Re-setting Your Library PIN

It is now possible for patrons who use a library PIN for My Library to reset their own PIN if they forget it, rather than having to ask staff to do it for them. Patrons will need to ensure that their email address is included in their library address prior to attempting to reset their PIN.

To reset their PIN, patrons need to go to My Library, and click on the link “Forgot your PIN?”. Once they enter their library ID, they will be sent an email with the following text:

The library received a request to allow you to reset your Personal Identification Number (PIN) used to log in. If you did not place that request, please ignore this message. Your PIN has not changed. Otherwise, please click the link below to choose a new PIN.
https://prospero.murdoch.edu.au/pinreset~S1?info=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
This link is valid for 3 hours from the time of your request.

Clicking on the link takes them to a screen where they can enter their ID and a new PIN.

Library PINs cans also be reset from the Request Verification screen

Web 2.0 Toolkit - hottest programs

Animoto
Animoto is a free video program that allows you to create a 30-second music video using your favorite photos or other images. After uploading your files, Animoto provides the music to match the images and then renders a music video that can be shared or linked to Web sites.

Audacity
Free, cross-platform sound editor Audacity (available for download at audacity.sourceforge.net) has become a mainstay for those involved in podcasting. The software allows you to record and edit programs quickly without the need for prior experience in sound editing. For those who want more information about using this software, there's an online tutorial/user's manual. Tech-savvy people who are more experienced with the program might check out Audacity Portable program, which you can download to your USB drive and take with you for impromptu podcast editing even while on the road.

Delicious
Delicious, a popular social bookmarking service, allows users to tag, save, manage, and share Web pages from a centralized source. This tool provides immediate access to its bookmarks, regardless of their physical location. The power of Delicious lies not only in making your bookmarks accessible to you, but in making everyone else's bookmarks available also. By tagging your Web pages with brief one- to two-word descriptors, you enable a search to be conducted across the entire site for bookmarks with similar labels.

Google Applications
Google Applications—including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Sites—is perhaps one of the best free office suites available for classroom use. Students, teachers, librarians, administrators, and parents can easily create, collaborate, access, and share information resources, assignments, projects, calendars, and even Web pages, all using Google Apps.

With iGoogle, students can create a personalized Web site that can be easily designed and accessed within most classrooms and libraries. Aside from the ability to add unique and fun resource links to an iGoogle site, students can also create links to the library's databases, allowing them the ability to locate and use those critical resources without moving in and out of sites.
Promoted extensively by information literacy experts such as David Loertscher, a professor at San Jose State University, iGoogle Web pages can function as a student's personalized workspace, allowing them to create the perfect site for storing their links for learning (and entertainment) in one place. Visit here to learn more about Loertscher's insights on the use of this hot 2.0 tool. This tutorial will show you how to set up your own iGoogle page.

Glogster
Glogster lets users create an online interactive poster, which can be shared or uploaded to wikis and other sites. By uploading photos, images, and even videos, Glogster transforms a static online Web page into a visually exciting and interactive online presentation.
Like most other popular 2.0 software sought after by educators, Glogster now provides an educational version of their program. Within this site are tutorials, lesson plans, and examples of how educators are using Glogster in the classroom and library.
As a unique visual literacy tool that's all about creativity and ease of use, Glogster is a must-have tool.

SlideShare
The largest presentation-sharing community online, SlideShare has found its way into education rather quickly. In fact, SlideShare has an entire area devoted to educational presentations contributed by other members. Users can upload and retrieve presentations and embed selected ones into their Web page within minutes. Aside from the practical use of sharing information, SlideShare offers teachers and librarians who might be intimidated by 2.0 tools the ability to utilize more familiar software programs (such as PowerPoint or Word) and create an entirely new presentation online for their students to access.

VoiceThread
VoiceThread is enormously popular in the K-12 community. Enabling the creation of collaborative, multimedia slideshows, VoiceThread accommodates images, documents, and videos, and allows users to navigate pages and comment in five ways: using voice (via microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Students can share VoiceThreads with teachers, friends, and others and allow them to respond with their own recorded comments. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other sites and can be exported to MP3 or DVD format.
Students and teachers will discover how easily this program can be used to promote presentation skills, digital design, or collaborative interaction within the classroom—or across the globe. Librarians can use VoiceThread to create presentations on information literacy.

Zamzar
Zamzar has taught us to enjoy the weekends once again. Rather than spending hours trying to locate the correct software to convert a video file from WMA to AVI for a Monday morning presentation, consider Zamzar, which converts a wide range of audio, video, document, and compressed files into useable formats. Available for five free conversions a month, this software makes converting files a snap! To learn more about this product and how it can be used, visit www.zamzar.com/conversionTypes.php and www.zamzar.com/url/overview.php.

Your Privacy and Safety

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has just released a free online booklet for students about privacy and the law.

• What: 'Private i - your ultimate privacy survival guide'
• Where: www.privacy.gov.au/topics/youth
  - Social networking and online privacy
  - ID theft prevention
  - ID scanning and privacy
  - Health and privacy rights
  - Top ten hints for keeping your personal information private
  
• Teachers - see also the 'Think before you upload' video, posters and teaching resources

LibX toolbar to search Peel Resources

Library staff have put together a special toolbar to download onto staff and / or student computers. It means that you don't have to go to the intranet or internet and then search - so it could be very useful.

Procedure
Go to LibX Murdoch
There are now three versions of the Murdoch University Library LibX toolbar available.

• Please Note: Libx works best with Firefox.
• Internet Explorer users need to read the instructions before installing LibX
• Once you are ready choose the button concerning Peel LibX
  

There are more instructions about how to download LibX and what it does on Murdoch's page, so follow the directions or see staff at the Reference Desk about this download. You will have to choose either Firefox or Internet Explorer (most of you will have the latter).

WolframAlpha

This new type of search engine was announced in March 2009 by British physicist, Stephen Wolfram, and was released to the public on May 15, 2009. Unlike Google, which searches for web resources to match a query, WolframAlpha generates answers to factual queries by computing the answer from available data.

Library Culture at Peel

The library is a shared space with students ranging from 15 years to 90 years and the types of courses studied including :

• Mandurah Senior College Year 11 and 12 WACE and TEE,
  
• Challenger TAFE courses Certificate 2, 3, 4 and Diploma,
  
• Challenger TAFE and Murdoch University Combo courses covering Nursing and Teacher Assistant units,
• Murdoch University On-Track Courses,
• Murdoch University Undergraduate Nursing, and
  
• Murdoch University Postgraduate courses.

The culture we encourage is best summed up by the wordle following this post........

Families - May 2009

A display highlighting all types of Families. May is the month we celebrate families with Mother's Day on 11th May and International Day of Families on 15th May. Come and check out some good books near the Display.

Bilyidar "Trans-Cube-Ation" Display

Check out the Bilyidar's thought-provoking display in our front foyer. The students created the display for the 2009 Stretch Festival - it brought lots of looks and comments on the foreshore. Fantastic creative effort by the Bilyidar students!

Anzac Day Resources

This year Anzac Day fell on the Saturday prior to second Term in WA, so schools across the state were not able to showcase the event as they would wish to do so.

For those that are interested in our history, we advertise the innovative website that ABC Online has launched in time for ANZAC DAY 2009. It is called Gallipoli: The First Day and developers have utilized the latest technology. The innovative site allows the user to “be there” with the combatants - on the beach at Anzac Cove and in the cliffs above.

The computer graphics and simulations are very realistic and are enhanced by the use of primary source materials and Google Earth at Gallipoli.

The website should help dispel the myth amongst some young people that history is boring.

Welcome to 2009

February 2009, new lecturers, new teachers, new students, new courses and lots of new resources!

The library has started off extremely busily as usual - catering for over 1,000 Mandurah Senior College students, over 600 Challenger TAFE students and over 400 Murdoch University students. We'd like to extend a big welcome to both continuing and new staff and students to the campus. As at 16th February, we have taken over 700 photographs of new students and issued over 1,000 new ID cards.

Staff in the library for 2009

• Karen MacKenzie - Library Manager
• David Hixson - Librarian
• Helen Frances - Teacher-Librarian
• Jenni Williams - Library Technician
• Gavin Bennett - Information Technology Technician
• Lorri Fallows - Senior Library Officer (Mon-Wed)
• Jen Holleyman - Library Officer (Mon-Thurs)
• Lyn Thomas - Library Officer (Mon, Tues and Thurs)
• Kim McMinn - Library Officer (Tues, Wed and Frid)
• Lynn Wallder - Library Officer (Wed-Frid)

Hours of operation

School Terms Monday to Thursday 8.00am - 6.00pm, Fridays 8.00am - 4,00pm

School Holidays 9.00am - 4.00pm

Social Networking in schools

This technology enables people to connect, collaborate and form virtual communities via the computer and / or the internet. Social networking sites provided the opportunity to interact and allow visitors to send emails, post comments, build Web content and / or take part in live chats.

These sites can be used in schools for teenagers to share what they are learning or to build something together online. This medium allows teenagers to receive feedback from teachers, parents and peers. These tools for communication are already widely used in colleges and the workplace.

Examples of use in schools include :

1) Maths - students serve as scribes on a blog. Students post notes, visuals, formulas, activities and comments related to each day's lesson. They also post reflections about their learning at least once before each test. See eg http://pc4sw06.blogspot.com

2) School newspaper - Blog format allows for timely publication and the ability to make updates easily. Comments from readers can be added and easy navigation to archived stories. Publication costs are minimal and there is no limit to length of paper. See eg http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/gargoyle

3) Science - two teachers (not necessarily in same school) are working with students on the topic of water quality and ecology. They create a joint wiki for the unit of study. As students find information on the topic, thy post their findings, observations and useful resources to the wiki. They are building their own online resources (encyclopedia) on the topic.

4) English and Library - A blog incorporating new books and / or recommended books is commenced with summaries and covers of books incorporated. Students are encouraged to comment, recommend ratings and suggest other books for purchase.

Holiday Use of Library

Hope everyone had a nice break....unfortunately soon it will be a distant memory.

Thought you might be interested in the the use of the library during this time. Patron statistics for the holiday break include :

1. Monday 14th - 10 MSC, 3 TAFE and 30 University = Total of 43
2. Tuesday 15th - 5 MSC, 4 TAFE and 31 University = Total of 40
3. Wednesday 16th - 5 MSC, 2 TAFE and 30 University = Total of 37
   
4. Thursday 17th - 7 MSC, 2 TAFE and 43 University = Total of 52
5. Friday 18th - no MSC, 3 TAFE and 19 University = Total of 21
   
6. Monday 21st - 3 MSC, 2 TAFE and 29 University = Total of 34
   
7. Tuesday 22nd - 12 MSC, 5 TAFE and 23 University = Total of 40
8. Wednesday 23rd - 4 MSC, 2 TAFE and 20 University = Total of 26
   
9. Thursday 24th - 6 MSC, 3 TAFE and 28 University = Total of 40

A grand total of 333 patrons using the library during the nine days between the hours of 9am - 4pm.

Welcome back to term 2.

Finding Resources at Peel

Many of the students and staff at Peel are unsure about how to go about finding resources. In addition many are unaware that you can :

1) save this information and email it to yourself;
2) manage your own loans and renew them if you wish;
3) can opt in to a Reading History for yourself; and
4) change your contact details if and when you move address.

To make it a little easier, watch the following screencast.

2008

Welcome back to the Campus for 2008.

Did you know that :

A study during 2007 in the US has shown that 59% of all American teenagers engage in at least one form of online content creation. Of those 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, 54% of girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys however like their video, with 19% of boys posting video online vs. 10% of girls.

Other figures from the study include:

• 33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments


• 28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004.


• 27% maintain their own personal webpage


• 26% remix content they find online into their own creations

It showed that 55% of teens online use a social networking site. The flip side to that is that the presumption that sites such as MySpace or Facebook may have peaked may be untrue if 45% of teens aren’t using one of these sites already.

Welcome Back to Term 4

Welcome back to the fun-filled 4th term. Year 12s are almost gone, there's only marking, marking, preparation for Transition, Graduation evening etc, etc, etc. Hey there's only 10 weeks to Christmas!!

This week you will get an invitation both by email and in your pigeon hole about the Technology workshops scheduled in Week 3, 4 and 5. Don't forget to keep Thursday 1st November free as this is the workshop that you shouldn't miss... the demonstration of ClickView and the amazing things that you can do with it.

23 Things and Emerging Technology

The Library staff are involved in online PD over a 13 week period from September to December. During this period staff will be completing 23 things that are examples of emerging technology. Commencing this interesting and sometimes challenging project are Karen, Natalie, David, Gavin, Jenni and Lyn. Others in the group might join us before the end of the year.

Week 1 saw us reading about the 23 things and learning a little more of these social networking tools. Week 2 found us registering with gmail and developing a blog which we have been asked to post 1 to 2 items per week for the 3 month period. During week 3 we all set up Google Reader and subscribed to some RSS feeds. The next 2 weeks (school holidays) will see us practicing what we have done, tweaking our work and perhaps galloping on ahead with other tasks or things.

We soon will be using Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, whilst launching into Second Life and tracking our progress on the PD wiki. Believe it or not, this is work!!!

OTLS Project Professional Development

A small group met at E2C at 9.30am on Tuesday 11th September to be introduced in a 2 hour session to DET's Online Project. Over 45 schools are involved in the ongoing trial to develop a system that can be rolled out to all schools by 2012.

Changes are being made weekly to the system to try to make it a viable system. MSC was represented by Tracy, Derek, Steve, Karen, Ben and Gavin. It is hoped that these people will be able to introduce other staff members to the system either in Term 4, 2007 or at the start of the 2008 year.

2007 International Photography Exhibition

The 2007 PIEA International Student-Teacher Photo Exhibition was held recently in the Library. There were over 60 photographs on display showing what students and staff have done over the past 12 months.

The library would like to thank Ross De Hoog for organising the fantastic display of teacher and student photographs during August.

He has been organising similar displays at the Peel Education Campus Library in Mandurah for the past 7 years thus enabling students and staff at Peel to view some of the best photographs and photographic techniques in the world.

Thank you Ross.

Due to the increase in media exposure regarding 'SCHOOL BULLYING' , the library has set up a display on this current topic. We hope you will encourage your students to take the time out to read the display as this is an every growing community issue that effects us all.

And now on a lighter note..........
The library has a "STUDY HELP" display with books and resources to be borrowed, which will help your students cope with the pressure of their upcoming exams.

The library is in the midst of a computer upgrade and we apologise for any inconvenience to staff or students.

Thanking you
Jen Holleyman (LIB)

Peel Library's Wiki

The library is trying to live up to our motto....

To provide innovative services using current technology to support the teaching and learning programs at the campus.

However we are keen to do this by working smarter not just harder.

We therefore have been embracing the idea of using a wiki and the one chosen was

We have a private wiki which means that you have to be invited to join and see it unlike Wikipedia which everyone can see and change. We have all sorts of things on it like a shared calendar, communications page, information that needs to be loaded onto cataloguing pages and ClickView. Lots of our items on the wiki are actually links to other pages.

If you are not sure what it is all about then Check out the PBwiki tour!

As a teacher you can Link to http://educators.pbwiki.com/PBwiki-educator-videos

Have a go!