Learn for free with GCF Learn

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Cam Hocking

The Goodwill Community Foundation’s Learn Free website contains a number of useful tutorials for those looking to brush up on their technology skills. The computer section of the sites features step by step tutorials and guides to services such as Twitter, Facebook and Google apps.

The range of tutorials regarding Google services is particularly comprehensive. We often use Google’s suite of tools such as Google Drive (formerly Google Docs), Gmail and Chrome to stay organised as they all work with one Google account. The site features tutorials for all of these services and more. The Google Search Tips tutorial also provides a nice introduction to some of the more powerful features of the search engine and mentions the Google mobile search app that Bev Novak explored for us on Friday.

The GCF Learn site is well worth exploring, as they offer clear, easy to follow introductions to some very useful tools. There also have several mobile apps available for free download.

You can keep up to date with GCF Learn through their blog and YouTube channel.

SLVLearn 2012 resources now available

Posted on October 19, 2012 by slvadmin

Last week the State Library of Victoria’s Education team hosted the inaugural SLVLearn 2012 conference with two varied days of professional development and sharing. The first day explored the topic of information access, while the second day saw a number of Melbourne’s cultural institutions get together to show how Melbourne can be used as a learning environment. Many of the resources and presentations from the conference are now available online.

The Future of Information saw a number of educators present on topics such as curation tools, digital citizenship, creative commons and accessing digitised resources. The presenters have kindly shared their presentations and you can find links and a full summary of the day in this Storify- SLVLearn 2012 The Future of Information.

Kelly Gardiner, Cindy Tschernitz, Sandy Phillips, John Pearce and Cathy Hainstock explore the topic of Information vs. Skills

Learning in the Present: The Melbourne City Experience saw 22 of Melbourne’s cultural institutions come together to showcase their resources and school programs. A panel discussion explored the logistics of organising city experiences for students. Teachers also had the opportunity to go on a walking tour of a number of institutions.

The day also explored how technology such as Historypin, Storify and Twitter can be used to enhance the experience before, during and after the city visits. You can access a list of the resources mentioned in this Diigo list: The Melbourne City Experience.

PLN short course builds your research toolkit

Posted on October 11, 2012 by slvadmin

The next round of the Victorian Personal Learning Network has been announced, with the first ever Victorian PLN short course kicking off on November 12 and running for 4 units. The Research Toolkit course will explore reliable online resources, effective search techniques and tools for organisation and referencing.

The online course is self paced and will feature webinars with research experts. It’s a great way for teachers and library staff to brush up on their skills and keep up to date with new tools and techniques. Research Toolkit is also a good refresher for previous participants in the Victorian PLN course looking to reinforce and further develop many of their own research skills.

State Library of Victoria Research Guides

Research Toolkit is a partnership between the State Library of Victoria and the School Library Association of Victoria. The course costs $85 per person, but group discounts are available for teams of six or more. For more information visit the State Library of Victoria website, or email learning@slv.vic.gov.au

Learning with Gusto

Posted on October 9, 2012 by slvadmin

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

Posted on October 5, 2012 by slvadmin

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.

Online learning takes off

Posted on September 21, 2012 by slvadmin

Online learning has been around for a while now, and most major tertiary institutions have some kind of online course management system, even if only to help manage classes presented in the real world.

But over the last few years, online education has really taken off, with course software designed to support teaching and learning online. You may be familiar with Edmodo, which is designed to look and feel like a social media platform and can be used with secondary students.

Lore is similar in intent to Edmodo, and offers similar functionality, but looks much more suited to adult learning (it’s developed for tertiary students, was previously known as Coursebake and has big names such as Harvard and Yale attached to it). We’ll be testing it in the next round of the PLN course.

Coursera is a platform that provides online courses from a wide range of providers: this week Coursera announced partnerships with a further 17 universities including University of Melbourne and Columbia. You’ll hear much more about this and other MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) which provide mostly short courses for free from major education providers all over the world. MOOCs provide an amazing opportunity to undertake professional development online – for free.

Here’s a brief introduction to MOOCs:

SLAV Conference: Be the expert

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Cam Hocking

The program for the next School Library Association of Victoria conference has been finalised, with Hamish Curry from the State Library of Victoria announced as the keynote speaker. The conference, entitled Be the expert: promote yourself with skill development will be held on Monday the 22nd of October at Etihad Stadium, Melbourne.

The conference schedule includes featured addresses about library displays, concurrent sessions exploring digital tools and a closing address by Gerry Kennedy on e-books. The conference registration form is available from the SLAV website.

This event follows on from the Global e-literacy conference in July at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The shared notes from this very successful day are available on the Global e-literacy site. You will find details of sessions on screencasting, digital storytelling, iPads and much more. For a summary of this conference have a look at our Storify of the day.

Forecasting the Future of Education Technology

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Catherine Hainstock

Today’s post comes from regular contributor Catherine Hainstock (M.Ed TL) of Vermont Secondary College.

Many Bright Ideas readers will be aware of the Horizon Report released by the New Media Consortium. These reports are invaluable to educators and schools planning for change.

Now there is another excellent forward planning resource, a visualisation created by Envisioning Technology. They describe Envisioning the Future of Education Technology as:

… a concise overview of technologies that have the potential to disrupt and improve teaching on all levels.

This visualisation comprehensively maps out 6 key trends, puts the emerging technologies into educational context and projects it forward on a 30 year timeline. It can be downloaded as a pdf or high resolution png image.

It is also well worth exploring this trend-forecasting firm’s website if you have students looking at themes such as future careers or envisioning the future. There is an amazing visualisation on Emerging Technologies highlighting areas of STEM with some truly extraordinary predictions. Envisioning Tech’s blog is currently featuring “Sci-fi Scaffolds”, scenarios situated in the near future and based on emerging technologies. Spend a bit of time on this site and I guarantee you will be thinking about the future in a whole new way.

Leading the reinvention of learning

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Cam Hocking

The SLAV Global eLiteracy conference was held last Friday, 27th of July. The conference explored the changing face of learning in a digital age.

The event was significant as it saw the announcement by Judy O’Connell of oztlnet.com, a new site for the Australian Teacher Librarian Network. You can become involved with OZTL through Facebook, Twitter or the Diigo group.

The day involved a number of interesting presentations, but the highlight was the round table session. Delegates spent time in small groups learning from peer leaders about a range of technologies. There was a wonderful atmosphere of collegial support, exploration and sharing.

You can find notes from the event as they are added here and also see a summary, including highlights from a very active Twitter stream, at this Storify of the day.

Congratulations to all of the organisers for a very successful day of professional learning.

School Library Association of Victoria

Category Archives: Professional learning