PBS teachers

PBS teachers is a website devoted to learning and teaching brought to you by the US television network PBS.

PBS teachers

There is an incredible amount of teacher resources here and they are not all US based. There are many online resources for those of us outside the USA to use. Organised by level:

  • Pre K,
  • K-2,
  • 3-5,
  • 6-8,
  • 9-12

and then by the subjects

  • The Arts,
  • Health and Fitness,
  • Maths,
  • Reading and Language Arts,
  • Science and Technology
  • Social Studies.

There are classroom resources, discussions and information on forthcoming and recent professional development.

The site is attractive and well organised and there is sure to be something to suit just about everyone. Featured initiatives such as ‘Raising readers’ that links to stories and reading activities and the PBS video portal that collects shows broadcast on PBS (these ARE available to people outside the US, unlike the BBC iPlayer) are other useful aspects of the site.

Also, see this School Library Journal article: PBS, NASA partner to help educators with climate change lessons.  PBS teachers is a very useful site for teacher resources.

iPod touch for learning

One of the most useful handheld devices for learning is the iPod touch. Australian iPod touch guru Jenny Ashby shows how the tool can be used in the classroom:

iPod touch 1

Jenny’s recent presentation “iPod iLearn” goes into more depth about how to set up, implement and use iPods in the classroom. Although Primary in focus, there is plenty for Secondary teachers to take from this presentation:

View more documents from jjash.

About a year ago, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) produced an iPod Touch Research Report that includes the recommendations:

On Planning and Implementation

Develop technology projects that focus on the power of visual media and social networking, as they significantly influence literacy, numeracy and life chances for disadvantaged students.

Ensure that innovative projects using emerging technologies provide adequate time for teachers to become familiar with the devices and their functionality, prior to introduction and implementation in the classroom.

Identify clear, precise learning goals that support a culture of learning and skill development in the classroom, as essential for effective implementation of emerging technologies.

On Teaching and Learning

Promote mobile handheld devices, like the iPod Touch, that stimulate learners to want to learn and provide a means to pursue knowledge independently.

Introduce handheld mobile devices like the iPod Touch to support personalised learning and to assist literacy and numeracy in ESL, ‘at risk’ and reluctant learners.

Promote a limited number of handheld devices per class, as opposed to 1:1, to encourage teachers to engage with group work or team work as a successful pedagogy.

Introduce the iPod Touch to classrooms as a tool to stimulate teachers to rethink their pedagogy by considering how to integrate portable devices with learning functionality in curriculum activities.

Develop curriculum plans that involve greater learner autonomy and independence when using handheld mobile devices in the classroom.

Integrate mobile devices with other technologies (such as interactive whiteboards, laptops, Nintendo Wii) for purposeful learning in the classroom, so they are not just add-ons.

On Professional Learning

Provide greater access to well-structured professional learning sessions to promote widespread teacher ICT capacity and confidence.

Promote online collaboration as an effective mode of teacher networking for sharing knowledge and the transfer of good practice.

On Technical Support

Include a budget item for DEECD technical support at the school or cluster level to better support emerging technology projects.

Conduct a technical needs analysis, prior to project start-up, of issues that may impact on successful implementation of innovative projects.

Provide one identified technical conduit within the ITD Branch of DEECD for critical issue liaison involving emerging technology projects.

If you decide to investigate using the iPod touch, or are already using them, then the blog post “50 educational apps for the iPod touch” by U Tech Tips will prove useful.

50 ipod touch

And thanks to @AuntyTech, here is another list of over 170 iPod touch or iPhone apps (beware that some do cost) that keep students connected to the classroom, no matter where they are:

iPod apps

The beauty of iPod touch apps (applications = programs) is that there are many that are free and quite a lot that can be used in educational settings. The iPod touch has the potential to become a revolutionary tool in the classroom.

Edubeacon

Camilla Elliott is a real learning leader. Her blog, Edubeacon has been informing readers for six years now, which is an amazingly long time in the relatively new world of Web 2.0. Camilla explains more about Edubeacon:

Why do we blog?  I’ve been blogging at Edubeacon.com since January 2004.  The site has gone through a name change and a platform change (starting on Blogger, then migrating to WordPress) but the purpose remains the same.  It is a place for reflection; for storing resources with explanatory notes and for sharing with others. Most bloggers will give you the same answer.

Edubeacon

‘Edubeacon’ is an extension of my website ‘Linking for Learning’ (L4L), which began life in about 1997 as ‘Staying Connected’ – an accessible place to store study resources.  L4L needs some therapy but is a patient companion.  I use it to link to my conference presentations and professional writing, thereby saving the odd tree or two and the photocopying budget.  It is also an accessible site for beginners seeking resources of relevance to Australian educators.

Blogs, wikis, personal websites and collaborative spaces, reflect the open and sharing nature of the Internet and Web 2.0 resources in particular.  Edubeacon serves as one of the cogs in my Personal Learning Network.  It provides opportunities for the occasional conversation and has had various changes of pace over the years depending on life’s pressures.

Building a Personal Learning Network is an essential professional activity in this time of constant change.  It’s a journey on which we build knowledge, collegiality and understanding with a variety of companions.  Blogging on Edubeacon is part of my  meandering learning journey.

Thank you Camilla for sharing your learning journey with the readers of Bright Ideas. Edubeacon really is a beacon of blogs; a shining light on technology and education that is thoughtfully researched and written.

Centre for Youth Literature

Keep an eye out for the information sent to Victorian schools from the Centre for Youth Literature. It should be winging its way to you late next week. Program Manager Mike Shuttleworth sends the following information:

The Centre for Youth Literature has produced a poster that will go to all Victorian schools. It will be mailed next Thursday and Friday.

All Victorian schools will receive a copy. It will be mailed to the Head of Library at all secondary school and Curriculum Coordinator at primary schools.

The printed poster A2 size, full colour and come folded. It will be mailed in the same envelope as the Library’s Semester One program. That includes the events, activities and programs of CYL and Education at the State Library of Victoria.

2010_CYL_poster

Always interesting to see what’s planned for the year. Thanks Mike.

eTTcampus

Helen Boelens has kindly informed Bright Ideas about eTTcampus. eTTcampus is a ‘pilot site of the eLearning initiatives of the eTTcampus Project.’ Although primarily designed for European education communities, anyone can join eTTcampus.

The website explains more:

The new eTTCampus 2.0 project aims at consolidating the European Virtual Campus created in the previous project (ettcampus, see learning events) for teachers and trainers as a reference of new ICT trends and tools in education, opening it to a wider and multi-level target audience, transforming the campus into a social eLearning environment (elearning 2.0), integrating mentoring services and ensuring the campus as a reference of a knowledge management network of “ICT in education and training” professionals.

eTT campus

 More information from the site explains:

The eTTCampus has set up, developed and consolidated a European Virtual Campus for teachers and trainers. On the virtual campus, teachers and trainers can directly compare experiences on the pedagogical use of ICT and learn through context-based work. This virtual agora and learning space will develop teachers’ and trainers’ knowledge, skills and understanding of the pedagogical, critical and responsible use of ICT for learning purpose.

This campus is intended for the teacher and trainer community in Europe but we also welcome colleagues from all over the world. Our aim is to provide teachers and trainers with tools and skills to help them use ICT in their teaching. At the campus you can find resources as well as the opportunity to participate in learning events concerned with different aspects of ICT.

We provide a collaborative platform that provides teachers and trainers with a resource  that encourages the exchange of knowledge and experiences between peers. By contributing to the resources of this campus, we can together identify key questions and make recommendations.

The Learning Events range from familiarising yourself with the idea of eLearning to maintaining your own eLearning environment. You can start with “Getting Started” where you will be introduced to the concept of eLearning including various models and approaches, discuss strengths and weaknesses and impact on practice. “ePedagogy” focuses on Implementing eLearning concepts through the use of different learning theories. For a more advanced teacher, the “eTechnologies” Learning events (eTechnologies (should be called eTools), Mobile Learning and Open Source) provide ideas for teachers to use different technologies, to design courses by choosing the appropriate ones and to provide tools and concepts connected to ICT for eLearning.

In addition to these there are two more general LEs that underlie all of the LEs. “eCompetencies”introduces the Teacher and Trainer community in Europe to the concept and practice of the competency-based approach to learning and development, and assists them in using a competency framework to review, evaluate and adapt their current programmes where appropriate. The “Accessibility – Equal communication and materials in eLearning” LE, on the other hand, provides teachers with some tools and knowledge on how to make eLearning more accessible to all learners.

600 teachers and trainers currently  within the community.

eTTcampus is a joint project between the University of Greenwich, the University of SurreyEDEN (European Distance and eLearning Netowrk), ISFOLSCIENTER, UPC- BARCELONA TECH and EIfEL (European Institute for ELearning).  As trends for 2010 have predicted users of social media will reevaluate the tools they have been using and decide what works and what doesn’t? Consider sticking with the tools you know, like and use and really begin using them in a reflective manner for pedagogical success. eTTcampus gives users the opportunity to network with educators from around the world to discuss projects and pedagogies in perhaps a deeper manner than ever before.

Note that some online courses have been completed, however, members are still able to complete the courses as all information and resources are still available on the eTTcampus site.

Free professional learning for all Victorian teachers

Senior Project Officers at the Innovation and Next Practice Division of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development have passed on this important message:

Attention: Victorian teachers in Government, Catholic and Independent schools

The Department is offering a program of free, online conferences during the pupil-free days from January 27- 29, 2010. We have 35 fantastic 60-minute sessions on offer! The program will cover the domains of Literacy, Maths, Science and ICT.

You can participate in these sessions from your own school via Elluminate. The only equipment you will need is a computer with an internet connection and a microphone headset.

Further details and registration information is available at:  http://www.education.vic.gov.au/researchinnovation/events/jan2010.htm

Sessions on offer include:

Wednesday 27th January

–       Supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: Reading in meaningful units

–       Delivering Environmental Sustainability into Classroom and Curriculum

–       Resources to Support ESL Students

–       Bringing Social Media and Web 2.0 into the Classroom

–       CREST: Creativity in Science and Technology with the Help of a Real, Live Scientist

–       Introduction to FUSE

–       Habitat Heroes: Environmental Awareness through Social Networking

–       Supporting Young People with Language Disorders and Literacy Difficulties in our Classrooms

–       Tips & Tricks with Microsoft OneNote

–       Engage your Students in Real Action for a Sustainable Future

Thursday 28th January

–       Going 1-to-1: Findings from the Netbook Trial

–       Integrating Maths across the Curriculum

–       LandLearn

–       Getting Started with Audio Podcasts

–       Inquiry Approaches for Teaching Abstract Concepts in Science

–       Getting Started with Video Podcasts

–       Creative Reading and Insideadog.com.au

–       Strategies for Teaching Cybersafety and Ethics

–       Gaming & Social Networks in Science Education

–       Articul8 Maths

–       Prep Assessment Period: The English Online Interview

–       ePotential: What to do after you have taken the survey

–       Supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: Early Visual Communication from Diagnosis

–       Using e5 with Professional Learning Teams

–       Nothing Rhymes with Poetry

Friday 29th January

–       Tips & Tricks with Microsoft Communicator & LiveMeeting

–       Supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: ICT Strategies for Maths

–       Teaching Science in a Mixed Ability Classroom

–       Maths Is An Option – How Do We Make Students Opt For It?

–       Screencasting for Personalised Learning in Literacy and Numeracy

–       Multiliteracies at Museum Victoria: Science resources and much more

–       Combo Cards: Using Manipulatives in Maths

–       Using wikis in the classroom to support collaborative learning

–       Screen Literacy: Teaching with Digital tools and Multimodal Texts

–       Effective Chance and Data Investigations

As places are limited, you must gain approval from your principal and ensure you are available prior to registering for any session.

Anyone who has completed Elluminate training will be comfortable with using this technology.

Sharendipity – create your own games

Sharendipity is a site that lets you create your own games and then upload them to the site, embed them into other websites or just use games that other people have developed.

Sharendipity

Their website states:

Sharendipity is the fun and easy way to create fun, social games without programming that can be shared with your friends or embedded on your website. Or simply browse and play the creations of others, challenging your friends to beat your high score! Create a game in four easy steps or try the advanced game creator!

There is a wiki and a blog to assist if you need it as well as a forum to consult other Sharendipity members. Looks like fun for teachers and students alike.

The Wheeler Centre: Books, Writing, Ideas

Two recent articles published in The Age highlighted Melbourne’s forthcoming Wheeler Centre: Books, Writing, Ideas.

Wheelers help turn new page at centre

JASON STEGER

November 27, 2009

WHEN Tony and Maureen Wheeler created their travel-book company at a kitchen table in 1972, they had no idea Lonely Planet would become one of the great Australian entrepreneurial success stories.

They certainly couldn’t have known that hundreds of journeys later it would lead to the centrepiece of Melbourne’s successful bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature being named after them.

But yesterday there was a new title page in the story of the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas when it was renamed the Wheeler Centre: Books, Writing, Ideas.

The Wheelers, who sold 75 per cent of Lonely Planet to BBC Worldwide two years ago for about $200 million, have also made a substantial endowment to the centre, the income from which will be used to help fund the program of events when the centre opens next year.

The Wheelers have a philanthropic foundation, Planet Wheeler, that operates in the areas of child and maternal welfare, education and health care in South-East Asia and Africa.

Maureen Wheeler said when the idea of contributing to the centre was raised they decided it was a great way to give something back to Melbourne. ”We liked the idea immediately because it fitted in so much with the things we’re interested in. There isn’t anything like it in Australia and I love the fact that it’s in Melbourne.”

The Wheelers would not say how much their endowment was worth.

”When I compare it with what we started with, it’s a lot of money,” Mr Wheeler said. And Mrs Wheeler said, ”it was more than adequate”.

Centre director Chrissy Sharp said the substantial amount was a fantastic boon that eased the planning of events.

The centre also announced that its launch event would be held on February 13 – the anniversary of the Federal Government’s apology to the stolen generations – and would feature 12 writers telling stories that had been handed down to them through their families.

Among those taking part are David Malouf, Paul Kelly, Chloe Hooper, Alexis Wright, Christos Tsiolkas and Alex Miller. Ms Sharp said the centre’s full program would be unveiled in January.

The centre is based in a wing of the State Library of Victoria and, in addition to staging events, will provide a home for organisations such as the Melbourne Writers Festival, the Victorian Writers’ Centre and the Australian Poetry Centre.

Feisty, fabulous and full of ideas

Andrew Stephens
November 28, 2009

WHEN she was in her 20s, Chrissy Sharp strode into the Sydney offices of the then revered ABC documentary program Chequerboard and told them she wanted to work there. She had big ideas. ”I said, ‘I know I could work here: please give me a job.’ ” Sharp, who grew up in Canberra, had seen the indigenous tent embassy at Parliament House and she was in a lather to do something on it. Chequerboard, which tackled such thorny issues, took a risk and hired her as a researcher.

It was a lucky break – but then, she had been pushing for a while.

”There I was,” she says, ”at uni in Canberra, and I felt so guilty that I could be so aware of American civil rights but had never really, really, understood the plight of Aborigines. I thought, I’ve got to do something. I beleaguered Four Corners; but I was never a journalist, I wasn’t going to get a job on Four Corners – I used to get these responses saying, ‘Please apply to the typing pool.’ ” She pauses. ”And I couldn’t type.” So she went to Sydney for the old foot-in-door at Chequerboard.

These days, they come to her.

Here in her office in a wing of the State Library of Victoria – which houses the much-anticipated Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing, Ideas, where Sharp is inaugural director – she whips open a window to let the noise in. Clearly, she loves buzz and the flurry of creativity and – yes – the inevitable panic that her big new job attracts. So, windows open, that same sort of frenetic activity – the burble of trams, pedestrians and lunchtime conversations on the lawns below – filters up into her room. She thrives on it.

Chrissy Sharp, her husband, Michael Lynch, explains, is a truly formidable person. ”Woe betide anyone who gets in her way!” he laughs, uproariously. Not because she’s scary but because she’s full of warm, infectious energy; she gets things moving and she inspires loyalty. She’s immediately, immensely likeable. And very clever.

These two people have been described, rather lamely, as a ”power couple”, but there’s much more complexity and panache to it than that. You get the feeling – both of them have fantastic laughs, full of character – that they have enormous fun together when they meet up between the demanding tasks of their busy professional lives. There is, it seems, an authenticity of enjoyment about what they do and why they do it.

Last June, they arrived in Melbourne after about seven years in London, where Lynch was horrendously busy as chief executive of London arts hub the Southbank Centre; he had become one of England’s most admired and sparky arts administrators, overseeing the $260 million refurbishment of Royal Festival Hall. Sharp, who had previously been general manager of the Sydney Festival, had – of course – taken on a risky business there herself: trying to wrench ailing dance theatre Sadler’s Wells out of deep doldrums. She did more than that. By the time she left, it was the city’s pre-eminent dance outfit, with five successive surpluses and a quarter more attendees.

So it is hard to believe it when she reveals that, once upon a time, she ran a flower shop.

”It was such a long time ago, when I was a farmer’s wife,” she laughs. She had two sons in that marriage (she now has a stepdaughter, too), and a desire to open a flower shop in the NSW town near where they lived. ”It was very hard work. It meant twice a week driving down to the flower markets in Sydney and getting back by the time the shop opened. It was a lousy way to make money – but I was young. And very energetic.”

What’s changed? Now she is in full, energetic swing as director of the Wheeler Centre, her first job doing a start-up, from the ground up, with a small staff and – despite the Books and Writing bit in the centre’s title – a particularly deep interest in Ideas. Among the first people on her year-round program of events – it will be a festival that never stops – are ethicist/philosopher Peter Singer, US foreign affairs journalist Mark Danner and a top-notch panel teasing out the minefield of media ethics, led by former Ageeditor Michael Gawenda.

”The importance of cultural nourishment, whether it be through books or dance or music, is just vital, I think, to society, ” says Sharp, who has never lived in Melbourne but is agog at the depth of intellectual life she has discovered in just a few months. She wants the centre – named after Lonely Planet founders and philanthropists Tony and Maureen Wheeler, who have made a generous endowment – to be the sort of place where writers and thinkers talk about ideas, not just their own books. As Maureen Wheeler told one interviewer at this week’s announcement of the centre’s name, there were tough questions to ask before investing. But the Wheelers were very impressed with Sharp and with the concrete ideas behind it – it wasn’t, said Wheeler, the sort of ”arty” thing that says, ”Ideas, what are ideas?”

Indeed, Sharp is very pragmatic on this, noting that the recent economic downturn has provoked a lot of thinking about fundamental ethics and directions, a questioning of assumptions about endless growth and wealth. ”People from everywhere in society are interested in ideas,” she says. ”We want to take it into the town square, if you like, and bring some of our own fantastic thinkers who are in campuses around Melbourne or Australia, into a different kind of forum: where their ideas are accessible, where people get a familiarity, with not expecting it to be too high-brow, too rarefied or too boring. It’s got to be entertaining.”

The centre, housing the Melbourne Writers Festival, Victorian Writers Centre, Australian Poetry Centre and other literary organisations, was established after Melbourne won its bid for UNESCO City of Literature. It has a large performance space and workshop areas, where Sharp is planning forums that will spark debate.

”It seems I have yet to meet a person in Melbourne, especially women, who don’t belong to a book club,” she says. ”It – this city – seems to just absorb the idea of writing and the importance of books. It’s kind of a given, it seems to me. Everyone – my hairdresser! The guy who was painting the door the other day: I was sitting here talking to the chairman … and I mentioned [Orhan] Pamuk. [Later] the painter said, ‘I’m sorry, but I heard you talk about Pamuk.’ I asked him if he was Turkish; no, it was just that he and his wife lovePamuk. I love that! I was so impressed.”

She’s finding this all through Melbourne. ”It’s not just the job I’m doing: people do talk about the books they’re reading, or the ideas that they’d like to hear – they’re incredibly well informed. It is sucha writer’s place. Going out for lunch, there’s always some sort of fervent discussion about something to do with writing or books – it is a very intellectual city. Michael and I used to laugh about the fact that you’d come down from Sydney and you’d sit down to lunch and there’d be some intense” – she almost yells the word – ”argument going on. That is very Melbourne.”

There were some sour musings when Sharp’s appointment was announced last February: she, after all, is an outsider whose connection with the place had not extended much beyond holidays to aunts and grandparents here when she was a girl. Equally, though, she hadn’t set foot in Sydney until she was 16. But outsiders – she faced the same pursed lips when she took on Sadler’s Wells in London – often have the clearest view of what’s going on in a place and the sort of unsentimental temerity to get things done. She proved that at Sadler’s Wells as general manager alongside artistic director Alistair Spalding, and she looks like doing so here with her winning combination of financial and staff management, plus artistic, creative flair.

Lynch is droll about her dynamism. ”Much too much energy for my liking,” he says. ”I think she approaches life very full-on – they are lucky to have someone with the attention to detail and the energy that she brings to it. That’s going to stand the organisation in quite good stead. And she does command hugely loyal groups of people working with her. I’m not sure I would have quite had the energy at my flagging point in life to do it, but she seems to have driven herself day and night to make sure they could realise the potential of the idea.”

Lynch says he and Sharp worked amazingly hard in London. ”I dragged her to England to back me up, but she didn’t want to play dutiful wife entirely, so she took on Sadler’s Wells. I thought it was my turn to be a little more supportive and a little less demanding, with her being in this new role. Being in a new town, she has sent me out to find the house and do those sorts of things.”

While she has never worked with her husband, who has joined the ABC board, the two, he says, had one notoriously amusing conflict of interests some years ago when she was representing actors in the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and he was running the Sydney Theatre Company.

”This was sort of indicative of her hide,” he confides, laughing. ”The actors’ union were taking industrial action against all of the major theatre companies, so she led a picket line outside one of our opening nights in Sydney. I was standing inside and she blandished kisses at me and said, ‘Come out and talk to me!’ I had to say, ‘No darling, I never cross picket lines. Even for my dear wife.’ She’s always been a feisty woman in that respect.”

SHARP grew up in a family where books were at the centre of things and she says that anyone who knows her isn’t surprised she has ended up heading a centre concerned with writing and ideas.

”My intellectual life for most of my childhood was books and music, inevitably,” she says. Her father, Ted Hannan, was a highly acclaimed professor of statistics at ANU, a man described by one biographer as ”outspoken, frequently irreverent” but ”transparently honest”.

”And my mother just loved music. My father’s interests, apart from mathematics, were very much history, biography and poetry, and it was my mother who introduced me to the whole canon of 20th-century American writers, in particular, and of Australian writers. It was very much a household that talked about books all the time. Then I went to university, started doing literature and history and ended up doing honours in history with Manning Clark, who’s very much a literary person. So books and literature and history were my forming influences.”

But she says that while it was her dream at university to become a writer, she has since found she is ” the one person who doesn’t have a novel in me.

”I realised in my early 30s, no I don’t think I have a novel to give the world, not of any great interest or importance. I am lucky having realised that at a reasonably early age – to have [since] been in positions where I can enable arts has been incredibly satisfying. I have been around enough to know that the people who do the hard work are the creators. They’re the ones that I hold on a pedestal.”

Lynch, it seems, might hold her there, though. ”Formidably smart,” he says. ”She scared me for many years on that front. She’s always been the one who’s read the books and had the brain and she’s always been a formidable person to argue, discuss or engage with. And I think she’s really thrilled [with her job]: books have always been a passion but she’s always been very good on ideas.” And at putting them into action.

A very exciting time for those of us passionate about books, writing and ideas.

K-12 Online Conference 2009

A free conference for all K-12 educators will begin shortly. All sessions in the K-12 Online Conference 2009 are conducted online and if you cannot attend in real time (all session listings are GMT, AEDST is 11 hours ahead of GMT) as many sessions seem to begin around 11.30pm AEDST, links to presentations will be available at the K-12 Online Conference 2009 wiki.

k-12 online

The first session begins this evening and the conference runs for several weeks, wrapping up in January.

 

Driving Information Literacy – a Prezi

Head of Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School  LRC Glenys Lowden has agreed to share a Prezi that she presented recently to staff. The Driving Information Literacy Prezi shows the ‘journey’ that Lowther Hall are on; how much they’ve addressed so far and what’s yet to come.


Glenys explains more about the Prezi:

The prezi I did http://prezi.com/vanla3godjfi/ was undertaken as an alternate to preparing a PowerPoint. It was part of a group presentation at school and I was focusing on the information literacy aspect.  I actually did the presentation as a PowerPoint then noticed Dianne McKenzie in Hong Kong mentioned a Prezi she had done.  This inspired me to revisit this tool (which I had thought was too hard) and actually have a go (thanks Dianne).  It was tricky in parts and is a tool you need to keep practising.  The PLUSS model that I mention in the Prezi was developed by James Herring. A number of staff came up after asking about the tool and how to use it–they really enjoyed seeing an alternative to PowerPoint.

Well done to Glenys and staff for the Prezi as well as driving information literacy in your school. Thanks also to Dianne McKenzie for inspiring Glenys (and myself) to tryPrezi.