eSchool News

‘While most schools today measure students' progress more frequently throughout the school year and collect an enormous amount of information about their students, using this information to target instruction more effectively still poses a challenge.’  While this list of articles is based on American schools, you may find some aspects of interest.

Australian Sources

• P-10 Australian Curriculum http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/13653.html 
  
• Scootle http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/p/home (for registered users)
• ABC Learn http://www.abc.net.au/learn/default.htm
• ABC Schools TV http://www.abc.net.au/schoolstv/
• ABC Behind the News (for Teachers) http://www.abc.net.au/btn/teachers.html
• ABS Education http://abs.gov.au/websitedbs/cashome.nsf//Home/Entry+Page.es?opendocument#from-banner=GT
• AustLit http://www.austlit.edu.au/ (one of our BGS databases)
• Literacy & Numeracy http://www.literacyandnumeracy.gov.au/
• TaLe http://www.tale.edu.au/
• CURLS Centre for Learning Innovation, DET NSW http://www.curls.edu.au/search.php/all/
• FUSE https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/pages/Teacher.aspx
• FOR Teachers for students http://www.forteachersforstudents.com.au/
• Free Primary School Lesson Plans & Educational Resources http://www.primaryschool.com.au/index.php
• Aussie Educator http://www.aussieeducator.org.au/ - includes conference and events calendar at http://www.aussieeducator.com.au/education/other/conferences.html

Australian News and Information Sources

• DEEWR Media releases http://www.deewr.gov.au/Pages/MinistersSubscribe.aspx
• ACARA newsletter http://www.acara.edu.au/news_media/subscribe.html
• The Australian Higher Education RSS feed
  http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheAustralianHigherEducationNews
• Curriculum Press.
  Users can subscribe by contacting sales@esa.edu.au
• ABC Behind the News alert: subscribe at http://www.abc.net.au/btn/teachers.html
• Universities' newsletters and RSS feeds
• QLD Education News http://education.qld.gov.au/projects/educationviews/feedback/subscribe.html
• QLD Teaching and Learning Connect http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=44618. Subscription at https://auth.deta.qld.gov.au/pkmscdsso?https://team.oneportal.deta.qld.gov.au/sites/TLCsubscribe/default.aspx
• Higher Education 2020 Newsletter
  http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Publications/HE2020Newsletter/Pages/Home.aspx . Subscribe by email to: highered@deewr.gov.au.

International Sources

• BBC Learning http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/
• BBC Schools http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/
• OER Commons http://www.oercommons.org/
• Teachers.Net http://teachers.net/
• TeacherTube http://www.teachertube.com/
• MIT OpenCourseWare for schools http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/
• National Curriculum http://nationalcurriculum.com

(from edna site)

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) - www.ted.com

TED is a non-profit organisation devoted to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Check back often for thought-provoking and inspiring talks on a host of topics.

25 Incredible TED Talks for Educators

iPhone and iPad apps are also available for TED Talks.

Image from anthillonline.com

This blog at http://www.freetech4teachers.com/   is written by Richard Byrne and read by a daily audience of more than 15,000 subscribers.

Hold your cursor over each link for a description of what is in it.

Loading...

Scootle is a database of learning objects well worth re-visiting. In particular, it’s worth exploring the English, History Maths and Science resources added under "Find by Australian Curriculum".

What is Scootle?   Scootle is a secure online teaching and learning environment providing access to all Le@rning Federation digital curriculum content. It enables users to easily find the digital resources in directly related to the curriculum.

What does Scootle do?  The browse and search functions of Scootle currently associate resources with each state curriculum syllabus or framework. Teachers can easily and quickly find interactive learning objects, images, audio files and movie clips using browse, search and filter technologies.
Scootle allows a teacher to create learning paths for a class and to customise resource collections to meet individual student needs.

Ten Meta-Trends from the Horizon Project

The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international community of experts on technology in education who produce an annual report known as The Horizon Report.

Horizon reports highlight key trends in technology and education for the year to come, with an emphasis on innovation and adoption of new devices into schools and higher education.

In commemoration of the tenth year of the project, the NMC will issue a report highlighting key meta-trends in technology and education. The top ten trends have been released:

1.    The world of work is increasingly global and increasingly collaborative.

2.    People expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want to.

3.    The Internet is becoming a global mobile network — and already is at its edges.

4.    The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based and delivered over utility networks, facilitating the rapid growth of online videos and rich media.

5.    Openness — concepts like open content, open data, and open resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and information — is moving from a trend to a value for much of the world.

6.    Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices common in society.

7.    Real challenges of access, efficiency, and scale are redefining what we mean by quality and success.

8.    The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning and education, while refining our notion of literacy.

9.    There is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are redefining schools, universities and training.

10.  Business models across the education ecosystem are changing.

For more information, see Judy O’Connell’s post on her blog, Hey Jude.

Google Earth is a FREE download, and there are so many amazing things that you can do with this program! Here are just a few -

·         Turn on the 3D buildings layer and explore places like the Grand Canyon and New York City in 3D.

·         Turn on the weather layer to view real time weather information around the world.

·         Turn on the Street View Layer to feel like you’re visiting certain areas of the world.

·         Fly to any city in the world or compare distances between two places.

·         Take your students to the place that is spoken about in the book/novel you are reading in class.

·         Turn on the historical feature to view a city now AND back in time.

·         View active earthquake and volcano sites.

·         View and get information about past shipwrecks.

Google Earth in 3D

Explore the ocean

Explore Mars

Explore the Moon

Explore the Sky

See more here

Google Lit Trips have also been created based on popular novels. Teachers around the world have created “trips” in Google Earth to demonstrate the path that characters took in the story. The Google Lit Trip website also has a lot of helpful resources, tutorials, and tips.

Khan Academy is a site containing over 3,200 videos for self-paced learning on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance to history.  As well as the extensive video library, there are interactive challenges and assessments available freely on the website.

According to founder, Sal Khan, the Academy’s video tutorials are viewed by more than 6 million students worldwide each month. What started as an idea to tutor his 12-year-old cousin Nadia from a distance in 2004 has now surpassed 140 million lessons streamed online and is helping 10 times more students learn each month than the entire number of students who’ve graduated from Harvard University since 1636.

Topics include:  

Algebra, Art History, Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, Cosmology and Astronomy, Credit Crisis, Current Economics, Differential Equations, Finance, Geometry, History, Linear  Algebra, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Organic Chemistry, Paulson Bailout, Physics, Pre-calculus, Probability, Statistics, Trigonometry, Valuation and Investing, Venture Capital and Capital Markets.

Free iPad app for Khan Academy

Highly educated teachers the key to success

Finland's director of education Pasi Sahlberg joins Lateline to discuss the nation's world-leading education system.  Finland consistently beats most of the rest of the countries in the OECD in maths, reading and literacy at all levels of primary and high school. The secret, according to him, is to be found in Finland's highly educated teachers.   Teaching in Finland is a respected and prestigious profession, and it's paid accordingly. Gaining entry to study teaching is extremely competitive, and nearly every teacher in the country has a master's degree.

High School Students Learning by Skype

Skype is widely used throughout the world but teachers are just starting to harness its communication power. It ‘began in 2003 as a voice service and quickly expanded to include video calls and mobile apps. The service now averages 145 million users worldwide each month.

As Skype grew, so did the number of teachers using the service, and Skype executives saw an opportunity, says Jacqueline Botterill, head of social good for Skype.

"One of the barriers that they continued to face . . . was finding like-minded teachers, experts, and classrooms to collaborate with on mutually relevant topics, and on a global scale," Botterill says.

Skype created its first education-focused community, Skype in the classroom, where teachers could create profiles, post classroom projects for other teachers to join, and find tips from educators on how to use Skype as a teaching tool. The site has grown into a community of more than 17,000 educators since it formally launched in March 2011’.

 21 things that will become obsolete in education by 2020

It’s interesting to take a look at this list and make your own predictions as to what will still be around in 2020, and what will not. ‘It’s easy to miss when we try to extrapolate current trends ten years into the future; particularly in a period of technological hyper-change. Experience demonstrates traditional practice and attitudes are far more tenacious than we would like them to be.’

 The New Media Consortium, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), and the International Society for Technology in Education have just released on 19 June the NMC Horizon Report 2012 K-12 Edition (the edition focused on school-level education, rather than higher education). "This fourth edition in the annual K-12 series of the NMC Horizon Project examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative expression within the environment of pre-college education."

As usual, it identifies what it sees as key trends and applications:  cloud computing, collaborative environments, mobiles, apps and tablet computing are seen as the immediate adoption technologies; digital identity, game-based learning, personal learning environments and learning analytics will have a time-to-adoption horizon of 2 to 3 years; a time-to-adoption horizon of 4 to 5 years includes augmented reality, natural user interfaces, semantic applications, and tools for assessing 21st Century learning skills.

You need to register (free) to download the report from the NMC site.

In his book, “How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day,” Gelb invites readers to take some lessons about living from Leonardo da Vinci.

The book is based on what Gelb calls the seven da Vincian Principles:

• Curiosita’ – an insatiable curiosity
• Dimostrazione – testing knowledge through experience
• Sensazione – continued refinement of the senses
• Sfumato – a willingness to embrace ambiguity
• Arte/Scienza – developing a balance between art and science
• Corporalita’ – cultivating fitness and poise
• Connessione – recognizing and appreciating that all phenomena are connected.

Gelb believes that following these principles leads to success, whether it be learning a new language, cooking a gourmet meal, or being more effective on the job. “Leonardo is truly the global archetype of human potential,” says Gelb. “We may not be able to achieve his level of genius, but by thinking like he did, we can certainly develop our innate abilities.”

The Global Achievement Gap

Four pages of links to websites looking at education systems around the world and how they compare. Titles include:

What is the Global Achievement Gap?

10 Things in Schools that Should be Obsolete

Education’s Pendulum: Thinkers or Test Takers?

Finland’s Educational Success is No Miracle

Singapore’s 21^st Century Teaching Strategies

What Can America Learn from the World’s Most Successful Education Systems?

The New Global Skill Set

The International Exams – PISA and TIMSS

The Global Search for Education: How to Develop World Leaders

12 Reasons Teachers Should Use Diigo

‘Diigo stands for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff.” It is a social bookmarking program that allows you to save your ‘favourites’ online, so that they can be accessible from any computer with an internet connection. However, Diigo does much more than this…’ Set up a class group and have students add sites as they research, or add sticky notes to web sites with information for your students.

Click on the link to discover more useful ways to use Diigo for yourself and your students, then add this to your PLN (Professional Learning Network).

25 Awesome Virtual Learning Experiences Online

Take a virtual tour and transport your students to a new learning space! 

‘Just because you’re online, it doesn’t mean you can’t experience the world first-hand — or as close to first-hand as possible. Here are websites that feature virtual learning experiences, exposing online visitors to everything from history to geography, astronomy to anatomy, literature to government.’

Foolish Plagiarism in the Digital Age

This video clip from the ABC’s MediaWatch program (Episode 32, 10 September 2012 ) shows how Dr Taneer Ahmed has been caught out plagiarising other people’s work and pretending it’s his own – a foolish move in the digital age when it’s so easy to track copying.  This is a good clip to show senior students.

21st Century Fluencies

"Our purpose is to develop exceptional resources to assist in transforming learning to be relevant to life in the 21st Century. At the core of this project are our Curriculum Integration Kits - engaging, challenge based learning modules designed to cultivate the essential 21st Century Fluencies within the context of the required curriculum.

The 21st Century Fluencies are not about technical prowess, they are critical thinking skills, and they are essential to living in this multimedia world. We call them fluencies for a reason.   To  be literate means to have knowledge or competence. To be fluent is a little more: it is to demonstrate mastery and to do so unconsciously and smoothly.

All the 21st Century Fluencies are learned within the context of the Digital Citizen, using the guiding principles of leadership, ethics, accountability, fiscal responsibility, environmental awareness, global citizenship and personal responsibility." (Ian Jukes)

The following information is from a post written by Joyce Valenza (14 Dec 2009) for Tech & Learning

How to retool yourself--a roadmap of at least 16 ways for school librarians (and their classroom teacher colleagues) to develop professionally 


1. The Common Craft In Plain English video series provides no nonsense explanations of nearly all things 2.0 and many of us use these little videos in professional development workshops.  Watch them; share them; embed them.

2. When I need to get up to date quickly, I often look for presentations created by folks I respect and I search the SlideShare archive.  I am blown away by the content our colleagues freely share.

3. Discussion hubs:

• Steve Hargadon's Classroom 2.0 offers a community of tech-leading educators, as well as regular live sessions on Classroom 2.0 Live.  On Saturdays, Sue Waters, the energetic and enthusiastic Aussie, leads Classroom 2.0 LIVE! Beginner Series a great series to get your feet wet using the new tools.  Check out the archive for those cool sessions you may have missed!  The Future of Education community also hosts a nifty live and archived interview series.
• EdTechTalk is the home of number of lively discussion shows every week, including: Seedlings, Parents as Partners, Women of Web2.0, Teachers Teaching Teachers,  21st Century Learning, EdTechWeekly, It's Elementary

4. ISTE's SIGMS and many of the other SIGS),offers a variety of ways to get involved and retooled.  Join the SIGMS group and participate in the community discussion in the ISTE Ning.  The AASL-SIGMS Virtual Learning Community hosts regular meetings in Second Life featuring notable speakers like Alan November, Mike Eisenberg, Doug Johnson.  Among many other things, ISTE's Second Life Wiki shares an archive of videos from the ISTE Eduverse Talks in Second Life.  Facebook users might prefer to join the ISTE Facebook


5. TeacherLibrarianNing is a meeting place for TLs all over the world. We are completely redesigning the interface and hope to feature more provocative discussion. Volunteers are always welcome to inspire forum discussions and polls and more.  Email me if you'd like to be made an administrator!

6. Check in regularly with David Warlick's Hitchhikr to see what's hot and to keep up to date on upcoming confs on- and offline.

7. Absolutely better late than never! Visit any already held conference and experience it from a distance. November Learning and last year's ISTE/NECC host a wealth of fabulous video and slideshows and wikis filled with resources for learning.  Here's our Smackdown Wiki from NECC09 in DC, the event held at ALA, and the most recent AASL event.

8. Join or visit any of a variety of relevant bookmark sharing groups in Diigo.  I belong to: Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom, Diigo in Education, Educators, History Teachers,  Web 2.0 @ School, Project-Based Learning, Teacher-Librarians, eLearning 2.0, High School Librarians. You have so many choices!

9. Plan to attend the free, global K12 Online Conference that started just this week! You will be amazed at the wealth of options. Experience presentations by leaders, thinkers, and practitioners (most participants span all three categories).  Participate in the live discussion.  Visit and share the archive. 

10. Follow a few bloggers. Just a few.  Visit my NewTools page on blogging for lists of teachers and librarians who blog. 

11. Follow a few Tweeters.Just a few. Visit my NewTools page on tweeting for resources to build your network.  One of my personal favorites is Twitter4Teachers.

12.  I've been maintaining this page on 2.0 Learning Resources.  Start anywhere, but I recommend visiting:

• Helene Blowers' Learning 2.0
• California School Library Learning 2.0 (start one in your own state or explore independently!)
  
• 25 Tools 2009 (Jane Hart)
• WebTools4U2Use (Donna Baumbach's Amazing collection of tools and ideas for integration!)
• AASL's Best Web Sites for Teaching and Learning
• Larry Ferlazzo's Best 2.0 Tools for Education 2009

13.  Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 recently offered school librarians Elluminate space and time for our own monthly/regular discussions.  A steering committee is currently planning a series of events of interest to school librarians, as well as other educators, to be held the first Monday of each month.  Our first event is tentatively scheduled for Monday, February 1.

14. Check out any of a growing number of video learning portals for professional development, as well as content area learning. My very favorite of these portals is TED, where you can gather wisdom from some of the most creative thinkers and speakers of our time, but there are so many:

• YouTubeEDU
• Apple Learning Interchange
• Annenberg Teacher Media Resources
• iTunesU iTunesUniversity lectures as iTunes files
• TED: Ideas Worth Spreading
  • TED Links on Google Doc
• UChannel (from universities around the world)
• ResearchChannel (university content)
• TED: Ideas worth sharing (video from great thinkers)
• Academic Earth (video lectures by top scholars)
• TeachersTV
• TeacherTube
• WatchKnow
• SchoolTube
• ScholarSpot
• ForaTV (issues and ideas changing the world from universities and conferences)

15. A few of us on the AASL Geek Squad recently built a wiki to share effective online school library practice. Visit the site to see examples at all levels of instruction and for a variety of aspects of library service.

And sneaking just one more item:

16. Visit the shortlist nominations for the Edublog Awards to see examples of effective practice in blogging, tweeting, wiki creation, and, in general, teaching and learning using the information and communication tools of our time.

General Education blogs: 

• Teaching Challenges General tips on teaching easily integrated into the art room.
• Free Resources from the Net for Special Education Really, this blog applies to everyone!
• Angela Maiers Geared toward literacy and learning, great blog that keeps focus on the child as a learner.
• Langwitches Technology integration, global education, and digital storytelling – the perfect link to art education!
• Backroom Educational Technology Blog Great tech and web 2.0 tools.
• Teachers Love SMART Boards Have an Interactive Whiteboard?  Here’s your one-stop resource.
• Edutopia What Works in Public Education; a resource for all things education.
• Brave New World Resources for education.
• Teaching with Technology Great resource for Web2.0
• Free Technology for Teachers This blog really deserves it’s own category -an amazing resource

Information from The Teaching Palette

If you know there is a short clip of a video you want to play in the classroom, you can create a link that jumps to an exact moment in the video.  Trim the video (and trim off advertisements) by first playing the video.  While it is playing, right-click (control + click for MAC users) at the point you would like your video to start and SELECT “copy video URL at current time.”  Save the link in a word document or in the body of an email message to yourself.  Open the link when you are ready to play the clip in your class.

Leanback

This YouTube interface is perfect for showing videos in the classroom because it blocks out advertising and distracting sidebars.  Visit the site and type in the subject or title you are looking for. When selected, the video appears on a large screen framed in black.

Free Printable Graphic Organisers

 ‘This collection of ready-to-use graphic organizers will help children classify ideas and communicate more effectively. All of our printable graphic organizers are designed to facilitate understanding of key concepts by allowing students to visually identify key points and ideas. By using graphic organizers across all subject areas, you will be empowering your students to master subject-matter faster and more efficiently. We have graphic organizers for reading, science, writing, math, and for general use. You'll also find blank printable templates like graph paper, dot arrays, and other useful tools.’

Just a reminder - a new and powerful resource is now available through Scootle.  Improve is an interactive learning system that can be used by teachers and students to improve student learning and outcomes. As a teacher, you can create customised tests and quizzes for your students, and access a number of authorised tests and quizzes that already exist within Improve. After your students complete a test or quiz, Improve provides them with access to one or more activities in the form of learning resources. You can monitor the completion of tests, quizzes and activities used by all your students. Once a post-test is complete, you can check to see if your students’ outcomes have improved as a result of undertaking the additional activities.  All teachers who are registered users of Scootle can use Improve. Simply log in to Scootle and click on the Use Improve link.

From the Improve support page

Reminder  –   All Scootle learning objects are also available through ClickView.

Create any size wall posters from any size images.  Up load you image, slice it into sections (the more sections the bigger it will turn out), then download each section and print it out.

Ideas that can be adapted for different teaching situations.

Animation projects are a great way to integrate technology, encourage project based learning and have a lot of fun.

 Students in Year 6 might enjoy Fluxtime, a simple animation platform. The site includes a library of background templates and objects. Add them to the canvas, move and record the movements. Completed projects can be emailed and/or published to a gallery.

 Moving up a level of complexity is DigitalFilms.com. Like Fluxtime, numerous backgrounds and objects are provided. A character creator is also included so students can make a character that looks like them. Actions can be added to the characters as well as text and the creation can be shared online.

GoAnimate is definitely a big step up from the previously mentioned sites and works well for middle and secondary school students. Create a comic strip where the characters in each scene can speak and be animated. The quality of the graphics is very good and the user interface is very intuitive. The site is fun and easy to use - your students will love it.

For more involved, 3‐D looking animations, try Xtranormal. Choose Make Movies then choose a collection. Collections are sets of characters such as historical figures, robots, etc.

Making a movie is as simple as typing your script, choosing a voice and adding actions. You can even add camera angles. The finished product is a full motion video which can be shared and even loaded to YouTube.

The Future of Publishing  Dorling Kindersley (UK)

 very clever video clip.

Not all today’s students are 'tech-savvy'

It has been a common view for some time that today’s students are ‘tech savvy’ and cope easily with the digital world that they are immersed in. This view has been reinforced by Mark Prensky’s ‘digital natives v digital immigrants’ analogy. However recent research by the British Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) casts doubt on how digitally literate our current University age students really are. The research was led by Dr Christopher Jones of the Open University and is called “The Net Generation encountering elearning at University”. The research team interviewed and collated data from over 2000 students in their first year at five British universities. Dr Jones said:

“Our research shows that the argument that there is a generational break between today’s generation of young people who are immersed in new technologies and older generations who are less familiar with technology is flawed. The diverse ways that young people use technology today shows the argument is too simplistic and that a new single generation, often called the ‘net generation’, with high skill levels in technology does not exist.”

While many of our students appear to have a good grasp of the use of many applications, often their knowledge is superficial and a deeper grounding is necessary for efficient use. This is certainly true with web searching and information literacy skills.

Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything – Assessment and Rubrics.  Why re-invent an assessment rubric when undoubtedly someone else has created one similar?  In this amazing list of links you will find everything you need, whether you decide to create your own rubric or select from subject-specific ones, to alternative assessment and performance-based assessment links, electronic portfolios, graphic organisers and report card comments.

‘Among all the links and downloads out there, it can be hard for teachers to know which ones work best. Google has made it easier by creating Google for Educators, which compiles some of the search engine's most useful features in one place. Whether you're teaching Spanish or social studies, mathematics or music, there's a free Google feature that will make your lessons more dynamic and your projects more organized. The lively, informative Web site offers step-by-step visual tours and even videos to help you get set up.’ 

This link summarises some of the most useful tools from the Google for Educators website.

20 Common Grammar Mistakes

Scroll down through this list to see the types of mistakes that other people make!  The list was compiled by a magazine editor and identifies common errors from the past six years.

VoiceThread is a simple collaborative way to share comments on a presentation.  Upload an image, then record voice or sound for that image. Other people with a VoiceThread account can then add either a verbal or a written comment to your VoiceThread.  See the gallery on the website for examples.

Innovating Pedagogy 2012: Open University Innovation Report 1

 Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment to guide educators and policy makers.

Executive Summary: This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. The first report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices.

We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. We have not deliberately excluded school education, but that is not our area of expertise. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised in rough order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation.

ICT in Everyday Learning: A Toolkit for Teachers

If you are looking for resources and ideas to help you integrate ICT into your classroom, the ICT in Everyday Learning: A Toolkit for Teachers website is a great place to start.

The website contains learning activities, assessment tasks and teaching and learning sequences aligned to the Australian Curriculum in English, Mathematics, Science and History, to demonstrate the use of ICT in the classroom. The activities are designed for P-10 and are supported by resources and information about ICT tools and devices.

The project was funded by DEEWR through the ICT Innovation Fund. Education Services Australia worked with professional organisations and universities to identify relevant content and develop the professional support materials. The materials were trialled in 20 schools across Australia in March and April 2012 and teacher feedback was very positive.

The website can be accessed via your Scootle login.

Why great teachers are also learners

Inspiring educator, Vicki Davis, reflects:  “As a teacher, the most important asset I can teach my students is a love of learning. In my 10 years teaching high school, I have found that making a deliberate and transparent effort to continue my own learning allows me to inspire my students to follow my footsteps.

Here are some best practices that I have created for myself, to facilitate both my own learning and my students' passion to learn.

1 - Spend 15 minutes 3 times a week learning new things

2 - Talk about the new things you're learning, and let your enthusiasm show

3 - Share your questions about topics that interest you, and ask for student feedback

4 - Show students that you're willing to investigate

5 - Let students see you learning leisurely on your own…”

(See more at the link above)

 Starting a PLN  (by Sketchy)

Practice deliberate learning by starting your own PLN.

PLN is an abbreviation for ‘personal learning network’ or ‘professional learning network’. It is one of the best ways to grow as a learner and teacher because you are exposed to so many new ideas and teaching resources. “A PLN is a reciprocal network that you create to learn from, connect with, gather information or resources, create with and finally share what you have learned.  A PLN can occur in your school, face-to-face, online, at conferences or through reading, reflecting and sharing.”  

Join Twitter and follow educators who share links and ideas. Read blogs then reflect on them in your own blog for your students. Join a ning or online community for teachers – search for one for your subject. Use a social bookmarking site such as Diigo or Delicious to save your favourites online and to share them. Join groups in Diigo or Delicious to receive regular emails of all links bookmarked by members of that group.

Watch the video above for a simple overview of how to create a PLN, then start yours today!

Image from Sue Waters, The Edublogger

Ten tips for making beautiful presentations

Excellent information for creating memorable presentations – applicable to both teachers and students.