Free help from tutors for year 4-12 students

Gilgandra school students can now receive free tutoring help online at their library or home, through an innovative new service just introduced by the Library. The service, called “yourtutor“, creates an online classroom where students are connected to qualified tutors for one- to - one help with homework, assignments, exam preparation and study questions.

English, Maths and Science subjects are included and the service is available 4pm-8pm, Monday to Friday from either library or home computers. Help is immediate, professional and secure and it’s free to library members. Students in Years 4-12, simply log on to the library’s website (http://nwls.spydus.com/), scroll down and click on the link to access the program, using their library membership card number to login.

Tutors are certified teachers, professional tutors, post graduates and advanced undergraduates from Australian universities. They can review specific homework and assignment questions with students on line, using features like controlled chat, an interactive white board and shared web browsing. This service has a lot of advantages for students. It is immediate: when they login, within moments they are in a one to one, instant messaging conversation with a tutor. It’s anonymous: students have said that it’s easy and comfortable to ask questions online, even if they think it’s something they should already know. It’s interactive: co-browsing the internet, file sharing and the interactive whiteboard allow students and the tutor to work their way through a specific question.

Students should use yourtutor if they get stuck on a maths question, want feedback on an essay before they hand it in, would like a tutor to help with a chemistry equation, or need help finding resources and researching a topic. Gilgandra Shire Library has taken a 12 month subscription to this service, which is provided by an Australian-owned company called Tutoring Australasia. We would like to know whether you think this service is worthwhile; please give it a go and tell us what you think.

Book of the Year- some of the Children's Book Council of Australia prizewinners

The winners of the Children’s Book Council of Australia prizes were announced last Friday; just in time for Book Week; this week. The Library has most of the shortlisted and prize winning books, so please call in and borrow some of these great Australian books!

The winner of Older Reader’s Book of the Year was “Tales from outer suburbia” by Shaun Tan. Teacher Fran Knight reviewed this book on the Allen and Unwin website “A story and picture book for adults and children alike, Shaun Tan draws a mirror to the face of Australia, with lonely people, houses where constant bickering between parents causes the boy to sleep on the lawn, communities where people use the missiles in their yards for practical purposes and an exchange student who lives in a house where little exchange takes place. Each story provokes thought about how we live and entreats the reader to give more serious consideration to our lives and the lives of those around us”.

The winner of the Younger Readers Book of the Year was “Perry Angel’s suitcase” by Glenda Millard, illustrated by Stephen Michael King. This the third book in the Kingdom of Silk series, which began with “The naming of Tishkin Silk”. In the story, Perry arrives at the Kingdom of Silk one day on the 10.30 express, carrying only a small and shabby suitcase embossed with five golden letters. What do those letters mean? And why won t Perry let go of his case? This book has been described on the Allen and Unwin website as a gentle and moving story about finding your place in the world.

The prize for Early Childhood Book of the Year was won by Bob Graham, with his delightful book “How to heal a broken wing”. A pigeon flies into a skyscraper window, and in the busy grey city only one little child, with red jacket and golden hair, notices. He and his mother wrap the pigeon carefully in her scarf and carry it home, where with ‘rest, time and a little hope’ slowly, it heals. Bookseller + Publisher wrote about this book that "Children from as young as three will empathise with Will, while older children and adults can sharpen their visual literacy skills, noting the filmic techniques that inform and move readers of this perfectly designed and heart-warming book" (as cited by Walker Books website).

Picture Book of the Year was won by Kylie Dunstan, with “Collecting Colour” This is the story of best friends Rose and Olive, and the day they spend in the bush in the Top End, collecting pandanus leaves and “colour”; roots and berries to dye the pandanus. Later they see how the leaves are woven into beautiful baskets, and make their own mats. The author worked as an Arts project officer at a community in the Northern Territory. This book is illustrated in vibrant colour and is a pleasure to hold and read.

Happy Book Week!

We love Corduroy!

This week, the Library has received a copy of “Corduroy Mansions” by Alexander McCall Smith. You may remember that we wrote about this book late last year, because McCall Smith was publishing this book in daily bites on the Telegraph UK website. People could read all of the chapters to date, or listen to Andrew Sachs, best known as Manuel in Fawlty Towers , reading the latest chapter. Readers could also make plot suggestions to McCall Smith, and he responded to these suggestions on the website. One of the people who posted a plot suggestion called this online novel ”Dickens for the digital age”.

“Corduroy Mansions” was published in this manner in 100 instalments, over 20 weeks from September 2008 to February 2009, and now the hard back copy of the book has been published. I’ve been reading it over the weekend, and have thoroughly enjoyed it so far. It has all the delightful whimsy and wry observation that people enjoy so much in McCall Smith’s writing. My favourite bit so far is the airport sniffer dog, Freddie, who is retrenched in an affirmative action move when they discover that all of the sniffer dogs are male! The collaborative method of writing this book seems to have been a successful experiment.

McCall Smith posted an online letter to his many readers when the series finished. He said
“We are now coming to the end of this novel. This is a sad moment for me, as I have enjoyed the writing of this greatly. And I have also very much enjoyed the comments that you have made – you will see, I hope, that I have taken many of them to heart and tried to embody them in the plot as I developed it. Thank you so much for your support and suggestions.”

Telegraph Media won a media award for this project. The judges called it a “cross-media literary first. " The serial attracted 90,000 readers a week!

We hope you are enjoying whatever you are reading this week.