For anyone who didn't notice - let me bring to your attention the small icon on this top right hand of this blog.

Box.net is a Web 2.0 'sanity' box! as it provides you with a free 1 gb of storage space online. There are many other great features. Click on the icon on the right, and get yourself free online storage!

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.

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:

• Setting up a Blogger blog — This is a print (pdf) handout that will help you to set up a blog using blogger.com.
• Setting up an EduBlogs blog — This print (pdf) handout will assist you in setting up an EduBlogs blog.
• Setting up a Bloglines Account — This print (pdf) handout will help you set up a Bloglines account so that you can aggregate discussions about this conference.
• Setting up a flickr account — Handout (pdf) for setting up a flickr account, though there will likely not be very many pictures associated with this conference — or maybe there will.

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.

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.

WOW! How much fun was our PARADE!

News from Frances Manning....
Students at Holy Family Primary had a great afternoon looking at the creative talents on show at our BOOK WEEK parade for the theme "BOOK NOW".

The *Parade* had a novel TWIST!

Students decorated not themselves, but a bag!............a bag that holds all the things they*ll need for the adventure they've *BOOKED INTO* when they picked up a particular book from home or the Library.

Bags were decorated at home or at school. There were 'adventure bags' decorated with all sorts of characters and settings. Some children had included in their bags the things they would need on their adventure (into a particular book/story), others had decorated the outside of their bags with all sorts of things stuck on or drawn. It was a fantastic effort from everyone.

Special thanks goes to Mrs S our 'MC', and all the Year 6 Judges who sure had a tough job. Thanks also goes to the helpers in Year 6 who gave out the participation certificates and prize lollies.

Our 'Special Guest' The Cat In The Hat' had a great time leading each class & he is looking forward to the next Library 'event'.

It really was a great afternoon, and all those bags will look fantastic decorating the Library & Classes!

NASA Space Place

Podcasts: Space Place To Go!

No time to think about the wonders of the universe, much less how to explain them in a simple way to your students? Sign up for the new Space Place Podcast. Listen when you have time. In each Podcast, a NASA scientist answers fascinating questions about space and Earth science, with a little technology thrown in.

Could you fly through a gas giant?
Why do planets orbit the sun?
What causes the beautiful northern lights?

Go to http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/en/educators/podcast/ to subscribe. Or you can listen now on your computer or read the transcripts. Best of all, you can listen while you go for a walk, looking up at the beautiful night sky and thinking about all that is out there, known and unknown.

NASA Space Place is an excellent source for lots of other things too, as the image above shows. Explore and see what you can find to support your student's learning.

Blogging - its elementary! Grab a bargain!

Take a look at this great Webquest designed using Bernie Dodge’s Quest Garden.

Anne Davis designed this Webquest to introduce elementary students to blogging.

Its intention is to get teachers and students thinking about using blogging to develop literacies in the elementary school. The goal is to use blogs to engage students in thinking and blogging about their learning and what it means to them.

Topics for the blogging posts are pulled from the classroom curriculum. Anne Davis will use a focus on the Six Traits of Writing and Blooms Taxonomy as students blog/write to learn and apply what they are studying in their class curriculum. The Webquest provides strong pedagogical directions for the teacher as well a clear pathway for students to use.

While we have some great blogs being used by teachers in australian schools, both primary and secondary, having a Webquest handy will help new teachers interested in blogging.

Introduce your class to blogging with Blogging - It's Elementary.

Read about QuestGarden and how it is developing. Until October 1 educators can join QuestGarden for free.

Online Conference Submissions Open

A brief update on the K12 Online Conference that will be running next month.

"First, the proposal process is now open. It’s an online form that shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete (assuming your proposal is prepped.) Please try to keep your proposals to 250 words or less, and remember that the deadline for submissions is September 30. We’ve already had dozens of ideas thrown our way, so make sure to get your proposal in right away.

Second, we’ve welcomed Wes Freyer as our fourth and final convener. To reiterate, there are four strands each with its own organizer. Wes will be doing the “Overcoming Obstacles” strand, Sheryl will be co-ordinating the “Basic and Advanced Training” sessions, Darren has the “Week in the Classroom” part and I’ll be overseeing the “Professional Development” strand.

Third, we have a blog that will be ready to go in the next day or so. There, you’ll find a FAQ, all the details, and news and updates as the event gets closer. I’ll post an update as soon as it’s worth looking at.

And last but not least, David Warlick has graciously agreed to do the conference keynote on how to attend an online conference. Again, more on that coming on the blog."

Spread the word!!!

Wikis for Everyone!!

What makes Wikispaces different from other wikis?

Wikispaces is easy to use for everyone, not just technical users. It provides a simple interface, a visual page editor, and a focus on community collaboration. Find out more on this brief tour complete with audio. It's worth a watch and listen just to find out about Wiki! Take a look at the Wikispaces blog as well.

Wikispaces is available worldwide to teachers, students, and educators. Wikispaces provides a great public tool for students, teachers, school communities, sports clubs, hobby groups etc..... Web 2.0 tool that is not constrained by website or intranet setups. Better still, it allows global collaboration, or classroom collaboration - you choose.

• "[My students] created a place to post projects and assignments and invited each other to their wikispace. Then, they created links to the websites that their fellow students had created to help them study/ review/ complete the project. They are used to copying notes for one another -- but now they can collaborate on notes! The results are astonishing!" Check out the Coolcatteacher blog for more information.
  
  
• Read more...

"Over 10,000 educational wikis later have been created, we've heard countless stories of excited students and empowered teachers. They've told us about their collaborative essays, group study guides, online lesson plans, and classroom notice boards coming alive on Wikispaces.

Now we're taking the next step - we want to give away 100,000 free K-12 Plus wikis. That includes all the features and benefits that normally cost $50/year - for free. No fine print, no usage limits, no advertising, no catches."

A few months ago, Wikispaces also added the ability to customize your theme and wikitext stylesheet. In addition to changing the color scheme and logo, all spaces have a number of existing themes they can choose from. Plus-level spaces can create new themes using HTML and a few special Wikispaces tags. Lots of members took advantage of the custom themes to make changes to their navigation section, the location of their menus, or the page headings. Some created a totally new look for their space. Here is a showcase for some of the creative changes people have made.

Wikispaces also has an embedded media function. This means you can now paste in the HTML from any web service and it will show up on your wikispaces page. You get the media and applications you want, with the simplicity of Wikispaces' WYSIWYG editor.

Some examples of services you might want to embed include YouTube, Google, and Yahoo videos, Google and AirSet calendars, Odeo podcasts, and of course there are many many more.

If you are tech-savvy or have tech-savvy students - don't wait to get into Wikispaces!

If you're a teacher, visit the signup page to try a wiki. You'll be up and running in under 30 seconds.

Thanks Cathy !!! GOOD LUCK !!!!!!

Amazon unbox goes live!

AV Librarians...what do you think? I think it's an important moment to mark, as we begin the shift toward less DVD and CD releases and more online, download-style models.... I'll be interested in the first reviews of his product.

From Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology

Just One More Book! podcasts

"The Just One More Book! podcast is a thrice-weekly audio-on-demand broadcast in which we discuss the children's books we love and why we love them.

Episodes range in length from 5 to 12 minutes and can beplayed directly from our web page or downloaded to an ipod for listening on the go. Each episode is an informal discussion of one of our family's favourite children's books. Occasionally, the episodes
feature interviews with authors, literacy related discussions or audio reviews submitted by our listeners.

Our audience is growing and the response from both listeners and authors has been
invigorating."

You can listen to the reviews by double clicking the play buttons (">" ) on the "Listen Now"
icons:

http://www.justonemorebook.com/

Thanks from Andrea

www.JustOneMoreBook.com A podcast about the children's books we love and why we love them

Australian Study: Impact of School Libraries

Impact of School Libraries on Student Achievement: a Review of the Research: Report for the Australian School Library Association, by Michele Lonsdale

Australian Council for Educational Research

The review focuses on studies conducted since 1990, which show that school libraries can have a positive impact on student achievement-whether such achievement is measured in terms of reading scores, literacy or learning more generally-in the following key ways:

• a strong library program that is adequately staffed, resourced and funded can lead to higher student achievement regardless of the socioeconomic or educational levels of the adults in the community;
• a strong computer network connecting the library's resources to the classroom and laboratories has an impact on student achievement;
• the quality of the collection has an impact on student learning;
• test scores are higher when there is higher usage of the school library;
• collaborative relationships between classroom teachers and school librarians have a significant impact on learning, particularly in relation to the planning of instructional units, resource collection development, and the provision of professional development for teachers;
• a print-rich environment leads to more reading, and free voluntary reading is the best predictor of comprehension, vocabulary growth, spelling and grammatical ability, and writing style;
• integrating information literacy into the curriculum can improve students' mastery of both content and information seeking skills; and that
• libraries can make a positive difference to students' self-esteem, confidence, independence and sense of responsibility in regard to their own learning.

Source: http://www.asla.org.au/research/summary.htm

Available for loan from the CEO Library. Contact Erika, Lisa or Deborah by on 9840 5735 or 9840 5737 to borrow.

ISBN - You're not alone...

Just for something different, take a look at what the ISBN Tool can do. More than anything it shows you how databases are connected through Z39.50 and OpenURL - i.e. information can be gathered and shared.


The ISBN Links Generator will generate various links keyed by an ISBN. The list of links includes:

• Google "Look Inside"
• Amazon "Search Inside"
• Amazon.co.uk sales page (with affiliate code)
• Amazon Web Service Item Info
• OU Library catalogue lookup
  
• OCLC Audience Level
• Alternative ISBNs (OCLC xISBN)
• Alternative ISBNs (Library Thing thingISBN)
• Compare xISBN and thingISBN
• ISBN Book Info (isbn.org.uk)
• ISBN Book Info (isbn.org.uk)(XML)
• A (not quite working) web service
• ISBNdb.com (full record)
• ISBNdb.com (XML Info)
• Open WorldCat Info
• Open WorldCat Info (book details)
• Open WorldCat Info (book editions)
• O'Relly Safari
• O'Relly Safari (OU proxied)

Give it a go. You might even find a 'novel' use for ISBN Tool?

What is your worst fear?

What is your worst fear about a loss of what you currently value in learning and teaching because of emerging technologies?

When AlanNovember posted this question for comment, he attracted 45 comments. Take a read of the responses. What would our responses be? What would our teacher's responses be?

Understanding the 'fear' factor will help us work more effectively to support our teachers and hence our learners. Add a comment if you like!