Holiday Reading Function

The ISC  team  invite you all to attend our  Holiday Reading Function  on Friday 5th December. It will start at 3:30 pm and drinks and nibbles will be supplied. Liz and Trevor from Collins Bookstore will also be making their regular  "guest appearance" to tell us about the latest summer  reads. We hope that you are able to come along and help us celebrate the end of the year. This function  is a great opportunity to  start unwinding and easing  yourselves into holiday mode.

Building Capacity in our Year 7's

With supporting skill development and guided learning being an important focus of our ISC, I have thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to co –teach with our Year 7 History and Geography teachers this year. Through their investigations of Asia and Ancient Egypt, Year 7’s have learnt and practiced new skills which have included:

·         Developing their own questions

·         Note Making

·         Using Inspirations’ mind mapping tool

·         Accessing ISC virtual resource guides

·         Using copyright friendly resources in their presentations

·         Using Moviemaker as a presenting tool

·         Uploading tasks to the school portal Discussion Board.

It has been wonderful to see their progression in these skills during 2014.

Paired Reading In Year 8

It has also been rewarding  and satisfying for Joy and myself to be able to  support Year 8's in developing their literacy and digital skills this term. In their “Paired Reading” project, students have learnt how to customise and maintain a blog, use the web tool Voki, use copyright friendly resources only, create their own movie and embed all multimedia into their blog. Students have enjoyed the variety of tasks in this project. With reading being an essential life skill, this project was a great way to foster a love of reading and allow students to present their responses in a challenging and creative way.

In Week Six, all Year 8's had the opportunity to showcase their blogs. It was also a requirement to peer and self -assess and  students managed to do this in  a respectful, constructive  and beneficial way. It was great to be able to read that they not only learnt a lot of new skills but found the project engaging and challenging.

YouTube Channels For Learning

It is now commonplace for educational institutions, including schools,  to  have their own YouTube channels. It is an exciting way for educators to host  and share their own collections of videos that could feature lectures, tutorials and  open coursework.

Below are some  general educational YouTube channels I think are worth following. I particularly like Teaching and Learning in  South Australia. Above are two of their videos.The first is from a series called Opening my classroom door. This series is a collection of short stories shared by teachers who have been willing to invite peers into their classrooms to observe.The second video which is about enriching learning with networked technology is from  a series called Professional Conversations.

YouTube EDU
Teaching Channel
TED-Ed
Edutopia
ASCD
Learning to Teach Online
Khan Academy
Discovery Channel
The rockEd Channel
RSA Animate: 21st Century Enlightenment
Teaching and Learning in South Australia

Empowering Students To Be Changemakers

 

After this week's  discussions at the Garnsey Campus  about  what constitutes "Academic Care" at Gippsland Grammar, this Edutopia article on social entrepreneurship really spoke to me. It suggests 7 ways teachers can tap into the local and global concerns of our students, empowering  them to change the world. As one would suspect,social media plays a key role with schools  needing to embrace social media platforms so that students can  share their concerns and actions with the world.

 

Periodic Table for iPad Apps

With technology constantly changing, this "periodic table of ipad Apps" poster is very useful. Inspired by Sean Junkins, Mark Anderson, an Assistant Principal in the UK has categorised Apps  into  8 areas of use.
 You can follow Mark on the ICTEvangelist blog. He has given the poster a Creative Commons licence which means its free to use and share. To  download a higher resolution of the poster  click here.

Feedly

I have been using the RSS reader,Feedly, for sometime now to help  keep me  abreast with what's trending in education. Only this week, Richard Byrne from the Free Technology For Teachers blog has created a video showing you how to create a Feedly account, find blogs and organise them into categories. Besides being an excellent tool for  your Professional Learning Network, it is also a great way to keep track of student blogs.

Crisis of Attention

Last week I came across a very  interesting article about how technology is changing our brains. Natasha Georgiou's article World of Online Distraction looks at student attention spans, and the growing evidence that the way we use technology is affecting the way we think and act.

 In addition, Mindshift's  Age of Distraction: Why its crucial for students to learn to focus is also an interesting read. It urges teachers to teach students to concentrate,stating that research shows that if students don’t learn how to concentrate and shut out distractions, they'll less likely  to succeed in life. Apparently it is more important than IQ and family socio economic status.The article also debunks the benefits of multitasking, stating that switching back and forwards from one task to another actually erodes the ability to focus on either tasks.

Teacher Eduation Review

 

When thinking about further developing your own Personal Learning Network, TER would be a worthwhile addition. It is a fortnightly podcast produced by teachers and offers a teachers' perspective on educational issues in Australia and around the world. Each podcast features a variety of guests that could include educators, academics, researchers and international experts.

 

Your Life on Earth

This interactive website would be useful when teaching students about historical timelines. Your Life On Earth is a feature of the BBC's Earth website. Your Life On Earth shows you how the world has changed during your lifetime. Enter your birthdate and Your Life On Earth will show you things like how much the world's population has grown, how many new species have been discovered, and how many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have occurred since you were born.

Click here for more  recommended tools for creating timelines

Searching Twitter For Educational Content

Richard Byrne from Free Technology for Teachers has created the video above that shows you how to go about finding educational content on Twitter. This can be done without you having your own account which will suit  our non Twitter users.