Blog post 5: Review an electronic resource about delivering services to children or young adults – Asian Young People’s Book Awards

1. A detailed description of the activity undertaken:

A new young people’s book award has recently been set up in Hong Kong – the Golden Dragon Book Award. I decided to review the website supporting the award and to compare and contrast that with the websites supporting the other young people’s book awards in Asia, namely the Panda Book Awards (China), Red Dot Book Awards (Singapore) and the Sakura Medal (Japan). What all these book awards have in common is that they have been created for young people attending International Schools, and they therefore feature English Language Books, not necessarily the language of the “host” country of the award, except for the Sakura Medal, which has Japanese books.

	Golden Dragon Book Awards	Panda Book Awards	Red Dot Book Awards	Sakura Medal
URL	http://www.hkgoldendragonawards.org/	http://pandabookawards.wikispaces.com/	http://www.reddotawards.com/	http://www.sakuramedal.com/sakura-medal.html
Type of site	Weebly	Wikispace	Google Sites	Weebly
Country	Hong Kong	China	Singapore	Japan
Founders/Run by	Association of Librarians in English Speaking Schools (ALESS) in Hong Kong	International librarians throughout China	International school librarians Network (ISLN) in Singapore	Librarians from international schools
Year Started	2014	2009	2009	2006
Categories	Four  (ages 4-6; 7- 10; 11-14; 15-18)	Four  (Younger Readers; Middle Readers; Older Readers; Mature Readers)	Four  (Early Years; Younger Readers; Older Readers; Mature Readers)	Nine  (Picture Books; Graphic Novels; Chapter Books; Middle School; High School; Japanese Picture Books; Japanese Chapter Books; Japanese Middle School; and Japanese High School)
# Schools	Not mentioned	32	Not mentioned	20
# Students	Not mentioned	Not mentioned	Not mentioned	15,000
Criteria	Not mentioned	No more than 2 years old	Published in English in the last 4 years	No more than 2 years old
Long List	8 books per category	8-10 books per category	8 books per category	25-30 books per category
Resources	Promotional Material including Brochures, Stickers, Book ordering, video, slideshow	Posters and bookmarks	Promotion materials including: voting posters, category posters, stickers for books and badges, bookmarks, printers for big posters, videos / slideshows / images	Downloadable posters
Interactive elements	Not on site – see social media	None	Not on site – see social media	Commenting allowed on site (moderated)
Related competition?	Hong Kong Battle of the Books	None	Readers’ Cup	None
Related social media	Twitter, Facebook	None	Twitter, Goodreads, Diigo group	Flickr

The first thing that strikes one is that the websites are fairly comprehensive, but are very much geared toward the librarian rather than the students. Resources are geared towards promotional material such as brochures, stickers and bookmarks.  The Golden Dragon and Red Dot sites had some videos, slideshows and images, however it was not apparent that these were created for students or for the teacher / librarian. Further, none of the sites had any real interactive elements, where available, these were taken “off-site” to Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook or Diigo – again these elements were geared mainly to the teacher / librarian rather than the students.

The nominations or selections for the long-lists was not explicit on any of the sites but appears to be something done by a committee, whereas the voting for the award winners occurs physically at the various schools by the pupils with a variety of criteria (such as students having read a number of the books).

2. Answers to the following questions:

What did you learn?

A website that serves teachers / librarians indirectly is a resource for children or young adults inasmuch as it supports them in delivering a service - in this case access to recent, high quality books as part of a book award selection process.

How was the activity relevant to your professional practice?

In my practice I will probably assist with either the nomination or selection of a long list as well as with the promotion of long-list books and the encouraging of students to read. 

Were any gaps in your knowledge revealed? How might you fill those gaps?

Comparing different awards in Asia has allowed me to reflect on the award we run in Singapore and particularly to consider how sites could be made more interactive and more relevant to our students, not just indirectly through helping the teacher / librarians but more directly.

3. References

About - Golden Dragon Book Awards. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://www.hkgoldendragonawards.org/about.html

Panda Book Awards - home. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://pandabookawards.wikispaces.com/

Red Dot Book Awards 2013-2014. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://www.reddotawards.com/home

Sakura Medal  - Sakuramedal. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://www.sakuramedal.com/sakura-medal.html

Assessment item 7: Blog 4 - Electronic media and the nature of the story

Electronic media are not simply changing the way we tell stories: they’re changing the very nature of story, or what we understand (or do not understand) to be narratives. To what extent is this true?

From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6E8jpFasR0

Many authors have argued that storytelling is intrinsic to humanity (Schank & Abelson, 1995) and part of memory and learning. And yet for some reason it appears to me that storytelling had something of a hiatus in the last century, perhaps as a side effect of the post war modern corporate life, the emphasis on the scientific method and the space race. However the proliferation of research, writings and talks on the power of storytelling in all aspects of life from the scientific (Bailey, 2013) to the corporate (Gottschall, 2012) to education (Matthews, 2014)  and everything in-between hints that storytelling is once again coming into its own (Pettitt, Donaldson, & Paradis, 2010; Sauerberg, 2009).  Whether electronic media is a cause or an effect of this or whether it is just part of the zeitgeist is something we will only know in hindsight.

What we traditionally understand to be narrative consists of a storyteller, an audience and the narrative elements of a hero, a problem, an antagonist, tasks, a turning point and an outcome (Alexander, 2011).   How electronic media is changing the nature of this is by broadening the concept of who is the storyteller. Once a digital narrative moves beyond being a story delivered electronically as in an eBook, or as a movie, but streamed or available digitally and goes to being an interactive “event” in which the distinction between the storyteller and the audience blurs and is interchangeable, one can talk about the nature of the narrative being changed by the media and its affordances. The creator becomes an initiator and the audience becomes collaborators and co-creators.  The question then is whether one can still find the narrative elements back in this new hybrid creation? Does the participation of many voices enhance or hamper the profundity, meaning and emotion at the root of the narrative?  Does engagement and involvement and participation equate to the “wisdom of crowds” or does it result in a “lowest common denominator” product?  Are we moving from a period of finite works of infinite genius to infinite works of dubious merit (Pickett, 1986) -  albeit a series of very clever and networked and buzzed works.

Another matter in all of this that is somewhat bothering me is the way in which the “science” of storytelling and its capacity to capture attention and emotion in its audience is being (ab)used for commercial purposes or to manipulate audiences to create changes in political (Simsek, 2012), social (Burgess & Vivienne, 2013; LaRiviere, Snider, Stromberg, & O’Meara, 2012) or public sphere (Poletti, 2011).  Proponents would of course argue that the ends justify the means – but of course both sides of the debate have the same weapons in their arsenals (see the whole climate change narrative as an example of this), and as educators this makes our task of aiding the new generation of learners to be knowledgeable, discernable, informed and aware that much more important.

References:

Alexander, B. (2011). Storytelling: A tale of two generations (Chapter 1). In The new digital storytelling: creating narratives with new media (pp. 3–15). Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger.

Bailey, P. (2013, March 27). Science Writing: You need to know how to tell a good story [Web log]. Retrieved September 29, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/mar/27/penny-bailey-science-writing-wellcome

Burgess, J. E., & Vivienne, S. (2013). The remediation of the personal photograph and the politics of self-representation in digital story- telling. Journal of Material Culture, 18(3), 279–298. Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/62708/

Gottschall, J. (2012, May 2). Why Storytelling Is The Ultimate Weapon. Retrieved September 29, 2014, from http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680581/why-storytelling-is-the-ultimate-weapon

LaRiviere, K., Snider, J., Stromberg, A., & O’Meara, K. (2012). Protest: Critical lessons of using digital media for social change. About Campus, 17(3), 10–17. doi:10.1002/abc.21081

Matthews, J., RGN BSc PG Dip. (2014). Voices from the heart: the use of digital storytelling in education. Community Practitioner, 87(1), 28–30. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1474889132?accountid=10344

Pettitt, T., Donaldson, P., & Paradis, J. (2010, April 1). The Gutenberg Parenthesis: oral tradition and digital technologies. Retrieved August 29, 2014, from http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/gutenberg_parenthesis.html

Pickett, D. (1986). What is literature – established canon or popular taste? English Today, 2(01), 37. doi:10.1017/S0266078400001735

Poletti, A. (2011). Coaxing an intimate public: Life narrative in digital storytelling. Continuum, 25(1), 73–83. doi:10.1080/10304312.2010.506672

Sauerberg, L. O. (2009). The Encyclopedia and the Gutenberg Parenthesis. In Media in Transition 6: stone and papyrus, storage and transmission (pp. 1–13). Cambridge, MA, USA.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. P. (1995). Knowledge and Memory:  The Real Story. In R. S. Wyer (Ed.), Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story (Vol. VIII, pp. 1–85). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Retrieved from http://cogprints.org/636/1/KnowledgeMemory_SchankAbelson_d.html

Simsek, B. (2012). Using Digital Storytelling as a change agent for women’s participation in the Turkish Public Sphere (Doctor of Philosophy). Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia. Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/50894/1/Burcu_Simsek_Thesis.pdf

Blog post 4: Analysis of a peer-reviewed journal article - Censorship & Diversity

1. A detailed description of the activity undertaken

In July 2014 the Singapore National Library censored, removed and pulped all copies of three children’s books with a gay-theme (Lee, 2014; Vincent, 2014). This created quite a lot of news and brought to light the question of public interest and individual right of access to diverse material versus majority consensus and community values (Schrader, 2009; Weisman, 2009).

I wanted to read more about the impact of public opinion on censorship and how librarians could best understand and counteract attempts to remove books from the library, and therefore chose the article: “Removal of Gay-Themed Materials from Public Libraries: Public Opinion Trends, 1973-2006” (Burke, 2008) for review. 

In the article, the author examines data from the General Social Survey (GSS), in the USA over the indicated period, related to survey answers on the removal of a homosexually themed book, and attempts to relate this to other questions on demographic and geographic factors and personal belief.  She concludes that people are becoming less conservative viz a viz homosexuality and even if people do not believe homosexuality is wrong, they generally do not support the removal of gay-themed books and the trend is downwards in all groups. Higher educated and younger people were less likely to support removal and the largest variation in data was to be found in people from different religious backgrounds and between denominations, with people self-reporting stronger beliefs more likely to support removal.  Gender and political party affiliation was neutral.

In relation to the Singapore situation, the relationship between belief and supporting removal is the most relevant.  Singapore is known as a strongly religious community and it has been implied that political and social power is concentrated in conservative Christianity (Waipang, 2011).  It also appears that the books were removed under pressure from a targeted campaign originating in one of the religious organisations. 

2. Answers to the following questions:

What did you learn?

The most interesting finding from the article was that although people may not accept homosexuality, they still did not believe that books with homosexual themes should be removed from library collections and thereby not be accessible to those with lifestyles different to them.

How was the activity relevant to your professional practice?

Reading the article (Burke, 2008) and also reading related articles (Gutman, 2010; Lukenbill & Lukenbill, 2007; Schrader, 2009; Weisman, 2009) gave me a better insight into censorship challenges to books and the positive and professional duties of a librarian within the framework of ethics, inclusive service, access to information and guarding against discriminatory or censorship practices. 

Were any gaps in your knowledge revealed? How might you fill those gaps?

Until now I didn’t have a very clearly articulated view on censorship beyond the fact that I didn’t think it was appropriate. The articles I have read have given me some concrete strategies for dealing with challenges to books in the library as well as an opportunity to revisit our collection in the light of recommended books.

3. References

Burke, S. K. (2008). Removal of Gay‐Themed Materials from Public Libraries: Public Opinion Trends, 1973–2006. Public Library Quarterly, 27(3), 247–264. doi:10.1080/01616840802229552

Gutman, D. (2010). How I Corrupted America’s Youth. School Library Journal, 56(5), 28. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ulh&AN=50337475&site=ehost-live

Lee, P. (2014, July 13). 400 gather outside National Library for reading event in response to NLB’s removal of three books. Retrieved August 8, 2014, from http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/250-gather-outside-national-library-reading-event-respon

Lukenbill, W. B., & Lukenbill, J. F. (2007). Censorship: What Do School Library Specialists Really Know? A Consideration of Students’ Rights, the Law and Implications for a New Education Paradigm. School Library Media Research, 10.

Schrader, A. M. (2009). Challenging Silence, Challenging Censorship, Building Resilience: LGBTQ Services and Collections in Public, School and Post-Secondary Libraries. Feliciter, 55(3), 107–108.

Vincent, A. (2014, July 11). Singapore pulps childrens books about gay parenting [News report]. Retrieved August 8, 2014, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10961880/Singapore-pulps-childrens-books-about-gay-parenting.html

Waipang, A. (2011, August 6). Singapore’s religious landscape from Census 2010 [Weblog post]. Retrieved September 18, 2014, from http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/singapores-religious-landscape-from-census-2010/

Weisman, S. (2009). A Review of “Challenging Silence, Challenging Censorship”: Shrader, A. and Wells, K. (2007). Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Teachers, Federation. Journal of LGBT Youth, 6(1), 92–96. doi:10.1080/19361650802379805

Module 4.1: What questions or answers do you have in relation to digital storytelling?

What questions (or answers) have formed in your mind in relation to digital storytelling? How does social media fit into the mix for you? What are the most important connections to learning overall?

=================================

I guess my prime question after watching these extracts of digital storytelling is: "how the heck do they do it?"

In some cases, like the twitterature it is obvious, But when I was watching "<a href="http://pinepoint.nfb.ca/#/pinepoint" target="_blank">Welcome to PinePoint"</a> (Shoebottom and Simons, 2011) I really wanted them to tell me how to put something like that together, because it's exactly the type of thing I'd like to do.

So I guess it's that feeling of seeing something within grasp and realising its potential but not being able to catch hold of it and do something meaningful with it!

For me social media would be what I'd use to strew my "digital crumbs" and to leave me digital clues, as well as to provide a way for the audience to interact with the story, I particularly liked the summary of Locke & Ettinghausen on the 6 points of how we tell new stories;
1. Hide stories in unexpected places
2. Give yourself ridiculous constraints
3. Experiment outside your comfort zones
4. Invent a character without a storyline
5. Give fans stuff to play with
6. Create stories that people can binge on whenever they want" (Fora.TV, 2009)

References:

Fora.TV. (2009, September 23). Once Upon These Times: New Stories for New Audiences [Video file]. Retrieved from http://fora.tv/2009/09/23/Once_Upon_These_Times_New_Stories_for_New_Audiences
Shoebridge, P., & Simons, M. (2011). Welcome to PinePoint [Digital Novel]. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from http://pinepoint.nfb.ca/#/pinepoint

Assessment item 5: Blog task 3

Response comment to: Bec Spink - Reflecting on Digital Literature

I was most interested in your observations on incorporating digital literature in the classroom.  And yet, as I attempt to respond to your posting, after a few minutes of futile scrolling up and down as I tried to reply and refer back to what you have written, in an attempt to resist printing out your post in order to do this successfully (how did everyone else do this?) I have taken an interlude to email myself with my fellow student's blog post addresses and to open the posts on my iPad and with twisted neck and dual screens perched in discomfort I continue*.  And there lies the rub, that so many have hiccupped against - that lack of linearity, the unfamiliarity, the medium (Cull, 2011; Liu, Liao, & Guo, 2009; Nilsson, 2010; Skains, 2010; Walker, Jameson, & Ryan, 2010; Walsh, 2013).  That need to jump around, and while jumping find the train of thought has escaped, perhaps to be regained perhaps not.

I digress. I cannot avoid, you are right. But should I have tweeted my response? I just did. Because I could

"@MissB6_2 I have read and appreciate your "Reflecting on Digital Literature" we are getting there, but the journey is arduous. #INF533"

tweet to Bec

I see teachers all around me tweeting. But not to / with their students. I ask them about digital literature, and they look horrified. Too new, too experimental. It's hard enough getting parents to appreciate YA ala John Green or Sherman Alexie (what is it with all that swearing? What about the classics? Why can't they do Jane Austen?) - #Beow100 (Madrigal, 2014; Treharne, 2014) or The Lizzie Bennet diary (Francus, 2013; Pemberley Digital, 2013; Su, Noble, Rorick, & Austen, 2014) won't cut it. And the students, they're blogging! But they can't write a letter or an essay. And the spelling is appalling. In my day...

And yet it is wonderful. But. I think educators are afraid.  And perhaps justifiably so. Sure, there are some for whom this is so distant that it may not exist. There are some with an inkling, some exposure and the tingling of excitement. They can incorporate what someone else has done into their lessons. The librarians can put bits of multi-media and multi-modality into their libguides (I know I do).  But in attempting to create full blown authentic edutainment, the type that needs a cast of thousands and not “Captain my captain” standing on a table we are powerless.  We do not lack in imagination, nor dreaming or envisioning the possibilities. We lack in the skills, the time, the patience to fiddle around and budgets to bring them to fruition.  So we languish with other’s interpretations and like a person in a dark corridor with one faint glimmer of light, knock our heads and stub our toes, bumping alternately between our students who demand and need more and different and administrators and parents who hanker after a more certain and fixed past.

Cull, B. . (2011). Reading revolutions: Online digital text and implications for reading in academe | Cull | First Monday. First Monday, 16(6). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3340/2985

Francus, M. (2013, October 22). Pride and Prejudice Goes Interactive: “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.” Video presented at the Pride and Prejudice: The Bicentennial, Paper 5. Retrieved from http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/celia_pride/conference/october11/5

Liu, S., Liao, S., & Guo, J. (2009). Surviving in the digital age by utilizing libraries’ distinctive advantages. The Electronic Library, 27(2), 298–307. doi:10.1108/02640470910947647

Madrigal, A. (2014, January 10). The Elegance of Beowulf in 100 Tweets - The Atlantic. Retrieved August 19, 2014, from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/the-elegance-of-beowulf-in-100-tweets/282989/

Nilsson, M. (2010). Developing Voice in Digital Storytelling Through Creativity, Narrative and Multimodality. International Journal of Media, Technology and Lifelong Learning, 6(2), 148–160. Retrieved from http://seminar.net/index.php/volume-6-issue-2-2010/154-developing-voice-in-digital-storytelling-through-creativity-narrative-and-multimodality

Pemberley Digital. (2013, August 22). Emmy Award Winning, Interactive Web Series “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” Immerses Fans into Jane Austen’s Timeless Classic [Press Release]. Retrieved August 20, 2014, from http://www.lizziebennet.com/press-release/

Skains, R. L. (2010). The Shifting Author--Reader Dynamic: Online Novel Communities as a Bridge from Print to Digital Literature. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 16(1), 95–111. doi:10.1177/1354856509347713

Su, B., Noble, K., Rorick, K., & Austen, J. (2014). The secret diary of Lizzie Bennet. London ; Sydney: Simon & Schuster.

Treharne, E. (2014, January 9). Beowulf in a Hundred Tweets : #Beow100 [[Web log post]]. Retrieved August 20, 2014, from http://historyoftexttechnologies.blogspot.sg/2014/01/beowulf-in-hundred-tweets-beow100.html

Walker, S., Jameson, J., & Ryan, M. (2010). Skills and strategies for e-learning in a participatory culture (Ch. 15). In R. Sharpe, H. Beetham, & S. Freitas (Eds.), Rethinking learning for a digital age: How learners are shaping their own experiences (pp. 212–224). New York, NY: Routledge.

Walsh, M. (2013). Literature in a digital environment. In L. McDonald (Ed.), A literature companion for teachers (pp. 181–194). Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA).

* I cannot even workout why my image isn't upright and how to fix it quickly. What hope is there for me to create a singing and dancing multi-modal digital story?