CBCA Book Week

From the 17th - 23rd August, the Childrens' Book Council of Australia is celebrating  Book Week.To mark this occassion, the ISC has a number of activities that will help promote a strong culture of recreational reading within our campus.Our Executive will be visiting our Year 7 English classes to talk about the books they have loved reading and  at lunchtime there will be a number of quizzes and prizes to be won..Book trailers created by our Year 9 students will be shown in the ISC each lunchtime and also in the front window of  the Collins Bookstore in Raymond St,Sale.The ISC will also be launching the Wheeler's ebook platform to the senior campus as well as Good Reading online  and Spimeout online.Finally,well known Australian author, Michael Gerard Bauer, will be visiting our campus as our 2013  "Author in Residence",running creative writing workshops and speaking to our Year 7-9 cohort.

Below is a great presentation given by science fiction  author, Neil Gaiman at Book Expo America 2013.He explains well the importance and value of reading.His presentation was called Why fiction is dangerous?He states that "it is dangerous because it lets you into other people's heads;because it gives you empathy;it shows you that the world doesn't have to be like the one you live in."I couldn't agree more!







I'm sure you are all well aware of the benefits of reading, but here are two articles  and infographic that you might like to look at.Pity about the spelling on the infographic though!

Proof Of Benefits of Reading
10 Benefits of Reading

Why I Can't Skip My 20 Minutes of Reading Tonigh | Create infographics

Good Reading Magazine and SpineOut Online

As part of Book Week,  the ISC  is  also making available to teachers and students Good Reading Online and Spineout Online.These two fabulous resources can be accessed  from the "Reading and Books" section on the ISC Libguide. Good Reading is an informative and  interactive Australian  online magazine about books and reading.It is a brilliant resource for our school and I hope many of our community members make use of it.

Spineout,also from the Good Reading team specifically caters for young adults.It's a place where they can express their ideas,submit reviews of newly published books,book trailers,creative writing,artwork and music lyrics.

Below is an example of one of the pages from  the latest issue.



 

Wheelers eBooks in the ISC

Book Week seems to be the logical time for the ISC team to launch its Wheelers ebook lending platform.Using their own devices, students and staff will be able to download ebooks 24/7. After two weeks, the downloaded ebooks will just disappear from their device.
Over the next two week years 7 and 8's will be instructed on how to go about this process. The other  year levels will follow after this.
There are a number of instructions to follow before  all of this wizardry can take place. You need to:

• Download Adobe Digital Editions to your computer
• Register with the Gippsland Grammar ebook platform
• Download an ereader app to your device.(The ISC uses bluefire reader)
• Go to to Wheelers  site of ISC Libguides to start borrowing

Below are some videos created bty Anthony to get you started.They can also be found on ClickView and Libguides.Also you can click on the image above to access Joy's instructions.

If you need any help with any of  these steps,please ask us for assistance

Scootle Community

This week I discovered that Education Services Australia has created a Scootle Community for teachers to discuss and share ideas and information  about the Australian Curriculum with their peers across Australia.This new social network tool also allows teachers to access digital lesson plans,curriculum resources and research.

Scootle Community can be used anywhere and at anytime using a desktop computer, smart phone or tablet. It was released in May 2013 and  can be  accessed via Scootle.
If you tweet, find it at https://twitter.com/ScootleComm

 

Science Week

Considering that it is Science Week  from the 10th - 14th August, I thought that you would appreciate this video called "10 Reasons To Love Science"

Twitter For Teachers

If you are just starting to use Twitter as part of your professional learning network but are finding it somewhat confusing, here is an excellent  free guide from rossieronline called Twitter For Teachers.It will help clarify terms and put you in the right direction.

 

2013 Gippsland Grammar Year 9 Book Trailer Award

In 2012, a wide reading unit that involved students creating a "book trailer " to promote the book they had read was introduced to our  Year 9 cohort.It was very successful and  fulfilled the  overarching aim which was to  put reading and books back on Year 9 students' radar.With so many students being "time poor", reading unfortunately often takes a back seat so it was delightful  to hear them having converstations about books and their reading.Consequently we have run this unit again this year.
It has been  a powerful learning experience for the Year 9's,giving them the opportunity to produce a real product that can be shared by others.At the end of the unit our students were able to demonstrate that they could:

• 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

On Friday, 2nd August, we held the 2013 "Gippsland Grammar Book Trailer Award " presentation in the Lecture Theatre.Hosted by Tyler Smith, our Year 9 cohort enjoyed watching the top four trailers from each of the four English classes, as did those who were present. It was so hard choosing the best four from each classs as the standard was so high.However,at the end of the showcase,Kate Arnup announced the overall winners and  congratulated the whole cohort on their outstanding achievements.The overall winner of the competition was Nathan  with his book trailer "The Walking Dead".Nathan goes into "the hall of fame" and receives a $50 Collins book voucher. Receiving the $25 Collins book vouchers for being"highly commended " were  Kirsten  for " Perks of Being A Wallflower" and Isabel  for her "Water For Elephants"book trailer.Well done to all Year 9's!







The Walking Dead by Nathan S is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.




Perks of Being a Wallflower by Kristen C is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.



Water For Elephants by Isabel P is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Supporting Literacy and Numeracy

In light of our focus on literacy this term you probably would be interested in having a look at Teach Learn Share.The Australian Government is supporting a range of initiatives to improve literacy outcomes for students,one of those being the establishment of the Teach Learn Share database.This is a place where teachers can share their most effective approaches to literacy and numeracy teaching and learning in Australia.The database includes descriptions of successful programs and provides links to relevant research.

Formative Assessment/Assessment For Learning

 

 

Are you aware of the Assessment for Learning website which has been developed by Education Services Australia (ESA)?It contains excellent professional learning resources that individual teachers can use as part of their own professional learning journey. There are a total of  8 learning modules:

• an introduction to assessment and learning
• learning intentions
• success criteria and rubrics
• effective teacher feedback
• strategic questioning
• peer feedback
• student self assesment
• formative use of summative assessment

If you ae interested in completing any of these modules, you need to fill out a "Professional Learning" form so that your PL hours can be  formally recorded.

Also worth looking at on this site, is the section that contains 32 very detailed assessment tasks covering a range of subjects.

Year 8 Book in a Bag Task

For your interest,here is this year's video created by Lyn of the Year 8  Book in a Bag wide reading activity that was held in Term 2.The Year 8's enjoy this task and the display of the bags always receives loads of interest from our students.



2013 Book in a Bag by Lyn Mc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.