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National Simultaneous Storytime 2024

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  This years NSS 2024 is using the book Bowerbird Blues by Aura Parker. What a lovely way to link a native Australian bird with some interesting habits and mating rituals with literacy and technology. Technology Links - Data Representation Satin Bowerbirds collect blue objects. This is a lesson that links to the book and allows you to teach about data representation and address digital technology content and link to any literacy activities you have planned for NSS 2024.  Data Representation Collect a range of blue items and sort them according a particular characteristic - colour, shape, size or material. Arrange the objects into a presentation, tally them and photograph or draw them. The lesson provides templates for students to count, draw and explain their representations. It also includes an assessment activity that can be marked and then added to a student portfolio. The lesson is available  Teachers Pay Teachers $4 US (about $6 AUD) Australian Teachers Marketplace - $5 AUD che
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Digital Skills for Online Testing: Part 4

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This post is investigates the digital skills required for the Conventions of Language NAPLAN test. After review the Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 NAPLAN tests the skills seem similar for each test. Computer skills required include: keyboard skills trackpad or mouse skills selecting objects symbols used to indicate a selection click and drag use of highlight Symbols on the full screen understanding of symbols on the screen next and back buttons flag tool play button dictation tool volume tool magnifying glass hide and show the timer reading a count down timer understanding of the function of types of questions and tools drop down boxes radio buttons click and drag check boxes typed answers in a box use of highlight in questions Drop down list Click and drag question To complete Conventions of Language test students should be familiar with the tools and question types used in the test. At the conclusion of the test students should understand the meaning of the branching screen. Students who are not
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Digital Literacy and online testing - part 3

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This post considers the online NAPLAN writing test using the public demonstration test . In this example the year 5, 7 and 9 writing tests for the narrative and the persuasive are the same question for all years. The main consideration for student success for an online writing test is their typing speed. Regardless of year level students must be able to type as fast as they can write. As they get older their typing speed must increase with writing speed. This means students should be taught to type from lower primary to ensure they have an acceptable typing speed and technique. Word processing skills are mentioned in the English curriculum documents across the country from years 1 to 4. Familiarity with using punctuation is also crucial for the writing test. Students must be able to locate and use: touch typing at the speed they can write - or faster capital letters full stop (which can be activated by pressing space twice) get to a new line using the enter or return key exclamation ma
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Schools and the oversharing of personal data

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The privacy act of 1988 prevents the sharing of personal data with a 3rd party without consent. Since then in the wake of the recent cyber incidents in well known Australian industries particularly telecommunications and health these laws have been tightened. Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is not to be shared with any 3rd party. Currently schools throughout Australia are required to complete privacy impact assessments when enroling students to a new online platform yet many schools are still publishing student full names, birthdays and the class students are in at school in newsletters and on social media. So why do some schools still share the full name of students and teachers in newsletters. In the research for this article there were schools found to still be publishing:  images of children with their full name full names of students example of sharing student full name including middle names classes of students with their full name student names and their class or year
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Digital Literacy and online testing part 2

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This post considers the digital literacy skills required by year 5 students to complete the Numeracy NAPLAN test. Skills for year 5 numeracy navigate numbers to enter their 8 digit ID number enter numbers or text into an answer box click and drag pictures, objects and lines use a trackpad (if you don't have touch screen computers) or mouse turn the timer on and off use the play button to narrate the question show and hide the narration tool mute the narration tool adjust the volume of the narration tool show and hide the ruler use the ruler to perform measurements tilt the ruler identify radio buttons for a single choice identify check boxes for multiple choices use a drop down box and select a response be able to deselect an incorrect choice answer questions with a table or matrix of multiple answers use a zoom tool and turn it off understand the difference between highlight and a selection understand a selected answer is indicated by a double line around a section of screen be ab
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Digital Literacy and Online Testing

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This post considers how to improve performance in NAPLAN ( National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) by ensuring your students have the digital literacy skills to sit an online test. This post considers the year 3 reading test.  In year 3 the writing test is still paper based and the rest are online. From year 5 all tests are online including the writing test that is now typed. This introduces a standardised test that is inadvertently testing digital literacy and the question is...is your school teaching the skills your students need to answer the questions and have a fair go? For the year 3 reading test students need the following skills: navigate numbers to enter their 8 digit ID number enter numbers or text into an answer box click and drag pictures, objects and lines use a trackpad (if you don't have touch screen computers) or mouse turn the timer on and off identify radio buttons for a single choice identify check boxes for multiple choices be able to deselect an in
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A lesson sequence for Cross Curricular Teaching - STEM and learning outside

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By Meridith Ebbs @iMerinet @MakeCreateEducate Updated - Originally written for Issue 2 of STEMed Magazine https://issuu.com/stemedmagazine/docs/final_stem_ed_magazine_issue_2 Cross-Curricular Teaching Cross curricular teaching is a pedagogy that can be used to address the time poor classroom. Currently many learning areas are taught in a silo’d fashion, using case studies and resources designed specifically for each subject worksheets for English, units designed for History and Geography and text books for Mathematics. With the curriculum being overcrowded if you can overlap key learning areas in your teaching it allows more time to cover additional content. Cross curricular teaching is when you teach English but complete a comprehension on the theory content associated with a Science unit. It is when you teach graphing in maths but use the results of a science investigation as the content rather than using favourite pizza toppings. Use mathematical language when discussing maps in Ge
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