AustLit – Australian Literature like you’ve never accessed it before!

By Kay Oddone

Every Australian teacher, and any teachers of literature across the world who teach Australian Literature should make themselves aware of AustLit, an amazing resource created by a dedicated team of researchers and indexers based at the University of Queensland, funded by the Australian Government and a range of University and research partners.

AustLit’s mission is ‘to be the definitive information resource and research environment for Australian literary, print, and narrative cultures’ – and indeed it is.

AustLit is available to patrons of subscribing libraries, educational institutions, other organisations, and individuals. Currently, all registered users of subscribing libraries or institutions have full access to AustLit, which includes registered users of almost all Australian universities, the National Library of Australia, Australian State & Territory Libraries, a number of local council libraries around the country and…ALL STAFF AND STUDENTS OF BRISBANE CATHOLIC EDUCATION!!

The decision to subscribe on a system wide level has enabled all BCE students and staff to make full use of this fantastic resource – and this blog post aims to give some insight in to just some of the fantastic resources available to support quality learning and teaching.

Tip One: Use Search Effectively

AustLit is a database, and as such it has a powerful search ability to access the 152 000 writers and organisations who have created the over 840 000 accessible works. This includes full text novels, poems, films and TV, children’s and young adult literature, biographies, criticisms and reviews.

Understandably, a simple search may not pinpoint the exact work you are looking for, so making use of the Advanced Search capability is a time-saving feature for busy teachers and students. AustLit provides extensive information on how to search effectively, as well as an overview of how to use the built in Boolean Operators and the handy Subject Heading thesaurus.

The Advanced Search allows for very fine-grained searching; a search for female authors of the crime genre, who were born in Brisbane revealed that there are eight that fit the bill:

Tip Two: Make Use of the Curated Exhibitions/Trails

Austlit staff don’t just add records to the database; they also curate rich resources known as Exhibitions or Trails around their research projects. These curated collections of AustLit records and other relevant material  provide insights into specific fields or areas of study – just some of them are pictured below:

Click on the image to access these and other research trails.

Tip three: DO check out Black Words

Click on the image to read more about BlackWords

BlackWords records information about the lives and works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers and the literary cultures and traditions that formed and influenced them. BlackWords is the most comprehensive record of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander publications available. It includes texts both by and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and literary and storytelling cultures.

This resource is magnificent, both for Australians wishing to learn more about Australia’s heritage and our first people, and for those internationally who would like to learn more about the oldest culture on earth. This article, by Dr Jeanine Leane (PDF) outlines what resources are available through BlackWords, and how teachers might use these resources to meaningfully embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into the curriculum. Please note that the link to the map of pre-colonial Australia referred to in the article has changed; the map can now be accessed here.

Tip Four: Don’t forget Reading Australia

Reading Australia was created separately, by the Copyright Agency of Australia. It is a list of over 200 Australian titles, many of which are accompanied by practical teaching resources that align to the Australian Curriculum. In addition to these resources, AustLit has created a series of curated information trails that provide context and supporting information relating to the Reading Australia texts.

Click on the image to go directly to Reading Australia.

 Tip Five: BCE Students and Staff – access AustLit TODAY!

As mentioned in the introduction, AustLit is available through many channels, but for Brisbane Catholic Education students and staff, the database is being delivered system wide, with the username and password available via the ResourceLink Portal.

Go to the ResourceLink Portal AustLit page, where you will find further resources, as well as useful links and our conditions of use. BCE staff can share access information with BCE students. Simply sign into KWeb and go to the ResourceLink Portal, click on School Access and then Austlit, or go directly using this link, signing in when prompted.

AustLit has an active social media presence, as recognised by this recently crowdsourced list of Australian historic fiction; follow them on Twitter @AustLit or stay up to date via their blog at http://www.austlit.edu.au/news/.

Have you used AustLit in your learning or teaching? Share in the comments what you did, and how it went – we’d love to hear from you!

 

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 25,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Copyright and Copyleft…read all about it!

The world of copyright can be a confusing and complex place…therefore ResourceLink has created a ‘one stop shop’ intended to provide educators and students with a simple to understand overview of Copyright, Creative Commons and other licences that exist, as well as resources to locate materials and information on how to correctly attribute these resources once they have been used.

The wiki is called Copyright and Copyleft.
Access it here, or by clicking on the image on the left hand side.

The site also provides access to printable posters, multimedia, learning objects and handouts collected from a variety of sources that can be reproduced (with correct attribution!) or used straight from the site.

The majority of the site has simply been curated from a wide variety of sites currently online – the aim of the site is to provide quick and easy access to the most useful materials.

The reason for this resource is clear; as technology continues to evolve at an ever-increasing pace, the area of copyright has moved into focus for all educators.

A ‘perfect storm’ has hit education – never before has it been so easy to reproduce images, music and text, and never before have students and teachers been able to publish to such a public audience – the entire world. Students and teachers can remix, reuse and repurpose materials in innumerable ways.

Whereas previously students may have displayed their work in the classroom,  they now publish to YouTube, to blogs, to their own websites…and therefore to audiences well beyond the classroom. Teachers also share their lessons and resources publicly, via their own blogs or through their personal learning networks on Twitter or Facebook.

This is  why education is in such an exciting space right now – however it also means that teachers and students need to be aware of the rights of the owners of works that they may be incorporating into their own works, and also need to know where they can access material that they are free to reuse and remix.

Using this resource, it is hoped that teachers and students will feel confident to navigate this area, empowered with knowledge that they can pass on to others.

If you wish to learn more about Copyright, Creative Commons or the Open Source and CopyLeft movements, the following websites will be of interest to you:

• SmartCopying
• Creative Commons
• Creative Commons Australia
• The Public Domain
• OER Commons

We hope you enjoy using this resource and find it useful – we’d love your feedback!

Metamorphosis: the 2012 ResourceLink Film Festival

The theme of Metamorphosis captured in the festival advertisement was adopted, as a symbol of the power of film to change us on a deep and somewhat primal level and also inspired ResourceLink to review and refresh the way the festival was structured and delivered, in particularly the way in which we engaged participants in their professional learning.  Adopting a project based approach to replace a traditional model of professional learning about film making and engaging with new media sources to share and reflect about film.  This post will review the 2012 ResourceLink Film Festival sharing the successes and learning’s from the journey.

This title is available through Curriculum Press. It is a fabulous resource for all educators. Click the image to purchase or find out more.

While the Film Festival has always been about promoting the use of film in education, an increasingly important part of the program is the student produced films section. This is in recognition of the fact that students now live in a multimodal world, where economic, social, cultural, global and technological changes have reconstructed concepts of literacy, reading, writing and text (Anstey and Bull, 2011, p.1).

If we adopt the definition of literacy put forward by Luke and Freebody in 2009, we see that

‘Literacy is the flexible and sustainable mastery of a repertoire of practices with the texts of traditional and new communications technologies via spoken, print and multimedia’ (p.9, cited in Anstey and Bull, 2011). Therefore, in order to be considered ‘literate’ in the 21^st century, students must be able to access a range of resources, including knowledge of

• text and context
• multimedia and technology, and the semiotic systems they employ
• aesthetics and design
• social and cultural diversity
• critical literacy

(Anstey and Bull, 2011, p.8).

Involving students in the planning, scripting, filming, editing and producing of their own films provides many opportunities for each of these resources to be developed.

Students proudly walked the red carpet to present their films.

Traditionally the film festival has hosted a two day course on short film making in conjunction with a screening of student produced short films.  This year the ResourceLink team asked the question how might the student produced films be enhanced through ‘on the job’ professional training and support?  What was found was a significant level of diversity and creativity was shown through the films and more so allowed students and teachers to achieve beyond their own expectations.

Working with teachers and students the team of ResourceLink supported the development of seven short films from three schools.  Our support was three fold: engaging and extending the pre-production phase of film making, supporting filming and providing support in post-production.

Pre-production:

This phase began by exposing teachers and students to as many diverse films, reflecting on the stories and messages and examining the technical aspects of the film such as, camera angles, music, costuming and editing techniques.  It was in this phase that students engaged in critical reflection and discussion.  After grounding students in some film theory, students could then begin unpacking the theme in great depth and begin to develop the concepts of their own films.  This for the most part was done without much support from ResourceLink.  Once students had landed their concept it was time for the students to develop a script and to begin storyboarding.  Constantly reviewing and adapting their work until they were ready to film.

 Production:

Supporting participants as they tackle this phase was perhaps the most fun and tiring phase of the project.  This saw participants to reflect and adapt on the fly as they encountered problems such as poor weather, absent actors, and malfunctioning equipment.  This saw many participants to consider quite creative and clever solutions.

Post Production:

Again supporting participants through this process the team from ResourceLink supported the production teams as they sourced creative commons materials to add the extra professional touches to their works.

The students were thrilled to receive an award acknowledging their movie-making, and also enjoyed a creative activity that saw them create their own origami butterfly, which they labelled with one word or a phrase to describe how the movie making process had changed them. These butterflies formed part of the decoration for the teacher film festival to be held later that afternoon.

As the teachers arrived to a delicious afternoon tea provided by Spoon Deli, they were delighted to see our theme of metamorphosis depicted in the hundreds of origami butterflies that decorated the room. During the evening screening session, we were very lucky to have secured Kathleen Noonan and Fr Anthony Mellor, who provided us with commentary and insight from a non-educational perspective.

During the evening, the teachers were invited to share their thoughts and opinions of the films, and how they might use these or similar short films in their classroom via a BackChannel established using TodaysMeet. The teachers also had the opportunity to post their thoughts to a broader audience via Twitter, using the hash tag #morph2012.

Using a tool such as TodaysMeet allowed the viewers to share their thoughts at the moment that they had them, rather than try to save them until a plenary session after the screenings. By posting to the TodaysMeet stream, teachers were also more willing to add their thoughts, as they did not have to stand up and publicly share them to the large group.  A selection of the TodaysMeet stream can be seen on the right.

The films selected this year were based not only on the theme ‘Metamorphosis’, but also were selected to showcase a variety of film formats and delivery methods. As an encouragement to teachers to consider the quality multimedia available on YouTube, the evening began with the showing of a selection of short films from the Tropfest Short Film Festival YouTube channel. These ranged from the humourous (Boo), to the reflective (My Constellation), from the challenging (RGB) to the inspiring (One Thing).

These short films were followed by another inspiring short film, The Butterfly Circus. Winner of several international awards, including the Clint Eastwood Filmmaker Award, The Butterfly Circus is a beautiful story of how a young man with what seems to be overwhelming disabilities (he has no limbs) is given the opportunity to dream of a future he thought would never be possible.

The possibilities for the way this film could be used in the classroom are endless. As teachers observed, it could be seen as a re-interpretation of the Easter Story, and the role of the Showman could be seen as a Jesus figure, taking those who had been cast off by society and showing them their beauty and their worth. The direct links to the theme Metamorphosis were unmistakeable, even to the point of the presence of a butterfly making its transformation just as the human characters did also.

After a delicious hot meal from AbFab Catering and great discussion over dinner, the teachers returned to the lolly buffet to stock up on readiness for the final movie.

The feature film of the night, We Bought a Zoo tells the true story of a family who bought and rebuilt a rundown zoo. Although the Hollywood treatment neglects some of the real life challenges of such a purchase (in the film, the decision to buy is made on the spot, whereas in real life, the process of purchasing took over 2 years), the film does focus on the metamorphosis of the family, as they move from a place of darkness and grief into a new life full of possibility.

 The film was then reviewed in a ‘Margaret and David’ style (from ABC’s At the Movies), as Kathleen Noonan and Fr Anthony Mellor discussed the themes of the movie. Of note was the use of the soundtrack, and the way that movie and music can sometimes be used to engage students in areas where more direct approaches might fail. Also discussed was how rich, quality media is available in many forms, some of which are listed below.

The evening was wrapped up by our Senior Education Officer, Kerry Rush. A great day, a fun evening and a lot of learning sums up the Film Festival once more for another year.

References:

Bull, Geoff, and Michele Anstey. Evolving pedagogies: reading and writing in a multimodal world. Carlton South, Vic.: Education Services Australia, 2010. Print.