Tag Archives: resources

Picture Books – Australian Journeys

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Book Cover: Are We There Yet?

The following books are a great fit with Are we there yet? by  Alison Lester which is a great Stage 1 or 2 book that fits with any unit of work about Australia.

Picture books:
Wheels on the bus by Mandy Foot
Possum magic by Mem Fox
All the way to WA by Roland Harvey
At the beach, Roland Harvey
In the bush, Roland Harvey
In the City, Roland Harvey
To the Top End: Our trip across Australia by Roland Harvey
The Search for Sunken Treasure: Australia by Elizabeth Singer Hunt
Our Australia series, by Phil Kettle Australian Geographic.                                                                                                                           Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo by Alison LesterMy Country by Ezekiel Kwaymullina
Riley and the Grumpy Wombat : a Journey around Melbourne by Tania  McCartney
My Aussie Ocean Adventure by Jo Rothwell
Highway by Nadia Wheatley

Secondary
Swerve by Philip Gwynne
Guitar highway Rose by Brigid  Lowry
Road by Catherine Jinks
Dreamrider by Barry Jonsberg

Thanks to Pat Pledger from OZTLnet for the HIT

QR Codes R Fun

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QR Code

Who says QR Codes are ugly

Hi all
I am seeing QR codes everywhere. I have started to think about how we can use them in our library.

 QR codes are useful – they link you to extra information and save you from tediously typing URLs into your smartphone or iPod Touch. You can store the information and read up on it later. Smartphone users open their QR reader app and it scans the code and delivers the information to you. It might be a web link with lots of information or just some text to read.

QR code generators
There are lots of free QR code generators. Teachers and students can make their own QR codes to use in lessons, tasks and presentations. QR codes can be placed on information posters, Glogsters, on book covers, points of interest, treasure hunt trails etc

Bitly
The excellent URL shortener Bitly allows you to shorten, share, track and analyse your URL links. It also creates QR codes for these links. Copy the URL into the box on the home page and click <Shorten>. Underneath your shortened URL, click on <Info Page>. You will see the QR code that has been generated for this shortened URL. You will also see analytics for the URL eg. who has clicked on the link (countries) and when; how it was shared (Twitter etc).
http://bitly.com/

Google
Google has a URL shortener & QR code creator. Copy in the URL, click <Shorten> and then click <Details> to access the QR code.
http://goo.gl/

Kaywa
Copy in a URL, text, phone number or SMS and click “generate”. Then you can save the code, embed it, print it, etc: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

Quikqr
Here you can email your QR code from the site: http://quikqr.com/

For creating a QR code my favourite website is www.qrstuff.com and for scanning the codes our students use the app QR Reader for iPhone but there are lots of options out there both for creating the codes and scanning them.

QRpedia
Officially launched in Sept 2011, it uses QR codes to deliver Wikipedia  articles to users in their preferred language (usually the language on their phone). Used in various museums etc mainly in the US, UK and Spain.
Paste a Wikipedia URL into the box to create a language-detecting QR code. Put the code wherever you want it to be read (eg. on an exhibit or poster). People can use the QR reader app on their smartphones to scan the code and be directed to the Wikipedia article: http://qrpedia.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QRpedia

Primary students use QR codes to get to websites easily….cute!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSA3YsBy_pU&feature=related

Thanks to Lindy Hathaway from Dickson College, ACT for the ideas.

Trove.

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The Latest Innovation from the NLA

I love TROVE ! This excellent resource provided by the National Library of Australia has become such a lifesaver when sourcing resources for the PIP and IRP that HSC students are starting at the moment. They recently sent me some posters and bookmarks too that the students have snapped up. Find and get over 250,253,831 Australian and online resources: books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives and more

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

Fair Use.

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Fair Use of other peoples work  is a concept I have been thinking about and discussing with my students. Dianne McKenzie from OZTLNET has sourced a  number of resources / videos on the topic. (They are American, however Fair Use is an international understanding)

http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/fair_use_in_online_video

http://mediaeducationlab.com/intro-video-code-best-practices-fair-use-media-literacy-education

The big issue is if the student is transforming the music into a new meaning, or is it just background music to set a mood? If it is background
music to set the mood, then it is not adding any more value to the music, as it was intended to set a mood. But, if it is used in a way which is
different from the intended purpose,(such as parody) then it is Fair Use. If it just to set a mood there are a number of places where you can get free ‘mood’ creative commons music.

See here for a list of sites that host Creative commons music

http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos

Usually all they ask is for attribution.