Kids in the Mid

CONGRATULATIONS,

YOU HAVE WON $5000

FOR A 7 DAY XMAS/SUMMER HOLIDAY!

You have $5000 to spend on a holiday somewhere in the world.

You might want to go somewhere in Tasmania, Queensland, or Victoria! Some of you might want to visit family or friends. Others might want to go to a resort or drive around in a campervan.

Use the internet to find the cost and other information about your transport, for example, airfares, tickets on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry or car hire, accommodation, location etc.

YOUR TASK: (3 Word Docs to prepare.)

1. PREPARE AN ITINERARY: What you do each day.
2. PREPARE A BUDGET: List all details and costs like return airfares, accommodation, vehicle hire, entertainment and daily budget for meals/spending etc.
3. PREPARE A TRAVEL DIARY: Write and illustrate a travel diary of your trip.

These internet sites will help you:

Airfares….Jetstar, Flight Centre, Virgin Australia, Qantas, Tiger Airlines. (remember to shop for cheapest flights.)

Accommodation…..Go to your resort direct or search using your location, for example, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Launceston.

These sites offer deals; www.wotif.com , www.quickbeds.com , www.takeabreak.com.au .

If you want to stay in a resort or have a package deal combining airfares, accommodation, try Flight Centre or Harvey Norman Travel.

Vehicle Hire…. Hertz, Eurocar, Budget and many others.

GOOD LUCK AND ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY!

Last week you got to look at some of Edublogs Award winning blogs. Well, this week the nominations are in and our very own Miss Wyatt has been nominated for the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award!

Mr Davo Devil, not to be left out, has been nominated for ‘Best New Blog’.

You can look at the other nominations by going to The Edublogs Awards blog and checking out each of the categories and the 2011 nominees.

If you want to vote for one of the nominations, you need to use a computer or phone that isn’t in our computer labs or classrooms. The IP address is the same for all the school computers and, if you all vote from school, Edublogs will think the same person is voting hundreds of times and the votes won’t be counted!

You may be able to use a relatives computer, or maybe your parents could vote from their work computer.

The ‘Best Student Blog’ nominations are well worth a look, as are the ones for ‘Best Class Blog’.

Browse through ‘Best Educational Use of A Social Network’ as well, you might get some ideas!

Remember to vote for Miss Wyatt and Mr Davo Devil (aka Miss W.)!

http://edublogawards.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/edublogs-nominated-bestclassblog.png

Lots of people have worked hard on their blogs this year and have developed some wonderfully interesting ‘web spaces’ about all sorts of things.

Edublogs gives awards every year for the best blog in various categories. They rely on people’s nominations to make the decision.

Miss W. has nominated her ‘best blogs‘ in a post on her blog ‘Miss W. and her Smartboard’. Take a look and see what you think of the blogs Miss W. has nominated.

The Edublogs Awards Blog has a list of award winners from previous years.

Take a look at some of these blogs and write a post about three of the best ones you come across. Explain why you think they are the ‘best blogs’.

Hi there. Most people love to participate in sporting and or recreational activities in the outdoors at various times of the year. Winter in Australia always means Aussie Rules, soccer, hockey, netball etc in Tassie. Over summer it is cricket, camping, car and motor bike racing,fishing and surfing. What activities and or sports do you like or participate in over the winter and summer?

Surfing, surf life saving and kayak racing are my favourite sports. Follow these links out to find out about what goes on.

Create a post telling what you enjoy with a link to your favourite sport and or recreation. Make sure to save it in one of your categories!

Mr Clark

Image: ‘Surfing Burleigh Heads_1031‘

In the Dictionary all words are organised under in alphabetical order. In your wardrobe at home clothes are placed in particular draws and hanging areas…in other words ‘organised’. At school your work is organised into specific books for each subject. On your IPOD music is stored in categories for ease of retrieval.

This is what we call ‘categorising’ which effectively enables us to more quickly find and retrieve things we are looking for. This is even more important as we collect ever more material and store it! Well organised ‘bloggers’ also categorise all their posts.

Some students have already found this mechanism for placing their posts etc into categories.Have a quick check on some of your friends blogs who have already created categories to see how effective  using categories is can be.

1. SO! THIS IS HOW YOU CAN DO IT FOR NEW POSTS.

When you write a post your final action is to hit the blue coloured  ‘Publish’ button on the right hand side of your Dashboard so it is saved on your blog. If you LOOK carefully just under that blue button you will  a section named ‘Categories’.  You will see various suggestions for ‘categories like; Home, Friends, School, Sport, Music and others. You can also make up other names for post categories that suit your posts. So when you write your next post, and  BEFORE you ‘Publish ‘it, click on the required category and the post will be saved under that heading. SIMPLE!

2. NOW, WHAT ABOUT EXISTING UNCATEGORISED POSTS YOU ASK!

Again, this is quite easy. All you need to do is go to your Dashboard and bring up ALL POSTS. Then select the post you want to’ categorise’ by clicking the ‘QUICK EDIT’ button. Then you can click on the categor/ies you require and finally hit the ‘UPDATE’ button.  Now, go through your posts and place them in categories you choose……

WEll DONE TO EVERYONE for completing this task today!

Mr Clark.

Halloween has just passed us by again. In the lead up, I heard lots of students talking about what they were going to do to mark this day that is widely celebrated in the United States and in Britain.

According to a report  by a research company called McCrindle Research and shown on NewsMaker.com, the number of Australians celebrating Halloween is increasing.

However, some Australians feel that Halloween should not be celebrated because it is not an Australian holiday and just gives candy and other businesses more opportunity to sell more products and make more money!

Write a post on your blog, giving your point of view and answering the questions below:

What are your thoughts on Halloween? Should we celebrate it in Australia?

What actually is Halloween? When and how did it begin?

If you did celebrate Halloween this year, what did you do? Why?

These links may help you get started:

History.com

Brisbane Times – More Australians embrace ‘horror culture’

Image: ‘Halloween’ By Pedro J. Ferreira

Last week we had two exciting events happen AND we had fabulous weather for both!

Our school had the athletics carnival, which runs over two days and was a great success.

Hobart also had ‘Show Day’, which is a public holiday for people in the Hobart area. The Hobart Show is held at the showgrounds every year and ‘Show Day’ gives everybody the opportunity to go (or just hang out at the beach, go shopping, do extra homework ).

Write a post about the athletics carnival or about what you did on Show Day.

Try and include lots of detail about what you saw, felt, heard and smelled to make your post interesting; and help your readers get a good idea of your experience. Images can also help with this.

Remember to ‘stay safe’ and avoid including personal information that could identify you.

Image courtesy of Royal Hobart Show

Miss W. and Mr Davo are on the 49th Parallel.

 What is that you ask? Well, your job is to do some internet research and see if you can find out.  Here’s a clue to help you…

‘The 49th parallel circles the earth’.

1. Post the answer on your blog with a link to this post.

Once that is done, have fun trying to think of a funny caption for this photo which is on Mr Devil’s blog.

2. This time, leave a commenton Mr Devil’s post (not this post!) with the caption in it so he and Miss W. can read your caption and (hopefully) have a laugh!

Edublogs Student Challenge 3 asks you to think about your digital footprint, how you are seen by others on the internet, and how much information about you is available to others. The video below is borrowed from the Student Challenge and gives a good explanation of your ‘digital dossier’.

Click here to read the third Student Challenge and choose some of the activities to do. Everyone needs to do Activity 5 about Digital Citizenship, which includes writing a post telling others about it.

Remember to always use links in your posts.

 A t the end of the Digital Citizenship game you get to create a Digizen widget. This is the one I made