blog Embrace, Adapt, Enhance. I visited Eric's High School on February 24th to observe Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and his implementation of a contemporary learning environment. I was impressed. I was most impressed at Eric's reflection that he was once part of the problem, banning devices from his school rather then embracing the use of the technology. That has changed and Eric trusts his students to interact responsibly with media and communication tools. These expectations are being met by staff and students.

As a Visual Bookmarking tool - As an addicted Delicious user, I'm pretty amazed by the easiness of moving from one platform to another after so many years of becoming accustomed to the former one. But it is not anything like Delicious. The visual bookmarking concept is something else entirely for me. For daily links from tech blogs that I see and like, I mostly use the +1 button (to save everything as a list in my Google+ profile), but anything that looks good, and I know I will remember based on a visual memory and category, goes inside one of the albums I've created in Pinterest. And, I love that it can be DIY content that you created (such as food or craft photos that you can upload) along with content you find around the web.

Dear Savvy Searcher, My students keep wanting to enter their entire research question into the search bar. I keep trying to tell them that's a bad idea. How do you teach students to identify the right words to use in a search? Frustrated Educator