Explore Australian and worldwide online resources

May 27, 2009

The National Library of Australia’s Digital Collections gives users access to more than 130 000 images including books, journals, maps, music, pictures, manuscripts and oral histories.

The SBDS prototype will be a new discovery service focussed on Australia, Australians, and items found in Australian collecting institutions. It will provide a single point of access to resources currently discoverable via the Library’s multiple discovery services, and to digitised material freely available online anywhere in the world.

This prototype is an exploration of ideas and techniques aimed at making information easier to find and showing it within a useful context. This development of this prototype will be strongly influenced by user feedback.  Please give your comments and suggestions on how to improve it.

from the SBDS website.

Educators will find useful Internet Gateways on the CMIS website.


WolframAlpha

May 18, 2009
This is a repeat of today’s post on the CMIS Eval blog (for the benefit of those readers who do not subscribe to that blog)

WolframAlpha was announced in March 2009 by British physicist Stephen Wolfram, and was released to the public on May 15, 2009. Unlike Google, which searches for web resources to match a query, WolframAlpha generates answers to factual queries by computing the answer from available data.

Watch Part 2 of of the video.

Related CMIS blog posts include:

Take a look at the CMIS webpages on Search Tools


200 seconds film competition

May 8, 2009
Secondary school students are invited to enter the 200 Seconds film competition hosted by Australia Post and the AFI.
Winners will have their film screened as part of the 2009 AFI Industry Awards.

Useful resources to support teachers and students entering this competiton or undertaking media studies units can be found on the CMIS Media Production and Analysis page.


World Digital Library

April 22, 2009

World Digital Library

In June 2005 U.S. Librarian of Congress James Billington proposed establishing an Internet-based, easily accessible collection of the world’s cultural riches  to highlight the achievements of all countries and cultures.

On April  20th 2009 The World Digital Library site was launched.

from the WDL site…

The WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site, in a variety of ways. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.

Items on the WDL may easily be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution, or can be located by an open-ended search, in several languages. Special features include interactive geographic clusters, a timeline, advanced image-viewing and interpretive capabilities. Item-level descriptions and interviews with curators about featured items provide additional information.

WDL Screen Shot

Educators will find listings of more digital resources suited to educational use on the CMIS Internet Gateways page and in our previous WoW Websites blog posts.

(Scroll down the page to see our earlier posts.)

Use the CMIS Resource Bank TOPIC SEARCH page to locate CMIS recommended websites. Use ‘website’ as your keyword search term and refine your search by Phase of Development, Learning Area and Outcome.


ICT Research

March 26, 2009
The use of ICT in schools A new edition of the WA College of Teaching (WACOT) Research Digest examines the use of ICT in schools, including the ICT literacy of Australian students.

It is one of a series of periodic digests produced by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) for the College.

Topics include:

  • Successful uses of ICT in schools
  • What do we know about the ICT literacy of Australian school students?
  • Is ICT availability and use associated with student performance?
  • What is the evidence of the impact of ICT on learning?
  • ICTs in Science classrooms
  • Interactive whiteboards
    [see also the CMIS Interactive Whiteboards page]
  • Exploring impact on learning
  • Comment: ICTs and learning
  • Useful websites
  • References [2001-2008]

CMIS has an extensive section of our website that provides information for teachers on ICT in the Curriculum.


Value Adding Quest - PD

March 4, 2009

A hands-on, informative session to develop your understanding of the Technology and Enterprise Learning Area through The Value Adding Quest.
The 2009 Value Adding Quest encourages students to identify a community need and explore the options for value adding by creating a product, concept, process or promotion which adds value to primary products or the natural environment.

Date: Saturday 14 March 2009
Time: 9.00 am to 12.00 pm
Venue: St Andrew’s Grammar
Address: 4 Hellenic Drive Dianella WA 6059
Cost: FREE
Value Adding Quest

Session will include:

  • Value adding and The Value Adding Quest.
  • Links between Technology and Enterprise, Value Adding, Sustainability and the Sustainable Schools Project.
  • Linking your current curriculum to the requirements of the Quest.
  • Ideas from Technology and Enterprise teachers who have entered the Quest or are on the VAQ Committee.
  • Opportunities for further learning.

To secure your place, visit the website, complete the registration form below and fax to Maria Biscotto on 9450 3157 or e-mail information to vquest@iinet.net.au by Monday 9th March 2009.


collaborate (verb):to work, one with another

February 20, 2009
ABC Pool Pool is a social media project developed by ABC Radio National. It’s a place to share your creative work with the Pool community and ABC producers - upload music, photos, videos, documentaries, interviews, animations and more. It’s a collaborative space where audiences become makers.
Gene Pool was launched on February 12th - to coincide with Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. Throughout the year the ABC will release archival material exploring the idea of evolution, beginning with genetics professor Steve Jones talking about the life and work of Charles Darwin. Other offerings include a soon to be uploaded clip from ABC’s Monday Conference in 1971 featuring Paul Ehrlich talking about climate change.

These archives will be released under a Creative Commons licence allowing you to reuse or remix them in any way you like as long as it’s for non-commercial use. You can ‘tweak, twist and remix’ the files to create your interpretation of the themes of evolution and mutation. Using the Pool you can share these results with the rest of the world. The idea is to build a community around the project, remixing and reusing the ABC archival material in new and creative ways.

Visit the Gene Pool for more information about contributing to the project. Your students’ contributions could be chosen to feature on ABC radio throughout the year or at the public exhibition at Melbourne’s RMIT on November 24th - the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s book The Origin of Species.


FREE Professional Learning sessions March/April

February 15, 2009

Numbers count



Want to get the most from ABS data?


Want to know what is available from ABS website?


Want to have up-to-date, accurate data for your classroom?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is offering free professional learning sessions to be held in Australian capital cities during March and April this year.

Perth sessions will be held at Exchange Plaza Sherwood Crt on March 27th [for Teacher Librarians] and April 3rd [for Economics/Business etc]

View the flyer for full details

Image by Pink Sherbert Photography

Safer Internet Day - Feb 10th

February 10, 2009

Tuesday February 10th 2009 is Safer Internet Day

Teachers looking for resources to support units of work about safe Internet use can be directed to the following CMIS web pages:

If you know of other resources useful to teachers exploring aspects of Internet safety please let us know via the comments on this blog.


Our First Birthday

January 27, 2009

Happy birthday to us.

The first CMIS Tech Focus blog post was published on
January 29th 2008.

[It was about Marc Prensky's discussion of computer programming as a new literacy.]

Since then we have:

Please drop us a comment about the sorts of information and resources you would like to see appearing on the CMIS blogs this year… or just wish us a Happy Birthday!

Click on the No Comments » link here - or below this post to be the first to say Happy Birthday.