Tech Shortcuts

I found this great video with a short TED talk by David Pogue sharing 10 great little Tech Shortcuts that everyone should know about. You may know about some or all of these, but there will be some out there who don't. I've listed a couple of my favourite tips, but it's worth watching the video below to see what the others are (it's only about 6 minutes after all!)
My Favourite tips:
1. Don't use the mouse to scroll down a page! Pressing the space bar in any internet browser will allow you to scroll down. Alternatively pressing the shift key and spacebar at the same time will scroll up.
2. When the text on your page is too small press the CTRL and + keys at the same time to enlarge the text - keep pressing these keys and the text will get bigger each time. Alternatively pressing the CTRL and - keys together will cause the text to grow smaller.
3. Google is not only a tool that allows you to look up webpages but it is also a dictionary, a calculator, a flight tracker and much more.
Dictionary: type define and the word you want to look up (eg. define doppelganger) and your definition will appear
Calculator: type your equation into the search bar and your answer will appear
Flight Tracker: Type the flight you wish to find in the search bar
Have a look at this article for more great Google Shortcuts

ParisAppTours: Beware Mme la Guillotine, A Revolutionary Tour of Paris

I've just been introduced to, and watched this video for a fantastic looking app called Beware Mme la Guillotine, A Revolutionary Tour of Paris. It is described by the School Library Journal as:

"Drama of historical proportions, an awesome guide, and games and challenges, what more could a teen on vacation ask for? In Beware Madame La Guillotine (Time Traveler Tours, LLC) Sarah Towle offers iPhone and iPod users a tour through the streets of Paris with stops at the sites associated with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Their guide? Charlotte Corday, the 24-year-old from Normandy who killed journalist and Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat in his bath in 1793.
A storyteller’s pacing, choice details, archival images, and music punctuate and propel Corday’s gripping first-person narration and tour forward. En route, listeners can stop to access travel directions, street and site maps, and related information about people and the times, and “challenges” that will encourage them to observe their surroundings."

The app costs $5.49 from the iTunes store.

What do you love?

Learn more about this cool new search tool at Google Blog.

Lit2Go

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom.

'Bully' DVD

This year, over 13 million American kids will be bullied at school, online, on the bus, at home, through their cell phones and on the streets of their towns, making it the most common form of violence young people in this country experience. 'Bully' is the first feature documentary film to show how we've all been affected by bullying, whether we've been victims, perpetrators or stood silent witness. The world we inhabit as adults begins on the playground. 'Bully' opens on the first day of school. For the more than 13 million kids who'll be bullied this year in the United States, it's a day filled with more anxiety and foreboding than excitement. As the sun rises and school busses across the country overflow with backpacks, brass instruments and the rambunctious sounds of raging hormones, this is a ride into the unknown. For a lot of kids, the only thing that's certain is that this year, like every other, bullying will be a big part of whatever meets them at their school's front doors. ...

The Salesian Library has just added 'Bully' to our collection and it's definitely a documentary worth watching, especially with your students. It's an interesting, heartbreaking and maddening look into the lives of a few kids who suffer from bullying and will hopefully motivate our students and staff to want to do something about bullying themselves. I've included the trailer below for 'Bully' in case you would like to find out more before you decide to borrow the DVD.

You can find the Library record for 'Bully' here or reserve it through any of the Library staff members.

State Library of Victoria's Gusto! A Culinary History of Victoria

The State Library of Victoria is currently presenting a free exhibition Gusto: a culinary history of Victoria!

The exhibition explores Victoria’s historic and contemporary culinary landscape, featuring gastronomic treasures from the Library’s collections – from the first Australian cookbook, published in 1864, to an actual World War I army biscuit. To support the exhibition, the State Library of Victoria has produced a Gusto! education resource for Years 3-6 of the Australian Curriculum (VELS Levels 3 & 4). 

If you want to know more please visit the website:  http://slav.global2.vic.edu.au/2012/10/09/learning-with-gusto/

 

Instagrok

Welcome back to term 4 everybody. We hope that you had a very relaxing break. Tina has come across a fantastic educational search engine that she would like to share with you all -

Instagrok is an educational search engine which claims to:

• Empower differentiated learning
• Provide in-built tracking and assessment
• Develop 21st century research, curation and synthesis skills
• Finds age-appropriate educational content on any topic presented with interactive multimedia interfaces
• Generates quiz questions based on student's research activity and skill level
• Supports creation of research journals and concept maps for learning assessment

Instagrok is user friendly and easy to navigate. Moreover, the content appears to be topic specific, unlike the sometimes random results obtained through standard search engines.
The url for Instagrok is http://www.instagrok.com

-Tina-