The Bell – Broughton’s student news journal

The Bell

The Editorial Committee of the College’s online student journal, The Bell, are very pleased to forward the link to the inaugural edition.

https://thebell.broughton.nsw.edu.au/

The theme of this edition is Communication. The edition explores how we communicate our individual voices as part of a collective and includes a wide range of creative, critical and innovative thinking from students across the breadth of the College.

Please take the time to celebrate the student editorial committee’s work in bringing you this edition. In the words of Masha Petrovic (Year 11), Chief Editor, ‘we hope that our pieces ring true and resonate with you. May they inspire, spark conversation and ignite new ideas as we celebrate the talent of our students, together.’

Mrs C Havenaar
Teacher Librarian

 

Year 3 Guided Inquiry ‘Voki’ reports

Year 3 are finishing their unit of work on ‘Minibeasts’ this week and their final report summaries were made using Voki software. These have been published in the Guided Inquiry tab above. Unfortunately Voki cannot be viewed on iPads. We hope this software will be upgraded soon.

3T Report Summaries     3W Report Summaries
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Flipped Classroom explained

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning have posted a graphic and two videos to explain what in entailed in ‘flipping’ your classroom. It is one of the best explanations I have seen. As personal technology use expands in our school with the implementation of BYOD, Flipped Classroom is now a possibility.

“Flipped classroom or flipped learning is a methodology, an approach to learning in which technology is employed to reverse the traditional role of classroom time. If in the past, classroom time is spent at lecturing to students , now in a flipped model, this time is utilized to encourage individualized learning and provide one-on-one help to students.”
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Evaluating the quality of online information

In her post on the Edutopia Blog, Julie Coiro, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Rhode Island, suggests ways to develop skills in adolescents dealing with online information.

“An essential part of online research is the ability to critically evaluate information. This includes the ability to read and evaluate its level of accuracy, reliability and bias.”

Four strategies are outlined to assist in developing these skills of discernment.
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Learning technology skills

21 Things 4 Students “was created as an educational and online resource to help students improve their technology proficiency as they prepare for success in the 21st century. This project was specifically developed to provide districts and classroom teachers with resources to help students meet or exceed the 8th grade technology proficiency requirements in Michigan.”

Students all over the world need these skills and this site allows progressive attainment through video explanations and ‘quests’ in 21 areas.

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Google search tips

Students have a lot of difficulty composing search terms to find relevant information at the top of the list. So many students these days just type a question and expect a full answer.

This post on the Educators Technology blog explains many tips for searching. They have used the tips from Lifehacker.com to make a poster that I will certainly use for the Information Skills seminars for our students next week.
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Digital Citizenship survival toolkit

Every Teacher Librarian needs a kit like this. Craig Badura demonstrates, in an ed tech blog post, how to use everyday household items to practically and visually guide students on aspects of digital citizenship of which they need to be aware. This kit could be expanded or altered to suit.
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Web Based Bloom’s Taxonomy

The use of Guided Inquiry or any Inquiry learning framework can be integrated with the use of web-based tools that extend creativity or assist in the organisation and documentation of the shared learning experience.

This post by Med Kharbach, the founder and author of Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, introduces web-based tools for each level of Blooms Taxonomy. These tools can be selected strategically to support learning in each step of Guided Inquiry.
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Digital Fluency – Where to begin…

The sheer number of tools available can be overwhelming. Learning a new tool can be a steep learning curve but usually only for a short time before its use becomes indispensable. Every tool has a different purpose and every user has immediate and personal needs. Matching these is what can be difficult.

TeachThought has listed 9 Digital Learning Tools every 21st Century teacher should be able to use. Useful tools come… and are then superseded by something better whilst others stand the test of time. This list is a good place to start – to find readily accessible and practical ways to implement technology and become fluent in its application.

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Social Media – like you’ve never had it explained before – visually!

Social Media Explained Visually by Say it Visually! This entertaining, well constructed explanation of social media is worth a visit.

In explaining Social Media :

“Its basically this unpredictable worldwide network of conversations that’s just exploding! They cover big topics like news and events and the little things that mass media missed and all that mass media content is getting pulled into these conversations. We are getting more and more information and entertainment from each other.”