WeCreate Challenges for 2010 from CLI

This has been posted on behalf of Ruth Mason from Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI)

Hi everyone,

Are your students up for a challenge?

Broadcast news is the first of the WeCreate Challenges for 2010 and students have two weeks to complete it and upload their news story!

Students are asked to tell the world what's happening in their local community by creating a 60 second news story that would be suitable for broadcast on a nightly news program. Each news story will be showcased in the ‘Newsroom’ on the Broadcast website.

The Broadcast News Challenge opens on 22 February 2010 and closes on 8 March 2010.

For full details go to http://www.cli.nsw.edu.au/services/wecreate/online_activities.htm

This challenge is part of WeCreate which includes the Connected Learning Awards and the WeCreate challenges and offers students even greater opportunities to use ICT in meaningful, engaging and creative ways.

WeCreate will be conducted throughout 2010 and both the Award and Challenges can be mapped across a range of curriculum areas. 

See the attachment for a list of the WeCreate closing dates. For full details of WeCreate go to http://www.cli.nsw.edu.au/services/wecreate/wecreate.htm 

Regards

Ruth

Ruth Mason
Senior Learning Design Officer

Learning Design and Services

Centre for Learning Innovation

Re: Teacher Librarian positions under threat!!

 VERY IMPORTANT!!!

Please read the following Notice from NSW Teachers Federation dated 19 February, 2010

Flaming text

Image by FlamingText.com

Helping our kids become better readers

Our Prime Minister has a special blog running:

Image via Wikiped

Helping our kids become great readers -
open from 12pm 2 February---> 5pm 12 February 2010

Guest Blogger: Morris Gleitzman
Morris raises his concern about  the pressures being placed on Teacher Librarians.
"As an author, I'd like to raise a particular aspect of this important goal that urgently needs a champion.
There are precious creatures among us who are facing extinction, or at least amputation. They're called school librarians.
I visit a lot of schools, and for years now I've been bumping into weary over-worked individuals who introduce themselves as 'point six of a librarian' or 'half a librarian' or, in particularly tragic cases, 'point two of a librarian'.
This isn't the result of over-zealous self-assessment, nor am I having conversations with disembodied heads on library trolleys. It's the result of a system that burdens school librarians with teaching duties. That asks them to wear two hats at once to the detriment of both roles. A system that doesn't believe school libraries are important enough to have full-time librarians.
I think this is tragic and silly. I hope you agree, Kevin, because it would be wonderful if you could do something about it. "................ ...................................


 Register and have your say.

Internet Safety Day

Constable Zak talks about some important rules and advice on how to be safe when using the Internet.

Use Web2.0 tools at every stage of the Information Skills.

Keep play in your libraries and in your schools-POWERFUL

Stuart Brown on the power of play. Some persuasive material here on the benefits of different kinds of play - body play, object play, social play, spectator or ritual play, imaginative play (including solo and shared narratives). I love the concept of a ’state of play’ as in some sense a separate domain in which to explore the possible. I was also struck by his argument that a story is “the fundamental unit of intelligibility.” As with so many TED talks, a very rich set of ideas presented clearly and concisely. from Ed Webb

Wizard of Apps

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Wizard of Apps

View more presentations from joycevalenza.

Fiction with a twist is a book rap starting in Week 5.

I'm sharing a message from Lizzie Chase of the School Libraries and Information Literacy Unit:

Fiction with a twist is a book rap starting in Week 5. Aimed at enthusiastic readers/writers in Stages 3 and 4, it provides fiction extracts for students. It boosts inferential reading and the writing of short descriptive paragraphs.

Student writing samples
See student writing to the blog already at http://rapblog8.edublogs.org - it is inspiring!

Teaching resources + unit of work
The resources for the rap are NOW available at http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/raps/twist/teachingideas.htm
Nowadays, students can blog in directly without needing to register with edublogs!

Optional training - everyone welcome
If you would like training in use of the rap resources [this is NOT mandatory of course] - there is a workshop at Bonnyrigg HS on Thursday February 11th, the same one is repeated at Ryde State Office on February 15th. You can be trained, even if you do not plan to do the rap. These resources are very extensive and explicit...
 
 Register

Cheers

Lizzie Chase

School Libraries and Information Literacy Unit

Take care of your library books.

Google logos can be easily explained

 Barbara Braxton posted this information today and I felt it was worth sharing:

For those of you wondering about the significance of today's Google logo, 

as I was, it is in honour of Norman Rockwell's birthday.  

Rockwell "was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works 

enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most

famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for 

The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Rockwell

Since the controversy over the Google logo for Australia Day 

I have discovered that if you click on the logo 

it takes you to an explanation of its background.