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!

Term 2 - Welcome Back

Hi everybody - hope you had a nice break and enjoyed Easter.

The library was reasonably quiet (compared to term time) but we still had 112 patrons during the 8 days we were open. These patrons consisted of 27 Mandurah Senior College students and staff, 22 Challenger TAFE students and staff, 55 Murdoch students and staff and 8 students from other Tertiary organisations.

Teaching and Learning Federation

Did you know that DET (Dept of Education and Training) gives all teachers access to electronic resources comprising resources from the Learning Federation, WestOne and CMIS recommended resources?

These are available directly from a portal on the DET Intranet.
http://intranet.det.wa.edu.au/resources/K12Resources/k-12-resources.asp

The types of resources include:
1. Interactive computer-based learning objects
2. Images, video and audio clips from national collections
3. Graphic organisers and tools to engage student thinking
4. Curriculum-related websites, print and other resources

These resources include specific items for Kindergarten to Yr 12 but there are also great introductory resources for many subjects. Schools and colleges must download the digital resource from the Intranet and network it or download to a PC for it to be utilised.

We would like to have any items that you choose loaded onto ClickView. However you may also decide to download them yourselves and have them accessed via the intranet.

Please advise us in the library if you want any title/s downloaded.

MSC, Inconvenient Truth and Carbon diet

Take up the challenge!

We now have 2 copies of the DVD "An Inconvenient Truth" in the library - one was purchased and the other was donated by Jackgreen energy.

We have been asked to :

• show the DVDs to all our students
• have them calculate their contribution to global warming by visiting http://www.thecarbondiet.com.au site and quote the school reference number, A4619 as Channel Ten will run a follow-up media piece on the results
• encourage everyone to reduce their carbon emissions
• ask everyone to watch the climate special on Channel Ten. "CoolAid - The National Carbon Test" on Sunday 4th March - 8.30pm

To get the best out of the DVD program you may do any or all of the following.

1. Download the study guide which provides background to the science in the film and suggests classroom activities by going to http://www.metromagazine.com.au, click on study guides, select 'An Inconvenient Truth', enter your name and email address and finally print the guide (We have one copy printed and available for loan)
2. Show students the DVD (we have permission to show it for educational use)
3. Measure your impact by entering data about household energy use, vehicles, travel and recycling practices. The answers will show the impact of everyday living on the environment. Make sure that everybody enters the school details and you'll be provided with a statistical summary of the school community
4. Watch 'Cool Aid - the National Carbon Test'
5. Take action and make changes to reduce greenhouse impact

If all goes as planned

The library will be

• taping 'Cool Aid - the National Carbon Test' and putting it onto ClickView
• downloading the study guide for the DVD and loading it onto ClickView
• ensuring the DVDs are available for loan
• hoping that 'An Inconvenient Truth' will be shown on Foxtel or Free-to-air TV asap so it can be loaded onto ClickView

ClickView

During 2006 it was reported that 20% of the student network traffic was ClickView. This was great news as we have between 1200 and 1500 programs available for use. However most of the use was rather traditional, ie students watching an entire program either in tandem or individually with headphones.

We now want to encourage students and particularly staff to extend their use, therefore we recommend that you access the interactive tutorials for teachers on the ClickView website at http://www.clickview.com.au/support/flash_tutorial_teachers.php You will need speakers or headphones to hear the voice over. Headphones can be borrowed from the library as a special request.

Teachers who are unfamiliar with the program should watch the first 3 tutorials first:

1) Introduction to ClickView Player

2) Playing a Video

3) Using Resources

Once you are used to using the system, we encourage you to create your own lessons. Only holdup to this is that you have to be on the Student network to do this. View the tutorial:

4) Creating a Lesson

One area that only a few of our students are using is the option of taking ClickView videos home to view. They would need a USB drive with 200 Mb free if program is half an hour long or 400Mb for each hour show. You can use this option to load programs onto your laptops etc. Have a look at the following tutorials.

5) Using School Bag:

a) Taking a Lesson home

b) Opening School Bag at home

Have you ever thought of putting ClickView clips into your Powerpoint shows or even into Word? If you'd like to try this, then have a look at the tutorial about:

6) Exporting a video clip

a) Inserting the clip into PowerPoint

b) Inserting the clip into Word

Finally did you realize that you could search the ClickView library for your specific needs? Watch the tutorial:

7) Searching the Library

Something to get excited about is the possibility of getting someone to come and do a quick PD on the advanced use of the system. If you would like us to get someone down to Mandurah, possibly during a Staff meeting, please write a comment to this post!!!!

The snake pit

In case you haven't yet been told by the staff who were involved in student enrolments on Thursday.... we had an interloper under Gavin's desk (now called by some wit - the snake pit!).

Whether it was camera flashes - recording him/her/it, the air-conditioning too cold or deciding to make himself scarce, the snake decided to duck for cover in the floor box.

On guard

For the next hour and a half our leaders (K and G) and the library staff guarded the floor box and waited for some intrepid rescuer. (Where's Crocodile Dundee when you need him?)

We weighed the lid of the floor box down and covered the cable holes. Believe it or not we had to put this much on it as the snake was a weight lifter!

At one stage it was reported that a rescuer could not come until 8pm.... but luckily Tim from Marapana Wildlife Park came to our rescue.

Rescue at last

Tim only just got hold of the dugite's tail! The snake had managed to slither under the floor box insert and his head could be seen on the on the right of the box. After turning off equipment, unplugging devices and unscrewing the insert, the snake was revealed wrapped around the cables!

Final Reveal
After a little struggle, Tim revealed our 'baby' dugite to the delight and disgust of Bev, Cheryl, Wattsie's twosome & Ann.

Thank You

The library would like to thank Tim and his friend, Keith, Greg, Marg and Donna and everyone who was involved in helping to corner and capture Dougy the dugite. A special thank you to Wattsie's two who recorded the events with numerous drawings.

Welcome back to 2007

Hope you had a great Christmas and New Year break.

This newsletter is the first post via a blog for the Peel Campus Library. We hope you like being involved in a new way of communication. Please submit comments, suggest new things that we can do OR even ask for clarification of news items.

News from the Library

Library staff came back to work on 8th January as we had to pack up 600+ Nursing books that needed to be sent to Rockingham for the first semester.

First and second year Nursing units will be held there due to Murdoch's new building being scheduled for completion in July.

The Library Staff for Term 1 comprises:

• Karen MacKenzie, Manager
• David Hixson, Librarian
• Natalie McCann, Teacher
• Jenni Williams, Library Technician
• Gavin Bennett, IT Technician
• Lorri Fallows, Library Officer (Mon - Thurs)
• Lyn Thomas, Library Officer (Mon, Tues, Thurs & Frid)
• Jen Holleyman, Library Officer (Mon - Thurs)
• Christine Page, Library Officer (Wed & Frid)

FYI -

1) Tania had a little girl called Abbey Anne Holland on Sunday 17th December just after midday. She weighed 3.14 kg (6 pound 14 ounces) and was 49cm in length. They visited us in the library on Thursday 25th on their way down south to visit family for the long weekend.

2) Helen MacCue has been seconded to Coodanup Community College in the library for Term 1 to help them start the year. She is scheduled to return to MSC for Term 2.

Library opening Hours

From Monday 5th February, the library will be open for the following hours:

Monday - Thursday from 8.00am to 6.00pm

Fridays from 8.00am to 4.00pm

Holidays from 9.00am to 4.00pm

Resources

A reminder that you have access, not only to resources in our library, but also to resources at the other Challenger TAFE campuses, other Murdoch University campuses and Rockingham Public Library sites.

Most resources may be re-located to Peel by request via the search catalogue or via the circulation desk. This may take between 1 and 3 days depending upon the home library. Ask at the library desk for more information.

Catalogues Online

1. Peel Education Campus, Murdoch University and Rockingham Public Library
http://prospero.murdoch.edu.au

2. TAFEWA
http://voyager.challengertafe.wa.edu.au

Loans

There is a limit of 25 resources that staff can borrow for a semester. Students of Mandurah Senior College and Challenger TAFE have a limit of 5 items for 4 weeks. Students of Murdoch University have a limit of 12 items for 4 weeks.

Reserve (overnight borrowing)

High demand items may be placed in reserve - please talk to library staff for more information. Reserve items are available for 2 hour loan periods during the day whilst an overnight loan commences at 2pm and items must be returned prior to 9.00am the following day.

Recording Television Programs

The library subscribes to free–to-air & Foxtel Education channels. Channels include History, Discovery, National Geographic, Lifestyle, Ovation, Animal Planet, a variety of News programs and for 2007 - The Weather Channel. Please note that there are teacher guides for most of the History programs.

Foxtel magazines are distributed to interested staff. Programs from both free-to-air and Foxtel which have been requested are placed on ClickView for use by MSC staff and students. Initially these are placed in the Review area before being moved into the correct teaching area/s.

ClickView

There are 1,200 + recordings on MSC’s digital system. These can be viewed simultaneously by 200+ students, copied onto Teacher’s laptops and/or copied onto USB drives for viewing at home.

Teachers may make their own programs and have them added to ClickView or make a compilation of different snippets from existing shows for use with classes. This involves simple drag and drop procedures.

If you wish to have a session about compiling your own program/s or how to copy programs onto your laptop and/or USB drive - please let us know by adding a comment to this post.