Meet the Author: Carole Wilkinson

Tonight I went to PD at Black Dog Books in Fitzroy.  Although they probably don’t know it, BDB are my students’ favourite book publishers, producing the Little Lunch series, the Diva series,  The Aussie A-Z (which I like to send overseas when we do the IASL Bookmark project in term 3), Maxx Rumble, the Antarctica books by Dr Mark Norman, the Legends series, and of course, the brilliant Dragonkeeper Trilogy by Carole Wilkinson.  Kate Story talked about livening up the literature program, but the highlight of the night was Carole’s slideshow showcasing her research about dragons large and small,  ancient and modern,  good ones and bad.  Perhaps Carole’s interest in dragons is bordering on an obsession, but she seems refreshingly normal in spite of it and I love hearing her talk about them.  I think she’s the best children’s writer working in Australia today.

Australians find a mother of a fossil

Exciting news today: Aussie scientists have found a fossil of a mother and her baby, and there’s a video on  ABC Science news.  Later on this year I will be teaching my Life on Earth unit, so this will be a useful resource.   

Progress at last

Our Net Nanny problems appear to be resolved to some extent, though for some of the time at school my Library Thing book covers vanished.  We had a good session at school today and we’re all making good progress. 

I like the way the course has been structured to allow us to progress at our own rate.  That suits my style of learning, and it also makes it easier to help others because we all get interested in different things and so there’s always someone who can help.

Net Nannies

Oh, it’s been a frustrating week online at school! My colleagues and I started work on our Web 2.0 learning journey the week before last, set up our beaut new (and absolutely harmless) blogs and promptly had them all blocked by Netscape Nanny (or whatever it’s called).

For some bizarre reason, I can view this blog at school, but not the one at global teacher.  I dare not even post its URL on this blog in case this gets blocked too.   I can see so much potential for school blogs, but all the enthusiasm of our team is at risk.  It’s exasperating.