Year 8 Paired Reading Project

Over the past ten days I have been busy revamping our Year 8 English Wide Reading Project called "Reading in Pairs". In the past, paired up students have worked together on a number of tasks and presented their reponses to their chosen novel as a powerpoint presentation. Although this was a popular project it was nevertheless time to move on and introduce some web2.0 tools and have students  create and present to a wider audience. In Term 4 they will create their own blogs and write regular blog entries from the perspective of a main character.There are a variety of multimedia tasks such as:

• inserting images
• creating a character avatar.
• selecting and inserting music
• filming and publishing a one minute movie

Each Year 8 English class has its own blog and student blogs will be linked to it.They will all be a "work in progress". All tasks and assessment criteria are on the class blog and each week a new post will help scaffold students through their tasks.This new project is certainly exciting for us. It will hopefully be engaging and will give our students opportunities to learn new skills. Unfortunately I am away on Long Service Leave in Term 4 and so won't be able to witness the steep learning path for both students and teachers. It should be fun but no doubt fraught with some difficulties along the way. I will be very keen to hear how it all goes and ISC staff will post a blog about it all in Week 7.

The Social Media Revolution

Recent world events have certainly highlighted the power of social media.The video clip below brings home to me how important it is for us as teachers to be educating our students on how to use social media effectively and responsibly.

Congratulations Cath Crowley

It's been a great year for our 2010 Lorna Sparrow Artist in Residence.Last year Cath ran workshops with our Year 7's and 8's and spoke to our Year 9's about what influenced her in her writing of Graffiti Moon.This novel has won for her the

• 2011 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adults
• 2011 NSW's Premier's Literary Award for Young Adults
• 2011 CBCA Honour Award
• 2011 Victoria's Premier Award for Young Adults - Shortlisted

Cath must be literally over the moon herself.Not only does she write well but she is a lovely warm person who deserves these accolades.

Visual Literacy

Increasingly,statistical data is being presented in creative and attractive infographics.Here is an excellent site that highlights the importance of becoming visually literate in the 21st century.It contains great links to infographics online that you can use in your classroom as well as links to resources to help students learn how to create infographics. Some of the resources mentioned are below.
Places to find beautiful and useful infographics:

Infographic a day for teachers- David Warlick presents useful infographics for teachers.

Information is Beautiful - David McCandless's site
Good Infographics – a collaborative site which focuses on providing good quality web resources – in this case, infographics

As a tool to teach visual and critical literacy:


Check out  the Slideshow on Visual Literacy and Nonlinguistic Representations Part 1.


Student's Using Infographics
 Ten Free Tools To Make Infographics
Glogster example

Evaluation for Students and Teachers

On Friday at our Staff Conference, Mike spoke about the importance of ongoing formative assessment and student reflection in the classroom for the primary purpose of improving student learning.
He also spoke about how our school's "Professional Learning Project" program is a powerful tool to help teachers reflect on their own teaching practices so that they can improve learning outcomes for their students.This new video from the Teaching Channel has been timely as it demonstrates how  teaching practices can be improved with coaching and reflection and is well worth viewing.
To view click on Time Mangement in 7th Grade Science
I have also just come across AllThingsAssessment which is a website that has many interesting articles and links to other relevant websites about formative and summative  assessment in the classroom.

Students Love Technology

I have just found this great infographics on American college students usage of technology.I'm sure we would have similar patterns here.Students do expert to use digital tools as part of their everyday lives and it is up to us as educators to determine which tools are best for learning


Via: OnlineEducation.net

Prezis at Gippsland Grammar

Are you sick of powerpoints? Are you looking for a new way of presenting class material? If you are, Prezis might be the answer for you. Prezi is a flash based application that lets you break away from the slide by slide approach of powerpoint.Instead, it allows you to create non linear presentations where you can zoom in and out of a visual map that contains words,links,images,PDF's and videos.It allows you to show the connection between concepts as you are able to focus on a piece of information,then zoom out to see the bigger picture.

It does take a while to get used to but once you get the hang of using the "bubble" menu you are on your way.

The Prezi website provides a number of short videos that explain how to use the application. This link  also has some great tips and hints for using Prezis in the classroom

Below are some examples created by the ISC staff for the Humanities Department and presented during the Staff Conference on August 12th.

New Vodcasts for VCE Students

Earlier this year I wrote a post about Merspi which is a free online social networked learning hub for VCE students. In partnership with SLAV(School Library Association of Victoria) Merspi has recently created The VCE Advantage vodcast series.The vodcasts provide tips,research strategies and guidance to support VCE Students.Here are some of the topics on offer:

• Exploring the VCAA website
• Managing stress
• Surviving VCE
• Power searching
• Reliable Research
• Structuring essays

All vodcasts have been created under the Creative Commons Licence.They can be accessed from the front page of Merspi or directly from the Merspi YouTube channel. I encourage all VCE  teachers to let their students know about these great resources.

The presentation below was put together  for students by the State Library and is about researching effectively.

The Conversation: A New Approach to Journalism

Thank you to Julie Ripon who alerted me to this well regarded and well edited website.The Conversation was launched earlier this year and is an independent source of information and analysis from the university and research sector.It basically is a series of discussions between leading academics and major public figures in Australian life.Content partners include the Australian Group of Eight Universities as well as the University of Technology,Sydeny,CSIRO and the Australian Science Media Centre.

It is a site that can be trusted.All published work carries attribution of the author's expertise and if relevant, states if there is a conflict of interest. The content is divided up into the following areas:

• Business/economy
• Environment/Energy
• Health/Medicine
• Politics/Society
• Science/Technology

You can also chose from a variety of hot topics.

Hear why Peter Doherty,Nobel Laureate and former Australian of the Year supports The Conversation



Students can access The Conversation via the ISC VLA.

Simmone Howell: Artist in Residence

Last week we were privileged to have author Simmone Howell with us for three days. She was here as the ISC/English Department's 2011 Lorna Sparrow Artist in Residence.She ran creative writing workshops with our Year 7 and 8's and spoke to Year 9's about how her writing is heavily influenced by pop culture. Our students really enjoyed her sessions and created some great writing in a very short space of time.Year 7 and 8 English teachers also picked up some interesting strategies to encourage the creative writing juices.
Simmone lives in Castlemaine and is a full time writer.She writes realistic teenage fiction,plays,short stories and scripts for TV.She also uses social media as a platform for her writing and you can read what she has to say about her visit to Gippsland Grammar in her latest blog post.

Using Groups Effectively

The ability to be able to work in a group effectively is one of the major skills identified for 21st century learning.I have just purchased for the ISC, Keith Sawyer's Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration.This was prompted by Kevin Washburn's enlightening post in his blog about group work. He had attended a conference session conducted by Keith Sawyer, a jazz pianist and  expert on group work which raised questions such as :

• When are groups effective as a means of learning?
• What tasks are better accomplished collaboratively than individually?
• How do you structure groups for optimal effectiveness and results?

Kevin was so inspired that he developed his own 10 principles of using group's effectively. Well worth a read,particularly the practices that stifle creativity.Guilty Your Honour!

Making History:Research,Create and Share

Making History: Research,Create and Share is a new resource developed by Museum Victoria that history teachers are going to love.It is an excellent site for that  local history or "family history"project.It provides teachers and students with the resources they need to research,plan,create and share community digital histories. It  provides:

•  A list of themes that you can base assignments on - "Living with natural disasters","World Events,local impacts" and "Migration and cultural diversity"
• Expert videos from curators and historians
• Resources and tools to help you create a video.

It is well set out,very user friendly and offers alot!

LMREC: Resources for Global Education

This week I discovered a useful wiki  for teachers  in the areas of LOTE,Global Education,Human Rights, Studies of Asia and Intercultural Understanding.It is produced by The Language and Multicultural Resource Centre (LMERC) which is based in Carlton,Melbourne.There are lots of resources such as annotated lists of fiction and non fiction titles about Asia as well as links to great teaching resources such as the World Refugee Week Teachers Pack 2011.

 This is a downloadable resource hot off the press that helps secondary students to understand refugees in Australia.It piggybacks off this week's  SBS screening of "Go Back To Where You Come From".It contains fantastic classroom activities such as Aslyum: exit Australia. This is a simulation game that puts students into the shoes of an asylum seeker and exposes them to the difficult situations and decisions that are faced by people fleeing their home country. I also liked the opportunity for students to be able to  repond to various issues online.

Challenged Based Learning

This week I have come across a fantastic Apple initiative called Challenge Based Learning.They have engaged educators to develop  a series of "challenged based learning activities" that provide an authentic learning process that incorporate  new technologies to provide opportunities to learn.The challenges can be used or modified by teachers around the world.

The first challenges to have been developed are under the Big Ideas of Indentity and Sustainability. One of the challenges is called "Individual Identiy " with the essential question being"Who am I and who do I want to be?" I immediately thought this is relevent to our Year 10's Personal profile task that they do during  the end of the year rollover.The guiding questions and suggested activites on offer could certainly help develop our existing unit of work.
I also liked the  "Resources challenge" that had the essential question: "What is your school's paper footprint?" That one I'm sure would provide us with a few shocks!

Media Store on ClickView

ClickView has a new feature called ClickView MediaStore.It offers you the opportunity to purchase videos in ClickView format which can be downloaded directly into our ClickView library server.This will avoid all copyright issues with format shifting.There are over 1000 videos covering a variety of subjects on offer from a host of suppliers.

The process is very simple. Once you have selected a video for purchase and have permission from your Head of Department,you send a purchase request to Anthony. He will  download the video straight into our ClickView library server. ClickView will send Anthony a monthly account and each department will be charged accordingly.

Our ClickView Library currently has 2338 titles and so far this year there have been 15,000 individual chapters accessed.We are very keen to grow this service so please don't hesitate to request TV recordings and video purchases.

eReaders for the ISC

The ISC  is now offering  six Kindle ereaders for circulation. Many thanks to Annette Arnot who has become our resident expert on ereaders and has spent  many many hours locating  and uploading the titles and then cataloguing them  so that they can be found in OPAC. They have been purchased so as to provide our students the opportunity to read on a device that they otherwise might not be able to access and to also provide them with an alternative mode of reading.
Five of the ereaders represent a particular genre and  presently store 20 novels on each device. One ereader is dedicated to staff usage. Each Kindle has the capacity to store 1500 titles and so from little things big things  will hopefully grow.Students and staff will be able to request specific titles via the  Kindle ebook request form available from the ISC.The Kindles may be used at school or at home and  the loan period is one week.Students will need a checkout permission form which is to be signed by a guardian before they can borrow a Kindle.
 The ISC is pleased to be able to offer this service and entrust that our school community will enjoy this new way of reading and will be responsible with regards to the care of these ereaders.We look forward to hearing student feedback on their experiences with the Kindles and their input will guide us in how we promote reading and cater for the needs of all of our students in the future.

Online Video Resources

Site2See

The N.S.W's Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre's Sites2See is an excellent place to visit when looking for online video resources.It is netbook friendly and has lots of Australian content for classroom use  and professional development resources for teachers. There are  the well known video sharing sites such as SchoolTube and TeacherTube as well as fantastic digital resources from the National Film and Sound Archive and Australian Screen's Education section.There are also video and learning resources featuring 40 authors and 27 scientists.The professional development resources can be found in the "For Teachers" section and it is here that you will find Edutopia (US) which has videos K-12 showcasing best practice in technology integration. TILT is also worth looking at for some examples of how teachers are using digital tools to create learning resources.

Teaching Channel

Another professional  development site isTeaching Channel which has just been launched in the USA. Although American it will become a useful  resource for Australian teachers as it is a video showcase of innovative and effective teaching practices. At this stage it is limited in that it only covers classes from Grade 3-8 but  it is only in its infancy and will keep developing,eventually covering  K-12 classes.If you access their website you will be able to subscribe to their video updates via email.

The Interactive Book

It seems as if we are just getting our heads around the ebook when the first full length interactive book for the iPad turns up.It has video and graphics and lots of extra data available with a touch.The book is Al Gore's "Our Choice", a sequel to "An inconvenient Truth". The interactivity is just amazing and no doubt many more digital books will be presented in this way in the future.

Al Gore's Our Choice from Push Pop Press on Vimeo.

Literature Resource Centre

Last week I mentioned how subscribing to the National Library can give you online access to a whole range of academic databases.English teachers will be interested to know that with a library card in their hands, they are able to access the Literatue Resource Center.It's very useful for researching literary topics,authors and their works and enables you to search full text scholarly articles from more than 360 academic journals.
To subscribe  to the NAtional Library follow the instructions on this link

New Space in the ISC

Our students have loved our recently purchased chairs and table in the ISC. They have been generously funded by our Parents and Friends Association and have  allowed us to have another space that can be quite flexible in how it is used. The space is in constant use by students for collaboration, quiet time,use of netbooks,doing private study and participating in  recreational pursuits.It is a very "sort after space" and certainly allows  the ISC to bring aesthetics and function together.

Visible Thinking

I was quite excited to come across a website developed by Project Zero from the Harvard Graduate School of Education this week.It is called Visible Thinking and it offers a framework to help you integrate teaching and the development of thinking with your own content and curriculum.There is a plethora of learning routines on offer  that you can choose from that structure the way students go about the process of learning.It is an easy to navigate website and all of these routines can be downloaded.Some of the routines  you will be very familiar with such as the Think,Pair,Share and KWL routines but there are many other  fanatastic practices that I have not come across before that you might like to try in your classrooms.

When thinking is visible in classrooms, students are in a position to be more metacognitive, to think about their thinking. When thinking is visible, it becomes clear that school is not about memorizing content but exploring ideas. Teachers benefit when they can see students' thinking because misconceptions, prior knowledge, reasoning ability, and degrees of understanding are more likely to be uncovered. Teachers can then address these challenges and extend students' thinking by starting from where they are. (Visible Thinking Website  2011)

The ABC Technology Explained

The ABC have certainly embraced the digital revolution. Not only were they early adopters of blogs,twitter and Facebook this week they launched a fantastic website called The ABC Technology Explained.Its a great initiative providing introductory videos on our new digital world and many  "how to" features on tools such as Twitter, ABCiView, podcasts and Youtube.This is a fabulous information rich resource for educators as well as the whole community.

Tech Tools For Teachers

Tech Tools for Teachers is a free fortnightly e-newsletter about ICT tools or websites that can be used in the classroom.You can subscribe by going on the website TeachGenerationNow. This is an excellent site run by Victorian teachers Kathleen Morris,Simon Collier and Matthew Limb. Each e- newsletter is suitable for primary/secondary teachers and provides an example of an ICT tool/website with step by step instructions. It's a great resource for the busy teacher with  the practical examples based on their own teaching.

eResources - National Library Australia

Last year in a blog post I featured Trove from the National library which is a database of Australian collections such as"Australian Archives and Manuscripts", "Picture Australia" and "Music Australia". It's a great resource for anyone studying Australian history.We can now also subscribe free of charge to eResources and have access to  indexes,full text articles and guides from the National Library on a range of topics. There are many excellent and expensive databases on offer including JStor,Austlit,Art Index,MacquarieNet and Applied Science and Technology.Scroll through all the free resources on the link  http://www.nla.gov.au/app/eresources/list/licenced
I would highly recommend that you sign up to this fabulous service and encourage your VCE students to do so also.
All you need to do is sign up for a library card here eResources

VCE Resources From Monash University

I have just heard about Monash University Library's  commercial service that can provide a wide selection of texts and audio visual resources to support VCE teachers. The library collection of over 3 million items covers every VCE subject and for $22 per item,including delivery,teachers can order texts to supplement their existing resources.Go to http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/  and search on their website to see what is on offer.
To find out more  you can ring 99055153 or email ECS@monash.edu or go to www.lib.monash.edu.au/services/commercial.html

eSupport @Gippsland Grammar

Are you a Year 9 or Year 10 teacher? Last week Phil Phillipou, Director of Information and Communication Technology,  announced that the eSupport team is now available to assist teachers to integrate netbooks into their Year 9 and 10 classrooms.The eSupport team is made up of :

• Phil Phillipou ( Manager)
• Caroline Thomson ( IT Helpdesk)
• 5 staff from Garnsey Campus (Marianne Lee,Joy Reid, Annette Arnot,Anthony King and Shane Reeves )
• Evan Lamb from St Anne's Junior School
• Marc Bain from Bairnsdale Campus

Marc and Bevan will  be offering PD support at their junior campuses only.

The ISC staff are delighted to be part of this team and look forward to further collaborating with classroom teachers.We are aware of the battle of upskilling your ICT skills whilst juggling day to day duties and tasks.We can help you to integrate a range of digital resources into your learning and teaching program which will help prepare your students for a world that is increasingly networked and digital.You might like to consider classroom support for some of the following:

• introducing online collaboration (Onenote,blogs,nings,wikis)
• using blogs for student reflection
• using wikis and nings to manage information and activities for students
• using online presentation tools (MovieMaker,Glogster, Animoto,Prezi)
• using particular software to develop problem solving skills
• introducing online quizzes and polls
• introducing game-based learning activities
• creating online lessons using digital learning objects from Scootle
• becoming involved in global projects and competitions
• teaching your students about digital citizenship
• adapting an existing unit of work to give it a stronger digital focus
• finding online resources to support student learning

Our ISC staff are  keen to share their knowledge and skills and support you in any way possible in your classroom. Don't hesitate to ask us for assistance.Email Caroline Thomson to book us in for assistance.

Term One in the ISC

Well, it is the end of a very busy term for the ISC with the following programs having occurred:

• All Year 7's, new students and new staff have been involved in orientation sessions to help familiarise them with programs,facilities and services provided by the ISC.


• All Year 7's have completed their 5 week "Literature Circles " wide reading program.


• 7B and 7D have been introduced to information literarcy skills during their enquiry tasks on Ancient Egypt
• All Year 9's have been introduced to new online databases on the ISC VLA.


• The ongoing 2011 Victorian Premier's Reading Challenge for Year 7's and Year 8's was launched.

The ISC has been a hub of activity with many classes booked in for research during the term,notably Lucas McGauran's Year 8 Geography classes.There has also been an increase of VCE students using the ISC for private study and the ISC is definitely the "lounge room" at lunchtimes.It is satisfying to see the ISC being used for a range of activities.

Australian Bureau of Statistics

I'm sure you have checked out the Australian Bureau of Statistics website at some time but it is worth revisiting as it has been recently revamped and contains a wealth of information.It is now alot easier to navigate and the Education section is fantastic. It includes:

• Classroom activities and online publications that provide useful information for maths,economics,commerce,geography,history,p.e., health and the environment.


• Online games that assist with statistical understanding,including a suite of learning tools designed to help teachers introduce statistical concepts in the classroom.


• Online video tutorials


• Indigenous statistics

The "Topics at a Glance" section is also worth visiting.

Japan's Disaster

Concerned citizens from around the world have been uploading Slideshare presentations with data and photos to communicate the devastation that the earthquake and tsunami have created.The Slideshare blog has many presentaions from the scientific and economic community which will be of interest to geography/environmental science teachers or those of us who just want to keep up with unfolding events.

Slideshare is a very useful Web2.0 presentation tool that allows you to share presentations.Once a class account has been registered on Slideshare it is possible to show student powerpoint presentations online.
Not only can you create presentations to share on Slideshare you can also search for presentations that you might want to use yourself.You might have noticed that I have embedded many Slideshare presentations that I have not created myself into my own blog posts.I love this "sharing aspect" of Web2.0 tools which gives you so many quality resources at your fingertips.They also make your blog so much more interesting and informative.

Online VCE Support

Over the last few weeks I have come across two online learning tools created to support VCE students outside of their own classroom. The first is Merspi, a free Web2.0 Question and Answer social networking site for the VCE community.Using Merspi, a student can interact with a VCE community beyond their school - posing their own questions,using existing answers as a resource for their own study and answering questions of others.Tagging of questions enables users to locate all previous questions and answers about an area of study. Responses are also moderated and registered members can become moderators according to the reputation they have built through the level and quality of their responses.There are many teachers who have become contributing members of the Merspi community.Futurist Mark Pesce said this about it

I visited Merspi intending to have a quick look and I stayed for an hour. Merspi has the hallmarks of a true socially-networked community-encouraging the sharing instinct and rewarding valued responses

The second support tool is for VCE biology students.Northern Victorian teacher Andrew Douch has created a series of podcasts for various topics.They can be downloaded/subscribed to free through iTunes or go to http://biologyoracle.podomatic.com/

Google Art Project

Last week in the Age's "Greenguide" I read about the recently launched Google Art Project. It is a fascinating resource for both art lovers and students. It features over a 1000 famous artworks online in extraordinary detail and the virtual walkthrough tool enables users to navigate more than 385 rooms in the galleries. Seventeen galleries are currently involved,including MoMA in NY,State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg,Uffizi in Florence and the Tate in London.More galleries will come on board in coming months and there are Australian galleries expressing interest. There is also a digital art tool that offers a "Create an Artwork Collection",allowing people to save specific views and build their own personalised collection that can be shared. In the first week that the Google Art Project was launched,70,000 collections were created from more than 10 million visits to the site.I find that just gobsmacking!

A Future Vision for the ISC

On the 24th March I was very privileged to be able to attend the SLAV's "Creating Collaborative Learning Spaces" conference held at the VUT Conference Centre, Melbourne.The focus of the day was literacy and learning in the 21st century and the vision school libraries need to have if thay are to match their students' needs and adequately prepare them for their future.

The day was introduced by Joseph Gerassi,Principal of Bialik College who oversaw the building of an elearning centre at his school in Melbourne.It was certainly a space to inspire a culture of learning and the centrepiece of Bialik. It catered for different learning styles by providing noisy spaces, quiet spaces and studio spaces that enhanced social interaction,collaboration and reflection. I particularly loved their outdoor courtyard which could accommodate a range of learning activities, including performances and I also loved their NewsCafe.

Keynote speaker was Erica McWilliam who is well known for her educational reform and its relationship to "over the horizon" living, learning and earning.Her most recent book is "The Creative Workforce:How to launch young people into high flying futures"She spoke about the changing nature of professional work in all jobs.She saw networks as being all important in the future with the disconnected person being at risk.Her mantra is "I link therefore I am".She believes our skills and competencies must be embedded in networks of social and cultural capital and our highest achievers are not necessarily our best learners but our best networkers.Erica was certainly inspirational and gave us lots to think about.

Lyn Hay,a lecturer in Teacher Librarianship at the Charles Sturt University also spoke about an exciting new concept for school libraries called the iCentre.What is an iCentre?It is a central facility within the school where information,technology,learning and teaching needs are supported by qualified information and learning technology specialists.It provides students and teachers with a "one-stop shop" for all resourcing,technology and learning needs on a daily basis.The efficiency of this concept makes sense to me and I would love to see the ISC evolving into this in the future. Here is Lyn's slideshare from the conference below.

rethink – rebuild - rebrand: think iCentre

View more presentations from Lyn Hay

Game to try?

Last year the Horizon Report predicted that gaming will become mainstream in education in 2-3 years.There are already some games being used in our school and some teachers are starting to see their potential as a powerful tool in learning. Mark Dolbel highly recommends the role playing game Ayiti for year 10's where players take responsibility for a family in Haiti.He also loves Traveller IQ: World Challenge for all year levels.It's a fun game that teaches map awareness skills.Both Mark and Toni Salevson also use annually the ASX Sharemarket Game to teach students about personal investment.Our Maths Department has also just introduced the Mathletics Program that uses games to promote learning and engagement.

I have recently come across Adrian Camm's wiki Games in Education which is a fantastic resource that will help familiarise us with how games can help students to learn. Adrian is a teacher in Northern Victoria and I was fortunate to attend a workshop that he was running a few years ago.He was the first person I knew who was using wikis in his classroom (Physics) and since that time he has won many awards for his innovations.He is certainly an inspirational educator who is passionate about technology in education.

His wiki will be of particular interest to Maths, Science and Literacy teachers as well as those teachers who cover global issues. He provides lists of games and explains how they relate to the particular curriculum and suggests age levels. He also provides current research into gaming and a "Game Creation Tools" link which is exciting for those who want to dip their toe in the deep end.

You may find that the games that interest you are blocked but if there is anything that takes your fancy email Mike and he will unblock pronto! I also liked this Slideshare presentation that was on Adrian's wiki that gives a good rationale for games in education.

Good Video Games and Good Learning

CSI:The Experience Web Adventures Last year I passed on to Steve Anderson a great game that his Year 9 students enjoyed about forensic science called CSI:The Experience Web Adventures. Funded by the US Science Foundation they are a series of interactive cases featuring characters from the TV show CSI:Crime Scene Investigation. These cases allow players to experience different types of forensic analysis and solve mysteries with the team. Each game takes about 30 -45 minutes and students are able to register as a guest. However games can not be saved and resumed at a later date which is a downside. All in all, it's a fabulous resource with an educator's guide, online activities and cool sites to other forensic sites. Stop Disasters Game One of the games on Adrian Camm's wiki which will appeal to our Geography teachers is the Stop Disasters Game.It was developed by the UN International Strategy For Disaster Reduction and seems extremely pertinent to our current global situation. The aim of the game is for students to learn how they can stop disasters from occurring.It covers five disasters- flood,fire,hurricane, earthquake and tsunami.Each scenario takes 10 -20 minutes to play, depending on skill level. There are also teacher fact sheets,videos and links to other resources. Cool Maths-Game.com Finally, maths teachers might like to explore Coolmath-Games.com which allows students to play games and learn maths at the same time.

iPads for Learning

Last month I mentioned that the 2011 Horizon Report predicted that mobile technology will have a big impact on learning over the next 12 months. Although there is resistance to the use of mobiles in the classroom it is not surprising that there are "ipad trials" springing up in Australian schools

Here are some sites and reports to look at.

iPads for Learning: Victorian government:
This website is for educators who want to learn about using iPads in education. Here you will find information about the Victorian school iPads for Learning trial including specially selected apps,classroom ideas and technical tips. The 10 participating schools include primary, secondary, Prep to Year 12 and specialist settings.


St Peter's College Adelaide
In the Senior School, 338 Years 11 and 12 boys have been provided with wireless iPads to support an eBook program. Licences have been obtained to supply all students with e-textbooks via personalised secure access. A user friendly interface, Keystone, has been developed. Users have the ability to download and purchase eBooks, upload and share their work and ideas.

Other schools trials:

•Queensland state schools: Throughout Semester 1, Kedron State High School and Doomadgee State School will explore the teaching, learning and business potential.

•At least five independent Sydney schools will trial iPads in select classes this year.


Also check out the action research study from the Crowther Centre in Melbourne and the questions under each of the three strands: pedagogy,learning and useability. Brighton Grammar,Swinburne and Apptitude are working together on the big question:

"Does the use of gesture-based mobile devices such as the iPad have the potential to change the way students will interact with, perceive and manipulate digital content and will the changes in learning style facilitate improved outcomes in literacy and numeracy?"

I look forward to the findings of these trials and studies.

New Online Databases for 2011

The ISC online database collection is constantly growing with five new databases being added this year. This makes for a very comprehensive range of "paid for"online resources that cater to the English, Science and Humanities curriculum.

These databases can be found using the following path: ISC VLA-Online databases link
They require the password "carter"


Global Issues in Context offers international viewpoints on a wide range of global issues,topics and current events.Featured are hundreds of continuously updated issue and country portals that bring together a variety of highly relevant sources of social,political,environmental and cultural issuesIt also includes rich mulimedia.



Opposing Viewpoints in Context provides contextual information and opinions on hundred's of today's hottest social issues. Continously updated,it features news articles,topic reviews,full text magazines,academic journals,statistics,images,videos and audio files.





Science in Context provides contextual information on today's most significant science topics. It also features news articles, full text magazines,academic journals,images,videos and audio file.

Bloom's Literary Reference Online examines great writers,important works, well known characters, and influential movements and events in world literature.

Lastly,the Health and Wellness Resource Centre provides access to medical reference material including articles,journals,pamphlets and videos.

New Harvard Bibliography Generator

We have recently purchased a new online Harvard bibliography generator developed by the School Library Association of South Australia.It was chosen because it includes new technology sources such as YouTube, podcasts,wikis and blogs.It is also visually appealing,well designed and easy to navigate.
It has three levels -Junior, Middle and Senior with the Senior section being more sophisticated in appearance and more comprehensive in the range of resources cited.The Senior section also includes examples of in text referencing.
Our Year 8's and Year 9's have been formally introduced to this new tool and no doubt many other students have discovered it and are already making use of it.It certainly takes the difficulty out of acknowledging sources and teachers should now be expecting students to "cite it right"!