What is happening in your school libraries these days?

FREE ebook "School Libraries: What's Now, What's Next, What's Yet to Come" out now for ALL teachers and Administrators

Read my post @

School Libraries: What's Now, What's Next, What's Yet to Come

A crowdsourced collection of over 100 essays from around the world about trends in school libraries written by librarians, teachers, publishers, and library vendors.

Edited by Kristin Fontichiaro and Buffy Hamilton. 
Foreword by R. David Lankes. 
Photographs by Diane Cordell.
 or download available at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/96705

SMART Search Engine for teachers.

SMARTBoard Notebook Search Engine 
This is a custom search engine designed to locate SMARTBoard Notebooks for teachers. Have fun!

Congratulations to Edutopia-20years and going strong.

Free Classroom Guides and Educational Downloads for 2011 | Edutopia
"Edutopia is a Web site published by The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF). Founded in 1991 by filmmaker George Lucas and venture capitalistSteve Arnold, the Foundation celebrates and encourages innovation in K-12 schools." Wikipedia 


  EDUTOPIA: Empowering and connecting teachers, administrators, and parents with innovative solutions and resources to better education. 

New! Ten Tips for Classroom Management

Learn how to improve student engagement and build a positive climate for learning and discipline for grades K-12

Top Ten Tips for Teaching with New Media

Whether you're new to teaching or a classroom veteran, this resource-packed collection of 10 new media tips provides fresh ideas and easy-to-use tools to engage your students and make learning more collaborative. (Updated: 6/14/11)

Summer Rejuvenation Guide

Whether it's reading a good book or starting a new hobby, this resource-packed guide highlights ten fun ways to spend your summer. (Updated: 5/24/11)

Top Ten Tips for Assessing Project-Based Learning

This classroom guide is intended to inspire and expand your thinking about effective assessment for project-based learning. 

Home-to-School Resource Guide

Get tips, tech tools, and strategies for how to strengthen the bonds between schools, families, and communities.

The guides and downloads are easy-to-print guides that include useful tips for teachers, parents, and school administrators.

 

Create an account on their website and you will be able to download any of the guides.


The website facilitates access to MUCH MUCH more in the way of innovative educational projects and innovations.

Edutopia 10 Top Tips For Teaching With New Media

For even more Edutopia resources and support:

edutopia - Twitter

Edutopia | Facebook

edutopia's Channel - YouTube

Australian focus: 

Edutopia: Schools That Work - Wellbeing Australia

In need of some inspiration?

Look no further.... "Life is short, live life to seek the greatest value of our action "- Stephen Hawking. Life is short video Thanks to Virginia Pav.


What about a little awe? Try this LG Optimus It really is a most remarkable, incredible, awesome, creative....(if you can forgive that it is advertising at its most extreme.)
Thanks to my Mum for this gem. :)

Standards for the Australian Curriculum announced.

The Hon Peter Garrett MP

Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth

14 October, 2011

Media release

First achievement standards for the Australian Curriculum

Some of the main points of interest from the release include:

The final achievement standards for the first four subjects in the Australian Curriculum were endorsed today at a joint meeting of Commonwealth, State and Territory Education Ministers.

“This means that as the new curriculum in maths, science, English and history is being taught, we will have a common understanding of the quality of student work across the country,” he said.


“We’re putting all the building blocks together: utilising technology, training our teachers, helping disadvantaged students and creating a national approach for the teaching profession. Providing more professional support for our school principals will ensure they can continue to lead the way.”


Ministers also announced the release of the Education and Care Services National Regulations for the early childhood education and care sector, part of the National Quality Framework. This is a major milestone which implements the first truly national regulatory system for early childhood education and care services.


“We want every kid in every school to be able to reach their full potential. At the moment, kids with disabilities are less likely to finish Year 12 and Australia is lagging behind other countries in the workforce participation of adults with disability.

Digital Storytelling: Inanimate Alice

 Inanimate Alice is a gripping digital, interactive, story of Alice and her imaginary friend Brad, set in the early years of the 21st Century and told through text, sounds, images, music and games. 

 ‘Alice’, a transmedia story, connects technologies, languages, cultures, generations and curricula within a sweeping narrative accessible by all.              

The education resources that accompany the series have been developed by Dr. Jess Laccetti, one of the visionaries and leading educators in this rapidly emerging field. The resources are available by registering for the free download at 

The downloadable Education Pack directly involves teachers and learners in the Inanimate Alice experience. The pages include lessons on using a digital story to explore character development and paragraph structure and making connections with the story and the medium. Students apply knowledge though high-order thinking skills and emphasize the value of collaboration in a real-world context.

Educators like how Inanimate Alice can take an audience unfamiliar with multimedia fiction with them and because of this; students from primary to post-graduate level find the work engaging.

These resources are being used by teachers in over 80 countries and also available in four other languages-French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Originally designed for university schools of education they are being further developed and adapted by teachers of children as young as eight years. They are equally a stimulus to those teaching children with engagement and learning difficulties as they are an inspiration for the gifted.   

The series and the associated resources have been designed as a reading-from-the-screen experience providing students with a high-quality literacy text that is delivered in a simulated multitasking environment that young people inherently connect with and understand.

Visit the Inanimate Alice Facebook page for further information.

Students are encouraged to co-create developing episodes of their own, either filling in the gaps or developing new strands. 

Free children’s ebooks for ages 3-7+ | Oxford Owl

Teachers enjoy exploring these free ebooks.
Free children’s ebooks for ages 3-7+ | Oxford Owl

Wacky ways to get your students reading.....

Wacky, but true....

Wacky ... but true is a monthly magazine format mix of freaky, fun and fascinating facts produced in the Hunter region,NSW. 


Now in its fifth year of production the magazine is proving to be a winner in homes and schools across Australia and overseas.


Research has shown that 73% of Australian youngsters prefer reading 
magazines to any other type of reading, and this magazine is sure to 
be a winner with its short, pithy items and eye-catching artwork. The magazine is edited and published by Michelle Down, an experienced primary teacher/ librarian. She says she loves doing the writing and research and feels the magazine is filling a gap in providing children with reading material that increases their general knowledge in a fun way.
  
Wacky, but true is one of the few quality children's magazines published in Australia.

 Any two magazines from this series may be read as Premier's Reading Challenge books; up to five more can be read as personal choice   See Series lists for individual titles. 

If you have not had this magazine previously you can access back copies of the Wacky, but true magazine to order.

Wacky, but true.... is now available online as an e-mag. Check out a sample of the online mag below.

Super specials  for school site licences are available now.

Unlimited numbers of students can read the magazine on any computer at any time while at the school and:

- Teachers can enable a class to read Wacky together and work through the question sheets
- Individual students can access the magazine at any time for remedial or extension work while at the school
- Great opportunity for comprehension work.


A site licence that allows your school to place the magazine on your server and allow full student access  for only $149.
Teachers can apply to receive FREE activity sheets based on stories in the magazine. These will be emailed to you each month to be used in conjunction with the magazine.
Do you have students who love to write and would love a wide audience of their peers? YES? Then check out the INKROOM.

Michelle has recently begun the InkRoom, which is an avenue for budding authors to submit their work. Children send their stories and poems to the InkRoom website for others to read and comment on, and the best are published in the Wacky magazine each month. Prizes are awarded for the best submissions.

The InkRoom is a subsidiary of Wacky … but true magazine. 
Use of the InkRoom will:

• Provide students with an incentive to write
• Encourage and inspire group participation
• Provide examples of quality writing
• Encourage the development of writing skills
• Inspire students through peer review of their work
• Publish articles and win rewards for gifted students
• 
  
• Disclosure:
• I have no personal affiliation with the author of this magazine nor will I gain any financial benefit from bringing this  site to your attention.

$41 million promised for online curriculum support.

The Hon Peter Garrett MP

Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth

23 September, 2011

Media release

“The new Australian Curriculum will be the first fully digital curriculum. It will be accessible online to every school and teacher and will be linked to a wealth of additional materials that will be continuously expanded and updated over time,” he said.

“The extra funding announced today will go to Education Services Australia to deliver the new package, working in partnership with education authorities and other groups to source or develop new resources.
“We’ll also be offering online professional development support and resources for teachers, to help them deliver the new curriculum as it is rolled out over the coming years."

 For further information:

$41 million for online curriculum support to benefit teachers and students

"ACT schools have started implementing the curriculum this year, while most other states and territories will start to implement some subjects from 2012. For more information on the Australian Curriculum, visit: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au.

But be warned -relying on a digital curriculum alone as the answer to developing learning strategies and skills is very short sighted. At the “Schools for Tomorrow” Conference that focused primarily on technology and innovation in schools there were business leaders, entrepreneurs, developers and many other thought leaders (where almost everyone was tweeting from an iPhone), Tyler found it most refreshing to hear panelists emphasise over and over the critical importance of human interaction — both student to student, and teacher to student — to the process of learning. 
Students need to learn how to learn. They need guidance and support to learn.  As Tyler said we need to look at how we can use technology to help students learn. 

Empowering Schools and Classrooms

On 11 August The Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli announced that the Department of Education and Communities would commence consultation on empowering local public schools at
https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/about-us/news-at-det/media-centre/media-releases/empowering-local-schools-to-enable-better-teaching-and-learning

Empowering local schools to enable better teaching and learning

 He announced that the NSWDEC are moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach and states that that's come very much from feedback from school principals and teachers and parents. They want to see greater flexibility because they recognise – and the NSW Government recognises – that every school is different, every community is different and as such each school needs different things.

 Message from the Director-General, Michele Bruniges on 


http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/news/announcements/yr2011/aug/lsld/index.php

Local Schools, Local Decisions 

"As a teacher and parent I understand the importance of making sure we have a system that supports schools to respond to the individual needs of children in the classroom, and not one that tries to impose a one size fits all approach.

This consultation process is an exciting opportunity to reshape the way the Department operates by empowering schools to make more decisions to improve the quality of the teaching in their classrooms and improve the learning outcomes for all students."

Join the online forum to have your say: 

• Introduction
• Making decisions
• Managing resources
• Staff in our schools
• Working locally
• Reducing red tape 

NSW Director-General of Education Dr Michele Bruniges discusses the State Government's move to consider offering more authority to schools on News on ABC 23 September.

It's time!!! Please take action....We need your voices

 ALIA Schools Group - What a difference a school library makes campaign - next action

       Anne Girolami, ALIA Schools Convenor wrote to ALIA School Group members encouraging them and all their associates and friends to push for the "School libraries and teacher librarians in 21^st century Australia Report" to be tabled in Parliament.

We have been advised that we need to make a louder noise for the Report be placed on the Parliamentary agenda. It is vital that the office of the Minister on Education and Employment takes notice of our concern. Therefore this next action, in the campaign, is to post a bookmark to Canberra.

What do you need to do? Simply print the file below. It contains a template of the bookmark and a letter explaining the reason for this action. Follow the instructions provided in the letter making sure you include your signature and address. Unsigned bookmarks will not be recognised by the Minister’s office. Feel free to use colour paper or to add some colour to the text. Please do not change the words.

There is an urgency to ‘make this noise’ as we only have a three week window of opportunity. The sending of the bookmark, which takes no more than 15 minutes to complete, needs to be undertaken by Monday 10 October 2011.

We strongly urge you to post the bookmark and to encourage everyone you know, from any place in Australia, to send it too. Everyone’s single act, together, will create the postal avalanche which is needed. Please give some of your valuable time to do this.

      You can also help by choosing to ‘like’ the Facebook page   
      ASLA     What a difference a school library makes.

Terrific collection of primary school curriculum websites

This months special area: The Life of Plants 

I love the Learning Technologies Page, the Productivity Tools page  and the Educational Directories page. 
There are very many valuable pages including Free Resources for Parents


Are you looking for an interesting webquest or project to join? 
Try the Webquests and Projects page.