30 October 2006

Eclectic Bunch of Links I meant to share....

Educational Hotlinks for New Teachers

http://131.125.2.61/~njcms/newTeacherResources/index.php
These websites have been chosen for their quality and special relevance for new teachers.
Though this is not Australian, it provides some useful material.

NewsMap

http://muti.co.za/static/newsmap.html
Select the continent/location. Click on any country on the chosen continent map to get the links to ten current news headlines for that country. Click on the headline link to reach the article. Try this... zoom in on the map and click on a city to get news specific to that area of the selected
country.

Philosophy from YouTube
Monty Python - International Philosophy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrShK-NVMIU

For those who know their philosophers, check them out on YouTube

School-Libraries
(not sure about this, but you might like to add your school library?)

School-Libraries.Net is the largest directory of school library and available on the net. It has recently changed hosts and is now hosted by StandardCatalogs.com, a service to the library community offered by the H. W. Wilson Company.

Now we need your help:

1. Please visit School-Libraries.net

2. We are not strong in the international libraries listed. We would like to add more countries and many libraries from each country. If you would like to list your library, or school, please send us the information requested at School-Libraries.net. The more listings we
have the more useful the site will become.

Check the website for more information.

20 October 2006

K12 Online 2006 - Unleashing the Potential


The K12 Online Conference opened with a Fireside chat on Monday 16, to be followed by a Keynote to launch the two weeks of presentations on Monday 23 October.

You will find details of the two-week program by looking at the K12 Online Conference Agenda.

All the sessions of the conference will be available for download, which is genuinel global! There were over 70 propposals submitted for the conference, though only 36 were chosen at the end.

It is the first online learning conference in the world which will use the the following Web 2.0 tools throughout:

  • K12 Online Conference Hitchhikr — A page where you can read blog entries posome links that may be useful to you:
  • K12 Online Conference Blog Tagger — This tool will help you generate Technorati tags for your blogs that will make it much easier for you to have your blogs accessible to other conference attendees.
  • My Keynote Wiki — Here you can register yourself to the wiki page and generate your own conference notebooks for taking notes during the various presentations and conversations. Through this wiki page, your notes will be available to others — and visa-versa.
Here are some other links that may be useful:


Now back to the Conference ........................

Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning

PRE-CONFERENCE KEYNOTE
Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning

October 16th, 2006

David Warlick
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
http://2cents.davidwarlick.com/

Presentation Title

Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning

Bio
David Warlick is a 30 year educator, author, blogger, and Web 2.0 programmer. Since 1981, he has been using information and communication technologies to help people learn, young and old. When his school could not afford any software for it’s computers, he taught himself to program and wrote award-winning instructional games, before computers could even display in color. His blog postings are read around the world, and his free online web tools are accessed millions of times a week. At heart, David Warlick is a teacher, with a contagious passion and enthusiasm for helping people discover a brand new world of teaching and learning.
David blogs at http://2cents.davidwarlick.com/
and podcasts at http://connectlearning.davidwarlick.com./

Download the Presentation and take a listen
http://k12online.wm.edu/k12online2006_optz.mp4

Bookmark the Conference Website, and take advantage of this wonderful digital learning opportunity.

17 October 2006

Celebrating School Libraries

School libraries - almost every school has some form of a school library. To paraphrase a quote by American novelist Shelby Foote, a school is just a group of classrooms gathered around a library. Now we need to turn the attention to something that is rarely done for school libraries. It is something that many teacher-librarians find difficult to do - we need to promote ourselves - we need to celebrate!

We can celebrate our programs by showcasing students' projects in a number of ways, including displays in the library or office display cabinet and publishing written work in the school newsletter or on a website. Why not approach the local newspaper to have students' work published in the weekend paper? What about the local media showcasing the actual unit in action?

But the best way to celebrate school libraries is on the fourth Monday in October. International School Library Day was proclaimed in 1999 by then International Association of School Librarianship president Dr. Blanche Woolls and reaffirmed last year by the current International Association of School Librarianship president, Peter Genco.

International School Library Day is an opportunity for school libraries to showcase their role in the promotion of reading and literacy skills as well as information literacy skills, which help to provide the foundations for lifelong learning. School libraries matter and make a difference!

International School Library Day provides the school community an opportunity to celebrate the importance of the school library. It is a day where teachers, students, parents, administrators and of course teacher-librarians stand up and show the public that school libraries matter.

On Monday October 23, 2006, school communities around the world will be celebrating the eighth International School Library Day with the theme of "Reading. Knowing. Doing".

Tell us about your activities!

If you have any events or activities for International School Library Day, please use this form to provide information to IASL. Your activities and projects will then be listed in this International School Library Day section of School Libraries Online. Not only will this help to publicise your activities, but it will also help colleagues in other places who are looking for ideas for this special day.

Rick Mulholland

International School Library Day Coordinator, International Association of
School Librarianship.