Miffy Farquharson and Bev Novak’s Prezi

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Rachel

Prezi is a zooming presentation application that allows you to show the connection between concepts as you zoom around the canvas. You are able to zoom in to focus on a piece of information, then zoom out to see the bigger picture. The prezi website provides a number of short videos that explain how to use the application.

Teacher librarians Miffy Farquharson and Bev Novak from Mentone Grammer (Mentone, Victoria) presented at the May SLAV conference Creative communication: A conference for library technicians and assistants on the topic ‘Social networking to publicise books’. To illustrate this talk, Miffy and Bev made a prezi. They have kindly allowed Bright Ideas viewers to see their prezi, and it is clear how effective a good prezi can be in conveying information and in capturing an audiences’ attention:

Thankyou Miffy and Bev, your prezi is fantastic. For those of us just starting to play with this application, your prezi shows us what is possible.

Guest post: CC with Julie Jenkins

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Rachel

Julie Jenkins is a library technician at Mooroopna Secondary College, Mooroopna, Victoria, and is often approached by staff wanting to know information about creative commons and copyright. Julie has been kind enough to provide a guest post on her knowledge of creative commons and the resources she turns to when asked the tough questions.

As a library technician at Mooroopna Secondary College I get asked quite often about the rules on using Creative Commons.

Copyright is a minefield but when using something that is licensed under Creative Commons (CC) it is a lot easier. The creator has already given permission for us to use their work under certain conditions. You must remember that CC material is not copyright free and you can still breach the licence by not meeting the conditions that the creator has chosen. A great website to check out for information about the different licence symbols and conditions when using material licensed under Creative Commons is Smartcopying. On this website there are two easy to understand animations that explain what creative commons is. Also on this website there are some really good information sheets on Creative Commons, one of these is ‘Creative Commons: A quick overview’. I recommend that you have a look at this website as it will help you to answer any question you have and I suggest that you put the URL into your favorites for later use.

I find copyright so hard to understand but the Australian Copyright Council does have a good website and they also run training sessions each year. I went to a couple of training session in Melbourne last year and found them very interesting (if you can find copyright interesting). The publications they offer are very good also.

Thankyou, Julie, for providing Bright Ideas readers with this post and useful links. Makeuseof published a post in April on ‘How to find creative commons content with Google’. This will also help us in trying to make sure we aren’t in breach of anything!

bitly + for maths class

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Rachel

bitly has been designed to allow you to shorten, share, and track URLs. You may have seen it used in Twitter, where the reducation of the url length makes it easier to stay within the character limit. What you may not know is that bitly’s real-time link tracker provides statistics and analytics. Sign-up to bitly is free, and a maths class studying statistics could have fun examining how many times their blog has been hit, or, if using twitter, how many times a tweet (mathematics based of course) has been retweeted. Tracking stats are provided once users shorten their long links with bitly and click on the ‘infopage +’ (on your homepage in bitly). You can also add a + sign to the end of any bitly link, so students could examine the statistics of their favourite website, video, online game, etc.. Maths class just got a whole lot more interesting.

bitly

SLAV vodcasts support VCE students

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Rachel

One of SLAV’s FUSE projects is the vodcasts that are on the Merspi site. SLAV talks about Merpi and The VCE Advantage vodcasts below:

Merspi is a free online social networked learning hub for VCE students. Students are able to ask questions and have them answered by members of the community. All information is self-organised through Web 2.0 tagging and user votes. This project leverages on this learning community by establishing a bank of videos that share strategies for the development of transferable skills that instill independent learning behaviours and deeper web-based research understandings.

We are delighted to announce the launch of The VCE Advantage a series of vodcasts that SLAV has developed in collaboration with Merspi.

These vodcasts provide tips, research strategies, guidance and pointers to useful resources to support VCE studies. Topics range from study and survival skills through to essay writing, power searching, online tools for organising and presenting, as well as tips for VCE English.

Find a way to alert your students and VCE teachers to these vodcasts:

highlight them on your library website,

screen them in your library,

suggest them as resources for VCE orientation and information sessions,

email VCE students and teachers!

Go and have a look at The VCE Advantage video series here.

Digital Play: Ideas for ESL teachers (and others)

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Rachel

Digital Play is a blog by Kyle Mawer and Graham Stanley that provides computer game activities and ideas for, specifically, EFL/ESL teachers to use with their students. Any educator, however, would find something useful on this blog. Their latest post ’10 gaming genres to adapt in class’ provides the gaming genres (such as point-and-click, arcade, and puzzle) and information on how they will help build language skills, with examples of particular games to be used in the classroom.

The blog also provides lesson plans for gaming, that are very indepth plans to bring gaming into the classroom. The plans often include the level, topic, language focus, location for gaming, game details, prepartion, and tasks related to the game. Digital Play is a truly fantastic resource that should be explored and shared with teachers in your school.

Fully digitised medieval manuscript at SLV

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Rachel

The first fully digitised medieval manuscript on State Library of Victoria’s (SLV) catalogue took my breath away. It is called The pilgrimage of the lyfe of the manhode ; and, The pilgrimage of the sowle / [anonymous adaptation in English of original by Guillaume, de Deguileville]. The manuscript was published roughly around 1430. It is so amazing to see something so old and so beautiful and to be able to zoom in and examine the calligraphy. Here’s a peek (to examine the manuscript go to here and click on the ‘Web link(s)’ image) :

This is a brilliant resource for history teachers. They are able to show medieval history students the ‘real thing’. Students are able to explore the manuscript and look closely at the writing of the period.

There are plenty of other resources on the catalogue that are digitised. To have a basic browse type in ‘digitised manuscripts’ in the search tab of the catalogue and enjoy what you find.

Visible thinking: Non-verbal comprehension

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Rachel

The Visible Thinking website is the brain-child of Project Zero, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Project Zero’s mission is to enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts and their website offers some amazing ideas to use in the classroom to do just that. The ‘Colour, Symbol, Image Routine’ can be used to enhance comprehension as it is a ‘…routine for distilling the essence of ideas non-verbally’. Students are asked to identify and convey their comprehension of material they are reading, listening to, or watching, in non-verbal ways, by using colour, symbol, and image to represent their ideas. If you needed something to work those higher-level thinking skills, then this is it. Also, a fantastic activity for those with strengths in the non-verbal intelligences. This activity can facilitate discussion of a text or film, as students compare their colour, symbol, or image. A great way to build and expand comprehension.

Visible Thinking

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to BBC’s musical street?

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Rachel

For the music teachers out there, the BBC has a fantastic online resource for introducing students to world music (specifically from India, Ireland, Brazil, Turkey, and Nigeria). The Street will give students a glimpse at another countries instruments and key musicians. You will be able to listen to their music, and find out about the religion and food. It is an appealing site to engage upper primary and lower secondary students in this study.

Tech Tools for Teachers

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Rachel

Tech Tools for Teachers is a free, fortnightly e-newsletter about ICT tools or websites that can be used in the classroom. The e-newsletters can be found on the website Teach Generation Now, run by Geelong (Victoria) teachers Simon Collier, Kathleen Morris (McGeady), and Matthew Limb. Each e-newsletter provides an example of an ICT tool or website suitable for primary and/or secondary educators, with step-by-step instructions on how to use it. This is a great resource for the busy educator to find practical examples of online tools that can be used to enhance teaching and learning. The newsletters are archived and are well-worth looking through.

Teach Generation Now

READ Dr. Helen Boelens

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Rachel

Dr. Helen Boelens is the founder and board member of ENSIL (European Network for School Libraries and Information Literacies) and in December 2010 was awarded her degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Middlesex University, School of Arts and Education. During her doctoral research Dr. Boelens was helped by ‘many Australian colleagues’, as well as others from around the world. Dr. Boelens has contacted Bright Ideas to pass on her appreciation to all those who helped her with her research. The design of the latest READ poster was arranged by Dr. Boelens as a sign of her appreciation.

READ The READ poster comes in size A3 and size A4, and can be used digitally or printed off from the ENSIL website.

Dr Boelens’s thesis The evolving role of the school library and information centre in education in digital Europe is available from the ENSIL website also.

School Library Association of Victoria

Category Archives: Teaching resources