Topics
- Create and upload a virtual presentation for children or young adults
- Diversity
- Create and upload a virtual presentation for children or young adults
- Diversity
Once of
my favourite songs to sing at storytime is Heads and Shoulders, Knees and Toes
(HSKT). We sing it once, then loudly, then softly, and then we try the tricky
one…really, really fast. Occasionally, we even sing it in Japanese. Why Japanese?
In a previous job I had a Japanese mother and her little girl, Momoka. Momoka responded
to things better in Japanese than in English. So I brushed off my year 8 Japanese’s
and started to include it within my storytimes. All the parents thought it was
a wonderful idea, so I began learning HSKT in Vietnamese, French, Spanish and
Chinese, as I had children attending from those back grounds as well. However,
I still find it easiest to remember the Japanese version. Now in my new role, I
am learning it in Persian.
I came
across this passage which inspired me several years ago by Cerny, Markey, &
Williams, (2006).
In the
public library, good librarians understand the communities
they
serve. They respect the cultural and ethnic diversity
found in
their local area, but they also help patrons
understand
the larger world around them.
I love to
create and encourage diversity inclusiveness at my storytime sessions. I
believe that libraries serve a pivotal role in the community in encouraging and
educating people to understand and accept different cultures and background in
a safe and non-judgmental environment. I want to be like Disney, I want to show
people a world full of wonderful and magical things. Why is diversity
important? By encouraging diversity in libraries it encourages tolerance,
acceptance, the sharing of ideas and experiences. These elements lay the
foundation for a healthy society. In a report looking at the economic value to society
Community Relations Commission (2011) provides evidence that there is a strong
link between diversity and creativity, which leads to innovation and then strong
and stable economic performance
Therefore,
I decided, to use Slideshare to create a virtual presentation to use at storytime
to help parents sing HSKT in all the different languages.
Slideshare
is an online service where users can upload and share presentations in a variety
of formats that can be viewed on the website or embedded in other platforms.
Slideshare was originally intended for business use but now has a broader user
base of people who create slideshows that are funny, inspirational, and
educational or for personal use.
Signing
up to Slideshare was easy. Having to still create the slide show using Microsoft
Office PowerPoint, was the hard part. As wanted to create the right look and
feel of the slideshow and it was also time consuming because I did all the
illustrations. I chose only to do the three most represented languages at my
library.
In my
experience I have found it always easiest to end with the English “We all clap
hand together” as often this part is hard to pronounce. I did find when I was
creating the presentation that there is sometimes debate online regarding the
words in other languages. I have tried to keep with the ones that are the most
popular, after double checking it makes sense with the parents who speak it as
their first language.
References
Cerny,
R., Markey, P., & Williams, A. (2006). Outstanding
library service to children : putting the core competencies to work. Chicago: American Library Association.
Community
Relations Commission (2011).The economic
advantages of cultural diversity in Australia. Retrieved from http://www.crc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/17479/The_economic_advantages_of_cultural_diversity_in_Australia.pdf
Slideshare
(2013). Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/
