My quilts, a set on Flickr.
All made by me
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Latest quilt – Doctor Who inspired
swirly pattern, stars and a Tardis
Peter Cushing Lives in Whitstable
My daughter showed me this. We’ve ordered the series from Amazon UK, we both like Stephen Fry.
There’s so much good stuff out there, which we can get so easily these days! Is this a good thing? We can so easily find things we like, and there are so many of them, that perhaps we’re not being exposed to things we didn’t know we liked. Back in prehistoric times, my school library was a book shelf, and for lack of anything else to read, I worked my way through Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia. I learned about lots of things I didn’t know existed.
What is blogging?
What is a blog?
Blog is short for web log, it’s a diary or journal, published on the web. It can include text, images, videos, sounds, links to other websites, comments by readers, heaps of other stuff. It can be used as a communication tool with a class, the whole school or the whole world.
If you use the internet, you probably already read blogs, now we’re going to make one.
Let’s look at some blogs
The St Clement of Rome library blog is here
http://clementlibrary.globalstudent.org.au/
Here’s a good classroom blog – http://2kmblog.globalstudent.org.au/
When a parent asks “what did you do at school today?” and the answer is “nothing”, we can show them the truth!
Here’s one of my favorite personal blogs
http://serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog/
This blog (the one you’re looking at now) was originally started when I did a course in Web 2.0 last year. There were 23 tasks in the course and we had to write on our blogs about all 23 of them. Check out the 23 things here.
If you want to read what I thought about them, look in the archives, starting in April 2008 and working forwards.
How do I get a blog?
Go to the Edublogs website
http://edublogs.org/
Click on SIGN UP HERE. Fill in the boxes and follow the instructions.
How do I build my blog?
There’s lots of information here :-
http://help.edublogs.org/getting-started-with-edublogs/
But mostly, you build it by playing with it!
Animations
This is an animation I made using Gimp.
Our students are using Pivot to make animations. Here’s one I made earlier – just to see whether I could! The trick is to make sure you click the “File url” button.
The future of school libraries – no books?
Here’s an article from the Times Educational Supplement.
Given that lots of schools are in the process of applying for money from the Federal Government for new libraries, perhaps we need to think very carefully about what type of libraries we want first.
I don’t like the idea of libraries without books. I’ve tried reading ebooks on my PDA, and I still prefer the paper version, but for train trips and doctor’s waiting rooms, ebooks are very convenient (until the battery goes flat).
Finished the quilt!
This is my son’s 21st birthday quilt, there’s a bit of a mythical creatures theme in my quilting at the moment.
What I Learned at the SLAV Library Technician’s Conference
1. When you’re part of a very small library staff, it’s nice to find yourself in a room with hundreds of others who do the same job as you!
2. Trade displays are good for finding information and getting free pens.
3. You can spend half an hour discussing what’s wrong with a lolly wrapper and how to make it better if the person asking you to do that (Jason Clarke from Minds at Work) is entertaining enough. You can listen to him talk here
4. Even though I didn’t hear Heather Baillie talk about her experience of the Learning with Web 2.0 programme (which started me out on this Blog), I can still find out what she said here
5. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has vast amounts of information about Australia. Check out the Australian Population Clock, watch as our population grows.
6. The State Library of Victoria has a fantastic new website called Ergo which has heaps of information on research skills, study skills and essay writing, as well as Australian History resources.
7. The ABC is truly a national treasure – have a look at Rollermache this is what it does – “Rollermache is a digital initiative aimed especially towards kids aged 8-15 living outside of metropolitan areas. It is focused towards showing this audience as well as children in city areas how to make their own content. The Rollermache website site also provides them with a safe space to showcase their creations that is both free and accessible to school and home computers.
All content that appears on the site has been watched and approved by an ABC moderator before it appears on the site. While predominantly for kids, the site can also be used in schools to promote digital literacy, media production and safe interaction in a context of exploring creativity and having fun.”
8. If you leave right on 3.30 you can make it to Jolimont in time for the 3.43 Hurstbridge train.
Mt Arapiles in late September
Wattles at Mount Arapiles in late September
Snow at Beech Forest Victoria 10/8/2008
We went away for the weekend to Beech Forest. It was very cold and when we woke up this morning, this is what it looked like.