Tag Archives: competition

Teacher librarians, teaching

What’s been happening – term 3 has been a busy one

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I’m not the only one remarking on the lapses between blog posts. The blog is no longer the main platform for sharing and communicating – there is a long, long list of online places which need to be fed and looked after – for me that includes other blogs, Twitter, Pinterest, Scoop.it, Diigo, Slideshare, Vimeo, Libguides, Facebook and all its groups, and more. So I thought I’d drop in and do a quick update on what may be worth checking out in case it’s helpful or even interesting.

My school library blog has been keeping up with reading ambassadors for the National Year of Reading (#nyor12). These short and informal interviews are a pleasure to read, and reveal thoughtful responses to reading preferences. We’ve also recently celebrated 2012 Book Week with a hugely enjoyable ‘party’ in the library. I’ve included photos I think you’ll enjoy of our costume and cake competitions so that’s definitely worth checking out. This is the first Book Week celebration I’ve attended at Melbourne High School since I started a year ago, and it was fantastic. I was so impressed by the willingness of staff and students to dress up and play the part. The creativity displayed in our book-themed cake competition added a gastronomical dimension – who can resist cake? Yes, we did go on a bit about the cakes looking too good to eat but it didn’t last long.

I’ve been having such a good time resourcing the art curriculum in the last few months. My art blog churns out a diverse selection of inspiration to art students and teachers (I hope). This includes images, photography, design and animation.

Our students explored links to websites with antiquated encyclopedia images to create their ‘transformations’ which I combined in a slide show. The reduced image size doesn’t do justice to the details in the students’ work, so have a look at larger ones in Mihaela’s new art blog.

Yes! Our head of art now has a blog, and so do her students. This term our year 9s and 10s were lucky enough to get iPads, so we decided to get them to create Posterous blogs which we linked to Mihaela’s ‘mother blog’ and encouraged them to start snapping away with their iPad cameras so that they could develop a store of visual inspiration for their work. The beauty of a mobile device is the opportunity to capture photos as you go about your everyday activities. I’ve found the best images are the unexpected ones. I was inspired to get the art students blogging when I saw my dear friend, Marie Salinger’s, student blogs. Marie’s students have realised the rich potential of blogs in terms of journalling, reflecting, evaluating and just plain sharing. A blog is visual, it’s sequential, easy to access online and share with others; it invites responses and conversation. In her Visual Arts blog, Marie has reflected about the way in which iPads have enriched learning for her girls. The way Marie’s students used their blog to experiment with and evaluate iPad apps for drawing, then share with others, inspired me to talk to Mihaela about doing the same. Consequently I went into obsessive mode and lived and breathed art and apps for a couple of weeks, adding an Art Apps page in our LibGuides, my art blog, Pinterest, Flickr and Diigo.

Robot I am Apps used: Blender Pixeltwist                 (iphoneart.com)

Recently a dedicated team of students from the co-curricular group, Writing Competition, successfully wrote a book in a day. They had to collaboratively write at least 8,000 words and illustrate their story. The whole thing had to be done within 12 hours. I was very proud of the way they managed to work together and fuse their ideas and talents to produce a fantasy story for the Children’s Hospital. I hope to be able to share their book once I check the copyright.

Well, that’s it for now. Hope some of this has been useful to you.

Interesting

Fun and games?

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Before I say anything, I’m going to ask you to watch a video of a British game show called Split or steal.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Uos2fzIJ0&feature=player_embedded]

Am I alone in thinking that game shows are not all fun and games, that they contain more than a small portion of insidiousness? We like to watch people compete to win, and we may enjoy living vicariously through the contestants, imagining we were just about to win an incredible amount of money. But shows like this one seem to go beyond the harmless. But despite the fact that this game show is more like torture than fun, it’s interesting to observe our own motivations as observers. I was watching with my eyes popping out; I think my hands were on my face, perhaps in disbelief. Although I had a feeling there was going to be betrayal, I couldn’t believe that a person would actually lie so coldly, and then leave the other person so shattered. It’s an interesting study in human nature. If there was a war or state of emergency, I’d hate to have my life depend on the good will of the woman in this video. And shows like Big brother mess around with people in such a bad way, it makes you wonder how this form of psychological torture is permitted.

Does anyone else feel that way, or am I just overreacting?

Thanks to Howard Rheingold for the link to the video.

language

Spreading the word to stop the word

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Twitter informed me that Jenny Luca was spreading the word to stop the word. In her post, Jenny joins the push for awareness to stop the inappropriate and discriminative use of the word ‘retard-ed’. The post is a response to the incredible Laura Stockman’s blog carnival. Laura is donating a flip video camera to the cause.

Here are the rules for the carnival:

  • To be entered you MUST have at least one blog POST that focuses ending the use of the r-word.
  • Your post MUST be on how the r-word makes you feel, how you will help Spread the Word to End the Word, or have to do with the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign.
  • Your post MUST be entered on 3.31.09.
  • Once your post is up, please leave a comment here so that I know you are entered. It would be great if you could leave your name or the name of your class/school and a link to the post. I will create a new post on my blog that day with a list of all of the bloggers who have spread the word!
  • Everyone who posts and leaves their link here will be entered into a random drawing to win the Flip Video Camera! I will draw the name of the winner on April 1st!

Like Jenny, I remember the ‘r’ word being used freely at school, not just primary school, and I still hear it now. I’m ashamed to say that I often don’t bat an eyelid when I hear it because it’s used so flippantly that it doesn’t even arouse offence. Clearly, this is not acceptable, and we must think about the implications of this attitude, and then do something about it. This goes for all words that discriminate against and offend people, whether they discriminate against disability, race, religion, gender or any other group that stands out as different.

Why don’t we have a class collection tin for charity and create awareness by penalising students for using the ‘r’ word or name-calling in general? We might be surprised to discover how often we use inappropriate language.

There’s no nice way to use the word ‘retard’. As John McGinley says in the video, using the word ‘retard’ or ‘retarded’ is an act of cowardice because you’re discriminating against a group of people who can’t defend themselves.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7dyueB1C88&feature=player_embedded]

 

Betsy says it so well in her post.

There is no shame in having a developmental delay or a disability of any kind. Trust me, some of the greatest human beings you will ever meet are ones that you may have just walked right by without even noticing or acknowledging. Do them and yourself a favor and see others as fully living and loving human beings, no matter what the differences.

Please stop using the R word – replace it with respect.

Education

Kids to tell schools what to teach

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Calling all students! Edutopia has created a competition asking students to express their opinions about which skills they think their school should teach to help them succeed in life. Recognising young people’s expertise in technology, Edutopia has asked them to submit their opinions in the form of a 60 second video.

The competition closes October 15, and favourites will be published. There is no prescribed format for the answer to the question: ‘What do you think is the most important skill to learn for your future and why?’ – only that it is posted on YouTube and tagged ‘edutopiaskills’. Kids require proof of parental consent and must provide parental contact information. I’m puzzled about the choice to use YouTube, considering that YouTube is blocked by many schools.

I’d really like somebody to supplement this with adults’ guesses about what the kids would say. I’m not sure if I would be able say with any certainty how kids would answer this question, or how they would present it. Would it involve technology, social skills, financial know-how, health issues, emotional intelligence, practical knowledge, or??? I’m hoping that many kids would find transferrable skills and experiences the most valuable. I can’t wait to see the results.

What about learning that would be considered as a waste of time at school? Some might say that their whole school education was a waste of time. Most would isolate learning that they found unengaging or irrelevant. I could certainly make an extensive list of learning that screamed irrelevance: having to look up statistical facts about yawningly boring facts in a Victorian year book; sheep and sewerage; other things that I’ve successfully wiped out of my memory bank.