Friday, December 16, 2011

Holiday Operating Hours

The LRC will be open during the holidays for checking out & returning books, from 8:00-12:00 & 1:-3:00 until December 21st & as of Jan 1st.

Happy Holidays!

Monday, December 5, 2011

WoW-Our First Meetup!

We had our first World of Warcraft Meetup today! This was a very exciting first step for us. The kids couldn't be more excited and to be quite honest nor could the teachers. Please read more about it on our WoW Blog.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The November Newsletter is Out!

Please take a look at the November Newsletter to find out more about what is happening at the LRC. We hope you enjoy it and would love to hear back from you, so please feel free to leave us a comment or two below.

The image below is only a preview. Please click here to download the complete newsletter.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Screencast Tutorials

Our 6th and 8th grade students have created some exciting screencast tutorials in ICT lessons. In these tutorials the students teach many different technology skills that they have learned over the past few months and even years. We have begun publishing them on our LRCABC Youtube Channel for the world to enjoy and learn from and hope you will find a few minutes to browse through the collection. Who knows, you may even learn something new!


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

What About Cell Phones in Lessons

Cell phones can be so much more than we tend to give them credit for. If you think about it, how do kids use them most as phones? One might argue that the phone call function is perhaps one of the less used on most student cell phones. Cell phones are mini video and audio recorders, digital cameras, devices for browsing, accessing and creating content for projects and ultimately for the web.

 Last year we used cell phones in a few lessons as response devices, allowing students to connect up to teacher created surveys and view the results in real time. This year many students used them to record their raps durin the rainy week, their talking head videos for English class as well as video for the creative carrousel.

Cell phones are powerful tools, most students have them and know how to use them, so the question is, why not use them in lessons when it makes sense to do so.

I am interested in gaining some insight on this from the student perspective and have created a survey for them to fill in.   It is anonymous and only ABC community members can access it. I have embedded a copy below and included a screen shot of it for those of you who are not immediate members of the ABC Community. I would really welcome any comments and/or questions you may have on this. Please do use the comment option in this blog to respond.

Screen Shot of the Survey






Survey

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Sunday, October 9, 2011

8th Grade Book Trailers

The 8th Grade created video book trailers on a book of their choices which they planned and produced in groups. This was a 6 week process involving 18 lessons of ICT. The 8th grade students are already quite skilled at video production, so this was an opportunity for them to branch out a bit and take on a video genre they were unfamiliar with. In preparing for the project, students learned about shots, angles and camera movement. They learned that trailers are generally fast paced,short in duration and involve a variety of shots and angles as well as scene changes. Through the project the 8th grade students were able to fine tune their video editing skills as well as try out a great many new techniques incorporating special effects and using the green screen. These trailers can be found on the LRC YouTube Channel as well as on this page. We hope you enjoy them!


Saturday, October 8, 2011

A Better World Project

The first creative carrousel has just ended and along with it 6A's work on the A Better World Project. This is the second year we run this ABC Global initiative, which involves students collaborating on rap lyrics, creating and performing music tracks and planning and producing a video which includes both computer generated animation in the form of talking avatars as well as student performances.

This year we have again opened up the project to the world and will be involved in collaboration not only within the ABC Walls but with students in other countries. Do check out the first round of projects on the A Better World Website, to get a better idea of how the project works.


Website Evaluation

The 7th grade students are learning how to evaluate websites in ICT lesson. In doing so they look at the following areas: source, affiliation/bias/purpose, content and currency. They recorded their findings in a private chatroom using Today's Meet. This can be a difficult task for students, many of whom are not used to questioning content found online. These students are now well on their way to becoming effective and efficient researchers.


Friday, October 7, 2011

Banned Books Week at the LRC





Banned Books Week was celebrated in the LRC during the week of September 24−October 1, 2011. This is an annual event which focuses on celebrating the freedom to read. "Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books..." ALA

The event generated a great deal of conversation between members of staff and students, who were shocked to see their favourite books on the banned list or behind bars. They soon felt much better about it once they understood that the purpose of the event is not to ban any  book, but rather to raise awareness about the issue of censorship

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The Puppet Project



Mr. Alfaro began running the LRC Puppet Project during as the LRC's contribution to Theatre Week. This project involved students creating Muppet type puppets from foam for use in school projects. The project proved so popular that it was extended for a total of 3 weeks. Puppet making is now well under way and the first puppet (Space Toad) who was featured in the video advertisement has now debuted as the main character in a student production. The Project will wrap up next Friday, with a few small puppet plays.







Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs- A Tribute

Steve Jobs passed away yesterday from pancreatic cancer. If you would like to learn more about this amazing thinker, whose ideas revolutionized  the computer industry, take a look at the Steve Jobs A Master Thinker Tribute on Scoop.it.

Do also have a look at his Stanford Speech. It is quite inspirational.



Thursday, September 29, 2011

LRC Newsletter-Issue 1 September 2011

The September LRC Newsletter is out. Read it online here.




Lrc Newsletter 1 Sept 2011 Upload

The Future of Learning

I came across this great presentation by Steve Wheeler at the University of Plymouth on the future of education this morning, as I was trawling through my scoop.it updates.

It's interesting to see how many new technologies were met with resistance and are either still going strong in some form or other, or have become a thing of the past only after many years of being the "new tools". What is really powerful is the concept of digital evolution as opposed to digital revolution, the idea of merging virtual and real worlds.  If you look at Steve's 6 trends for a the digital age, it becomes obvious that we are smack in the midst of this particular merger.




Monday, September 26, 2011

There are many ways to find out what is going on at the LRC. You can "like" us in Facebook, Follow us on Twitter, view the website, and view LRC Videos and photos on YouTube and Flickr.

This school year the LRC has launched this new blog which will bring all of these networks together in one place, as well as provide a venue for short informative updates, as well as the LRC Newsletter to be uploaded each month for your viewing pleasure.

It is our sincerest hope that you will enjoy our new blog, use it to keep up on the latest in regards to the LRC and feel free to communicate with us through it and our other social networks linked to within.

Here's to the start of a new exciting school year full of innovation in learning.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Theatre Week

This Week is Theatre Week in the Secondary School. Plenty of theatre related activities are taking place in the different subjects, whilst at the LRC a special set of workshops have begun.

The LRC Coordinator and Digital Media Artist have prepared 6 after school sessions, over the course of 2 weeks, aimed at teaching students how to make foam puppets. This activity will end with a series of short puppet shows performed by the students on the last day.

Sessions take place from 2:00-3:00 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Students can sign up using the Google Form in their email inbox.


Take a minute to view our Theatre Week Puppet Project Video.