Monthly Archives: October 2012

Learning with Gusto

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Today’s guest post comes from Emma Reilly, Education officer at the State Library of Victoria. Emma explores some  online resources related to food and introduces a free webinar that will run on October the 16th.

The State Library of Victoria is currently presenting a free exhibition, Gusto! A culinary history of Victoria. The exhibition explores Victoria’s historic and contemporary culinary landscape, featuring gastronomic treasures from the Library’s collections – from the first Australian cookbook, published in 1864, to an actual World War I army biscuit. To support the exhibition, the State Library of Victoria has produced a Gusto! Education resource for Years 3-6 of the Australian Curriculum (VELS Levels 3 & 4).

When we consider the Masterchef phenomenon, issues of global food security, health, well-being, ethics and nutrition, it is fair to say food certainly plays an important role in the lives of students today. In an upcoming free professional learning opportunity, educators from the SLV and Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation will explore engaging learning experiences through the themes: Food and Identity, Food Supply and Eating In.

Some of the highlights of the webinar will include:
• Get some Bright Ideas about bringing to life online media using simple thinking routines.
• Be introduced to engaging digital learning tools such as Glogster, Story Scrapbook, bubbl.us and Google Maps.
• Learn how to access extensive digitised resources for the primary classroom using the SLV catalogue and Gusto! research guide.
• Get a backstage pass to the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation Professional learning community, The Shared Table.

Have we tantalised your tastebuds? Sink your teeth into this Blackboard Collaborate session on October 16th at 4.00pm-5.00pm.

SLAV & NGV explore art, literature & stories

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The details of the final SLAV conference for 2012, Art, literature and stories: exploring sharing across cultures have now been announced. This partnership between SLAV and the National Gallery of Victoria will be held at NGV International on Friday the 9th of November, 2012.

The program features two keynote addresses. The first by Anne E Stewart will explore storytelling as a sharing of heart and spirit. Helen Kent and Dr Larissa McLean Davies will discuss Literature in the Australian Curriciulum in a socio-historical context. The session will also explain some of the ways in which the NGV can be used with students studying Literature and English.

Explore NGV’s learning resources at their website

The conference also features a number of concurrent sessions that explore many aspects of literature and art. The day will finish with an intriguing discussion about the significance of frames and the choices made when presenting paintings to the public.

The full conference schedule is now available and registrations can be completed through SLAV. As always, you will also be able to participate in the event on Twitter using the #slavconf hashtag.

Explore the Creativity of Indie Video Games

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As part of the Off-Book series exploring cutting edge art and internet culture, PBS has released a fascinating video examining the Creativity of Indie Video Games. The video makes some interesting observations about the changing culture of gaming, which organisers of the Freeplay festival argue is “the dominant art-form of the 21st century”.

Indie games are seeing a surge in popularity and are seen by many as a reaction to overblown, overhyped or overly violent big budget games (often referred to as Triple A titles). In contrast to Triple A games, Indie games place emphasis on visual styling, innovative game mechanics and storytelling. Games like Passage, Papa & Yo or Journey explore complex themes and aim to create an emotional response in the player, while games like Bastion place an emphasis on the importance of story.

PBS Off-Book: The Creativity of Indie Games (YouTube)

While the use of gaming in education is a developing field, these Indie titles certainly present some exciting prospects for exploration in the classroom in terms of storytelling, art and game development. The other benefit is that many of these titles are relatively inexpensive and run on mobile devices or low specification computers, so have a look at this video and then jump in and try some of these fantastic indie games. The full list of games featured in the documentary is available in the video description on YouTube.