The 2014-15 Library 2.0 Conference

The Library 2.0 Conference is one of the best, online  conferences in the world.  This conference which begins next week, does a great job of bringing together educational experts from around the world. The conference offers many exciting learning opportunities for professional development. Don't be fooled by the name. It is not just about Libraries.

This is the second year that the LRC will be presenting at the conference. This time around, Yensi Vides, Jennifer Garcia and Hilda Gomez will be presenting a session on using ebooks, collections and creating ebooks. The session will be held in Spanish. Please do consider attending if you are interested in this topic.

• The session is scheduled for Wednesday October 8th from 4-5. 
• SESSION LINK - https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=LIB2014P...

You can browse through this session as well as all the others , most of them in English on the Library 2.0 website.

Salvadoran Civic Week at the LRC

This week the LRC has focused much of its attention on Salvadoran Civic Week. Library staff members have created wonderful displays and set up special gaming areas for staff and students. Class teachers, many of which are from the Primary Section, have visited the LRC during the week for special 45 minute tours each day.  

The staff and students involved have had a wonderful time learning about El Salvador, interacting with the displays and playing some of the typical games.

For more insight into this special event, check out our Flickr Album.

Peace One Day 2014

It is Peace One Day today. 

Peace One Day was founded by Jeremy Gilley, an actor and filmmaker who made it part of his life's work to help the world focus on peace.  In doing so he founded Peace One day,a day of ceasefire and nonviolence, in 1999.

Check out the Peace One Website to learn more about this important global initiative.

The LRC Celebrated Peace One Day with special displays, while continuing to run the Salvadoran Civic Week Class Tours.

The Secondary School celebrated Peace One day with a special Peace One t-shirt day and assembly.

Check out some of the pictures from today on our Peace One 2014 Fickr Album.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48254552@N04/sets/72157647704209551/

Question of the Day: Who will you you make peace with?

TumbleBookCloud

The LRC is very happy to announce its new subscription e-book, video and audiobook service to the Secondary School community.

We have purchased a year long subscription to TumbleBookCloud, just in time for summer reading and in anticipation of the upcoming school year. 

This subscription is a collection of videos, audiobooks and  e-books which is accessible to all Secondary School Students and Secondary School Staff at the ABC.

This is a paid subscription and different than the Graphic novel summer reading subscription I shared with staff and students earlier in the month. Unlike the Graphic novel subscription which will expire toward the end of summer, this new subscription will be available all year long!

Please encourage your students to make use of this account by logging in to the site below with the credentials that have been sent to them via email. 

Their first step will be to create a login of  their own in the MyCloud section of the site, using the instructions on our website.

This link contains all of the information they will need to get started using this fantastic new ebook, video and audiobook subscription. 

We hope our ABC Secondary School community really makes the most of and truly enjoys this new service!

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Still Exploring, but at a Snail's Pace (in my case at least)

This post is from our ABC Online Gaming Club.

I thought I would share it and ask that anyone using GMod with their students who would like to share, please do.

From the Blog:
We haven't been able to meet up in past weeks, due to end of the school year meetings, steam updates and downtimes as well as other activities. That said the kids are working in Garry's Mod at their own pace and some have even produced some machinima for it, which we are hoping to post here. The kids will be writing one post prior to the end of the school year on their experiences so far.

At this point, the parental letter explaining the family sharing settings has been shared with parents through GDocs and we are set to have our last club meeting this coming Thursday.

The club will be back next school year and we hope to really make progress with our long awaited GMod accounts. We are definitely newbies when it comes to this application but willing and excited to learn.  If there is anyone out there that is using GMod with their students, we would really love to hear from you.

ABC DVA 2014

The ABC DVA was a great success again this year. The quality of student videos showed a marked improvement both in work done at school and independent videos. 

This year we had an impressive turnout for the event. In fact this year's DVA was the best attended of all of our Digital Video Award evenings. The Performing Arts Centre was bustling with more than 200 people in attendance.

All of our nominee videos on our ABCICT site if you would like to peruse them. They will give you a good idea of the type of work students are doing across the Primary and Secondary schools.  If you are not a member of staff or student, you won't be able to see the voting form, but you will be able to scroll down to the embedded playlists, which can be found directly below the form.

Do also take a moment to check out the pictures from the event in our Flickr album.
We should have video footage from the event, including interviews shortly, so do check back in about a week's time.

IPad Magic Rules!

Our ICT lessons are famous for their flurry of activity and sometimes louder than a hum, noise levels. That is all good, we've no complaints there. These are learning noises and when we need quiet or silence we get it.

Today we introduced our 6s to GarageBand on the iPads, handed them one each, plugged them in with their headsets and let them loose. What happened next? My teaching partner and I suddenly looked at each other, with shocked expressions on our faces and whispered (because you could hear a whisper) " It is so quiet,"

Have a listen.

iPads bring out the magic and creativity in kids and with the right activities and apps, and engage them to the point that they self direct, explore, peer tutor and require very little direct instruction. It is all a matter of choosing the right apps for activities, establishing routines and expectations, and offering up interesting, clear instructions and exemplars, which don't take up too much of the lesson time.


We are looking forward to sharing our student rap songs in our A Better World Wiki. This is the first time using iPads for the audio for the project and our expectations are high. 

It is usually the mark of a great lesson, when the kids don't want to leave. such was the dilemma today!