What’s a Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

The second question is is usually so what has that got to do with libraries?

Well not much, unless you want to… I don’t know – set up a library-based technology group.

So why the Pi? Well they are low cost, they are cool in a geeky, tech kind of way and they can help libraries (both school & public) engage with young people by giving them hands-on experience with small, shiny bits of tech.

The Raspberry Pi will be out sometime between now and December. I fully intend to purchase several and create a tech group that will look at the different ways in which these tiny computers can be utilised. From standard TV computing to integrating them into clothes with small possibly touch-capable screens and micro-keyboards in the sleeves as well as possibly powering them with solar panels in clothing and possibly jamming them into small powered gliders to create self-guided aeroplanes.

There are so many possibilities! To start thinking about what you can accomplish with a slice of pi take a look here: Raspberry Pi

TED or Technology Entertainment and Design to give it it’s full name, is a global set of conferences formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading. Since June 2006, the talks have been offered for free viewing online, under a Creative Commons license, through TED.com.

There are over 900 free talks available online. If your library or resource centre has a television or bank of computers it may be worth thinking about holding a TED day and running their freely available video talks in the library or in conjunction with school lessons.

The TED Mission statement:
We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

Some of the talks follow

Brewster Kahle builds a free digital library

Handspring Puppet Co.: The genius puppetry behind War Horse

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter …

Those were just three of the 900+ talks available free at www.TED.com The videos are subtitled so are accessible for the hearing impaired.  Thanks to volunteer translators taking part in TED’s Open Translation Project, subtitles in a variety of languages are available for nearly every video in the TEDTalks series.

Meet Trinity, Ryder and their network of friends at Alien Ink and experience their lives and the Pressures they face.

Channel 4 Education are proud to introduce Alien Ink, the graphic novel that deals with real life teen issues.

Alien Ink is the first in a series of online graphic novels designed to tackle everyday teen issues, and provides a great resource of PSHE/ citizenship and media studies teachers keystage 3, 4 and higher. It is based around the lives of Trinity and Ryder, who curiously arrive in Camden at the same More…time as UFO sightings on Primrose Hill, and subsequently open a tattoo parlour that becomes a hang-out for local teens.

THE RAVEN MYSTERIES website launches on October 1st to coincide with the publication of GHOSTS AND GADGETS, the second book in Marcus Sedgwick’s THE RAVEN MYSTERIES series. Guided by Edgar the raven, the unofficial guardian of Castle Otherhand, visitors to the new site can take a tour of the castle, meet the spooky and strange Valevine family and download all sorts of goodies!

Designed by Hyperlaunchdmg, the website is full of brand new images of the Castle and its inhabitants drawn exclusively for the website by Pete Williamson: each visit allows something new to be discovered.

BECOME A ‘GOTH-FROTH’ FAN CLUB MEMBER and you can…
Play the Feathers game (where Fellah the monkey tries to pull out Edgar’s feathers).
Gain access to all the extras such as posters, wallpapers and ringtones.
Read the blog from Edgar the raven, (regularly updated by Marcus Sedgwick!)

Orion Children’s Books has joined forces with Borders for the launch of this new website: a bespoke Raven Mysteries page will become a part of the Borders site and will host an exclusive competition which will run until 31 December 2009.

The answer to the Borders competition question is also the secret code that opens the RED ROOM on the RAVEN MYSTERIES website for all who guess correctly, while the prize-winner will receive an invitation to the next recording of a Raven Mysteries audiobook, meeting author Marcus Sedgwick and actor Martin Jarvis, and having the opportunity to take an active role in the recording studio.

Martin’s lively reading of FLOOD AND FANG, the first book in the series, brings the goings-on of the oddballs and fruitcakes who live at Castle Otherhand to life. The recording has been used to great effect in the new website, as has the music by audiobook producer Peter Rinne.

Full competition details are here

This is worth promoting to any Teens who frequent the Library where you work, it could even be good for a Teen Group Library Project! Be quick you only have until the end of August!

It is easy – and to prove this I have entered the competition. My trailer is below!

Contact the BBC Audiobooks Customer Service team with any questions here: library.sales@bbc.com

Why Podcasting?

Podcasting has been around for a few years and is slowly becoming more mainstream, Podcast creation events can be run over a number of sessions
beginning with an introduction to and learning how to do it. The software to create it is freely available online and is (fairly) easy to use.

How to Podcast

Audacity free audio recorder & editor

Flickr is an online photo album owned by Yahoo.

website and web services suite, and an online community platform, which is generally considered an early example of a Web 2.0 application. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. Its popularity has been fueled by its innovative online community tools that allow photos to be tagged and browsed by folksonomic means.

Flickr allows users to categorize their photos into “sets”, or groups of photos that fall under the same heading. However, sets are more flexible than the traditional folder-based method of organizing files, as one photo can belong to one set, many sets, or none at all.

Picasa

Picasa is a computer application for organizing and editing digital photos owned by Google, it is similar to Flickr, it also offers several basic photo editing functions, including color enhancement, red eye reduction and cropping.

Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

The term “blog” is a portmanteau of the words web and log (Web log). “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Blogger

blog publishing tool. Users can create a custom, hosted blogs with features such as photo publishing, comments, group blogs, blogger profiles and mobile-based posting with little technical knowledge.

LiveJournal

LiveJournal is an online journaling community, where people from around the world share stories, discuss topics and keep in touch with friends. It’s a free service that you can use for meeting people and creating bonds through writing and sharing.

Moblog

Moblog is a mobile weblog. A moblog. A blog for people with camera phones. A photoblog. You take photos, shoot video or capture audio with your camera phone and then email them to your site, direct from the phone, where-ever you are.