This is an interesting blog created by a middle school teacher teaching maths, English and drama. At this blog students are not only have their homework set up, class discussions but it has links to some charities as well. This blog also highlights students’ social lives; not only at school but their lives outside school as well. They are sharing photos and podcasts as well on this blog like review of books by students. Here is the link:
http://borges.edublogs.org
Another interesting blog if you are looking for activities for students with English as a second language. The link is here:
http://viewsfromthewhiteboard.edublogs.org/
Monday, October 25, 2010
Three key ideas that teachers would find useful
Pericles, K. (2008). Happily blogging @ Belmore South. SCAN, 27 (2), 4-6.
Teachers can create class Blogs as it is simple to set up and easy to control and fits in well with all key learning areas and connect not only a class teacher with her students but also these students are connected to each other and with other students around the world. Here are a few activities students can be engaged with:
• Students can prepare photographic montages from the pictures taken through the year and can post them on their blogs. Hence, these montages can present highlights of the year activities.
• Students can have an update of any current games going on in the world (like football matches, Common Wealth Games, etc.) and disseminate information on their blogs.
• Students can put up their creative work (a story, book, etc.) and can have feedback not only from their peers in their own classroom but also from others around the world. Like in this case a girl at Belmore South was getting critical but supportive response on her book from two high school students in New Zealand. They were helping her with the clarity and expression.
Teachers can create class Blogs as it is simple to set up and easy to control and fits in well with all key learning areas and connect not only a class teacher with her students but also these students are connected to each other and with other students around the world. Here are a few activities students can be engaged with:
• Students can prepare photographic montages from the pictures taken through the year and can post them on their blogs. Hence, these montages can present highlights of the year activities.
• Students can have an update of any current games going on in the world (like football matches, Common Wealth Games, etc.) and disseminate information on their blogs.
• Students can put up their creative work (a story, book, etc.) and can have feedback not only from their peers in their own classroom but also from others around the world. Like in this case a girl at Belmore South was getting critical but supportive response on her book from two high school students in New Zealand. They were helping her with the clarity and expression.
Website Review (from Callow Reading)
Animoto: www.animoto.com
This website creates videos with your photos, video clips and music. It is very easy to use and fantastic videos can be prepared with little knowledge. You can use your own music or have the option to select from a library provided by the website. Hence, this website prepares videos quickly by editing automatically and if you don’t want to wait even for a short while, it sends you notification through your email once the videos are ready. The sight is available for free for a limited use, however, there is a nominal fee for full access.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Copyright at university and schools
Using the following website:
http://www.copyright.org.au/pdf/acc/infosheets_pdf/g053.pdf/download
We can answer the following questions as:
Can I copy material from the internet for research?
Australian Copyright Council summarises it as follows:
• You will not infringe copyright if you use material for the purposes of research or study, provided that your use is fair.
• You do not need to be enrolled in a course – you could be researching or studying something for yourself.
• In some cases, specific provisions in the Copyright Act allow people working in libraries to copy material for you if you need it for research or study.
What constitutes research and fair use?
It is fair to copy or reproduce a copyright material if only a small portion of the material (as mentioned by the Act) is being done. The Act says that just 10% of the copyright material can be copied or if the material is in chapter form then it is fair to copy one chapter. In case of photographs, drawings and unpublished material, however, the Act does not state anything about what portion of the material could be copied.
In Copyright Act ‘research’ has the same meaning as described by the Macquarie dictionary as “diligent and systematic enquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover facts or principles...”
Can students ( university or school ) use music in videos that they make?
The website http://www.copyright.org.au/g038.pdf answers this question by saying that in general, students would need permission of the music owner (usually a music publisher) to use the music in their videos, however, they could be allowed in a few limited situations.
http://www.copyright.org.au/pdf/acc/infosheets_pdf/g053.pdf/download
We can answer the following questions as:
Can I copy material from the internet for research?
Australian Copyright Council summarises it as follows:
• You will not infringe copyright if you use material for the purposes of research or study, provided that your use is fair.
• You do not need to be enrolled in a course – you could be researching or studying something for yourself.
• In some cases, specific provisions in the Copyright Act allow people working in libraries to copy material for you if you need it for research or study.
What constitutes research and fair use?
It is fair to copy or reproduce a copyright material if only a small portion of the material (as mentioned by the Act) is being done. The Act says that just 10% of the copyright material can be copied or if the material is in chapter form then it is fair to copy one chapter. In case of photographs, drawings and unpublished material, however, the Act does not state anything about what portion of the material could be copied.
In Copyright Act ‘research’ has the same meaning as described by the Macquarie dictionary as “diligent and systematic enquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover facts or principles...”
Can students ( university or school ) use music in videos that they make?
The website http://www.copyright.org.au/g038.pdf answers this question by saying that in general, students would need permission of the music owner (usually a music publisher) to use the music in their videos, however, they could be allowed in a few limited situations.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Definition of New Literacies
New literacies is a shift from 'showing' to 'sharing' of information. Hence a collective knowledge can be build up through sharing blogs, online discussions and community based wikis (Callow, 2008). Knobel and Lankshear (2006) define new literacies as constituted by ‘technical stuff’ and ‘ethos stuff’. Technical stuff is digitality; for example programmers write source codes to drive different kinds of applications (text, images, sound, animations, etc.) on digital electronic apparatuses (computers, games hardware, CD, etc.). Ethos stuff is about kinds of mindset. One mindset describes the contemporary world as much being the same as 200-300 years before just a bit more ‘technologized’. While the other mindset sees the world has been changed significantly as it is working on a different approach and recognizes the cyberspace as a fact of the new world. Hence new literacies are defined by the second mindset who believes that cyberspace operates on the basis of different assumptions and values than from the physical space (Knobel and Lankshear, 2006).
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