Feature wiki – Casey Grammar School

Casey Grammar School Head of Secondary School Teaching and Learning and teacher librarian Julie Squires has developed a very useful wiki for her year 11 English class.

Wiki homepage
Wiki homepage
Julie explains, ‘Although I created the wiki specifically for my class, I made it public so that any English teacher and/or student can use it. I am introducing my students to the wiki slowly; they need to complete their VCE profiles via the wiki and I want them to get used to doing homework online. I want the students to take responsibility for their own learning. I am encouraging them to use tools such as Essay map and bubbl.us to plan their essays online. Students can contribute to the ‘Reading/responding resource bank’ so that others can see what their classmates are doing. I really hope it becomes a collaborative effort between them as often students don’t realise what their classmates are writing and thinking. It’s not cool to share too much in class, so hopefully this way they can experience the power of learning collaboratively.’
Useful online resources

Useful online resources

Julie continues, ‘And by giving them links to useful resources, like Glogster and Ergo, I am helping them find resources they would not necessarily come across themselves.’

Congratulations to Julie for her great ideas, creativity and for sharing her wonderful wiki with us. Julie really is a leader in her field! If you have a moment, check out her ning, a place for Victorian teacher librarians to meet and share.

Pageflakes @ Casey Grammar School – a winning combination!

At the end of 2008, Julie Squires and Mark Phillips from Casey Grammar School were awarded the then Education Channel’s (now Connect) ‘Webquest of the Year Award’ for their Webquest  “Earth 2.0 Headquarters – Is it possible to create a completely sustainable planet?”

is it possible to create a completely sustainable planet?

Earth 2.0: is it possible to create a completely sustainable planet?

Julie, then teacher librarian and Mark, then Head of Humanities decided to collaborate on a project that the year 10s could undertake.  Julie explains, ‘I was really motivated to have a go at entering the then Education Channel/SLAV Webquest of the Year Competition (now Connect/SLAV). Although time was short, we got our page together and had a number of students ‘test drive’ and critique the site.’ The students suggested that Julie and Mark add more games and make it ‘more fun’.’

The Webquest has a lot of links, mostly devised by Julie and Mark. These include a wiki, several vokis, trading cards and a blog.

Earth 2.0 wiki

Earth 2.0 wiki

After taking the students ideas into consideration, Julie and Mark completed the site and entered it into the competition. The rest is history! Julie and Mark created their Webquest using the Pageflakes Web 2.0 resource. Congratulations to Julie and Mark for creating a vibrant and engaging piece of work for their students. Their recognition by winning the 2008 Webquest and Beyond! Competition was richly deserved.