Sovereign Hill Education Resources

Posted on April 27, 2012 by slvadmin

Our guest post today comes from Sovereign Hill Education Officer Stephanie Rosestone. The Sovereign Hill team have some great free professional development opportunities and resources for teaching history.

This year Sovereign Hill Education is running free webinars offering professional learning opportunities for teachers. In Term 2 there will be two webinars: How to find good resources for teaching history (Thursday 3 May) and Innovative history teaching in practise (Mon 14 May). For more information and to register visit here.

If you’re going to be teaching Australian History, Sovereign Hill Education has a number of free online resources to support your programs. Our Education Website is a great place to start. Here you will find a Teachers section that includes Bibliographies of Resources, Teaching Kits, VELS units and upcoming PDs (including a one day conference AusVELS History in the Primary Classroom in July). There is also a section called Talking about Learning that includes videos of teachers and students talking about their experiences of teaching and learning history. The Students section of our website includes images, research notes and audio files retelling excerpts of primary source documents.

We look forward to being part of your Professional Learning Network. You can find us on Twitter @GoldfieldsEd or you can follow our blog where we will be sharing resources, news and ideas.

Featured post: instaGrok

Posted on April 26, 2012 by slvadmin

Today our featured post comes from Bev Novak, writer of the fantastic NovaNews blog. Bev’s post is about the new educational search site instaGrok, which looks like a very promising tool that includes elements of Google’s now defunct Wonderwheel.

instaGrok – a winner for those who loved Wonder Wheel!

The value of social networking is profound! I’m sure that without it, it would have taken me a while to discover instaGrok.

instaGrok – an interactive learning tool provides an expansive array of returns for each search. Producing a spiral visual graph on the left pane, numerous links are simultaneously generated on the right hand panel and are neatly categorized under headings: key facts, websites, videos, images, quizzes and concepts. With a tab to moderate the level of difficulty of results returned, this tool really has enourmous potential as a teaching tool. The ‘about’ tab on the homepage, also tell us that instGrok

finds age-appropriate educational content on any topic presented with interactive multimedia interfaces
generates quiz questions based on student’s research activity and skill level
supports creation of research journals and concept maps for learning assessment

Just take a look at this short video which appears on the instaGrok homepage:

For those of us who lamented the disappearance of Wonder Wheel – that great tool which simply vanished from the Google suite of tools about a year ago –instaGrok sure looks to be a winner!

You can find the original post here. Make sure you also have a look at Bev’s Book Blog, which features news and reflections on literature and books. Thank you Bev for sharing your work with us.

Guest post: Just teach the normal way, she said

Posted on April 23, 2012 by slvadmin

Today’s guest post comes from Kate Mildenhall, Education Officer at the State Library of Victoria and a participant of the 2012 Victorian Personal Learning Network. The post was written in preparation for Unit 5 of the PLN, which poses the question ‘Which comes first, pedagogy or technology?’ Kate’s post following a conversation with her niece is a fascinating insight into the thoughts of a student about the role of technology in the classroom.

“I have to take a moment to get down a conversation with a year 9 student (also a niece) I had last weekend. Let this stand as a prologue – or perhaps an aside – to my thinking that will happen with Unit 5. Around a restaurant table laden with an Indian feast, I asked my niece (let’s call her C) how school was going and what was happening in her life. C has always been a conscientious kid; precocious, with two much older siblings, engaged in the world, passionate about injustice, an all-round lovely person to spend time with. So I take with a grain of salt some of her tirade against teachers in general and put some of it down to ‘year 9′ness’ and a general need to buck the system, nevertheless, her attitude towards school, education and teachers in general was a bit of a shock to me.

The best classes, she said, were those where the teachers were careless enough just to leave the kids alone so they could get on Facebook and Tumblr. Ah yes – Tumblr, I said, I use that a bit. She looked at me blankly when I asked how she was using it with her mates and guffawed loudly when I asked if she would consider using it for ‘school’ stuff. Nah, she said, our mates just use it to post videos and stuff we like. Oh, I said, that’s basically what we do too – probably what a lot of your teachers are doing with blogs. Yes, she said, but when a teacher asks us to use it, it just makes it completely uncool. They’re trying too hard. Just leave us alone with the technology stuff and just teach the normal way.

My eyebrow raised inadvertently as I asked what the normal way might be. You know, she said, like projects and stuff. Our conversation trailed off in to how the most successful graduate from her school would be the kid who sorts the proxy for Facebook and hacks the network regularly.It’s an understatement to say it left me thinking. Are we stuck in a catch 22 in schools at the moment? How many kids feel like this? Is C struggling because she is bored and unchallenged and unengaged or is the system such that it can not work for her in its current model? Ironically C is about to head off to a place at Alpine School for a term and said she was really looking forward to the challenge of being without her phone and uncensored internet and communication. Is there a backlash from kids about the way technology is fed to them in the classroom – too slow, too controlled, too directed? Hmmmmmm – I leap in to Unit 5 and 21st Century pedagogy with so many questions!”

ABC: 80 days that changed our lives

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Cam Hocking

The ABC has recently launched a fantastic new site, 80 days that changed our lives. The site explores 80 key events in history that shaped our world. As you would expect from the ABC, there are a wealth of video and audio resources related to each event, along with personal reflections from ABC staff.

The events are organised by theme but perhaps the more interesting way of browsing is via the timeline. You can also make comments about each event on the forum located at the bottom of each page.

The site is a great introduction to some of the key events that have shaped our society and is an great way to browse the wealth of resources available in the ABC archive.

ANZAC Day resources

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Heath Graham

It’s well known that personal connections foster empathy for others. Online access to the collections of cultural institutions, coupled with online tools for students to share their thoughts, provide many new opportunities to build these connections. With ANZAC day approaching, here are some resources to engage students in the first global war.

State Library of Victoria – The ANZAC Spirit

This gallery showcases images from the collection of the State Library of Victoria illuminating the human side of the War. See images of soldiers training, relaxing, exercising, or even getting a haircut. Links to the catalogue records for the images give access to further details for research.

ergo – Australia and World War I

This site combines extensive digitised primary source material with short essays and external links to provide deeper context for Australia’s role in this global conflict. Topics covered include the role of women, propaganda, controversies around recruitment and conscription, life on the front lines, and the fate of returned servicemen. Primary sources include printed material, photographs, and one-of-a-kind diaries and letters, showing personal stories as well as the larger picture. The site also features material about World War 2.

1000 Poppies

This commemoration and remembrance website was produced by the History Teachers Association of Victoria. Registered users can plant a poppy in the site’s virtual poppy field, attaching a message of remembrance. These messages can be chosen from a pre-prepared list, or users can write their own. The site also allows groups to share images videos and stories, and is supported by a range of teacher resources.

ANZAC Day – Australian War Memorial

Resources from the War Memorial include primary sources, essays, transcripts of speeches, and more. The War Memorial is always a great reference point for any topic dealing with Australians and warfare.

PLN 2012 Update

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Kelly Gardiner

The 2012 PLN course is bowling along, with the 150 participants back to work this week after a break in formal coursework over the school holidays.

But in spite of the vacation, many people took the time to catch up or even work ahead, do extra reading and activities, and take part in one or more of our events.

Two catch-up sessions enabled anyone who was in town to drop into the computer lab in the State Library of Victoria to meet the PLN team and fellow participants in person, ask questions, and talk through the first few units of work.

We’ve tried a few different things this year, and amongst them was our first Tweetchat. About 20 participants on either Twitter itself or via Tweetchat, using a special hashtag (#VicPLN2012), asked and answered questions and then just chatted about their PLN experiences and tools they use in their schools.

Tweetchat allows you to participate in an online chat session but strips out all other Twitter chatter so you can concentrate on the one hashtag. It also makes life a little easier by inserting the hashtag into your messages automatically, to help you tweet faster (other services such as Today’s Meet are similar and very handy): some tweetchats move so fast it’s hard to keep up with the one conversation, let alone seeing off-topics tweets as well.

If you use HootSuite, you can save the topic as a stream: we’ve embedded ours in the PLN blog, so you can see what happened and how the chat worked.

We also used Storify to curate a summary:

PLN 2012 Tweetchat on Storify

The next few units in the PLN course include the hot topics of mobile use, digital citizenship and online footprints. We’ll feed the discussion back into Bright Ideas for your input too.

Back up your Google Docs with Insync

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Cam Hocking

While cloud based storage services offer a convenient way of backing up your data, it is also important to back any data stored in the cloud. Many of us make use of Google Docs to store documents and collaborate with colleagues. Have you considered what would happen if you lost access to these files? Thanks to Insync, there is an easy way to store copies of your Google Docs on your computer for safekeeping.

Insync has a very similar interface to Dropbox, but it actually accesses your Google Docs account and synchronises all files to a folder on your computer. Apart from providing a backup of your documents this also gives you the added benefit of being able to access your Google Docs even when your internet connection is not working. You can edit these documents on your computer and then update the documents back into your Google Account. However, in our experience this can cause conflicts and leave you with out of date files. At this stage the service seems to work much better as a simple backup tool.

While the chances of you losing access to your Google account are pretty slim, Insync will provide you with an extra level of protection just in case a problem occurs. It takes very little time to set up, but is great insurance when it comes to protecting your data. Insync is available for Mac and Windows and can be downloaded here.

E-literacy: Think differently, act differently, learn differently conference

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Cam Hocking

On March 16 SLAV held the “E-Literacy: Think differently, act differently, learn differently” conference at Etihad Stadium. The conference highlighted the importance of the school library and the positive influence librarians can have on the culture of a school. The presentations from the conference can now be found on the SLAV website.

The day began with a presentation by Dr Ross Todd from the Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries at Rutgers University. Dr. Todd spoke passionately about the positive influence that school librarians can have on teaching and learning. His work highlights the role of school librarians as innovative leaders of professional learning. His presentation contains results from studies into effective school libraries and contains many quotes from teachers about the importance of the school library.

Dr. David Howes from V.C.A.A. spoke about the Australian Curriculum and a new Extended investigation study for Unit 3/4 VCE in his presentation. With an emphasis on general capabilities and cross curricular priorities in the Australian Curriculum, the school library will continue to play a critical role as a hub of learning in the school. The importance of documenting this work was highlighted in Pru Mitchell’s presentation, which includes some great tips for keeping evidence of work relating to professional standards. Presentations were also given by three schools about the Web Elements Engaged project. You can find out more about this great project at the WEE project wiki.

Perhaps one quote from the day best sums up the importance of school libraries. Taken from Dr. Ross Todd’s presentation, it reads:

“Libraries are the verbs in the content standards. Wherever verbs such as read, research, analyse, explore, examine, compare, contrast, understand, interpret, investigate, and find appear in the standards, Teacher Librarians and library resources are involved.”

(Oxnard Union High School District)

PLN update – week five

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Kelly Gardiner

As Victorian teachers enjoy a well-earned holiday, many participants in this year’s Personal Learning Network course are instead taking to Twitter, adding widgets to blogs, and pondering issues of digital citizenship.

As many readers of Bright Ideas know only too well, the first few weeks of the PLN course can be bewildering and sometimes a little scary, as people are faced with new terminology, concepts, tools and seemingly endless numbers of new accounts and passwords.

Happily, there’s plenty of support available from the ongoing PLN community, especially on Twitter through the #VicPLN hashtag – if you don’t use it yourself, check it out. You don’t need to be Victorian to get benefit from the constant stream of resources, links and ideas from teacher librarians and educators at every level.

You’re also welcome to join in the discussion on our facebook group.

School Library Association of Victoria

Monthly Archives: April 2012