Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
54 Responses to “Teachers”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Beijing Olympics & Book Week 2008
Rap blog hosted by School Libraries & Information Literacy Unit
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
August 1st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I am the T/L at Colyton Public in western Sydney. We have been eagerly awaiting this Book Rap. I am working with the teacher for 4/5D at our school though most work will probably be done in the Library. The class teacher is about to go to Europe on long service but another familiar teacher to the school is teaching them and is keen to be part of it. Her name is Fran Parker. It will be my first experience with a blog.
Isabelle Cumberland
August 1st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Hi Isabelle,
Welcome to our Teachers’ page. It may be your first experience with a blog but you’ve already mastered the art of posting a comment!
I hope you’ve taken the time to explore the Rap points and suggested activities. With two teachers collaborating, your students should have a great time investigatng each Rap point.
Hop in any time to leave a message, share ideas or ask for assistance.
Cheers, Cath Keane Rap Coordinator
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Hello, I teach at a small (42 children) school in Northern NSW and am completing a Masters in T/L (1 subject to go!). I have been involved in a couple of other raps the last one being Possum Magic with a K/1/2 class- we all thoroughly enjoyed it.This is the first time the class and I have been involved in a blog. We will be working on the rap three days a week.
Cheers Dianne
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Hi, I’m the TL at Bega West on the far south coast. It’s many years since I’ve taken part in a book rap so the blogging is all new to me. I’m going to try to do some of the rap activities with 3 Stage 2 classes and see what we can fit in. It will be a new experience for the students too so I hope they enjoy it.
Cheers, Jan Midena
August 4th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Hi Dianne and Jan,
Welcome to the rap. You’ve both had experience with a rap and have already made a start with blogging. I’m sure your students will enjoy sharing their responses with other schools.
Cheers, Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 4th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Hello Teacher Rappers!
My name is Ian McLean, teacher librarian at Penrith Public School. I’ve worked with students on a number of raps and book raps now, and have helped to coordinate the two recent “rap blog” versions held earlier this year.
I hope you will enjoy taking part in this Teachers section, a place where we can ask lots of questions, and share our successes as the rap unfolds.
Penrith PS will have at least six Stage 2 groups tackling the rap. Can’t wait to get started!
Ian McLean,
Penrith PS
August 4th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Hi Ian,
Welcome aboard. I know that the teachers will be looking forward to your comments and ideas.
Cheers, Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 4th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Greetings from Mowbray PS – Lane Cove
Hello fellow rappers,
I am the newly appointed TL at MPS which has 270 students K-6.
Rapping is new to me and to the students at my school but we are all keen to learn and look forward to have some fun along the way.
As I’m only part-time from Wednesday to Friday, I’ll make every possible effort to include both Stage 2 and Stage 3 in the discussions during our library sessions and lunch times.
What’s the recommended number of rap reps per class?
Any help and suggestions from experienced rappers are very welcome.
Looking forward to all your comments.
Cheers,
Gina McCann
Mowbray Public School – Lane Cove
Lower North Shore – Sydney
August 5th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Hi, I teach a 3/4 composite class in Manly and this is my first experience of a book rap. I’m really looking forward to participating and the kids in my class are also very excited. Hopefully this will encourage other classes to participate in similar book raps or blogging activities.
Kristin Barnard
Manly West PS
August 5th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Hi Gina and Kristin,
Welcome to the rap. I agree, Kristin. You may provide the model to inspire others at your school.
Gina, you were wondering about the number of rap reps per class. With older students you may wish to share the duties, firstly responding for the smaller group within the class, and then choosing the best response or combining the responses for the post. I know that the Penrithrappers are regular participants and so are the Nowrarappers – perhaps Ian and Julie will have successful suggestions.
Have an exciting journey with your classes as you rap, blog and more.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rap coordinator
August 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Hi Gina,
My rule is: there are no rules. It’s whatever works for you, in your unique situation.
Some of our online guidelines are from the days when all rapping was done via email, and sometimes the only email-capable computer was in a distant locale to where the bulk of the group construction of text was being done. Rap reps were invaluable in those days.
The new blog format means that you can use a bank of computers with pairs of students, and everyone can explore the rap responses at their own pace. Other schools use one connection and an interactive whiteboard (IWB). At my school, I work with small groups on one computer, and a few screens beside me also set to the rap blog. When we upload our message and it gets approved, we then check the other monitors and refresh their pages to show how the blogs grow.
You might decide to use a pair of rap reps to type up rap responses, or to print out replies (unless you’re reading them online). Or you might do the typing while the students make their suggestions. Or you can scribe onto butcher’s paper or an IWB and convert to computer text.
Happy rapping!
Ian McLean,
Penrith PS
August 5th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
As you can see Gina, there’s always someone ready to help. Thanks Ian, I knew you would respond!
This is an excellent opportunity for all of you to share your great management ideas and strategies that prove successful and enjoyable.
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator at Ryde
August 6th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Gday all
Im teaching years 3 to 6 at Lord Howe Island and this is my first rap.
Alongside all the good stuff we will be doing for this rap this is going to be a great geography activity for my kids. We are going to locate all your schools on Google Earth and see what you look like from above. A lot of the kids here don’t know much about the big wide world so this will be an excellent eye opener for them.
My kids are going to split into stage groups for their rap comments so I can get a bit more out of my stage 3’s. We’re lucky enough to have an IWB in the classroom so this will be a great activity for the kids to that to good use.
Gday Jan at Bega West, I’m from Merimbula way and was working in the support unit at Bega High before getting the job here. Its good to hear some goings on from down the far south.
Look forward to hearing how you all tackle this.
Cheers
Morry, LHICS
August 6th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hi all,
I just thought I’d explain a few strategies I’m using for this rap.
Firstly, as with the other raps which ran this year, I’m promoting the rap blog URL in the school newsletter so that students can show off their group’s rap responses with their families each week.
In case the URL doesn’t make it home, I’m also explicitly modelling a search strategy (ie. how to use Google to find the rap pages) each time the students come for their blogging session. I show them what happens when we type in raps and book raps as search terms (almost 1.5 million hits!) and how the abundance of riches can be reduced by using inverted commas. (ie. “raps and book raps” gives only 5000 possible sites – and, in any case, the NSW DET Raps webpage appears as choice #1).
Also I demonstrate the pathway to get to the blog itself. For the last two raps, many students tried out visiting the rap blog from home, and we received great parental feedback.
Secondly, I brought in a collection of stuffed animal toy mascots (plus others that were already decorating the library). The Bruce Whatley drawing of Tammy the Tortoise (in The Shaggy Gully Times) is uncannily like a toy tortoise I had at home, especially with the addition of a battery-operated pocket fan strapped to her back.
Now each group is selecting (and often naming) one of the animal “reporters”, who’ll represent them in the upcoming newspaper article rap point. Each one has his or her own “Press card” to get them into Olympic venues. The animal characters (a flying fox, the aforementioned tortoise, a Puffin Books puffin, a Chinese New Year dragon, a large green frog, Selby the taking dog, and my trusty big, black, furry, bungee spider – it’s a long story) might prove useful for some f(p)unny photojournalism in the playground. We’ll be able to upload the pictures to the Gallery of the rap blog – and they should provide inspiration for some typically Jackie French-esque animal puns.
Regards,
Ian McLean
Penrith PS
August 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Hi, My name is Stacey Graham and I am the Teacher Librarian at Our Lady of Lourdes in Tarro. I have 10 children from years 3- 6 who are keen to be involved in the book rap and are coming in during lunch on Wednesdays to do so.
We are looking forward to seeing where everyone is from and how their schools differ from ours.
This is my 2nd rap, but the first for the children so they are very enthusiastic.
Looking forward to some great rapping!
Stacey
August 7th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Hi everyone
My name is Gabby Quinn. I am the teacher librarian at Lambton P.S., Newcastle. I have three Stage 3 classes entered in this rap. Haven’t been in one before so have a couple of questions for experienced rappers.
I entered each class using a student’s email address from that class and used my own for me. So all up 4 email addresses were used. Should I have used just my email address and used that as the contact for all 3 classes?
Also, I am rapping as a combined class activity, using a data projector but would like children to be able to access the rap themselves at home to show their parents. How do I go about allowing them access to the rap without the ability to post or edit?
I know these are probably very simple but I’m in a bit of overwhelm at the moment and would appreciate some help. I am excited to be a part of the rap though.
Thanks
Gabby
August 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hi Gabby,
Welcome aboard! Re your question about student home access to the blog:
The students simply type in the URL http://rapblog3.edublogs.org. Without access to the password they’ll only be able to look at entries, not post by themselves or edit responses. If anyone has managed to learn your password, or you forget the old one, you can change it on your Edublogs “dashboard”.
Regards,
Ian McLean
Penrith PS
August 7th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Hello Everyone,
My name is Susan Xuereb (pronounced Shwerap – sorry, tricky surname!) and I am the Teacher-Librarian at John Palmer PS which opened brand new this year. It has been great establishing the library from scratch. I am really really busy but loving every minute of it.
Since we are a new school, we only have 56 students so far but we are expecting at least an extra class or two next year, which means my position will grow. I am there 3 days a week; 1day TL; 1day RFF; 1day ESL. Our staff consists of 3 class teachers, the principal, 1 SAM, 1 SAO for 1 and half days, a school counsellor for half a day a fortnight and a site manager (like a GA).
We are near Kellyville Ridge with a beautiful view at the moment but the houses are being built at a very fast rate, so I don’t expect we will have the view for much longer!
I think I have been babbling on too much now but just want to say to Ian that you sound like an expert at this book rapping thing. This is my first Book Rap. Cath came to our school last term for a PL day and we looked at Book raps and decided – “I’ll do that next term”, and I did! Thanks for the great tips, Ian.
Looking forward to being a part of this Book Rap! Thanks Cath coordinating this for us – I think it is great so far.
Cheers
Susan Xuereb
John Palmer PS
August 8th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Hello teachers and teacher librarians,
It’s good to have a few new names.
Ian – Thanks for the reminder about students accessing the blog from home. The really good news is that, without a password, they can only view the comments. It is a great way to engage parents with their children’s learning.
Hi Susan. After our discussion, I’m really glad that you’ve joined.
After all the press about the Games, it’s amazing that the big day has finally arrived. It will be a frenetic 2 and a bit weeks.
Drop in any time to share ideas. I’m looking forward to reading your class responses to Rap point 1 next week.
Cheers, Cath Keane Rap Coordinator
August 8th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Ah wonderful serendipity!
Yesterday, my last group of rappers had to miss their scheduled rapping session in the library and I had to play catch-up with them today. They were supposed to name the last of our animal mascot “reporters”: a large, cardboard, papier mache, crepe paper and fabric Chinese dragon, who has been a decorative fixture in the library since early 2007, and a frequent participant in our school’s annual Chinese New Year Parade.
This morning, one of the teachers of another Stage 2 class – having no idea of my plans to use the dragon during the rap – asked if she could borrow my dragon for her class item at Assembly next Friday. I told her that, by the end of the day, he’d even have a name (choosing a name was to have been a Circle Time activity for the rappers) but she said that the story being told in their item involved a Chinese dragon called Nian.
So Nian it is! Now Class 4/5 M is ecstatic that Niam is performing in 3DV’s item, and 3DV are impressed that Nian will be reportiing on Olympic events for 4/5 M during the rap… between play rehearsals, of course. Anticipation for the rap events (and the Games) is at fever pitch!
I wish I could say I’d planned it that way. A typical week in the library.
Enter the dragon!
Regards,
Ian McLean
Penrith PS
August 8th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Hi All,
You may wish to check out the Beijing Olympics links in Sites2See: Beijing Olympics on TaLe. Some we already have but others are worth a look.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 10th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Hello again everyone!
You’ve probably noticed in my students’ introductions, that they mention the animal mascot reporters who will be helping them to write the sports reports for Rap Point 3.
Why are we adopting animal helpers? Well, it seemed in keeping with “The Shaggy Gully Times” and I thought that focusing on one animal per group might lend itself more easily to developing some clever puns, a la Jackie French. For example, a quick skim through a book on bats and flying foxes should provide the students with some interesting word plays. Or drive us all batty. See what I mean? I’m just so foxy. As the athletes head into bat-tle in Beijing.
Now it’s time to reveal the animal reporters to the world! You can see their photos over at our school’s wiki page. I hope to publish some of the students work their, and some will also be suitable for the rap blog’s official Gallery.
(If you are using a school computer, make sure you are signed in with a teacher’s username and password to view most pages over at on PB wiki.)
Best wishes,
Ian McLean,
Teacher-librarian @ Penrith PS
August 11th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Thanks Ian
For the info about students being able to view postings at home. Thought I’d use keywords “book rap det”.
Gabby
August 13th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Sure is trying. Edublogs has been blocked by the filter both yesterday and today which makes life a little hard when time is so limited….hope this is only temporary as we do not want to get left behind as we are only able to Blog on three days of the week.
The children are enjoying the Blog immensely.
Is there any way you can select/highlight some responses and print only those.
Thank you for all your hard work Cath, this is very valuable experience for the schools taking part.
Gaye Winterton
August 13th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Hi Gaye,
I sent off an emergency email to ITD yesterday morning and received the following reply this morning:
“The web filter unit is aware that many users have experienced a problem with blocked sites. Sites which would normally be allowed are in some cases, appearing as blocked. The issue is intermittent. Individual [NSW DET] users may or may not experience it when requesting any website.
“The resolution of this issue is currently being worked on by the system’s support teams, as a matter of high priority. Thanks for your understanding in the meantime.”
So it should be a minor glitch. Yesterday, much NSW DET Internet traffic had to be shunted though a different set of servers, and the “unblocked sites” were sometimes affected.
In the meantime, it’s always a good idea to compile your rap responses as a Word document, and then you won’t risk losing your message should you be hit with a technical problem when uploading. Alternatively, highlight the text of your post and save with the “Control C” keyboard shortcut before pressing “Submit Comment”.
You also asked:
“Is there any way you can select/highlight some responses and print only those.”
For some reason, I haven’t been able to get my PC at work to highlight and copy/paste text of other schools’ rap responses to use in a Word document (a quirk of some PCs, perhaps?), although my iMac at home will do it easily. You could always print out the blog entries, and enlarge key ones (you’d like to use) on a photocopier. Many schools are now using interactive whiteboards (IWBs) when they blog.
My strategy here, being without an IWB so far, when I want students to focus on aspects of other schools’ contributions, has been to open a row of computers to the blog site and let pairs of students explore the various entries. My students are very keen on reading the entries that are accompanied with school crests and little pictograms as their avatars, and these help to identify selected schools readily.
Regards,
Ian McLean
Penrith PS
August 14th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Dear All,
I received Ian’s message about Edublogs and sighed as well. I tried many times to access the rap on Tuesday but to no avail. Even the internet was slow and often unresponsive. The DET server appears to have been the problem, not Edublogs. Once the site has been unblocked, there is no reason for it to be blocked by the Web Filter Team. If desperate, you could send your comment to me to upload later. I can post for you but will not be able to capture your avatar. cath.keane@det.nsw.edu.au
As mentioned, saving comments in a Word document is a good idea. The cut and paste option can then be used to leave a comment. Ctrl C and Ctrl V. This is actually quite a good practice; it’s also easier to check the wording, spacing and spelling used.
As for highlighting and then copying snippets from rappers’ posts, I am unable to do this even though I have administrative rights. If you wish to focus on particular comments with your class, you can use Ctrl+Alt+Print Scr. This ‘copies’ what is seen on the screen. You can then open Word document and Ctrl V to paste it. You can crop the image to focus on one rap comment and then enlarge it for sharing on an IWB or large screen.
BTW, the Introductions and Rap Point 1 comments are wonderful. You are working so well with your classes, and their responses are really interesting.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rapcoordinator
August 14th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Hi Cath,
We seem to be back to normal. As I told ITD on Tuesday, that was the day I was supposed to engage my colleagues (at our fortnightly staff meeting) on the joys and advantages of raps, book raps, blogs and wikis.
Oh well. Luckily, there was a minty new “Scan” waiting in my pigeon hole so I showed them that instead.
Hopefully we are now onward and upward again.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Check out the CBCA winners for 2008. I’m really happy about the choices. It’s interesting to note the change that has occurred for picture book audiences with a Stage 6 user level winning this category. BTW, the review for Kaz Cooke’s, Girl stuff… will appear in the November issue of Scan. We were held up by the consultation process that we have before publishing.
Book Week celebrations will be a change of perspective for our Olympic audience.
Please send photos or movies to me to share. My amateurish attempt has been successful. If I keep them thumbnail size, it will be a matter of scrolling down the page to view each image.
Have a great weekend and build up energy for Rap point 2. Remember that, owing to Book Week celebrations, we have 2 weeks for Rap point 2.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 15th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Hi I am Ondria Miller and I am the Yr 6 Teacher at Parkview Public School in a small town called Leeton. We are in the Riverina and MIA. I have involved one of my reading groups in this blog to give them some critical literacy experience. It is my first rap and hope I can guide them through it.
Regards
Ondria
August 20th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Hi Lord Howe Island and Manly Village P.S.
Any chance of having an address with street number and postcode for your school so that we can use Google Street View and take a peek at your school.
Our address is 47 Maxwell Ave, Orange, NSW 2800.
Hope to see you soon.
Gaye Winterton
Glenroi Heights P.S.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Hello again,
Help!!! How do you post the URL to the wiki???????
Regards
Gaye Winterton
August 20th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Hi Gaye,
To add a url link in the wiki – be organised. Copy the url, then log in to the wiki with the secret password shaggy1. Click edit. Type in the website name, then highlight it and click on the link icon at the top and paste the url. Then save before closing page. This should work.
You may be asked to temporarily allow scripted windows. Agree because it’s just to enable you to add the link. Once this is done, you may have to highlight the url name and then click link again to paste the url.
Any words of wisdom to add to this, Ian? Ian McLean is our wiki expert, I’m the novice but, so far, I’ve managed to insert a picture, a table and hyperlinks. Just give it a go because anything can be edited and if it doesn’t work the first time, just close the page without saving.
BTW, I’d love someone to send a movie. I have no idea how to upload one, but will learn.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 20th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Hi again Gaye and others,
You can easily find the names and addresses of DET schools at school locator.
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 20th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Hello to Gaye and Cath,
I might be this blog’s wiki expert but I’m only a whisker or two ahead. My experience with wikis is growing but only because I’ve been brave. Almost as brave as Cath, who created a wiki table the other day! Impressive.
There are FAQs over at PBwiki which are invaluable and, if it’s a very tricky question, you can send them an email and get a reply back within two days.
I liked their explanation of the differences between blogs, forums and wikis:
“Why use a wiki instead of a blog or forum?”
“Blogs are great for one-to-many communication, such as one person writing about personal finance. Forums are good for letting many users ask questions and letting many people answer. Wikis are excellent for collaboration. If you want to let students collaborate, add files, suggest links, and create a document that’s comprehensive and up-to-date, use a wiki.”
As for adding a URL, Cath’s instructions work well. I tend to be a do-it-yourself HTML person. HTML is “hyper-text markup language” and can be seen on the wiki page when you are in “Edit” mode and select the “Source” option from the little menu that appears along the top of the editing box.
So, whenever I want to add a URL to a wiki page, I go into “Source” and put the following code where I wish the hyperlink to appear:
≤a href= “exact URL goes in here” ≥Title of hyperlink goes here≤/a≥
but without all the spaces, and using regular left and right arrow head keys, rather than “greater than” and “less than”.
Going into “Source” is also useful when you can’t work out why a section of text is wrongly bolded, italicised or centred. When I first started dabbling with HTML I bought two books which became my web-authoring bibles: “Creating websites for dummies” and “HTML for dummies”.
But you don’t need them now that blogs and wikis have all the editing tools built into them. The wonders of the so-called Web 2.0!
Have fun. Be brave. Remember, anything done on a wiki can be undone, and anything accidentally deleted can be found again and restored.
Regards, Ian McLean
Penrith PS
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Hello Everyone,
There has been an Edublogs update and a couple of bloggers have reported hassles when trying to leave a comment. If you are having any problems, keep an eye on this space and we’ll post more information here shortly. If you received a password error message try changing your password. A ‘how to’ flowchart will be posted here shortly.
Please be patient – it should be fine soon.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Hello again.
Isabelle has had some trouble posting a message, and then I did as well.
You seem to get this message:
NOTICE: Due to an upgrade we need you to reset your password. You can do so here.
Give it a go and be patient. If this doesn’t work, try following these instructions. They worked for me. The document is found at After registering at the bottom of the rap’s Welcome page. Just click ‘more’ below when you’re in the site..
Read more to change rap blog password.
I registered another user to see what the edublogs site looked like and this changing the password process worked.
Let me know if you have any more hassles. They tend to occur each time edublogs updates their site.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 25th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Hello again.
Here’s an update. While there have been some Edublogs issues, they seem to be resolved now. NSW government schools may have received false messages saying the blog site is blocked. This is not the case – the blog site is not blocked. We understand there is a broader Departmental network issue that is affecting the network and IT are working hard to resolve it.
You can still continue your rap work in class, and save your post to a Word document in case you encounter a problem, then you are ready to paste it in to a post when you can.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
August 27th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Hi everyone,
Thanks Cath I had so much trouble with resetting this password because it would not send me the password on my first attempt. I tried at least 3 or 4 times to reset it, until they actually sent me a new password.
So, I couldn’t logon with 3456E this morning and they got a bit restless. It always seems to happen when I have this class. At home I just login with no problem but when I am at school I seem to have all these obstacles.
I am finding it a little difficult to do everything at the moment with all the interruptions and now next week we have swim school so that’s two weeks of my program down. I feel there was too much on with Book Week, its competitions, Book Fair, the Book Rap then I have to teach HSIE as well and I feel I always run out of time. Any suggestions anyone?
Sorry for the whinge everyone, just a bit frustrated at the moment.
Cheers
Susan
John Palmer PS
August 27th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Hi Susan,
Yes, it’s a busy term, traditionally. Don’t forget that Rap Point 2 stretches across two weeks this time, and it’s also okay to post a bit late, since each school in the rap tends to work at a different pace – and there’ll often be new schools only just starting to look around the pages and/or noticing the newer messages on earlier rap points.
I decided to concentrate on prediction this week. I like to get the students to anticipate what might be coming next, so we predict how we’ll:
* find the rap blog, with which search terms (on Google)
* recognise our post from last week (ie. look out for school crest avatar).
Also, we predict the contents of the page of “The Shaggy Gully Times” we’ll be reading in the rap session.
Today I asked the 4W students to make predictions as to what they’d see inside the local newspaper when I unrolled it (fresh from my front lawn). Local newspapers are a great free resource, and many times they only get noticed by the students when they are asked to clean out the budgies’ cage, or collect newspapers for covering school desks during art, or when making papier mache.
They were very engaged in skimming the layout, quickly identifying and confirming almost all their predictions about the newspaper. The standard of talking and listening was very pleasing – they were perceptive, and supportive of each other’s earlier ideas.
I hope this is an activity they will be able to repeat with their parents. (And that the newspaper they choose doesn’t have too many full page ads for local attractions such as “Wild Boys Afloat”, etc.)
Several students reported today that they’d personally gone online and shown their parents the current rap blog on their home Internet computers. One girl said, “I even printed out the page that had my name and comment on it.”
Regards,
Ian McLean
Penrith PS
August 29th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I too am feeling the pressure of time to cover as much of the rap as possible. Then there’s the stopwork meeting next week!! However we hope to have Rap Point 2 in soon. Thanks Ian and others for sharing your ideas , especially in regard to the newspaper layout. It is so exciting having so many schools involved too!
Isabelle Cumberland
Colyton Public
August 29th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Hi All
There’s no rush Isabelle and others. We still have a few weeks of term.
BTW, Rap point 3 is live next week – that doesn’t mean you have to rush a reply on Monday!
Have you checked out the Beijing Olympic Games and Book Week 2008 wiki yet? It’s an ideal place for responding to the puns discussion for Rap point 2 and another avenue for allowing our students to use ICT.
The secret password is shaggy1. Why not have a go? It really is easy. Just click the Edit tab on the top menu bar when you get in.
Cath Keane, Rap Coordinator
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Hi Everyone again,
First of all I want to say thanks to Ian for replying to my message. I liked your ideas and I would like to try them out next week ’cause I have already had 3456E this week. They actually worked well this week and really worked hard at writing their School Sports News. They were totally absorbed in the activity and enjoyed recounting these events.
Also, thanks to Isabelle for writing your message because I felt that I wasn’t the only one. This week and next we not only have to deal with the stop work meeting but two weeks of swim school! The students are out of school from 12 to 2pm everyday!
I think, though, that everything is already getting better since Book Week activities have finished. It is much easier now not having to organise something or the other for BW. I think I tried to do too much for BW, that’s usual for me though!
Cheers
Susan Xuereb
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Thanks Isabelle and Susan,
3DV Maths had a great time this week writing up their sports reports. They came to the library with their class teacher (who is brand new to rapping) – usually we’ve had two rotating groups instead, but there were lots away.
We went through the key elements of an article using Rap Sheet 6, then read and analysed the “Kiwis vs Wallabies” report. When it came time to break into writing groups, the students were highly motivated, and they were so empowered whenever they made up a clever pun. Of course, it really helped that one of the students was fresh off the plane from her recent visit to Beijing – and that the extremely fast gold-medal winning athlete she told us about had the highly punny surname of Bolt!
By the way, it only occurred to us today why that Shaggy Gully football match was being played at night!
Regards, Ian McLean
Penrith PS
September 4th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Hi Cath and teacher rappers everywhere!
The annual Cystic Fibrosis Society’s Great Escape 2008 “Penrith to the Barossa Valley” Car Rally has chosen our school for its launch on Monday afternoon (8th September 2008)!
Our whole school population is making streamers and banners and it is set to be a media event. With a bit of luck, our team of animal and student reporters, here at “The Shaggy Penrith Times”, will be on hand to make you some video footage for the rap.
For more information on the Car Rally, go to:
http://www.thegreatescape.org.au/
Regards,
Ian McLean
Teacher-Librarian, Penrith PS
on behalf of Phoenix, Piplup, Selby, Nian, Phil, Tammy and Harry, and Stage 2 students
September 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I’m certainly looking forward to the video footage. There’s plenty of room in the GALLERY!
This is a really brief post because I’m checking to see if the system is working.
Cath Keane Rap Coordinator
September 9th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Gday Bindicoots,
Sorry just saw your message.
Our address here is Lagoon Rd Lord Howe Island 2898. I’m not sure if you’ll see us on Street View but give it a go. If you can’t see us on that we are on Google Earth next to the bowling club.
Cheers
Morry, LHICS
September 12th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Thanks Cath, Ian, Isabelle and all the other people who participated. I loved doing the rap but I felt I did not have enough time to get right into it. The classroom teacher was not willing to help so it was a bit hard time wise. I think if I ever went back to the classroom I would try it as I would schedule it into the week for Literacy and ICT.
Cheers
Susan
John Palmer PS
September 15th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hi Susan,
I guess your next trick is to present the completed rap blog site (and the links to the online programming, planning and worksheets) to a staff or grade meeting, and win over some other teachers. Also, photocopy and distribute some pages from “Scan” articles that discuss past book rap success stories.
Team teaching situations are ideal, but you can still achieve lots of positive results by adapting the rap to suit your students’ needs and your unique school situation. (As you can see by your students’ posts to this rap.)
You’ll find that any students who did the rap this year will be your biggest advocates to try it again next year. Let the students’ enthusiam and results sway those teachers who seem to prefer to do their own programming for literacy. Remind them that the rap support material is already done for them (and you), has been developed with input from NSW DET curriculum experts, and incorporates ICT as an intrinsic part of pedagogy.
Best wishes,
Ian McLean, Penrith PS
NB: Edublogs had a message up on Friday that everything should be okay re passwords now. They were upgrading something again and required them to be reset.
September 17th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Hi everyone,
I’ve added a few new items to the Gallery.
There is some brief movie footage, a “.mov” file, which plays correctly both on our various PCs here at school and my iMac at home – although, on the school PCs, I did get an automated request box asking me to allow MIME files to be used with a different program than the one with which they are usually associated. Whatever that means.
I guess we needed to have a microphone plugged into the digital camera we used, but it was a good way to test our capabilities. We also made a mini movie of the whole car rally launch. It needs editing, and then I’ll try to upload it, too.
We have many more of our newspaper articles presented, in a finished format via the amazing Newspaper Clipping Generator website, on our school library’s wiki pages. Note that those pages cannot be viewed under student usernames and passwords. Teacher level does work, though.
I really like the concept of the Newspaper Clipping Generator website, at http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/ and can see a wealth of possibilities for the resources available there.
Regards,
Ian McLean,
Penrith PS
September 17th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Hello Everyone,
Wrapping up is upon us. I have enjoyed the journey and reflect on how we can improve our learning next time – there’s always something new to try, although there is a part of me that wonders if the investigation, new learning and discussion is even more important than the technology.
As a communication tool, blogs are great. I’m wondering how wikis could be used more efectively as it makes sense to create a page and build the shared knowledge. The students would be amazed by their ability to create an information resource and realise that other people’s opinions are also valid. It would open up discussions about ownership, copyright, and authenticity of sources… real learning in a real world. It’s probably too late, but a wiki about healthy lifestyles probably would have worked! Any suggestions?
It would be great to get some feedback for planning future raps and rapblogs. Any or all reflection sheets can be emailed or posted to me. cath.keane@det.nsw.edu.au or School Libraries and Information Literacy Unit, Curriculum K-12, 3A Smalls Road, Ryde NSW 2112 will find me.
Keep posting… there’s still time for more conversation.
Cheers,
Cath Keane, Rapcoordinator
September 18th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Mrs Keane, please click here and keep watching!
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Hi all,
On Friday, I selected a variety of extracts from my groups’ rap responses (sports articles, a few photos, a wrap rap up message) and combined them as a mini-newspaper (double-sided A4, folding down to make a simple four-paged booklet of The Shaggy Penrith Times), which will slip inside our school newsletter tomorrow. Price = three carrots.
The back cover of the booklet explains the educational parameters of this rap, shows a frame grab from the blog, and gives URLs for both the NSW DET rap blog site, and our own Penrith PS Library wiki pages, encouraging our parents and caregivers to look at the students’ work online.
It didn’t take me very long – but a wombat probably could have done it faster. An efficient way of communicating with the parents, and giving them access to further information!
A brochure that came out to promote “National Reading Day – 3 September 2008″ suggested doing something similar online, or in hardcopy, and that was always in the back of my mind as we added things to the school wiki pages, but it’s only now the rap is over I found time to dig back through the archives. Of course, schools needed to have registered between 3rd and 7th September, when we were all deep into the rap! Maybe next year?
Regards,
Ian McLean
Penrith PS
September 26th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Thank you Ian and Cath for running the SGT Rap. The Year 4’s really enjoyed the experience.
Blogging is so much better than emailing for the participants’ access to other schools’ ideas.
Regards,
Valerie
September 26th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Have a wonderful holiday everyone you deserve it! Recharge the batteries and enjoy.
Please check out the raps next year. The November issue of Scan will have an update.
I hope to chat with you again.
Cheers, Cath Keane