Gotta be in it to Win it

The brain that Changes Itself

I’m always surprised to win something. The Brain that Changes Itself DVD about Dr Norman Doidge’s new theory, comes to us from a recent contest that caught my eye in New Scientist magazine.  It didn’t take more than a few minutes to think up 25 words about the awesome human brain – which is still streets ahead of artificial intelligence. My point is, participation is 99% of anything. Yeah, yeah…heard it before?…Just do it… What If…  Have a Go… Nothing ventured – nothing gained… But I bet you didn’t know when students are asked to evaluate their own performance, most of us will be very modest and underrate ourselves? Over time, this means we can get used to not trying.  A good thing teachers are doing the marking and not students!  Surprisingly, our brains are wired for optimism and imagining something better. Without this ability, how would we recover from catastrophe – natural or otherwise?  Read about the Optimism Bias  in the latest issue of Time Magazine.  

You don’t have to win a competition to get something for nothing – have you found Open Culture? It’s a creative commons full of free ebooks, free movies, free courses, free language lessons and hours of education and entertainment.

Talking about competitions, our Queensland Quiz was entered by a  few students. Last week was exam block so apart from seniors cramming madly, we put up a Queensland Day June 6 display.   Students could research the answers in the library or at home.  There were three winners. Congratulations to three year 10’s –  Juliette Bayford & the partnership of Sophie Southwood and Rose Talbot. 

While most people knew the designs on a Queensland number plate, Jacob Allery-Betts in 8C was the only one to know that the Film, ” Australia” was largely filmed in Bowen. Konrad Brown knew that both Patrick Rafter & Greg Norman were raised in Mt Isa. 

Tricky Questions were:

Which town was one of the earliest bases of Qantas?    Birdsville  ~ Longreach ~  Cairns  ~  Rockhampton

Where was the state’s lowest ever temperature recorded?  Warwick ~  Stanthorpe ~  Birdsville ~  Toowoomba

Woombye is home to the…?   Big Pineapple ~  Big Catamaran  ~  Big Prawn ~  Big Beer Bottle

Hint: Make your search strings long by including all the relevant keywords. This will reduce the number of hits and focus on the information you need. Look at the results critically to refine your search further.

Queensland Day

 We were fortunate that Mrs Sheppard brought in some historical family photos and history books of the local area and Queensland in general to boost our local geography books for the display. Want to know anything about starting your own family history? She’s your woman!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *