The Future of School Libraries and an Interview

I have been remiss about blogging as of late, however I briefly wanted to mention two things.  The first being a contribution I made to the ebook School Libraries:  What's Now, What's Next, What's Yet to Come.
This crowdsourced collection contains over 100 essays around the world about school libraries written by librarians, teachers, publishers, and library vendors. Edited by Kristin Fontichiaro and Buffy Hamilton, who describe the work as including diverse perspectives on where school libraries are and what school librarians are doing to redefine, stretch, and expand traditional services.  This book is available for free download in three formats:

• PDF for those who want to read it on a desktop/laptop
• .mobi for those who want to read it on Kindle software or a Kindle device
• .epub for those who would like to read it on Adobe Digital Editions software, iBooks, Sony Reader, the Bluefire Reader app, Nook, and most other eReaders

My piece is in the chapter titled Emerging and Multiple Literacies and is about transmedia storytelling.  The piece begins:

"Truly pivotal moments in teaching come along when you least expect them, and in hindsight you realize that those transformational moments will forever shape who you are as an educator.  One such moment occurred for me more than a decade into my teaching career and was sparked off by my involvement in the online digital novel Inanimate Alice (http://inanimatealice.com)."

The second thing I wanted to mention was a recent interview I was lucky enough to be asked to do for Lucas Johnson's blog at Silverstring Media.  Here is the introduction to the interview:

" I don’t think it’s a controversial stance to say that our education systems need help, especially with digital technology advancing so quickly. Well, Laura Fleming is the kind of teacher I would have loved in school. She truly understands how education can be improved — and implements it in her own classroom every day, using transmedia storytelling methodology to weave curricula together across subjects and engage her students in ways mere textbooks simply don’t. She’s also involved in Lance Weiler’s Robot Heart Stories — and was kind enough to answer some questions for me."

The entire interview can be found here.  Thank you to Lucas for the opportunity.