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Collaborative learning with Scootle Community
By Leigh Murphy
Issue 91, Term 4 2014
Building connections with colleagues has become a catch cry internationally. Education Services Australia has introduced Scootle Community to provide educators across the nation with the ability to collaborate with peers, across faculties and year levels, suburbs, states, and sectors. Funded by th
Supporting Australian book creators
By Laura Armstrong, Will Kostakis
Issue 91, Term 4 2014
Each year, Educational Lending Right (ELR), an Australian Government cultural program, makes payments to thousands of book creators across Australia. These payments compensate Australian book creators and publishers for income potentially lost as a result of their books being available for loan in
Schools Online Thesaurus (ScOT): Read all over
By Les Kneebone
Issue 91, Term 4 2014
Two years ago in Connections Issue 83 I provided an update for Schools Online Thesaurus ( ScOT ) that focused on new technical developments in providing thesaurus services. These tools and web-services are made possible by PoolParty, a new generation vocabulary management platform. PoolParty pr
Website and app reviews
By Nigel Paull
Issue 91, Term 4 2014
Australian Poetry Library www.poetrylibrary.edu.au The Australian Poetry Library contains over 42,000 Australian poems, and various critical and contextual resources relating to them. The website is searchable by poet, poem, or phrase. Teachers and students can create their own anthologies an
Cybersmart Digital Citizenship
By Kellie Britnell
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
Cybersmart is a national cybersafety and cybersecurity education program managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), as part of the Australian Government's commitment to cybersafety. The program is specifically designed to meet the needs of its target audiences of children,
The end of an era
By Michelle Harvey
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
Education Services Australia (ESA) is a not-for-profit company owned by Australia's education ministers that produces products and services to support schools, teachers, and local communities in the implementation of teaching and learning programs. We also market and distribute educational resource
Reading like a girl
By Bec Kavanagh
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
You've probably seen it, the 'Always' advertisement that sparked the #likeagirl hashtag across social media, and inspired a wave of debate following its viewing at the Superbowl in 2015. For anyone that hasn't, let me just recap. Young women are stood in front of a camera, and asked to do a seri
An African library journey
By Cheryl Lopez
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
Early in 2014 I was approached by a teaching colleague to establish a library at The School of St Yared, an NGO school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I already had a connection to the school, as my husband and I have been sponsoring a student there for the past three years. I was intrigued with the ide
Positive promotion of the school library
By Jae Rolt
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
After I was named Australia's Favourite Librarian people began asking what it is that makes me so popular with my students, families, colleagues, and community. Whilst the ideas here work for me, they may not work for everyone. Sometimes you need to try other ways to find what works for you and yo
Get the best out of ABC Splash
By Leanne Robertson
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
Funded by the Australian Government, ABC Splash is a partnership between Education Services Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that provides over 3000 free resources to Australian schools and homes. With every resource mapped to the Australian Curriculum there is something fo
SCIS is more
By Ben Chadwick
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
Most SCISWeb subscribers obtain SCIS records by visiting the SCISWeb Orders page to download MARC data files. However, increasingly our subscribers are downloading records by searching from within their Library Management System (LMS). This method is usually referred to as 'Z39.50', 'Z cataloguing'
Supporting Australian book creators
By Laura Armstrong
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
Every year in September/October, 600 Australian schools are invited to provide book count data for the Educational Lending Right (ELR) school library survey. The data collected is used to estimate the number of copies of Australian books held in Australian school libraries. These estimates are then
Website and app reviews
By Nigel Paull
Issue 93, Term 2 2015
3D printing – Kathy Schrock’s guide to everything www.schrockguide.net/3d-printing.html The impact of 3D printers on industry, and therefore education, is going to be immense. Schrock succinctly explains the basics of 3D printers and their application in the classroom. She also includes a var
Copyright for Educators
By Jessica Smith
Issue 92, Term 1 2015
Introduction In today's digital environment, teachers and students are connected by an ever-increasing number of devices to a world of online content. This article provides some smart copying tips to help teachers to actively manage copyright costs while complying with their copyright obligation.
Explore AustLit; explore our storytelling heritage
By Dr Catriona Mills
Issue 92, Term 1 2015
Integrating Australian literature into the curriculum and the classroom? Have you explored AustLit, the most comprehensive source of information on Australian story-telling? What is AustLit? AustLit is, at its core, a scholarly bibliography of Australian narrative, story-telling, and print cult
The fourth age of libraries
By Sean McMullen
Issue 92, Term 1 2015
My novel, Souls in the Great Machine , (1999) involves a caste of librarians ruling a post-apocalyptic Australia, two thousand years in the future. They wear stylish uniforms and cloaks, and settle disputes by duels to the death with flintlock pistols. After it was published, I soon found myself h
Teaching Australian Cinema with Rabbit-Proof Fence
By Dr Stephen Gaunson
Issue 92, Term 1 2015
The biggest issue with teaching Australian films is the inherent problem that many students (and teachers) approach them as being boring, dull, or bad. Rather than engage with the films, most view the experience as a civic duty that one must simply 'endure'. While there are no excuses for bad Austr
Subject headings update
By Les Kneebone
Issue 92, Term 1 2015
Where to find summary lists of subject heading revisions A summary list of new and revised subject headings is available from the SCIS website . Readers should note that we will not list detailed changes in Connections as was done previously. Consult the SCIS website for recent changes and an ar
Down the library path
By Bernadette Bennett, Kerry Gittens, Lynette Barker
Issue 92, Term 1 2015
Three teacher librarians from the Hunter region report on the planning to create an Information Skills Strategy and programme guide for the region based on the NSW DET Information Skills Process. When you are working with like-minded people sometimes the planets align and between you, clarity c
SCIS is more
By Dr Ben Chadwick
Issue 92, Term 1 2015
At SCIS we're often talking about the time-saving benefits of being a subscriber. For example, a typical school of between 200 and 400 students downloads 950 records per year. If we were generous and said each record took only twenty minutes to catalogue from scratch, this school would require over