Ancient and Modern

September 17, 2008

One of the world’s oldest cultures is using the most modern of technologies to communicate their stories to the rest of the world.

We are proud of our community.
We are proud of our history and our present.
We are proud of our children, and our artists, and our songmen,
we are proud of our whole place.
Because we are proud of all these things,
we are sharing them with you.


from Inside Film

…Twelve Canoes is a website which paints a compelling portrait of the art, culture, history and place of the Yolngu people whose homeland is the town of Ramingining and the Arafura Swamp of north-central Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

The high-end site is a work of art in itself; honouring the people of the Arafura swamp, and built around twelve filmed “visual poems” describing and illustrating many aspects of Yolngu history, life and culture from Creation, Our Ancestors, The Macassans, First White Men, Thomson Time, The Swamp, Plants and Animals, and Seasons, to Kinship, Ceremony, Language, and a slice of contemporary life in Nowadays.

Other features of the site include galleries which showcase Ramingining art and artists, music and songmen, language and common terms, and photographs that capture the essence of life in the region. More…

The Australian National Film and Sound Archive is hosting the Twelve Canoes website.


The CMIS Resource Bank contains reviews for the Ten canoes videorecording and the Ten canoes website,  as well as Dust echoes, the Australian Museum’s Indigenous Australians the Bunyips websites.

The CMIS Resource Bank Help pages will assist you in using the Resource Bank to locate resources suited to your specific curriculum needs and your students’ phase of development.



Cybersmart Detectives - Year 7

September 3, 2008
Primary schools are invited to participate in a Cybersmart detectives activity designed to teach students about safe behaviors when using internet chat rooms and personal websites.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has adapted the online game, initially developed by UK-based child advocacy agency Childnet International,  for use in Australian schools.

In the scenario, children play the role of a school Deputy Principal concerned about the welfare of a new student, who may be being bullied by someone they have met in an internet chat room. Guided by a series of clues, children work collaboratively in teams to solve the mystery of what is worrying the student, and why.

‘Cybersmart Guides’ respond to the questions and theories posed by the students, and guide the teams through each of the ‘clues’. As the scenario unfolds, the children discuss the risks of certain online and offline behaviours, and ways of managing those risks.


For further information on safe internet behaviours visit the following sites:


The CMIS Managing Student Safety Online web pages include links to information about:

Internet Safety for Children Working Party [WA]
Australian Government resources

Winter Solstice

June 20, 2008

Winter Solstice in the southern hemisphere - June 21st

Use the occasion of the winter solstice to explore some interactive multimedia resources explaining the Earth’s changing seasons.


If you are unable to view the embedded YouTube video ‘What causes Earth’s Seasons?’ you may be able to access the same content via TeacherTube.


Seasons

This interactive flash resource Earth in Motion: Seasons from the Adler Planetarium provides a simple audio and video explanation of the earth’s movements.


Reasons for the Seasons

Reasons for the Seasons This applet has been designed to help students visualize the reasons for the seasons.


The Seasons

Seasons Interactive Everyone knows that it’s warmer in the summer than in winter, but why is that? With this interactive you can examine the main factors which affect temperature: the position of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, the tilt of the earth’s axis of rotation and the path of the Sun in the sky over the course of day.


DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]

TLF Learning Object on the Seasons
Control the motion of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. Work out how the Earths orbit and the tilt of its axis determine seasons in the different hemispheres. Work out how the Earths orbit and the tilt of its axis determine day length in the different hemispheres. Examine the heating effect of the Sun. Compare seasons at different locations on the Earth. For example, work out that when it is summer in China, it is winter in Australia. This learning object is a combination of four objects in the same series.


The power of Wordles.

June 19, 2008

Classroom First Strategy

Tag clouds are popular to both represent and navigate web content. Now students can build ‘word clouds’ from written text to help them visualize the main concepts in the text.

From the Wordle website:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

So what text was used to generate these Wordles? The image at the top of this post was created using the first section of the Classroom First Strategy: A shared understanding.

Below are Wordles created from the first two of the six key elements of the strategy:

1. A focus on student achievement: success for all

Success for all

2. A classroom orientation: sound teaching

Sound Teaching

Have some fun and generate some Wordles of your own.

Please be aware that some clouds in the Wordle gallery include examples that might offend.


It’s a small world

June 5, 2008

Media-rich, interactive websites make the teaching and learning of Languages Other Than English an engaging and exciting pursuit. Today’s CMIS Tech Focus blog features a short selection of WOW websites and CMIS webpages to share with your L.O.T.E. specialist teachers. Also included are links to K-10 Syllabus documents and TLF Learning Objects to support L.O.T.E teaching and learning programs. [DET portal log on required]


WOW Websites

IPL Kidspace


Forvo

  • Forvo is the place where you´ll find millions of words pronounced in their original languages. Cool, isn´t it? Be a part of this cultural phenomenon now!

Aboriginal Languages of Australia

  • Aboriginal Languages of Australia There are more than 200 Australian Indigenous languages. Less than 20 languages are strong, and even these are endangered: the others have been destroyed, live in the memories of the elderly, or are being revived by their communities. This site has annotated links to 231 resources for about 80 languages. About 35% of these resources are produced or published by Indigenous people.

International Children\'s Digital Library

  • International Children’s Digital Library. The mission of the International Children’s Digital Library Foundation is to excite and inspire the world’s children to become members of the global community – children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas — by making the best in children’s literature available online.

I Love Languages

  • iLoveLanguages’ purpose is to list, categorize, and promote Internet resources related to language learning, education, and use. We want to make sure that people who are interested in learning a language can find information, products, and services they can use to help. We also want to promote language education by giving everyone the opportunity to delve into a language other than their own.


Learning Area Context List


DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]

This search strategy will help you locate useful TLF digital resources in this collection which support LOTE teaching programs:

DETRO Search


Have you used TLF Learning Objects in your classroom?

Please take 10 minutes to complete a simple online survey to provide feedback

Survey link for Teachers

Survey link for School Leaders

Survey link for Principals

Survey link for Sector Personnel

Closing date is June 11



The Tobacco Industry catches you young.

May 29, 2008

World No Tobacco Day May 31st

poster_english_girl_46x64.jpg
poster_english_boy_46x64.jpg

Globally, most people start smoking before the age of 18, and almost a quarter of these individuals begin using tobacco before the age of 10. The younger children are when they first try smoking, the more likely they are to become regular tobacco users and the less likely they are to quit.

Resources to support units of work for World No Tobacco Day include:

Challenges and Choices

Early Childhood
Middle Childhood
Early Adolesence

Health & Physical Education

Early Childhood
Early Adolescence

DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]

Useful digital resources in this collection which support Health programs include:

The Sven Callaway Show: health
Watch a talk show host interviewing people about health issues: students, health experts and a studio audience. Look at issues such as health education, health services, asthma, mental health and obesity. Explore a range of opinions including ‘way out’ ideas. Notice how people interpret facts differently. Research a topic, then describe your views on the key issues. Prepare a presentation on the topic for a group discussion. This learning object is one in a series of four objects.
Also:The Sven Callaway Show: drugs, The Sven Callaway Show: sex, The Sven Callaway Show: parenting.


Check the CMIS Resource Bank for reviews of resources including fiction, non fiction and websites on the topics of smoking and tobacco. [Select All Fields search and enter the Keyword 'tobacco' or 'smoking'.]



Techno Arts

May 28, 2008
A ‘grab-bag’ of Visual Arts websites linking technology and art.
Interactive artBots that will generate a wide variety of images. For the most part, they’re drawing / painting programs that produce pictures with underlying constraints.
SwarmSketch
SwarmSketch is an ongoing online canvas that explores the possibilities of distributed design by the masses. Each week it randomly chooses a popular search term which becomes the sketch subject for the week. In this way, the collective is sketching what the collective thought was important each week. A new sketch begins after one week, or after the previous sketch reaches one thousand lines, whichever comes first. SwarmSketch was developed by Peter Edmunds as part of an honours project at the University of Canberra.
Renaissance Coinnection
The Renaissance Connection is an interactive, educational website that uses the Allentown Art Museum’s internationally recognized Samuel H. Kress Collection of Renaissance art as the foundation for teaching math, arts, science, language arts, and social studies. The connections between the visual arts and selected subject areas reveal that Renaissance innovations in many disciplines contributed to contemporary advancements.
[No image available]
Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on.
Zoom Quilt
Click and drag up and down with your mouse to zoom in and out.

…and a couple for exploring Dance and technology.

MoveMixer
Mix, make and shake. Create a dance of your own.
Big Room Web Dance
Created by choreographer and web designer, Richard Lord these four dances were created specifically for the web and exist in no other form. Check the ‘Rose by any other name’ link for more information.

Creating music online has never been easier.

Tony-b Machine
Jam Studio
Requires registration for a free account. Upgrades to subscription accounts available.

Media specialists may appreciate our earlier post: Create- Animate!


DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required] Useful digital resources in this collection which support programs in the Arts learning area include:

Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence

Creativity: Fifi Colston
Explore Fifis studio and discover how she creates wearable art. Look at aspects such as inspiration, motivation, planning and techniques. Plan a design to communicate a message. Choose objects and materials. Use tools to arrange elements of your design such as size, position and colour. Review and revise your work. Use your design to work with real objects.


Sonic space: home
Create your own soundscape from noises around a family home. Explore sounds such as voices talking and the hum of a washing machine. Think about the images and atmosphere suggested by these sounds. Arrange the sounds to make a soundscape. Experiment with order, volume, pauses and repetition. Describe possible uses of your soundscape. This activity is one in a series of six activities.

Also: Sonic space: city, Sonic space: travel, Sonic time: our world, Sonic motion: water world


Found art: city
Explore a city and create a design using objects found in a caf, kiosk, gutter and dumpster bin. Plan a design to communicate a message. Choose objects and materials. Use tools to arrange elements of your design such as size, position and tone. Arrange the materials to create new meanings. Look at aspects such as composition, contrast, juxtaposition, perspective and repetition. Review and revise your work. Describe how you could use your design to work with real objects. This learning object is one in a series of four objects.

Also: Found art: park, Found art: outback, Found art: beach.


The Arts K-10 Syllabus webpages provide support for teachers as they continue with implementation of the Curriculum Framework. The Arts pages detail syllabus content at each year of schooling and phase of development from kindergarten to year 10 and provide classroom-ready resources to support the teaching of all Arts outcomes.

Learning Area Context List

Dance
Expressive Movements using body, space, time and energy.
Drama
Taking on role and acting out situation.
Media
Communicating with print, film and electronic media.
Music
Sounds and silences making music through body, voice and acoustic and electronic means.
Visual Arts
Visual and tactile experiences in two and three dimensional forms.

The CMIS Arts Learning Area web page has extensive links to reviewed resources to support Arts teaching and learning programs.



Biggest Morning Tea@Your Library

May 22, 2008
Thursday 22 May is the official date of Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea 2008, but you can host a morning tea anytime in May in your office, home, school or community centre to raise money for cancer research, education and support services.

Extra materials including posters, invitations and letters to send to parents/guardians are available for download from the Cancer Council’s Biggest Morning Tea site.


HyperHistory Online hyperhistory.jpg
This incredibly information rich site includes over 3,000 interconnected files and several hundred links to the world wide web. The growing site itself contains presently over 100 MB of images and text files, but individual gif files are kept small enough to allow for a quick display. Here is a quick graphic introduction to the site and a slightly more detailed text-based guide.

360 Panoramic VIRTUAL TOURS
These sites have been selected for their interactive multimedia presentations. Users are able to control the virtual tours often selecting details they view and degrees of magnification.
Medieval Game of Life gameoflife.jpg  
Learn about interesting aspects of life in medieval times by choosing your path through life.

DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]Useful digital resources to support Society and Environment programs in this collection include:
Early Childhood

Explore social issues in a supermarket such as nagging adults for treats. Identify actions of children and adults which promote harmony. Identify personal safety issues. Look for ideas where children can positively interact with adults. Review a set of rules for socially responsible and desirable behaviour. This learning object is one in a series of two objects.

Meet a group of children eating their lunch at school. Notice how each child uses or disposes of their plastic lunch bag in a different way. Predict where the bags might end up and how they may affect the environment. Find out about the durability of plastics and environmental benefits of recycling.

Middle Childhood

Explore how human activities impact on the Antarctic ecosystem. Compare opinions on climate change, the ozone hole and whaling. This learning object is one in a series of eight learning objects.

Investigate community problems in a street, such as a child painting graffiti on a shop wall. Identify actions to help people get along better. Look for positive ideas where people work together to solve problems. Choose community rules and rank them in order of importance.

Investigate events that led to the miners’ uprising in Ballarat in 1854. Help a teenage girl to understand why her brother wants to join the miners in the Eureka Stockade and protest against the government. Browse background notes and interviews of several characters. Do a SWOT analysis to decide whether or not to support the miners’ protest. Consider the outcomes of the Eureka uprising and its significance to Australian history.

Early Adolescence

Investigate the advantages and disadvantages of providing housing for homeless people. Review three points of view on the issue and the arguments that support them. Gather facts and opinions from a consultant and local people. Consider issues such as social equity, welfare, compassion and employment. Recommend the best course of action. This learning object is one in a series of two objects.

Explore arguments for and against building a tourist resort on a tropical island. Examine a development proposal and comments from locals and the media. Notice that the comments contain emotive language and are not always based on fact. Prepare a case representing the point of view of a group such as the indigenous population, local business owners or environmentalists. Recommend an action and give reasons to justify your decision.


The Society and Environment K-10 Syllabus webpages provide support for teachers as they continue with implementation of the Curriculum Framework. The Society and Environment pages detail syllabus content at each year of schooling and phase of development from kindergarten to year 10 and provide classroom-ready resources to support the teaching of all Society and Environment outcomes.


It’s Storytime…11am today.

May 21, 2008

National Simultaneous Storytime

What will you be doing at 11am today?

Free downloadable pdf templates for last minute activity sheets are available on the ALIA NSS website.


Check out these sites for more information, assistance and activities for storytelling sessions.

storyarts.jpg
This easy to navigate site contains a wealth of information about many aspects of storytelling including Storytelling in the Classroom
Lesson Plans & Activities

Story Library
Articles
Links
Curriculum Ideas Exchange
Storytelling Store
Story Arts Theatre


shepherd.jpg

Here are free resources for storytelling (or story telling)—including the acclaimed series Gifts of Story—all from children’s author Aaron Shepard. (For additional stories, see Aaron’s World of Stories.) Enjoy the magic of story!


digital.jpg

Digital Storytelling is a fantastic way to engage students, teachers and just about anyone else who has ever wanted to be the next Ken Burns or Steven Spielberg. There are many different definitions of “digital storytelling,” but in general, all of them revolve around the idea of combining the longstanding art of telling stories with any of a variety of available multimedia tools, including graphics, audio, video animation, and Web publishing.


David Jakes [JakesOnline] has an amazing collection of links and resources about digital storytelling including an excellent 13 page pdf tutorial for PhotoStory 3.


See also our previous post Create - Animate! for information about resources to support digital storytelling.


Happy National Library Technician’s Day

May 20, 2008
Wishing you all a wonderful National Library Technician’s Day.

Here are a couple of ‘fun sites’ to help you enjoy your day.

lightlib.jpg Help Lydia the Librarian find books for the kids before they get upset and leave! The better your memory the better you’ll do at Lightning Librarian.
robo.jpg Use the arrow keys to guide the Robo Librarian. Pick up books for points. Do not run into people or book carts. Use the spacebar to jump over objects. You get bonus points for jumping over book carts.

On a more serious note you may like to share these great interactive sites with your Science Learning Area specialists.


power10.jpg

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.


marsnow.jpg
Explore an evolving design of a Mars habitat based on current concepts of engineers and designers. As you walk through the simulation, discover science, technology and hazards of a near future mission to the red planet.


elements.jpg


yuckiest.jpgFirst there was mud. Then there were worms. and now there is Yucky! Test your skills with Whack-A-Roach. All you need to know about barfing, belching and blackheads! Plus mad scientist fun in Yucky Labs!


DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]Useful digital resources to support Science programs in this collection include:


Early Childhood

Explore how to build food chains to describe interactions. Look at the feeding patterns between plants and animals. See an energy source, producer and consumers arranged into a food chain such as Sun>plant>mouse>cat. Notice that the Sun always comes first. This learning object is one in a series of six objects.

Also: Food Chains - Forest, Desert, Farm, Town, Wetlands

Look at a range of animals such as a crab, octopus, snake and tortoise. Group the animals into vertebrates and invertebrates.

Look at groups of animals: invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Explore characteristics of common species.

Move animals from a boat to their new home in a zoo. Put them on a cart, then use monkeys to push or pull them up a hill. Use the minimum amount of force needed to move each animal. For example, use a single monkey to push a pelican or use three monkeys to pull a zebra. This learning object is the last in a series of three objects that progressively increase in difficulty.
Also: push or pull?, how much force?, zoo move

Clean up Old Bernie’s Pond. See how it has become polluted and invaded by introduced species. Restore the pond by choosing actions such as planting native species and removing sources of pollution. Look at the effects of each change. Earn points to get a certificate.


Middle Childhood
Explore the uses of a microscope. Use a microscope to examine slides of four different plant and animal cells. Place each of the slides in turn on the microscope stage. Adjust the light, focus and magnification to get the best image. Compare the different cells, and then sum up your findings by answering the conclusion questions.

Investigate a range of animal eyes: dog, cat, bee, fish, eagle and human. Discover how these animals see things in different ways because their eyes have different structures. For example, look at an animal’s field of view, how it focuses and sees colours. This learning object is one in a series of seven objects.
Also: rock bridge puzzle, stone wheel puzzle, slingshot puzzle, wall tile puzzle, killer bees puzzle, door keys puzzle, mission 1, mission 2

Experiment with the structure of human arms and legs. Replace the arms and legs with body parts such as owl wings or dolphin flippers. Look at the skeletal structure of the new animals. Describe the functional effects of replacing the limbs. Explain how the structure of an animal’s body is related to its function and environment. Print a worksheet of your customised design for a ’superhuman’.

Early Adolescence
Explore subatomic particles and how they combine to form atoms and ions. Compare different ways of modelling atoms. Use nuclear symbols to represent different isotopes. Build atoms and ions by combining protons, neutrons and electrons. This learning object is a combination of three objects in the same series.
Also: atom structure, assisted atom builder, atom builder, ion builder, atom bingo, atom and ion bingo

Explore how criminal suspects are described in police profiles. Build a profile describing yourself or a friend. Take fingerprints, draw an identikit picture and record physical characteristics such as height, weight and blood type. This learning object is one in a series of eight objects.

See how genes and genetic engineering work. Build models of DNA, and work out how it is copied as cells divide. Discover how the codes carried in the genes are copied and used to build proteins. See how gene splicing can be used to benefit human lives. For example, model the transfer of a human gene into bacteria, so they produce insulin. This learning object is a combination of five objects in the same series.

Investigate the role of physical forces in how bicycle wheels work. Test how wheel size, tyre pressure, tread and load affect rolling resistance. Then choose wheels best suited to track conditions in a time trial. This learning object is one in a series of four objects.

Check the CMIS Theme page for more recommended resources to support teaching and learning in the Science learning area. Topics include: Astronomy, Flight, Minibeasts and Threatened Species.

The Science - K-10 Syllabus webpages provide support for teachers as they continue with implementation of the Curriculum Framework. The Science pages detail syllabus content at each year of schooling and phase of development from kindergarten to year 10 and provide classroom-ready resources to support the teaching of Science outcomes.