9 of the Best Australian Contemporary Young Adult novels – Better Reading YA author Steph Bowe chooses the cream of the crop in recent Australian YA releases that can be read by teenagers and adults alike! Steph Bowe was born in Melbourne in 1994 and now lives in Queensland. She has written two earlier YA novels: Girl Saves Boy and All This Could End, and her newest, Night Swimming, is due to be released on April 3. Steph is currently a Stella Prize Schools Ambassador for Queensland. One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn Claire Zorn took out a whole slew of literary awards with her previous YA novel, The Protected, and One Would Think the Deep is a compelling follow-up, about a boy who, after the sudden death of his mother, goes to live with his estranged aunt and cousins, and starts to unravel old family tensions and secrets. Against a backdrop of surf culture and the complex dynamics of a working class family, Zorn writes the internal world of a grieving teenager especially well. On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta The Whole of My World by Nicole Hayes
Digital Citizenship and Digital Literacy - Netsafe: Supporting New Zealand internet users Photo by R. Nial Bradshaw The widespread adoption of technology and our increasing use of digital platforms means that every New Zealander needs to know how to model responsible behaviours as successful ‘digital citizens’ in real-world contexts. Anyone using the internet should understand how good citizenship values apply online and NetSafe works with educators and families alike to help develop skills and knowledge around this concept. We have defined a successful digital citizen as someone who: It would be easy to think of Digital literacy as just another set of skills or knowledge that we need to learn, but it is significantly more than that. “Being digitally literate is not just learning about or even with digital technologies, but is being able to participate fully in a digitally-enabled [society]” Practical skills associated with digital literacy could include knowing: People can and do post things online which are untrue or extremely biased. More advice and information
How to Identify Mysterious Images Online | MindShift | KQED News Can’t figure out the source of an image you found online? There’s an easy trick you might not know about — and it’s an essential tool for citing sources. Students who find images they want to use in projects need to follow the appropriate rules of citation: state the title and the original source. But with so much misinformation and mis-attribution online, students might either change the research topic to avoid the problem altogether or simply cite the source poorly. Take, for example, a student wanting to use this image (above) labeled as a cartoon by Rube Goldberg. But there’s a Google tool that allows him to use an image as a search term. Within just a few seconds, he can discover another artist, named W. From a complete mystery to a citable entity in the blink of an eye. Here’s how to use Search by Image: 2) Notice that in the Google Images search bar, specifically, there is an icon of a camera on the right-hand end. 4) Wait for a moment while Google searches its image index.
The Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet [Infographic] Critical thinking skills truly matter in learning. Why? Because they are life skills we use every day of our lives. Everything from our work to our recreational pursuits, and all that’s in between, employs these unique and valuable abilities. Consciously developing them takes thought-provoking discussion and equally thought-provoking questions to get it going. Begin right here with the Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet. It’s a simple infographic offering questions that work to develop critical thinking on any given topic. How Does It Work? Critical thinking is thinking on purpose. The Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet includes categories for Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. In these questions you’ll find great potential conversation starters and fillers. Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet for Printing You can grab an 11x17 PDF file of the Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet for quick and easy printing. We really hope you enjoy this cheatsheet.
8 Tips for Great Blog Posts – MICHELLE PACANSKY-BROCK My Advanced Teaching with Technology students, who are teachers, are starting their own blog. As I guide them through becoming bloggers, I have been reminded of how distinct blogging is from academic writing. I’m writing this post to support my students, as well as other educators venturing into blogging. The fact is, making a blog is simple but, in the era of knowledge abundance, enticing people to read your posts is not so easy. Be meaningful. What tips would you add to this list? Interactive Graphic about Copyright Today we are adding this wonderful resource from Cyberbee. This is basically an interactive image which includes important information in the form of answers to questions students might raise when discussing the topic of copyright. To start using this resource all you need to do is to hover your pointer over a student to read the question then click on that student to read the answer. Here are the questions asked by students in this interactive graphic, to see the answer you need to click on a student. 1- What is copyright 2- What about me ? Below is only a snapshot of the image , click HERE to access the original interactive graphic.
10 Benefits Of Inquiry-Based Learning | TeachThought 10 Benefits Of Inquiry-Based Learning by TeachThought Staff Inquiry-based learning is a term that educators and parents alike hear bandied about without a clear sense of exactly what it is, why it’s effective, how it works, and what its benefits are. For now, let’s define inquiry-based learning simply as an open-ended approach to learning guided by students through questions, research, and/or curiosity. Sketch-noter Sylvia Duckworth took Trevor MacKenzie’s ideas on the benefits on inquiry-based learning and put together the image above. What benefits of inquiry-based learning do you see in your classroom? 1. (See 25 Ways to Promote Passion-Based Learning In Your Classroom) 2. (See 4 Principles Of Student-Centered Learning) 3. (See 27 Ways to Promote Intrinsic Motivation In The Classroom) 4. (See 4 Stages of Curiosity) 5. (See 4 Strategies to Promote Smarter Grit) 6. (See 8 Reasons Why Students Should Still Write Research Papers) 7. 8. (See 7 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions) 9.
13 Great Twitter Chats Every Educator Should Check Out -- THE Journal Education Twitter chats take place when a group of educators "meet" on Twitter at an agreed upon time, using an agreed upon hashtag, to discuss topics of interest in education. Twitter chats range from small discussions with only a few participants to huge conversations with dozens or even hundreds of educators taking part! They provide a unique opportunity for educators to discuss specific topics of interest and connect with colleagues around the world. The word from educators in the trenches is that these chats are making a profound difference in how educators are improving their professional practice, providing ideas, resources and inspiration in ways never thought possible. Interested in giving Twitter chats a try? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. This list of popular chats is a great way to get started, but is just a small sampling of the many education chats available. #edtechchat: is dedicated to all things related to Education Technology and takes place Mondays from 8 to 9 pm Eastern Time.
Copyright resources for teachers August 12, 2014 Now that the new school year is about to start, it would be great to devote a session with your students where you can talk to them about issues related to copyright and proper use of digital artifacts from the net. This will definitely help them make better and informed decisions as to the kind of materials they are allowed to use in their work and provide them with practice on the different ways they can appropriately credit sources. This resourceful page embeds a wide variety of materials to use in this regard, browse through the items featured there and bookmark the ones you plan to use with your students. I am also sharing with you this wonderful graphic that debunks 5 myths about copyright infringement. You can print it off and use it in your class as well.
12 Principles Of Modern Learning | TeachThought 12 Principles Of Modern Learning by TeachThought Staff What are the principles of modern learning? Well, that depends on how you define ‘learning’ and what you’d consider ‘modern.’ These broad categories are then broken up into four principles per category. Overall, though, defining ‘modern learning’ through inquiry, self-direction, and connectivity is at the core of what we preach here at TeachThought. The four principles of Modern Inquiry Learning, according to the graphic, are Compile, Contribute, Combine, and Change, with their respective Realities and Opportunities shown below. Modern Inquiry Learning Principle: Compile Reality: The ability to save and retrieve information in a variety of formats Opportunity: Give modern learners virtually ‘unlimited’ capacity to retrieve and store information Principle: Contribute Reality: The ability to participate in more complex projects Opportunity: Enables learners to participate in more complex projects Principle: Combine Principle: Change Cooperate
What is a Global Digital Citizen and Why Does the World Need Them? One of the questions we’re asked most often is “what is a Global Digital Citizen?” Being a Global Digital Citizen is about more than just being a citizen of Earth. These are leaders, learners, and creators. It’s a way of living well in a world that’s changing fast, and showing others how to do the same. Carl Sagan once defined an ideal citizenry as people “with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.” Global Digital Citizens are concerned with connection and contribution. With all this in mind, welcome to your definitive guide to understanding the Global Digital Citizen. Two Citizens in One When connected technology first started to appear in schools, educators quickly realized the need for guidelines for acceptable use. Global Citizenship is a well-understood concept relating to how one participates in and contributes to the world as a whole. Over the past few decades, we’ve experienced the creation, expansion and assimilation of the digital world. Some ideas:
A Visual Guide To Creative Commons Licensing A Visual Guide To Creative Commons Licensing Creative Commons licensing was one of the best things that ever happened to the internet. Where once the internet was an untamed beast overran by plagiarism, non-attributed image theft, copyright confusion, and super shaky sense of who owns what–well, really that hasn’t changed for most. But for those paying attention, Creative Commons licensing offers an oasis of both simple rules and a communal framework that allows both media publishers and media consumers the ability to be on the same page. This is especially important in education, where teachers and students take to the internet daily to find, curate, publish and share every form of digital media. Often teachers end up in 1 of 2 camps: 1. 2. With this context in mind, the following graphic from foter.com does an excellent job of putting all of the need-to-know information in one very visual package that’s easily shared and saved.
AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource Adding Links, Images, and Videos in Your Annotations – Hypothes.is Help Center One of the neat things about web annotation and Hypothesis in particular is the ability of the annotator to include links, images, and videos in their annotations. We'd argue annotations simply look better when they are more media rich in this way. But it's also true that links and images/videos can help your arguments be more persuasive. Links Inserting links (always good to support your claims or provide further information in an annotation) is pretty straightforward using hypothes.is. Copy a URL that you want to link to: Back in hypothes.is, select the text you want to link elsewhere and click on the link button. Hypothes.is drops some markdown (a very basic computer language) into your annotation, but you can ignore that. Now paste the link in and save and your annotation will contain a hyperlink in red underlined text: Images This is what the button looks like for adding and image: You'll need a URL or web address for the image to insert it into an annotation. Works for .GIF too! Videos