Everywhere is here – is that the school library of the future?

This is Guy Adam Ailion’s animation, an introduction to his Architectural Masters Thesis called EVERYWHERE IS HERE. He has posted it to YouTube and has included this explanatory text to accompany it;
What is a library when ‘everywhere is here’? This architectural animation explores the question of the role of the public [...]

School’s out Friday

 

How could today’s School’s out Friday be anything but Michael Jackson. His death today shocked the world. Despite the controversy that dogged him over the last 10 or so years, he was the consummate showman when he graced a stage.
I know, because I was lucky enough to go to his concert at [...]

Digital literacy lessons for all- me included! Glad you’re alive and well Jeff!

I woke today to the news that Michael Jackson was in hospital and it was suspected that he had died. I didn’t go to my computer, just followed the mainstream media on Channel Nine here in Melbourne for awhile. Eventually news broke that he had died.
I went to the computer and opened Twitter where the story [...]

Gmail ninja tips – I need them!

Image via CrunchBase

I had my children in 1996 and 1999, so my time in schools during this period and in the years up to 2004/5 was a bit patchy. I worked, but some of it was as a relief teacher and a large part of it was in a part time capacity. It’s been interesting [...]

Aha moment – ever had one of those?

Ever had an ‘aha’ moment? An experience where revelation comes to you suddenly. I had one of those when I started writing this blog. Writing my first post and waking up the next morning to see a comment posted was a real ‘aha’ moment for me. Everything I had been reading about in terms of [...]

Students are doing it for themselves.

(sing the title to the Pointer Sister’s tune!)
I haven’t updated of late about the Year 9 Ning running across our four classrooms at Toorak College. Mostly that’s because life has been crazy for me and I haven’t had time to feed it to the extent that it needs in order for it to be a [...]

School’s out Friday

Thanks to the generosity of my husband’s cousin, last night we saw Pink in concert at the Rod Laver Arena here in Melbourne.  This excerpt on Youtube is from the opening number. The concert was part of Pink’s, ‘Funhouse tour’ and it was incredible. It was one of the 54 shows she is [...]

Twitter Search in Plain English

The Lefevers are at it again. This time it’s ‘Twitter Search in Plain English’ . It’s a very useful explanation of how you would use Twitter to gain insight about news and trending topics. Especially useful for educators. This is one of the ways we can explain to our students how [...]

What do friends mean?

A tweet came through today that pointed me in the direction of a post on The New York times site. Interesting that I should be influenced by a post from New York, when I should have been tramping the streets of that city today. I’m not, and nor will I be attending the NECC conference in a couple of weeks. [...]

Google Translate- is this changing the nature of LOTE teaching?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I was involved in a session the other day with Yr 9 students. We were exploring techniques for searching the web to find the information you need. We spent some time looking at Google Scholar and this led to an exploration of some of the other applications Google offers. When [...]