Wattpad Cover Experiments

 

Wattpad Experiment

Medieval ThingLink

This is my second attempt at ThingLink. If you hover over the image above (which I downloaded free from Morguefile) you'll see that I've attached a number of Medieval resources I found at YouTube. Naturally, it occurred to me (once I'd attached my links to this particular image) that I should have created an image collage of all things Medieval - food, clothing, knights, revelry, the church etc... and THEN added the resource links acording to the category.  never mind, next time.

If you'd like to learn how to use ThingLink in the classroom, come and talk to me in the ISC or book a time where I can introduce this new web 2 tool to your department.

Dreamtime Stories on YouTube

Thing Link

ThingLink

ThingLink is a wonderful tool where a single image can be used as storage for stimulus links.  For example:

English: 

A creative writing piece on penguins could include links to YouTube with footage of penguins, to research websites dealing with the topic such as national geographic, to examples of poems and short stories, to an image bank etc...

History:

An image of London in the 16th century could include links of important buildings which when clicked on would go to visuals of that building. Important events could be linked to YouTube explanations etc...

Geography:

Students studying a particular country, say China - could add links to images and interesting facts and details concerning that country.

The important thing is to make the 'grabs' of information brief and of high interest particular where middle school students are the target audience.

Multiple Intelligence apps

Here is one example of what can be achieved. For more examples got to the ThingLink gallery

The Crucible Online Resources

Researching the Crucible

Background

 McCarthyism - part 1/5 The Hollywood Ten (1950) Miller Interview, Part 1 Miller Interview, Part 2 Miller Interview, Part 3 The Atheism Tapes - Arthur Miller - Part  1 and 2




Aurthur Miller, Salem, MA (1991): Crucible & Trials

Lit2Go

Lit2Go is a fabulous website that offers 'classic' (for want of a better term) audio books for free. The books can be downloaded chapter by chapter - a chapter download only takes around 30 seconds or so. The books are organised via author, book titles, genres, collections and readability. The site would make an excellent differentiated addition to your wide reading programs OR if you happen to choose a text that is a 'classic', for example a text by Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Mark Twain etc..., then students who need audio support can download the text on their netbooks as pdf or as an audio file.

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/authors/index/s/

Registrations now Open for Booksellers & Libraries

Registrations are now open for booksellers and libraries to participate in the September 2012 "50 Books You Can't Put Down" campaign, Australia's largest celebration of books and reading.


This year there is loads to celebrate as we release the first ever ALL AUSTRALIAN 50 Books You Can't Put Down Guide.


To get onboard this year's campaign, booksellers and libraries can email getreading@trustandc.com.au
for a password, then head to www.getreading.com.au to register online. Registrations close 31 July.


Get ready for the party to start on 1 September this year!

Hugo 'Metro' Online Study Guide

Metro has created a film study guide for 'Hugo'. The film is based on the novel/graphic novel by Brian Selznick titled 'The Invention of Hugo Cabret', a beautifully drawn and scripted novel well worth oncluding in your collection (if you have not already done so).

During our recent Year 8 'Book in a Bag' wide reading presentations, one of our students delivered a truly engaging review of the novel. As a result and of course, helped by the film's release we are finding it hard to keep up with demand.

Shakespeare and Prezi

This last week I have been working on three Prezis for one of our senior English teachers who wanted to introduce Shakespeare (Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet). I found three Prezis which had been uploaded by previous English teachers and which were effective and included most of the information this teacher wanted to include. I then downloaded them into my files and began to tinker. I probably altered and added about 40 - 50% of the material. It was fun and the end result was engaging. I can highly recommend Prezi as the place to look for resources as well as the presentation tool to use for a variety of mediums.

Plus7 T.V. - shows online for free

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/plus7

Browse and view shows from 38 days to an entire year after screening on T.V. A great way to show extracts or view the entire show with a class after the event. Terrific for those times when you weren't expecting worthwhile viewing.

 

2012 CBC Short List!

The 2012 CBC Short List has been announced! Scan the QR codes below to be taken to teachers' notes (if available) and/or reviews - enjoy.

A Straight Line to My Heart  The Golden Day  The Dead I Know Ship Kings When We Were Two  Crow Country  Nanberry  The Truth about Verity Sparks

  Bungawitta

The Golden Door

Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel

Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King

Sites2See - Online Stories for Interactive Whiteboards

 

is a great website with wonderful links to resources - well worth bookmarking. 

Beantime Stories looks very useful and includes parents' instructions.

 

Roy: Tale of a Singing Zebra - the second link unfortunately is blocked for GGS at present but could be unblocked shortly (fingers crossed).

 

 Seussville looks particularly colourful and fun but the interactive books are not free. 

Sebastian Swan has a parents' page and so could be set for homework or advised as a site for parents to explore with their children.

Literactive is free but you need to join and use a password. It also includes some excellent hard copy resources but they need to be purchased.

old picture books is fabulous!

Storybooks at Magickeys is also a fabulous resource.

But check out the site yourself:http://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/lrrSecure/Sites/LRRView/8005/

A blog well worth following

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently stumbled across this blog (Teach with Picture Books) whilst surfing for attractive sites that featured instruction on persuasive writing.  Check out the links in this article, in particular, I have them bookmarked and will be adding them to my Junior English blog (when I find time, lol).

Question Generator

Having good questions is the key to any successful research task.

Do you want a fun an easy way to create questions for your inquiry?

Well here it is, the Question Generator.

Have fun creating your own questions as you spin the Question Generator.

Spin as many times as you like and create lots of different questions.

Now choose the best one for your inquiry!

It will help you to create both closed and open-ended questions.

Before starting, watch the video. It will clearly explain how to use the Generator in any research task.

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