Inspiration, Innovation & Information for school libraries and learning.
by Linda M
Has your school got old VHS tapes? Film? Audio tapes which need preservation? Do you need to draw your school’s attention to this? Or are you the one who’s tasked with digitising all the old ‘stuff’?
A team from Silver and Ballard was at the annual school archives workshop recently. They specialise in media migration. Sales Development Manager Andrew Crenfeldt provided a list of issues that need action.
This included:
Andrew also provided a checklist for action:
Once you have this information you are in a position to get an idea of the cost in time and money involved in transferring your archive to digital file – either in-house or out-sourced.
You will also need to consider what you want to do with the content once it is digitised, as different uses may require different digital file types, for example:
It is possible to get several digital file types, for varied uses, made at the same time.
Whether you address these issues in-house, or out-source this work commercially, the message for the day was“Do it now!”
flickr image by Olga Berrios
Thank you to Silver & Ballard for permission to reproduce their checklists.
by Carrie
Cliffs Notes are a familiar sight in backpacks and dorm rooms the world over. Those distinctive yellow and black booklets are beacons of hope to any students who ‘haven’t had time to do the reading, and I happen to know more than one teacher who has dipped into the chapter summaries while preparing lesson plans.
Of course we all agree that perusing the Cliffs Notes version of Romeo and Juliet is no substitute for reading the play, but any tool that can help students understand and appreciate literature has value. Cliffs Notes has recently branched out and released a series of short animations summarising six of Shakespeare’s most popular plays.
The films are around five or six minutes long and introduce us to main characters, themes and plot points in a humorous way. Students will see Macbeth’s ‘ambition meter’ rise and fall as he grapples with his decision to kill King Duncan and will laugh when Benvolio describes Romeo as a ‘total emo.’ Characters’ names pop up when they are on screen to tell us who’s who and Cliff, the narrator, pipes up with a running commentary designed to help students’ understanding.
I think these videos would be really useful as a way to introduce Shakespeare and his plays to a class before you dive in and start reading an entire play together. They are funny, engaging and relatable and students will enjoy watching them. Librarians and teachers could also point eager readers toward the films before offering those slick graphic novel versions of the plays or encouraging students to tackle the originals on their own.
Have you seen these videos? How do you get kids excited about Shakespeare?
flickr image by tonynetone
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