Opinion: Softlink 2022 Report

The 2022 Softlink report has been released! Each year, Softlink invites school libraries and Teacher Librarians (TLs) around Australia and New Zealand to respond to their annual survey. Each year, Softlink produces a report with their findings. I’ve had a good look at the 2022 report and thought it might be fun to draw out…

Tools for Content Creation

There are so many tools available for digital content creation; it can be very overwhelming! I thought I’d give a quick rundown of the tools I use to create content for blogs, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify. “Free” Content By now we should all know about Creative Commons Licensing and what images we CAN and CANNOT…

Selecting First Nations Resources

I was recently asked to do a presentation for the members of the School Library Association of NSW (SLANSW) on Resourcing for the Curriculum, and I chose to focus on an area that we are developing in one of the subjects I teach in at Charles Sturt University (CSU); ETL503 Resourcing the Curriculum. Currently, we…

A day in the life of a teacher librarian

“What does a typical day for a teacher librarian look like?” I get this question from my students a lot and I can understand why. I mean, we like to know what we’re getting ourselves into. We also like to be able to plan ahead. I think people outside the profession also have questions about…

PhD Research Confirmed

I am so very pleased to announce that I have been officially confirmed as a PhD candidate in the School of Information and Communication Studies at Charles Sturt University. In this blog post, I will share my research project plans, questions, and hopes. Firstly, some logistical information. My research project is called: Factors affecting the…

That moment I realised I knew almost nothing

It has recently come to my attention that I have lived a very sheltered life. I never thought of myself as someone that was naive and ignorant, but during the last couple of months I have discovered that there is a lot of things in the world that I have no idea about. I won’t…

Using VR in the humanities department

Technology can be either one of two things: An extremely powerful tool that improves or enhances situations or circumstances Something completely scary that can be more of a hinderance than a help. In education, the pressure to include technology in the classroom has become so intense that many different people from all walks of industries…

STEM-A-Con Wrap-up

On Friday 26 October I hosted a sleepover in the iCentre and called it STEM-A-Con. The event was modelled off the Geek-A-Thon event I hosted last year, but with a slight difference. Students were invited if they had shown an interested in STEM classes and activities throughout the year. The girls arrived straight after school and…

Augmented Reality in year 9 geography

Every year that I’ve taught year 9 geography, the Interconnections unit has always been assessed with a multimodal presentation, which more often than not, has lead to PowerPoint presentations. This year, I’m changing it up and using Augmented Reality! How?! You might ask… well, we’re using posters as the “triggers” and then using HP Reveal…

Embedding Thinking Skills

I was recently assigned to teach a year 8 class called “Project of Innovation” (8PI). It’s a semester long subject designed to get students to develop their thinking skills, and then use those skills to design and build a toy for prep students. It’s a fantastic program, and I’m so excited to be on the…