iPads and Scoop-it, Oh my!

Term 3, last year we posted links to various websites that we thought may be useful to teachers either in class or personally.

One of those links was to the scoop-it website. Scoop-it lets you be the curator of your favourite topic and enables people to follow topics, not people. It can also bring you content on topics that you have decided to follow. As the blurb says – what gathers people together are their passions.

Below is a list of scoop-it topics that may be of interest to staff members.

Take a look and see what you think.

http://www.scoop.it/t/all-things-ipad

http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-citizenship-in-schools

http://www.scoop.it/t/student-learning-through-school-libraries

http://www.scoop.it/t/social-networking-for-information-professionals

The link to the website is:

 http://www.scoop.it/

Have a great weekend.

Play games to feed the hungry

www.freerice.com

 Check out the link above to the Freerice website. Freerice is a website where the users play a variety of educational multiple-choice games and help to fight world hunger while doing so. For each question that you answer correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated.  The categories include English vocabulary, multiplication tables, chemical symbols, English grammar, geography, art and literature.

As you answer questions, your total score is displayed as a mound of rice and the amount.

I think that one of the best parts of the game is that it is self-levelling so everyone has an even playing field. If you get a series of questions right, you will move up a level, get them wrong and move down a level.  It doesn’t change the scores you can get, or the amount of rice that is donated according to your score.  It just provides you with questions at a level that suits you and as your knowledge improves, up the levels go.

This would be a good game to play in class – whether Maths, English, Science or SOSE. Divide the class into groups and have a challenge to see who can donate the most rice – maybe have a small prize for the winning team as an extra incentive?  I have run this in the Library for classes and challenged them to beat my score.  Once they realised that the levels adjusted to suit them – it was ON!  And yes – by the end of 20 mins, I was soundly beaten – it was brilliant to watch.

Check out the FAQ on the Freerice website to get an idea of how much is donated each year/day and where it all goes.

The game does come with a warning on the website that people should read and is something to be aware of.  It says........

WARNING:  This game may make you smarter.  It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, and your grades.

Of course the question may arise as to how true this is – does rice REALLY get donated to people who need it just by playing a game on the web?

Check out the following link.  Snopes is a type of ‘mythbuster’ for the Internet and ferrets out the truth from the fiction in all the ‘stuff’ that is out there.  This could be a good site to introduce to the students so that they can check and evaluate websites and information.

http://www.snopes.com

Have a play with these sites and see what you think.

A New Year Dawns

Welcome back to the start of the school year for 2012 – and the National Year of Reading. Lots of ideas have been floated on how to celebrate this event and the Library Staff are hoping that we can get some of them up and running here at the Barkly College.

The National Year of Reading (NYR) will be launched on 14^th February and will run all year with various programs and events. Why a National Year of Reading? Here in Australia, nearly half the population struggles without having the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work. 46% of Australians cannot read newspapers, follow a recipe or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.
Considering that most newspapers are supposedly written for a 12year old level – this is scary!

One of the suggestions was to spend 2012 seconds each week – or each month - reading as a class, either silently or out loud. 2012 seconds equals about 33 mins so that would be a small part of a class block. Maybe we could get people from the community top come in and read to the classes? Have staff reading to classes that they don’t usually teach? Project the stories up on the IWB and read from there? The Library has e-books and iPads available for class use so maybe that would a ‘techy’ way to promote and run this.

Something else that could be incorporated is “Are we there yet?” This is a fun, educational activity for under 12s and their families, which is based on Alison Lester’s book, which tells the story of her family’s journey around Australia in a camper van. The idea is that you get to write in to tell NYR about your home town – or a special place that you have visited in Australia. By sending in a short story/letter/drawing of your favourite place, you could win a fabulous prize. Ask your teacher or parents to help. This competition will move around Australia on a month-by-month basis – starting here in the Northern Territory on the 14^th February and ending in Victoria.

Teachers, this is something that could be included as part of reading and literacy skills. Read the book to them, ask the questions and write about the places. Although this is aimed at Primary school – we can do a display in the Library of the stories and drawings.

Another activity that will be happening August 25th is the Read Hour. This is to promote the idea that EVERYONE would benefit from reading for at least an hour a week. Some ideas are as simple as:

· Sharing a book with your child for 10 mins a day

· Getting together with friends to read and talk about your favourite books

· Get some of that work/life balance by reading a book during breaks

· Including a reading hour in the school week.

The link for the NYR website is included below. Check it out for more ideas and programs. Any ideas about things we could run across both schools, please contact Library Staff. We would LOVE to help out.
http://www.love2read.org.au/index.cfm

Wishing you all a wonderful start back at school and we will be back with more ideas and news. If you have anything you would like up on the blog from your class or if you have any questions or ideas, please talk to us.

Remember this blog is to promote what is going on in the library and our schools. It can also be used for interesting ideas, to put them out and get some talking going on amongst colleagues, friends and families across the world. Not just in our little town.

All the best for 2012. Let’s make it a great year for learning