29 August 2013

Term 3 / Week 7: Learning Project: Active citizenship

We chose the theme of 'active citizenship' for this term at CNLC largely because there is a Federal election in September and some students will be actively exercising their right (and responsibility) to vote for politicians and political parties to represent us in the two Houses of Parliament: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Being a citizen is not just about getting Citizenship


Let's review some of the examples of active citizenship that we discussed a few weeks ago. As you can see in the photo below, we came up with a wide range of ways we can be active citizens in our community. And there was one more point which we added after this photo was taken - we called it 'doing an act of honesty' or doing the 'right thing' (like, returning a wallet found on the street to its rightful owner - with all the money still in it!)

Some of the ways we can be active citizens - 7 August, 2013

So if you're going to vote in the Federal election, you should take this responsibility seriously. (Heaven knows, there are many people who don't!)

It's a good idea to make sure that:
  1. you know who you want to vote for; and
  2. you vote correctly (formally) so that you're vote counts.

Our Learning Project - write a report about an active citizen

This is an opportunity to find out information about a well-known person who has contributed something special to public life in Australia. Hopefully, you will find more than one source of information and locate a photo of the person to include in your report.

An important part of this project is sharing your work with other students in class. You can use a few Powerpoint slides to help you tell their story.

A great place to start is the Gallery of Australian Biographies. Here you can find information about people such as:

  • Waleed Aly
  • Trish Broadbridge
  • Tan Le (a TV program has been made about her)
  • Michael Long
  • Jimmy Pham
  • Mandaway Yunupingu
  • Fred Hollows
You may complete your plan on the worksheet provided and write your full report in your Journal or as a blog post in kidblog.

Results of our Two Party Preferred Count

You can view our short report and a few photos from last week at Sue Phan's blog post (you'll need to log in to view it) and watch the video explaining how the votes are counted here.

Did you miss.... in Week 7?

27 August 2013

Writing for Web 2 with Kidblog

This week we will continue to explore the kidblog we are using for students' writing and internet learning.

If you attended computer class last week, you'll remember that we just got started with Adding a New post. No-one finished the post - this is what the work looks like for the teacher.



After you log in, don't forget to TAB to your Blog to see your unfinished Draft. In Edit view, can you also see how many words you have written? This is the Word Count.

When you have finished your Draft, select Submit for Review. Teacher will then check it and Publish.

While you are waiting for that to happen, you could Tab to All Blogs and read the ones that are published. Please Comment on one of the blog posts there.

Again, your Comment will go to the teacher for Moderation before Publishing. Yes! Teacher has the responsibility to ensure that all posts AND comments are good enough for all the other students to read.

Happy blogging!

Have you got an iphone or iPad?


You can download the Kidblog app at the iTunes App store on your mobile iphone or iPad. You will find this very easy to use to access and use the Students' kidblog.

17 August 2013

Blogging with Kidblog: Add new post


It's time to start using Kidblog to share your writing with others in the class. Over the next few weeks we will explore the features of Kidblog, such as:
  • drafting a new post
  • submitting it to the teacher for review
  • publishing your post for others to read
  • reading other people's posts
  • commenting (giving feedback) on other people's posts
  • replying to comments made by others on your posts
  • adding photos and weblinks to your posts
  • and more...! 
Play the Presentation below if you are just starting out or if you have forgotten how to log in and add a new post.








    15 August 2013

    Research, draft and format a Powerpoint slide with photo and caption

    This is our second learning activity with Powerpoint. I really enjoyed our Graffiti presentation - so here is the Kakadu presentation.

    Anyone who hasn't finished yet is welcome to finish and I can add your slide too, anytime.



    What skills did we use?


    I would like you to think about your learning in terms of technology (T) and research/ language (R / L) skills. Which of these 9 tasks are T, R or L???

    1. After going to the internet, we explored and then selected an image from a Google Album.
    2. Then we downloaded the image to our folders using Windows Explorer.
    3. In Powerpoint, we inserted a New Slide (one with Title, Caption and Photo).
    4. We inserted the photo and typed the title.
    5. We 'googled' the animal, plant or bird using the Google Search tool
    6. We located a useful website that had some information about the subject. I asked for some information about where it is found (location and habitat), some of its habits, eg what it likes to eat and if it is common or rare.
    7. We read the information and wrote notes (some of us just pasted sentences directly into the slide, didn't we?) 
    8. We typed the text and checked the spelling, grammar and punctuation.
    9. Finally we changed the size of the text so that the text and photo filled the slide (formatted the text) and saved the presentation to our folder and to Jill's folder.

    What was the source of the information you used?


    We forgot to write the name and location of the source information on each slide. You can easily do this by copying the web address of the website and pasting it in to the slide. We will definitely do this next time: it's polite and important when doing research about a topic.

    Well done, everyone. Once again, I really enjoyed viewing all your work together.


    13 August 2013

    Term 3 / Week 5 - 6: Write a short report

    It's time to practice writing a short report of an event that occurred recently or something that you viewed on TV. You can view it several times to collect the details that are important to the report.
    Use this template for writing a News Report to write notes about:
    • the background to the event
    • when and where the event took place
    • who was involved
    • what the result was
    Then organise your ideas by writing the information in sentences in the three paragraphs below.

    Here is a short video news report which we can write up as a report. And here is a humpback whale.
    Humpback whale from wikipedia
    You might also need to use the following words: 'yacht' and 'Moreton Bay'.

    Here is a possible News report (answer sheet) about the experience with the Humpback whale.

    Dictation: New citizens will vote for the first time


    This dictation is a little different to others we have done this year. Listen to the sentences and try to write as much as you remember. But this time, you don't have to write exactly what you hear as long as the meaning is similar. The main thing is that your sentences are grammatically correct and they make sense - the reader can understand the meaning.



    Did you miss.... in Week 5 and 6? 

    • Here is the News item we read last Friday: Small town a new horizon for 19 citizens. The last two pages have some possible answers - you can write different sentences - just check spelling, grammar and punctuation are correct. Thanks to Jane Lucas for adapting the text and developing the reading tasks.
    • Practice writing notes for work - the first page of this worksheet has space for you to summarise the notes using dot points - the second page has the ANSWERS. Thanks to Sophie for her answers.
    • The second news report is: Man impaled through head on Sydney construction site from Yahoo CH 7 news service. You can use the above Write a News Report template to help you plan, organise and write your report.
    • Here is the worksheet: Reported statements with a change of tense for you to print and complete. When you are finished you can check your answers - on pages 3 and 4.

    Election '13 - Counting your vote video and quiz


    This is what kids do in school! This video introduces the different voting systems, including preferential voting. Listen and test yourself with the quiz afterwards.


    06 August 2013

    Term 3 / Week 4 - Read the News: decode the headlines

    Here is a presentation with a slide for each headline to decode (make sense of it) and to correct the English language. This will help you to quickly decide what the story is about.

    Follow the instructions for each slide. You can click on the links to the source (the story as published on the internet) and to some word definitions using the Cambridge online dictionary.



    Your challenge


    Find a headline and decode it. Explain it to the class. We will add these to the presentation throughout the semester.

    Did you miss....?  Work in Week 4

    01 August 2013

    Term 3 / Week 3: Good evening, here is the news....

    This term we will develop our reading skills with the News - we'll also listen to the News and write about the News. The language of the News is often very difficult: the writers pack a lot of words into each sentence using big noun groups and the readers often speak very quickly!

    News on the internet


    It's good to listen the news on the internet because you can pause any time to think about what you heard and you can play it again.

    On some news websites you can read the captions at the same time as listen to the words - this is a brilliant way to improve your language skills.

    Real news: useful websites


    • News in 90 Seconds - you can read the transcript as you listen to this version of ABC News 24.
    • If you have a Yahoo email account, the Yahoo 7 News is right there whenever you sign out. Click on a news item and you'll usually also see a video of News highlights at the end of the text.
    •  If you have a Gmail account, you have probably noticed Google News - this is very easy to find, just 'Google' it.
    What other news sites do you like? Let us know so we can add them here.

      Language websites with 'news'


      • VILC - new News is put here every two weeks - listen then click on the book icon to read the text too. Test yourself with the exercises. Challenge yourself with the Intermediate Level news. Listen to the old news too. Remember our username is 500vilcst and our Password in 2013 is in on the noticeboard in the CNLC Computer room (it's only for students and teachers of CNLC but you can sign in at home too).
      •  VOA (Voice of America) Learning English has real news stories spoken slower than usual and you can read the captions at the same time. Scroll down the page to find news items.
      • ELLLO English learning website also has news items but these are not real. 
      • Simple English news has short stories which you can listen to and read at the same time. Choose a category of news on the right and select an item. Careful - don't click any advertisements! Can you see all the advertisements circled in the screenshot below: 


      What other language websites feature 'news'? Let us know so we can add them here.

       

      And just for fun: what is a blooper?


      Have a look at this video: Best News Bloopers March 2013 and work out what a blooper is (Skip the Ad as soon as you can).




      Independent learning


      Choose a news item on your favourite website and write about it in your Independent learning journal: explain the who? what? when? where? and then describe what you learnt.












       

      Did you miss....?  Work in Week 3