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.