Category Archives: Professional learning

PLN Program Round 2

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Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

The School Library Association of Victoria in partnership with the State Library of Victoria present the PLN – Personal Learning Network program. This program is funded as part of the digital education content initiatives and strategies of the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

Your PLN is a reciprocal learning system designed just for you!

  • Create your own personalised learning network and share information, opinions and experiences with like-minded people from across the globe,
  • Apply a little intelligent filtering to the information overload out there,
  • Learn from others and contribute to others’ learning,
  • Connect around ideas that you are passionate about.

Find out how you can use the web 2.0 environment to:

  • Expand your personal learning network,
  • Manage the information that web 2.0 provides,
  • Use web 2.0 for learning and teaching,
  • Develop your skills and experience in a web 2.0 environment.

This twelve week online program, enhanced with regular Elluminate how-to sessions, exemplars, and online mentoring offers you a hands-on experience of a range of web 2.0 tools and activities.

This program is designed for novices to the web 2.0 world as well as those who wish to further explore this interactive web environment.

When: Commencing Monday 26  2010
Who: Teacher-librarians, teachers and library team members

How: Work at your own pace, explore new things week by week, share your learning as a team!

Why: So that you build a network of trusted sources for learning and collaboration.

Cost: $175 per person for SLAV members – team discounts apply!

The registration form is now available here!

Have a look at the Wordle of how Round 1 participants described the PLN:

Wordle

Please join us!

Dr Joyce Valenza @ SLAV!

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The School Library Association of Victoria is proud and pleased to announce that renowned international and online presenter, Dr. Joyce Valenza is coming to Melbourne. Joyce will be speaking at the Make, Share, Do professional learning day to be held at the Olympic Room, Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday 30th July. Places are limited, so please contact the SLAV office as soon as possible to ensure your place at this very special event.

Joyce Valenza is the teacher librarian at Springfield Township High School in Philadelphia. She says;

This is the best time in history to be a teacher librarian. Major shifts in our information and communication landscapes present new opportunities for librarians to teach and lead in areas that were always considered part of their role, helping learners of all ages effectively use, manage, evaluate, organize and communicate information, and to love reading in its glorious new variety.

Dr Valenza’s innovative and practical advice to guide learners in new and emerging information and communications landscapes has received global attention and acclaim across the international education community.

The 3 Rs or the 4 Cs?

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Most of us were either brought up with or have heard of the three Rs as being central to education;

  • reading,
  • (w)riting and
  • (a)rithmatic.

The Libraries and Transliteracy blog suggest that we should now be focusing on the four Cs;

  • critical thinking and problem solving,
  • communication,
  • collaboration and
  • creativity and innovation

This certainly makes sense as the focus for education in the 21st Century. Can we make the general public, the media (and some schools) understand this as well as they have the three Rs in the past? To read the whole post, please go to 21st Century Workers Require New Skills, it is well worth perusing.

iSpeech

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A great tool that converts text to speech is iSpeech.

iSpeech

Personal (non commercial) use is free and is great for visually impaired students. You can either use the demo at the front of the site for quick text to speech, or you can sign up for a free personal account that lets you do much more such as embed text to speech in your website.

iSpeech could also be good for language and literacy learners.

DEECD Innovation Showcase

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Recordings and Presentation Materials from the 2010 Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Innovation Showcase have just been released.

Katrina Reynen, the General Manager of the Department’s Innovation and Next Practice Division has shared the following information about the Showcase:

The 2010 Innovation Showcase, staged in May, exhibited a wide range of innovative practices from inspiring teachers and early childhood workers.

Recordings of each session along with their accompanying presentation are now available online.

With 36 presentations on innovative practices – from iPod touches to play based learning – and three inspiring keynote speeches, the online resources from the 2010 Innovation Showcase have something to interest everyone.

Some stand outs from the event included:
To continue to connect with the inspiring Innovation Showcase presenters and take part in further discussions about innovative practice, join the Educators Guide to Innovation ning.
You can listen to and view any or all of the presentations at your leisure. They are certainly well worth the time invested. Hopefully they might inspire you to implement your own innovations.

New and improved site from State Library of Victoria

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The State Library of Victoria has just relaunched its website. With an amazing wealth of information, activities and events, checking out the new SLV website is a must.
Homepage

Homepage

Hamish Curry, Education & Onsite Learning Manager in the Learning Services area of the State Library of Victoria explains:
This revamped site opens up a great deal of new opportunities to bring our collections and services to the surface; be sure to check out the ‘Learn’, ‘Explore’ and ‘What’s On’ sections.
Professional learning
Online learning resources
Online learning resources such as:
are included.
Professional learning
Professional learning
The professional learning page (above) caters for:
slv 4

Student and teacher resources

The Student and teacher resources page (above) provides resources related to:

  • Specific websites for schools (such as ergo, Insideadog)
  • SLV blogs
  • Audio and video resources
  • Education kits

So many fantastic resources available in the one place, the newly revamped SLV website is an absolute treasure.

Cooperative Library Instruction Project resources

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The Cooperative Library Instruction Project resources is a fantastic website with tutorials for students on internet use, searching, citations and more. The website explains it origins:

CLIP is a partnership between Western Oregon University, Oregon State University, Willamette University, and Chemeketa Community College whose mission is to design and develop sharable, web-based tutorials to assist in library instruction and information literacy.

The following tutorials may be of use to your students and you are able to embed them into your own website.

Evaluating Internet Sources:

Developing a topic:

Incorporating Sources into your Research Assignment:

What is a Library Database?

Generating Search Terms:

Why You Need to Cite Sources:

Internet Searching Tips:

Popular and Scholarly Sources:

Primary and Secondary Sources:

Also included are guides to compiling both APA and MLA style bibliographies.

Librarians can also request access to the CLIP quiz page as well as apply to become a writer for the site (you must join the site before you can apply.

Thanks to Joyce Valenza for blogging about this useful resource.

educationeye

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Mapping innovations in education, Futurelab UK’s educationeye website is an engaging site for educators.

educationeye

Futurelab explains what educationeye is all about:

Education Eye is a free, engaging and easy-to-use online space that gives access to a wide range of exciting, relevant and useful innovations which are selected from the best of the web and updated daily.

The Eye provides a way to discover, explore and share new ideas. It maps hundreds of the top educational websites, forums and practitioner case studies. With additional features like saving your own favourite innovations, Futurelab’s favourites, customisable email digests and a widget version, it’s invaluable for exploring educational innovations.

Users don’t have to subscribe to the website, however a free subscription opens further resources. Daily updates is a useful feature for keeping up with what is new and relevant to learning and teaching.

Gaming and Families

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Recently the UK’s Futurelab organisation published a report about ‘the benefits and risks to children’s wellbeing and learning associated with playing computer games.’ As most of us either have children or relatives who are children who play computer games and/or are considering introducing or have introduced gaming into schools, this report will be of interest.

questions addressed included:

  • What role do computer games play in the social, leisure and informal learning activities of families (parents and their children)?
  • What are the attitudes and perceptions of family members towards the benefits and risks of playing computer games?
  • How can we support parents and their children to appreciate and understand the benefits and risks associated with playing computer games?

Three documents outlining the project and results are available.

One of the key findings was

Parents and young people, that is, those aged 5-15, perceived that there were benefits to playing video games as a family, with the main motivation being enjoyment.

The important aspect of this is communication and connectedness within the family for building and maintaining good relationships. This should be applicable to school as well.