March Magazine Madness

Posted on March 13, 2015 by sshslibrary

Magazines and Newspapers

Magazines and newspapers contain good quick, current grabs of information and statistics. Our library holds a little collection of cultural magazines including: Time, Cosmos, New Scientist, Empire, Health & Fitness, Vogue, New Internationalist, House & Garden. You can also browse daily print editions of The Cairns Post, The Courier-Mail and The Australian. Our March Madness promotion puts everyone who borrows a magazine this month into a prize draw. Newspapers and magazines can also be read online, if you can’t work out from our information portal, how to access Time, New Scientist and Cosmos online, please ask the library staff. We can also help you read any newspaper in the world for free, using your public library card – see Mrs Robins if you have trouble figuring that out.

The rest of this blog, we’ll devote to statistics and snippets of information about the differences between online and printed mediums. The Washington Post recently ran a story about how digital natives still prefer to read in print. Co-founder of the internet Vint Cerf, is worried that, a lot of what we have saved only in a digital format has already been lost. He urges everyone to keep a print copy (e.g. photos) because the operating systems of the future will not necessarily enable us to access our old files. Lastly, a new study has found that recall is better from a book than from a Kindle. This is my favourite- a recent article in the Brisbane Times arguing that reading can make you more successful on many levels.

Top 25 sites in Australia (March 2015)

1.Google.com.au 2. Google.com 3. Facebook 4. YouTube 5. Yahoo 6. eBay 7. Wikipedia 8. Linkedin 9. Twitter 10. Live.com 11. Amazon 12. news.com.au 13. Paypal 14. Bing 15. Gumtree 16. Commbank 17. smh.com.au 18. abc.net.au 19. realestate.com.au 20. Reddit 21. Pinterest 22. Instagram 23. bom.gov.au 24. imdb.com 25. Westpac.

Yet, our SSHS portal has heaps more functionality than all these sites – a Google search is included by default in every search, in addition to simultaneous searching of many functional educational databases.

Devices?

According Australian Multi-Screen Report (Nielsen Report Dec 2014) TV is still the centrepiece of viewing; Australians watch nearly 97 hrs per month of TV; internet is in 80% of homes; smartphones are the most common internet-connected devices in homes (91%) – tablets (60%); 74% of people aged 16+ own a smartphone; 45% of homes own tablets; 13.377 million watch some video on the internet each month (7h30m per month).

Australian e-Generation Report (Nielsen Report Feb 2015)

2-15 yr olds spend an average of 11h12m online each week; 13-15 yr olds = 18.7 hrs/wk. Children go online at an increasingly younger age due to tablets, apps and smartphones; younger children use tablets; teens have all devices; 9 in 10 homes own laptops; 6 in 10 have wifi; 7 in 10 own tablets.

Passwords – choose something unique for your own good.

Web security firm SplashData analyses several million leaked passwords each year. Most popular in 2014 and 2013 was ‘123456’ (in 2012, ‘password’ won). Other favourites; ‘qwerty’; ‘trustno1’; ‘letmein’; ‘abc123’. If ‘123456’ is too short, just add ’78’. Eventually we’ll see the end of passwords. The Fujitsu Purse Wallet identifies the vein patterns on your hand and the Bionym Nymi wristband uses your heartbeat as a password.

Tap into JCU for Research Skills

Posted on September 15, 2014 by sshslibrary

Students on Study period, can sometimes have no new work to do, or assignments to complete. To make good use of this time, refine your personal tool kit of skills.

Practice your Pre-Reading Skills, Effective Reading or Information skills. Find new tools to use. JCU have a variety of Learning Skills booklets to help you to develop your ability to locate information, scan and skim large quantities of information or comprehend and organize new information from a variety of sources.

Work through the plethora of tools offered by our local James Cook University. Click here.

Try this Pre-Reading Strategy for scanning Journal Articles. This allows you to assess quickly whether an article will be useful for your assignment, without having to read every word.

1. Read title, authors and affiliations.

2. Read the first paragraph or abstract in full.

3. Read the topic sentence of every paragraph in the body of the article.

4. Read the last paragraph or conclusions in full.

5. If the article suits your thesis/purpose, go back and read the article carefully.

While there are always explicit strategies and tools you can use to improve your skills and set you up for success, did you know that wide reading is still the best preparation for any unseen test AND without even trying, a love of literature will extend your neural networks in a way that watching television does not. Reading will improve your literacy levels, general knowledge, AND make you the person, your dog thinks you are.

Desirable Difficulty

Posted on May 4, 2014 by sshslibrary

First Lunch Break

We’re back to our usual expectations this term. First break rules are not up for negotiation. We expect only homework, research or reading at first break. Students playing games, hanging out or making noise will not be welcome.

Anzac Day Display

A huge thankyou to the RSL for lending us their military memorabilia displays for the week, so we could commemorate our most popular national day.

Farewell Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Read his BBC Obituary. We have some of his titles in Fiction, including the 1982 nobel prize winner’s most famous novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, acclaimed by many to be one of the greatest novels of the Twentieth Century.

Study or Explict Learning?

We’ve renamed our study tips tab in our information portal to debunk some of our long-held beliefs about studying. For eons we’ve believed that we’ll remember what we learn by re-reading, making notes, highlighting etc. More recent research suggests that we learn best by interacting with the material via “desirable difficulty”. This is best achieved in a study group, being quizzed or quizzing someone else etc. By struggling to search memories for the answer, the difficulty can create lasting learning. That’s why the difficulty is called desirable – because knowledge acquired in this manner lasts the test of time.

To summarize: Study in small chunks every week – do not cram right before a test – Test or Quiz yourself using a quiz generator – Online Quiz Creator – Register for Class Marker – Socrative

Form a Study Group to discuss the work and quiz each other verbally – Today’s Meet – Backchat on twitter or another forum tool. Discuss information during the lesson or afterwards in forums to be interacting with the information and with others. Try using technology to help you: Padlet – Today’s Meet – Chatzy – Socrative

Book Week Shortlist

The Children’s Book Week shortlist has been announced. …And the Older Reader’s Novels are:

Student Reading Survey Results – Aug 2013

Posted on September 1, 2013 by sshslibrary

Both general findings and some opinions about ebooks are snipped below from our online reading survey conducted last month across the entire student body. We will be sharing more results with you in coming weeks, however we are appreciative of all the students who took the time to respond to the survey and “have a say”. Thank you for your time.

The largest group to respond was Year 9 who have been issued with tablet PCs this term. Twice as many year 9’s and year 11’s responded as any other year level.

Many more females than males responded approx. 70% females and 30% males.

76% of students wanted more opportunity to borrow books in class time, while 24% of students preferred to borrow in their own time.

66% of students would like to try reading ebooks and 34% elected not to try them.

The most popular genres students would like us to stock are: Fantasy, Gothic Fiction, Ghost, Supernatural, Action & Adventure, Crime/Mystery, Romance and relationships, Friends family & school life.

The most popular non-fiction books students would like to read more about are: True Adventure and Survival, Biographies, Social problems and issues, Concordances of facts e.g. Guinness book of records. Topics of moderate interest also included: Cooking, Health & Fitness, Popular culture and lastly war stories and sports.

Some specific authors recommended were: John Green, Isaac Marion, James Patterson, JK Rowling, Robin Hobb, Brent Weeks, Brandon Sanderson, Kathy Reich, Jodi Picoult, Nicole Pollizi, Claudia Gray, Kendra Wilkinson, Cassandra Clare, Scott Westerfield, Suzanne Collins, Rick Riordan, Gordon Korman, Peter Lerangis, Jude Watson, Patrick Carman, Linda Sue Park, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Roland Smith, David Baldacci, Jeff Hirsch and Natalie Standiford. Jonathan Safran Foer.

To Ebook or Not to Ebook – That is the Question…

Around 50 of over 100 students who responded, added comments. In the table below, we have divided the comments about ebooks into positive and negative responses and indicated whether other students shared a similarly expressed viewpoint.

FOR	AGAINST
I love reading and would try it out and read more books that interest me X 2 respondents	I do like reading, however I get a sense of satisfaction when reading an actual book. It’s a sense of achievement as I turn a page, one step closer towards the resolution. I also tend to get distracted when on my phone and/or tablet/computer…temptation. X 4
easier to carry around, easier, you take your phone everywhere, store hundreds of books but not heavy, more convenient, esp on the bus X 15	I like turning the pages and holding them in my hand and smelling them, real books not silly-nilly technological books X 4
I enjoy reading a range of books that i find hard to find in real life. X 3	Bad for eyes
I didn’t know I could read them on there/interesting X 4	Books are better and more authentic
It would be easier than having to go to the library X 2	It would be inconvenient /just don’t want to X 2
Because its fun X4	Are you going to get rid of the books? It wouldn’t be a true library? Ebooks are confusing and not all people have a smart phone, tablet or computer. It seems too modern and lazy
I would borrow more books and I’d have to read X 2	Because I’m slack
Be good for textbooks so we don’t have to carry them round X 2	The battery will die fast – I prefer books
I do already X 3
It don’t wreck the book
Better to read and it’ll get more use
Many people my age prefer reading a screen and it is the way forward

If you would like to ask anything about the survey, please email us.

International Year of Water Cooperation 2013

Posted on February 3, 2013 by sshslibrary

Welcome back. You’ll notice some changes already but we have more surprises to come. No. 1 is our first installation. Look up and you’ll see it. Why do we have glass raindrops in the atrium ceiling? 2013 is the UN International Year of Water Cooperation. We’d like some feedback from everyone, particularly our Art students – what mark would you give us for this assignment? What would you have done differently?

You’ll notice all new sled based research chairs and gas lift computer chairs. New desks in all 3 main classroom areas are still coming, so we’re not finished yet. Checking out your books and laptops, changing passwords and seeking information or assistance will be more pleasant now we’ve a new circulation desk too. We have a huge new colour printer R45 but you’ll still be able to print black and white to R42. Just make sure the printer you choose starts with “O” for O Block, i.e. your Library.

New Books

We already have some great new titles, all of which are reviewed on our RED HOT READS page. We must give a rousing three cheers to Cassie Kosky for donating her entire collection of Lord of the Rings and Twilight coffee table books. These Movie Companions and Visual Guides to the feature films are really very valuable in their own right. We have many fans at Smithfield and I know they won’t be on the shelf for long.

Julie & Andrew Matthews from Seashell Publishers have kindly donated multiple copies of their latest book, “Stop the Bullying”. Whether you’re a student, parent or teacher, this book has some good advice for you.

Cairns Library

Of course many students are card-carrying members of the Cairns Public Library. Borrowing books, audiobooks and DVD’s for free is cheaper than buying them or renting them. But there are a few other advantages. With your library card, and a pin (just ask at the counter) you can use the internet for free for an hour at the Smithfield branch located at our back door. Edatabases like Ancestry.com can be accessed in the Smithfield Branch Library on any public internet terminal. But using your library card, you can register for a QPL Account and have access to many free Edatabases even at home. e.g. The Library Press, which is a directory of most of the world’s newspapers online. Most Learning Academy students have their QPL account – it’s easy to register. If you have trouble, just see Mrs Robins in the library to show you how.

Bad news – Good news

Posted on June 2, 2011 by sshslibrary

Exam time is nearly upon us. “I love the smell of seniors on a study period in the morning “ [pictured above] as opposed to napalm. The best part about the new Nescafe laptops is not that seniors have priority (well that too) but that they are very portable, especially since our wireless network was upgraded. If you can’t log on check that your wireless switch is on and glowing a royal blue colour. Still can’t log on? Try plugging in the blue network cable for a few minutes until you launch your desktop. Don’t forget to have it scanned back in when you are done. Still stressed? Why not check out this Study Fact Sheet at Beyond Blue Youth? Read some of the other fact sheets online. Some of these helpful fact sheets are archived in a folder in the Senior Study Room for you to take.

So what’s the bad news for those wanting the outside “A” on their next assignment? The bad news is we no longer subscribe to the online database company. The good news is that we have explored at least two ways to access good online journal databases for free! Click here to read two quick step-by-step tutorials for online database access. You’ll need to become a member of the Cairns City Library for the first one. Easy – just take a bill as proof of address, to the Smithfield branch and sign up. You’ll get heaps of extra privileges for your trouble – like access to a qualified tutor in an online chat room – yourtutor – most days after 4pm.

Rupert McCall, Australian poet, was in Cairns last week to MC a sportsperson’s luncheon for charity. What a pity we had to come to school. Don’t miss his recitation of The Firefighter’s Dream, a tribute to firemen (and women) who lost their lives on 9/11, 2001. He wrote a similar elegy for Steve Irwin.

For those who missed Mrs Anderson’s display of “100 best first lines from novels” (below) follow the link to the list of books and while you’re enjoying this Word Press blog check out the other interesting “lists” in the LH sidebar. Lastly, this one’s for true library lovers …(drum roll)… check out this beautiful wedding venue .

It’s bloomin’ Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy

Posted on March 12, 2011 by sshslibrary

This pyramid may not be blooming but it is chock-a-block full of some sweet Web 2.0 applications AND they are classified into corresponding information skills. Why not search for the ones that interest you?

Why not check out 10 x10 because global news is particularly dynamic at the moment and suited to pictorial analysis. We have been talking about Web 2.0 and how the machine is working for us without our direct input – here’s a good example. How does it work?

Every hour, 10×10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about the hour’s most important words. The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10×10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record of our world is formed, based on prominent world events, without any human input. So, you can scroll down the sides for a word that looks interesting, or wander among the thumbnail pictures; click on something you like and you are taken to a detailed version of the picture along with the stories that are relevant to that word. More…

10 X 10 appears to require our visual literacy skills but interesting that the process begins with verbal analysis/crunching. But wait, there’s more if you are looking for image associated with verbal tags… the seriously spectacular Tag Galaxy. Lastly, the Google Images filters can locate images of matching hues to the task at hand. Enjoy!

Smarter Online Research

Posted on March 8, 2011 by sshslibrary

Courier-Mail (Jan 2011)

Read the whole article about the accuracy of Wikipedia (PDF)

Collaboration is an important trend in information processing. As long as they are given credit, it seems that people today are happy to share and collaborate. The potential for knowledge acquisition from such synergy is astounding. Most of us believe that a whole lot of amateurs editing an encyclopedia wouldn’t do a good job. Many teachers and academics will discourage us from using Wikipedia. But scanning this Wikipedia article recently in the Courier-Mail, it is interesting to note that Wikipedia is “about” as accurate as the Encylopedia Britannica Online, even though it is completely free! Wikipedia is not only authored by the man on the street, but experts in their respective fields. Participants are continually editing or alerting the moderators to erroneous content. Wikipedia then, although frowned upon as a reference, is a good choice if you are seeking background information, definitions or a quick broad overview. In other words, you are negotiating the first steps of our Information Search Process framework – defining the assignment, reading widely and percolating focus questions to pursue later in more depth.

Generally speaking, human selected directories like Wikipedia contain more relevant information than search engines. Machines are learning from our searches all the time and are getting better at locating relevant information, so man’s superiority may not last long. All the same, part of our vision for our library website overhaul will be to list new directories and hotlists of information in various subject areas. To do this in a dynamic fashion, we will use Social bookmarking. By taking a little extra time to insert some metadata (tags/keywords/descriptors) when we bookmark a website, we can retrieve subsets of resources very easily. By using a social bookmarking site like Diigo, these bookmarks are located online and are portable – they travel with you no matter which computer you are using. We can also share our bookmarks with other people and create groups who share bookmarks in specific areas of interest. If you find any worthy websites, please pass these URL’s onto us to share with everyone at school and around the world!

Senior History students can be the first to try out our social bookmarking as a communityof learners. For most of us, Google is our first choice. But subject directories and alternative search engines are often better for searching the invisible or ‘deep’ web.

Try our growing list of History Bookmarks to preview some alternative search engines, databases, directories and research tools.

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