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!

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!!!!