4. Digital materials/resources & emerging technologies

Activity:

-       Create a picture book (to be viewed on-line) and describe the experience in your blog (how could you use the book or the creation process in library services for children and young adults)

-       Learn how to use a new tool, software, or game and write about your experience

From the architecture of the paper folds—the construction of a story, to the balance of text and images, children can learn the process of how picture books are made. Making a book can be as simple as folding a sheet of paper and establishing a storyboard or a ‘Hotdog’ style format. (Kapuscinski Gaylord, S. 2008)

Organisations, such as Kid’s Own Publishing Project, supports literacy, creativity and the joy of reading through a book publishing initiative. In 2011, I had the pleasure of participating in a Kid’s Own Publishing Project with the children and families of East Melbourne Library, to create a picture book called The Great Sparkle Debacle.

The feedback from the families was amazing, some of the children continued with their love of writing and/or illustrating, as well as acquiring copies of the books to give away as gifts. The children became authors and illustrators. Seeing their name professionally printed on a book created a sense of pride and a lasting outcome of the project.

I created a simple picture book for this subject, called The Colours of Me: 

My aim was to write a simple story about emotions and linking those emotions to a colour: how language combined with colour can articulate our moods. I drew a brief story in pictures and plotted each scene and text within the storyboard. The images were drawn and coloured on scrap paper, then photographed with my iPhone. Adobe Photoshop was used to import the pictures and work on the size, image improvement and colour enhancement. The images were then saved as jpegs and exported to Adobe InDesign where the layout was created and text added. The book was exported as a PDF to desktop.

Additionally, I imported my images to iMovie which automatically turned them into a simple movie file. My voice was recorded directly into iMovie, and then the complete picture book was uploaded to YouTube. The process was quick and provided immediate feedback and access. The experience of constructing an electronic picture book was quite fulfilling and reminded me of the same sense of accomplishment as The Great Sparkle Debacle.

I have learned that professionally, it is important to keep up with technological trends, especially if the trends can be used to aid life long learning. Library programs can be developed to introduce information technology. One such interactive session is held at Mill Park Library with an iTots program for 2-3 year olds, exploring themes with Apps through play and instruction. It is also a time for parents to learn how to communicate and direct their child’s learning safely. Other libraries deliver programs that incorporate digital technology such as creating animations, comics, or a collection of poems, and filming community stories for on-line viewing. The website, DIY (https://diy.org/tags/animation), showcases many creative projects by kids. It is also encourages children (with parent consent of course) to share their creativity or skill. Working with digital technologies encourages ideas, planning, creating and sharing. The experience of creating a picture book to be viewed on-line was a great creative challenge and very rewarding when being able to use it for a program, the experience can be expanded so that all children stories can be shared.

References

DIY. 2014. Animation. Retrieved from https://diy.org/tags/animation

Kapuscinski Gaylord, S. 2008. Hotdog booklet. Retrieved from

http://www.makingbooks.com/hotdog.pdf

Kid’s Own Publishing Project.2013. Search kids’ own library. Retrieved from

 http://kidsownpublishing.com/kids-own-library/

National Library of Australia. 2014. The great sparkle debacle. Retrieved from Trove

 http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/152810895?q&versionId=166533665

Yarra Plenty Regional Library. 2014. iTots. Retrieved from

http://yprl.vic.gov.au/about/hours-and-locations/mill-park/news/2013- august/itots