Monthly Archives: September 2008

Feature blog – Fict.it.ious – Sacred Heart College Geelong

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Maree Macdonald and Heather Carlin of Sacred Heart College in Geelong have created a wonderful blog called Fict.it.ious.

Fict.it.ious home

Fict.it.ious home

Maree says, ‘We have always recorded every book read by every staff member (believe  it or not!) giving an abstract, reading level, score out of 10 and a  critical comment.  So, when it came to setting up a blog for book reviews, the process was relatively easy – we only used those books that scored 8.5 or above.  We launched the Blog during Book Week this year, promising prizes to any students who left a comment or recommended a book for review – not a great response, but the next target will be teachers.’

She continues, ‘Humanities is, at the moment, studying Medieval History, and one of their activities is to read a book about the period and review it.  Perfect!  So, at the moment we’re putting a good selection on the blog and we’ll email the site to the Humanities teachers.  We also plan to put our High Interest/Low Ability books on, with a tag to Learning Enhancement so the books are easy to find.  Our Literature Circle books are also going on, so the students involved will be able to comment on their books online.’

Maree and Heather have set up links to reviews by genre, with clever titles such as: 3 hanky reads, Action aplenty, Girl meets vampire, Good sports, Horror!, Love and other adventures, Medieval mayhem, Mysterious ways, Nail Biters, Out of the past, Out of this world, Private lives and Side-splitters

The page below can be found under the Girl meets vampire genre link.

Girl meets vampire page

Girl meets vampire page

Maree and Heather also put together a brilliantly designed Book Week page, which outlined activities and competitions for the week, enthusing students to join and celebrate Book Week. Maree says, ‘We used the site for Book Week as well, creating a page outlining all the activities running throughout the week.
Book Week

Book Week

‘We also plan to make up some posters and bookmarks (maybe using the image generators we learned about in the Web 2.0 program!) promoting the site to students and staff alike and, of course introduce it to staff at the first available staff meeting.  We have decided to  purchase glow in the dark wristbands promoting the site and will be distributing them to Literature Circles students and students who review books on the blog.’

‘We see lots of potential for the blog.  The great thing about these web 2.0 tools is that they can be unpredictable and lead you in directions that you never envisaged.  I would love to see students reviewing their books via podcasts on the blog, or maybe writing a collaborative novel!  Who knows?’

As Maree says, ‘Libraries and Web 2.0 are a marriage made in Heaven!’

Please see photos of Sacred Heart College’s fantastic Beijing Olympics display in our Picture Gallery page as well as photos of the terrific library layout and design. Congratulations to Maree, Heather and all of the library staff at Sacred Heart College Geelong!

Twitter – a quick communication tool

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Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ tool that lets you send and receive short messages. Tweets, or messages, contain no more than 140 characters including punctuation and spaces, so messages have to be short and sweet. The information you send in your message is meant to answer the question, ‘What are you doing?’ 

Twitter
Twitter

You can invite contacts to join Twitter and you can decide who can read your updates. Your updates can be displayed on your Twitter homepage, sent via email, instant messaging, RSS, (SMS but this is currently only available in USA, Canada, UK and India) and to Facebook pages. You can also set Twitter to ‘quiet time’ when you don’t want to be interrupted, or you’re just sick of being able to be contacted all of the time.

Twitter could be a useful tool for colleagues working together in different locations, or for students collaborating on projects.  Other applications such as authoring tools, mashups, search engines and voice to Twitter (Twitterfone) have been developed to complement Twitter. However, not all of the applications have been devised by the people behind Twitter. The Twitter Blog is a useful tool that lists a range of Twitter applications. The blog keeps up to date with what’s hot and it also provides a dictionary of ‘Twitter lingo’.

Ning – create your own social network

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Forget MySpace and Facebook! You can now create your own social network. Whether it be for staff communication or professional development purposes, or for student learning, Ning can provide you with all the tools you need to crate your own social network.

Have a look at the Ning for the Educators’ Guide to Innovation.

ning2

As with any Web 2.0 tool, the privacy of both students and staff need to be addressed before entering full names, photos and other information. Please note that users of Ning need to be over 13 years of age. As of July 2010, Ning will be charging for most nings, but there is said to be a sponsored deal for schools in the pipeline.

WebQuests and Beyond! Award 2008

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For all of you wonderful library people who have been inspiring staff and students with your Web 2.0 blogs, wikis, podcasts and other tools, have you considered entering the WebQuests and Beyond! Award 2008?

WebQuests and Beyond! 2008 Awards information

WebQuests and Beyond! 2008 Awards information

In 2008, the School Library Association of Victoria and the Victorian Education Channel have expanded their WebQuest of the Year Award to incorporate Web 2.0 tools due to the enormous potential they can provide to teaching and learning.

School teams are invited to present a sequence of learning that utilises a range of online resources, allows students to work in teams and  allows opportunities for online communication or collaboration. All Victorian teachers are encouraged to participate, but please remember it must be a team submission.

Entries close Wednesday 15th October. Interactive whiteboards to be won! Entries with a ‘Studies of Asia’ focus are eligible for an extra prize provided by the Victorian Studies of Asia program. For an application form, click here and for more details, contact channel.manager@edumail.vic.gov.au  Good luck!