Driven To Distraction

With our Year 7's and 8's taking possession of their Notebooks over the past two weeks,I thought that the article  above from Edutopia was important.It recognises  that digital tools give us the opportunites to deepen learning through creativity and connection but also  acknowledges the challenging issue of keeping students focussed on the task at hand in a digital environment.This article also has lots of other links to interesting articles so is well worth a read.Click on the image above to access it.

 

Google Search Gets Better

Over the Christmas break there was an improvement made to Google image search that now makes it easier for our students to use digital images responsibily.Although there are many other sites to find copyright free images, our students do like to just jump on to Google first and so this new enhancement will certainly encourage  the appropriate use of images. Under Search Tools   there is now a ‘usage rights’ field.
So the next time your students are looking for the ‘right’ picture make sure that when they search Google images that they then click on ‘Search tools’.

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This will bring down another sub-menu  called "Usage Rights".

 

The default is ‘not filtered by licence’ as per usual, but this handy feature allows for ‘labelled for reuse’ filtering as well as various ‘commercial reuse’ options.

I should also point out that there are plenty of other useful resources out there for copyright free images.Click on  our Creative Commons Libguide to access them

Scootle News

 

As well as AISTL,Scootle also has an online newsletter.Scootle News will lead you to the best digital resources to support the Australian Curriculum, connect you with peers through Scootle Community and keep you up to date on education news and upcoming events.Click on the image above to subscribe.

 

The Divided Brain

Although now over two years old this RSA presentation  about the function of the brain and commonly held misconceptions is well worth viewing

Safer Internet Day

 

Today  Safer Internet Day will be celebrated around the world and many Australian students will be participating in activities designed to "connect with respect".The theme for the day is Let's Create a Better Internet Together

 



AITSL's Biggest Hits 2013

 

Last year I subscribed to AITSL's eNews, an online newsletter that keeps you up to date with all the latest resources and happenings at AITSL. Their summer edition showcases their most visited sites during 2013.Click on the image above to access the top 8 hits. You can  subscribe to this newsletter on the AITSL site.

 

Happy 10th Birthday Facebook

On the 4th February,2004,Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his dorm room exclusively for college students. I read with interest last week in Saturday's Age that ten years on,it now has 1.23 billlion active users,80% residing outside of North America.The biggest audience is now  from people over 65 which is worrisome for Facebook.Once  parents and grandparents pick up on a trend  there is no longer any "cool " factor  for the young and beautiful to be associated with that product.16-18 year olds  are therefore  leaving Facebook in droves and looking eleswhere for their social media of choice. For your further interest and to see what young people are turning to  read Cybersmart's Facebook "Dead and Buried with Teens

Stress Relief For Employees

Following on from last week's post that talked about the need to retrain our brains so that we  focus on the postives, I found this article from The Harvard  Business Review that reported on research from University of Florida.

Apparently,stress levels and physical complaints declined by roughly 15% after employees were directed to spend 10 minutes writing about three things that had gone well each day.Sounds like a practice worth trying! For more information click on Simple Daily Intervention Relieves Stress