Intellectual Property Foundation says Thank You!

It was great to read this week that the Federal Government plans to crack down on internet piracy. It is wanting Australian courts to block access to websites that allow users to illegally download material. Australians have been revealed as being big offenders, and only recently have lead the world in illegally downloading episodes of the series "Game of Thrones".

Two years ago the Australian IP Awareness Foundation rolled out a campaign called "Thank You"  -thanking  the many Australians who choose to "patronize  cinemas, watch TV, rent or buy DVDs and Blu-rays, or access their online content via genuine websites". These consumer choices contribute to keeping our film and television industry alive. Above is a short video that would support any classroom discussion about copyright.

2014 Year 9 Book Trailer Award



It was a great opportunity  for our Year 9's to  showcase their Book Trailers this week when we held our 3rd Gippsland Grammar Book Trailer Award presentation in the Lecture Theatre. The event was hosted by Tyler Smith, our Year 9 cohort's English teacher and all present thoroughly enjoyed watching the sixteen shortlisted book trailers. This year our Deputy Head of Garnsey, Kate Arnup, had the daunting task of judging. With the standard so high Kate's task was certainly stressful  and needed  much deliberation. However after viewing the  shortlisted trailers, Kate was able to announce that the winner of the competition was Jasmine Doultree with "Linked".Jasmine goes into the "hall of fame" and received a $50 book voucher. Receiving the $25 book vouchers for being highly commended were Harley Kerwish with "Attack of Titan"  and Ace Mitrevski with "Zombi B Baby" .Once again this has been a powerful learning experience, allowing our students  to learn many new skills and share their creativity with many others.
All Year 9's are now able to:

• Engage in independent reading and use critical thinking skills to create a book trailer
• Use Animoto or Moviemaker as a creative tool
• Have an understanding of Copyright Law and Creative Commons
• Find royalty free images and music
• Create  a Creative Commons Licence
• Use wikispaces as a platform to upload and share creative work
• Peer assess and reflect on their learning

Click on the this link to see all 16 finalists or just view Jasmine's, Harley's and Ace's videos below.

Book Trailer by Jasmine D is licensed under a Creative Commons



Attack on Titan Book Trailer by Harley K is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License



Zom-b Baby Book Trailer by Ace M. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Promoting ABC Splash Resources

                                    Image source: German Federal Archive, Wikimedia Commons

It is really worthwhile subscribing to the ABC Splash's online newsletter as you are regularly updated on their new resources. In the latest newsletter  subscribers are alerted to  The Rights and Freedom Digibook. This is a fabulous resource for Year 10 History students to learn about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how it impacts on our world today.

It Is Not About How Smart You Are

 



 

Some new research from Stanford is helping to build the case that nurturing a “growth mindset” can help many kids understand their true potential. Carol Dweck, an acclaimed psychologist, believes that teachers have to encourage students to believe that their brains are malleable.
The key to a student's ability to become a self-regulated (i.e., metacognitive) learner is understanding that one's ability to learn is a skill that develops over time rather than a fixed trait, inherited at birth.
 She also believes that students should be praised for their hard work and persistence, rather than their intelligence. For more information click on the image above and the excellent articles below.

Carol Dweck Article
Teaching Metacognition
Developing Self Efficacy in Students

Digital Citizenship Resources

There is never a  shortage of excellent resources for teaching digital citizenship. The hardest part is often sifting through them all and working out which ones are most relevant. This is why I like the  EdTech Review  article on fantastic  resources for teaching digital literacy. Although not Australian based they are still very useful. In particular,  I have always been impressed with  the Common Sense Media classroom activities The infographic  above is also very age specific  for our junior school students. Click on the link to see what's on offer.

Wellington Binks Wins 2014 Readers' Cup

This year the ISC held its 3rd Readers' Cup at the  2014 Garnsey  Cultural Festival. The Readers' Cup is a competition for year 7 and 8's  that promotes reading as well as recognising its importance in the success of our students. Once again, the event was very successful and lots of fun for the participants. It was a very close competition with Wellington Binks winning by just 1 point. Congratulations goes to Alex Sayers, Ashley Singer, Will Johnson and Tom Finlay. The creative responses from each team were of a very high standard and certainly impressed the judges. Well done to all  House leaders and participating students for making this event  worthwhile.

John Hattie

With our focus on Visible Thinking and learning intentions this year it was great to read about Professor John Hattie's recent appointment as Chair of the Board of AITSL. John's research into how students learn is internationally acclaimed and I am not sure if his new role will take him away from being the  current director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at Melbourne University.  Click on the image above to read about John's thoughts about how we should teach in a 2011 article from the Sydney Morning Herald. I found what he had to say about teachers talking less in class so as to encourage deep thinking by their students pertinent. Also liked what he had to say about how we should look at how students learn when they are playing video games.

11 Habits of Effective Teachers

 

With our recent conversations  about positive education I found this  post from Edudemic very relevant and worth posting. Have a feeling that I might have shown this before but nonetheless a second airing is warranted.Click on the image above to find out what the habits are.

Blended Learning

Over the next four weeks  I am going to provide you with a 5 part series of  how schools can  go about implementing a blended learning environment in their school setting. This program is from Fuel Education and they have found that there are 5 steps to having a successful program. These steps are:

• Strategy
• Alignment to curriculum
• Planning
• Implementation
• Review

This week Steps 1 and 2 have been covered by the videos below



Creating Your Strategy Checklist



Alignment Checklist

Are You Past,Present or Future Oriented?

Is your brain past, present or future oriented? Watch this very interesting video to find out? Social psychologist, Robert Levine has discovered that the closer you live to the equator the more you live in the present. We could have all guessed that one! However,interesting comments made about how students, particularly boys, have now been hard wired to have more control of their learning and delayed gratification is not high on their agenda. This is all because of the thousands of hours spent gaming.