Year 9 Students in Spineout Magazine

As previously mentioned in a post, in Term 3, our Year 9 students created Book Trailers as part of their Wide Reading Program in English.Click on the image above to access the online magazine  Spineout's Oct/Nov issue  to see  three of our students' book trailers. There is  also a video there that they created about their project.To find our students' work you will need to click through several .Contributing to this magazine is a great way of  sharing ideas and creativity  outside of the classroom setting.

Like,Post,Share:Young Australians' Experience of Social Media

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has recently  published  the report Like, post, share: young Australians’ experience of social media.In 2011–12,  ACMA surveyed children’s and young people’s attitudes towards the internet and social media. They looked particularly at their attitudes and behaviours around online risk and risk management, and explored the role of other people—parents,siblings and friends —in helping children and young people navigate their online lives. Check out this report to find out how the internet is playing an increasingly important role in the lives of young people.

Virtual Learning at Harvard Graduate School Of Education

It was very interesting hearing Liana's  reflections on  the Future of Learning Seminar which she she recently attended, held at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.The key drivers  and shapers of the changing nature of learning  were identified as  globalisation,the digital revolution and mind/brain research.
The digital revolution is giving schools many opportunities for learning and Liana spoke about how the Harvard Graduate School of Education has put its hat in the ring with its  curriculum research project called EcoMUVE.
EcoMUVE  uses immersive virtual environments to teach middle school students about ecosystems and causal patterns.
The goal of the EcoMUVE project is to help students develop a deeper understanding of ecosystems and causal patterns with a curriculum that uses Multi‐User Virtual Environments (MUVEs). MUVEs are 3‐D virtual worlds that have a look and feel similar to videogames.Harvard is also piloting EcoMOBILE,an augmented -reality app for smartphones that gets students outside to observe their own local ecosystems for technology enhanced field trips.Project organisers believe that blending virtual and real ecosystems  can have a positive impact on student learning and I am sure that we will be hearing lots more and hopefully participating in some of these exciting initiatives in the future.

 

Just Delete Me

 

 

If you are anything like myself,the amount of accounts you subscribe to can become somewhat overwhelming and difficult to manage.At the time, I often think something is worth subscribing to but then I find that I might never use it again. No wonder there is now talk about how to manage someone's digital footprint in their demise. Justdelete.me could be the tool you are looking for to help you get rid of your unnecessary accounts.

Keeping Your online Identity Secure

Of course it's not just about managing your internet accounts.Adrian Craven's Gizmodo blog gives you some great tips about how you can make your personal details  secure online and manage all of your accounts effectively.

Collaborative Learning

Once again,I thought that it would be worth re- acquainting you with the Teaching Channel.It has many excellent vidoes that you can use for your professional learning.I also like the fact that most of the videos only run for 1-2 minutes,so very good for the "time poor" teacher
Recently they have added some videos on collaborative groups.Learning is noisy and talking collaboratively with peers is essential for discovering key concepts and refining ideas for students of all ages.I thought  the video below was worth sharing with you.

After having watched the video,Teacher Channel poses these questions to reflect on:
What makes the 1-3-6 process successful?
Why is it valuable to have students work individually before forming groups?
How does working in groups of three prepare students for working in groups of six?

YouTube Audio Library

There has been some good news  from YouTube this week.They have just launched a new service called YouTube Audio Library. It allows  people to download copyright free music. Although there are no lyrics, there is a huge range of music to choose from and it will be a great platform for us to use with our students to access free music downloads. The ISC will set up its own  account and students will be able to access it from the relevant  places on the portal and on Libguides.Until that is set up, here is a link  to my account YouTube Audio Library  if you would like to check it out.

All the music embedded in the library can be browsed through the following criteria:

1- Featured
This part contains the most popular hits that people have downloaded

2- Genre
You can use this to specify the music genre you are looking for .Some of the genres used here include: classical music, Jazz and Blues, Reggae, Country and Folk, Rock, Pop and a couple more.

3-Mood
Choose music that suits best the following moods: angry, ambient, happy, romantic, sad, calm, inspirational, dramatic, dark, funky, and bright.

4- instrument
You can also choose your music according to the instrument being used in it like : Acoustic Guitar, Bass, Drums, Electric Guitar, Organ, Piano, Strings, Synth, Trumpet.

5- Duration
You can look for music clips according to their time duration ranging from 1 minute to 25 minutes.