Term 4 / Week 5 - 6: Write a report

Some important Language features

Using Past continuous to describe what was happening

Have a look at the video below. Can you describe what was happening as the young woman walked past?


 

Noun groups


Here is a presentation (slideshow) reviewing the parts of a noun group.

 

Noun Groups from James Buchanan

Reporting verbs

Try to use the following verbs instead of 'say' (but choose the correct one for each occasion):

• advise
• state
• claim
• suggest
• maintain
• insist

Term 4 / Week 2 - 4: Blogging your Learning Projects

Some students have typed up their Learning Projects on Active Citizens in Kidblog and they are looking great. In the screenshot below you can see who has finished (or almost finished) blogging their reports.

Screenshot taken on 31 October of our Blog posts in Kidblog

 To view the blog posts, click the Page link on the right sidebar to go to Kidblog and then log in.

Can you see how many Comments there are on each post? if there's only one Comment, then it is likely to be Jill's!

Reading other people's posts

When you read a blog post, it's polite to reply - try to write something acknowledging that person's work. You can thank them or, even better, ask a question or make a comment.

Looking for replies to your posts

Check for any replies - if someone asked a question, try to answer it. For example, I asked Jason a question about his post on the Moon Cake Festival, so I'm still hoping that you can answer that, Jason....

ABC News in 90 seconds - Extend yourself

The other day I had trouble searching for this program. I think I searched for 30 October instead of 29 October - I got a bit ahead of myself.

So here is the link to the video and here is the worksheet with the questions.

Locating the ABC News in 90 Seconds for a particular day: I searched for 'abcnews in 90 seconds 29 october' and found it without any problems!!!!!!!

 

Did you miss ..... in Weeks 1 to 4?

• Here is a very important worksheet practising Passive Voice (complete the sentences before checking the answers!) - put the Active sentence into passive by removing the Subject and making the Object the New Subject- in simple present, simple past and present perfect tenses.
• In Week 2, we also practised writing passive sentences with an Agent, using 'with' or 'by' in this worksheet and here are the answers.
• And in Week 3, we practised using the Past Perfect tense (the past before the past) with past tense in this worksheet (complete the sentences before checking the answers!).

Term 4 / Week 1: Breaking news. Making news. Locating news.

Note: this week Jill is still working with ONE arm - so we will keep this post brief.

Here is the News

 

Police and protestors clash at East West Link drill site in Carlton

Listen to this radio report by reporter Gus Goswell, from outside CNLC. We will reconstruct sentences from a shorter report which we read in the Wednesday class.

Wednesday people will share their learnings and take a leadership role in building sentences. See the Worksheet: Writing workshop - Report: 'Protestors clash with police at East West Link drilling site'.

• Do you want to read the news report?? Just Google the title (headline):  Protestors clash with police at East West Link drilling site and you will locate the full written report.

Term 3 / Week 7: Learning Project: Active citizenship

We chose the theme of 'active citizenship' for this term at CNLC largely because there is a Federal election in September and some students will be actively exercising their right (and responsibility) to vote for politicians and political parties to represent us in the two Houses of Parliament: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Being a citizen is not just about getting Citizenship

Let's review some of the examples of active citizenship that we discussed a few weeks ago. As you can see in the photo below, we came up with a wide range of ways we can be active citizens in our community. And there was one more point which we added after this photo was taken - we called it 'doing an act of honesty' or doing the 'right thing' (like, returning a wallet found on the street to its rightful owner - with all the money still in it!)

Some of the ways we can be active citizens - 7 August, 2013

So if you're going to vote in the Federal election, you should take this responsibility seriously. (Heaven knows, there are many people who don't!)

It's a good idea to make sure that:

1. you know who you want to vote for; and
2. you vote correctly (formally) so that you're vote counts.

Our Learning Project - write a report about an active citizen

This is an opportunity to find out information about a well-known person who has contributed something special to public life in Australia. Hopefully, you will find more than one source of information and locate a photo of the person to include in your report.

An important part of this project is sharing your work with other students in class. You can use a few Powerpoint slides to help you tell their story.

A great place to start is the Gallery of Australian Biographies. Here you can find information about people such as:

• Waleed Aly
• Trish Broadbridge
• Tan Le (a TV program has been made about her)
• Michael Long
• Jimmy Pham
• Mandaway Yunupingu
• Fred Hollows

You may complete your plan on the worksheet provided and write your full report in your Journal or as a blog post in kidblog.

Results of our Two Party Preferred Count

You can view our short report and a few photos from last week at Sue Phan's blog post (you'll need to log in to view it) and watch the video explaining how the votes are counted here.

Did you miss.... in Week 7?

• This week we listened to a news report Garden in the Clouds from BBC Learning English Words in the News
• Here is the worksheet: Reported Speech Explanations and Practice for you to print and complete. When you are finished you can check your answers - on pages 3 and 4. 

Writing for Web 2 with Kidblog

This week we will continue to explore the kidblog we are using for students' writing and internet learning.

If you attended computer class last week, you'll remember that we just got started with Adding a New post. No-one finished the post - this is what the work looks like for the teacher.

After you log in, don't forget to TAB to your Blog to see your unfinished Draft. In Edit view, can you also see how many words you have written? This is the Word Count.

When you have finished your Draft, select Submit for Review. Teacher will then check it and Publish.

While you are waiting for that to happen, you could Tab to All Blogs and read the ones that are published. Please Comment on one of the blog posts there.

Again, your Comment will go to the teacher for Moderation before Publishing. Yes! Teacher has the responsibility to ensure that all posts AND comments are good enough for all the other students to read.

Happy blogging!

Have you got an iphone or iPad?

You can download the Kidblog app at the iTunes App store on your mobile iphone or iPad. You will find this very easy to use to access and use the Students' kidblog.

Blogging with Kidblog: Add new post

It's time to start using Kidblog to share your writing with others in the class. Over the next few weeks we will explore the features of Kidblog, such as:

• drafting a new post
• submitting it to the teacher for review
• publishing your post for others to read
• reading other people's posts
• commenting (giving feedback) on other people's posts
• replying to comments made by others on your posts
• adding photos and weblinks to your posts
• and more...! 

Play the Presentation below if you are just starting out or if you have forgotten how to log in and add a new post.

Research, draft and format a Powerpoint slide with photo and caption

This is our second learning activity with Powerpoint. I really enjoyed our Graffiti presentation - so here is the Kakadu presentation.

Anyone who hasn't finished yet is welcome to finish and I can add your slide too, anytime.

What skills did we use?

I would like you to think about your learning in terms of technology (T) and research/ language (R / L) skills. Which of these 9 tasks are T, R or L???

1. After going to the internet, we explored and then selected an image from a Google Album.
2. Then we downloaded the image to our folders using Windows Explorer.
3. In Powerpoint, we inserted a New Slide (one with Title, Caption and Photo).
4. We inserted the photo and typed the title.
5. We 'googled' the animal, plant or bird using the Google Search tool
6. We located a useful website that had some information about the subject. I asked for some information about where it is found (location and habitat), some of its habits, eg what it likes to eat and if it is common or rare.
7. We read the information and wrote notes (some of us just pasted sentences directly into the slide, didn't we?) 
8. We typed the text and checked the spelling, grammar and punctuation.
9. Finally we changed the size of the text so that the text and photo filled the slide (formatted the text) and saved the presentation to our folder and to Jill's folder.

What was the source of the information you used?

We forgot to write the name and location of the source information on each slide. You can easily do this by copying the web address of the website and pasting it in to the slide. We will definitely do this next time: it's polite and important when doing research about a topic.

Well done, everyone. Once again, I really enjoyed viewing all your work together.

Term 3 / Week 5 - 6: Write a short report

It's time to practice writing a short report of an event that occurred recently or something that you viewed on TV. You can view it several times to collect the details that are important to the report.
Use this template for writing a News Report to write notes about:

• the background to the event
• when and where the event took place
• who was involved
• what the result was

Then organise your ideas by writing the information in sentences in the three paragraphs below.

Here is a short video news report which we can write up as a report. And here is a humpback whale.

Humpback whale from wikipedia

You might also need to use the following words: 'yacht' and 'Moreton Bay'.

Here is a possible News report (answer sheet) about the experience with the Humpback whale.

Dictation: New citizens will vote for the first time

This dictation is a little different to others we have done this year. Listen to the sentences and try to write as much as you remember. But this time, you don't have to write exactly what you hear as long as the meaning is similar. The main thing is that your sentences are grammatically correct and they make sense - the reader can understand the meaning.

Did you miss.... in Week 5 and 6? 

• Here is the News item we read last Friday: Small town a new horizon for 19 citizens. The last two pages have some possible answers - you can write different sentences - just check spelling, grammar and punctuation are correct. Thanks to Jane Lucas for adapting the text and developing the reading tasks.
• Practice writing notes for work - the first page of this worksheet has space for you to summarise the notes using dot points - the second page has the ANSWERS. Thanks to Sophie for her answers.
• The second news report is: Man impaled through head on Sydney construction site from Yahoo CH 7 news service. You can use the above Write a News Report template to help you plan, organise and write your report.
• Here is the worksheet: Reported statements with a change of tense for you to print and complete. When you are finished you can check your answers - on pages 3 and 4.

Election '13 - Counting your vote video and quiz

This is what kids do in school! This video introduces the different voting systems, including preferential voting. Listen and test yourself with the quiz afterwards.

Term 3 / Week 4 - Read the News: decode the headlines

Here is a presentation with a slide for each headline to decode (make sense of it) and to correct the English language. This will help you to quickly decide what the story is about.

Follow the instructions for each slide. You can click on the links to the source (the story as published on the internet) and to some word definitions using the Cambridge online dictionary.

Your challenge

Find a headline and decode it. Explain it to the class. We will add these to the presentation throughout the semester.

Did you miss....?  Work in Week 4

• Reported Speech: Here is the link to Reported Speech with a change of tense - from Walker, Unit, 78 
• Reported Speech: read the news story - New Australian citizens prepare to vote for the first time and answer the 4 questions on the last page using your own words to make sentences with indirect speech. 
• Practice writing notes for work - the first page of this worksheet has space for you to summarise the notes using dot points - the second page has the ANSWERS.

Term 3 / Week 3: Good evening, here is the news....

This term we will develop our reading skills with the News - we'll also listen to the News and write about the News. The language of the News is often very difficult: the writers pack a lot of words into each sentence using big noun groups and the readers often speak very quickly!

News on the internet

It's good to listen the news on the internet because you can pause any time to think about what you heard and you can play it again.

On some news websites you can read the captions at the same time as listen to the words - this is a brilliant way to improve your language skills.

Real news: useful websites

• News in 90 Seconds - you can read the transcript as you listen to this version of ABC News 24.
• If you have a Yahoo email account, the Yahoo 7 News is right there whenever you sign out. Click on a news item and you'll usually also see a video of News highlights at the end of the text.

•  If you have a Gmail account, you have probably noticed Google News - this is very easy to find, just 'Google' it.

What other news sites do you like? Let us know so we can add them here.

Language websites with 'news'

• VILC - new News is put here every two weeks - listen then click on the book icon to read the text too. Test yourself with the exercises. Challenge yourself with the Intermediate Level news. Listen to the old news too. Remember our username is 500vilcst and our Password in 2013 is in on the noticeboard in the CNLC Computer room (it's only for students and teachers of CNLC but you can sign in at home too).
•  VOA (Voice of America) Learning English has real news stories spoken slower than usual and you can read the captions at the same time. Scroll down the page to find news items.
• ELLLO English learning website also has news items but these are not real. 
• Simple English news has short stories which you can listen to and read at the same time. Choose a category of news on the right and select an item. Careful - don't click any advertisements! Can you see all the advertisements circled in the screenshot below: 

 

• BBC English has Words in the News - this features a news story each day with help with vocabulary and exercises you can do by yourself. It's great - try the story 'Sharkproof Divers' from Australia.

What other language websites feature 'news'? Let us know so we can add them here.

 

And just for fun: what is a blooper?

Have a look at this video: Best News Bloopers March 2013 and work out what a blooper is (Skip the Ad as soon as you can).

Independent learning

Choose a news item on your favourite website and write about it in your Independent learning journal: explain the who? what? when? where? and then describe what you learnt.

 

Did you miss....?  Work in Week 3

• Reported Speech: here is the link to the Worksheet: She said that / He told me that - from Murphy, Unit 49 
• Sing along to the song Waltzing Matilda (Queensland version).

Touring the Top End

Our camping and touring the Top End of the Northern Territory is nearly finished. We have stayed in several national parks for two or three nights at a time so that we don't have to set up camp too frequently. Putting up the tent and then finally packing everything back in the car are the two time consuming tasks.

Setting up is a lot quicker if you don't need the fly on the tent

At Katherine Gorge and Edith Falls (both in Nitmiluk National Park) we spent time walking to spots on the river to have a swim. The weather is so warm that you don't need a towel when you get out of the water. In fact, it's best to stay wet for the walk back to camp to keep cool in the hot sun.

Sweet water Pool above Edith falls

In Kakadu National Park we did the same at a place called Gunlom where we could climb to the top of the waterfall and swim in numerous pools at the top as well as the pool at the bottom.

But in the north of Kakadu, you are not allowed to swim in the rivers at all - it's crocodile country. So we took a cruise in a flat bottom boat to view the crocs and spot other wildlife, mainly birds that you don't see in the south of Australia.

We also paid for a day tour in Arnhem land - this is Aboriginal country and you have to apply for a permit to go there and usually pay for a guide there to show you around. Iseriah was our guide and he showed us around a hill where there are secret rock art sites and even a burial site (we saw human remains which are kept secret so that people don't steal them).

Iseriah explains the body painting for dancing

Have you googled any of the new words that I used in the previous post? I hope you can tell me some information about places or animals I mentioned when I return!

Finally, what does this sign mean? Can you correct the English?

Eight days' driving to Mataranka in the Northern Territory

Well, it's not always that long, but we decided to take the route through western New South Wales and Queensland.

Day 2 - at Griffith, we bought oranges and broccoli from a Sicilian roadside merchant who arrived in Moonee Ponds in 1964. Along the roadside, we started noticing lots of white litter which turned out to be balls of cotton- for 100 kms perhaps.

We spotted emus frequently but whenever we pulled over to take a photo, they would move off quite quickly.

Day 3: Cobar to Charleville (619kms) Goats and more goats

Back o' Bourke - there are dead roos (red and greys) at least every half a kilometre. In town, whistling kites circling overhead. Street trees: ficus and boabs along with other eucalypts.

At the Port of Bourke the river banks are high and steep - with levy banks beyond them - an indication of regular if infrequent huge floods though houses have been built right near the banks.

In Charleville the sulphur smell is obvious when you turn a tap on - the sign on the bench in the motel room assured us that the water is fine to drink.

Day 4: Charleville to Longreach (515 kms) No place for Old roos

The road trains are 50 metres long with as many as 3 trailers. I noticed several stock transports actually carrying goats! Maybe all those goats we saw on the road here were not feral! 

The rest of the vehicles are caravans and camper vans pulled by Grey Nomads touring the country. 

We didn't see inside the Workers' Heritage centre at Barcaldine but the timber sculpture over the Tree of Knowledge was impressive and the heritage streetscape of old hotels was well preserved.

Day 5: Longreach to Cloncurry (545kms)- Brolgas in the desert

Every town around here (Longreach, Charleville and Winton) claims the birth of Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Airways). But Winton owns the famous song, Waltzing Matilda. Here is a great 'Queensland' version of Waltzing Matilda on Youtube. And here are the words to the song (the lyrics).

The landscape is empty of stock and even the roo carcasses are fewer here too.

Whilst we ate a sandwich prepared on the tailgate at a roadside servo called Kynuna we were entertained by Apostlebirds scrounging Crumbs. I tried to ignore the cattle in the road train shuffling around impatiently and occasionally moo-ing sadly. Then as we accelerated out on to the highway we watched a pair of brolgas wandering along in the gravel. Where's the water? 

Day 6: Cloncurry to Camooweal

This country is starting to look hot, even when it's not- red anthills, ghost gums, broad sandy riverbeds and whistling kites overhead.

Day 7  - From rural outback Queensland to the Northern Territory via the Barkly Tablelands and the Stuart highways.

There was a whole lot of nothing between Camooweal, Barkly homestead and the Stuart highway.

The days are getting longer- this is what we observed at 6 pm whilst preparing dinner outside our rustic motel room at Renner. However, the mozzies drove us inside at dusk.

Days 8 and 9 - Mataranka Hot Springs - delightfully warm, mild weather - Time to stretch and relax!

The whole springs area has been cleverly arranged (back in 1999) so that everyone steps into the clear blue water of the Little Roper River at one point and floats down on the current to another entry about 70 metres downstream and then you all walk back to the start and go in again, as often as you like. This was so pleasant and relaxing that we decided to spend the next day doing the same, to stretch our sore back muscles from the constant and long days spent driving.

Term 2 / Week 11: A Mad Scheme! Paul Mees has the Last Word

Transport expert and educator, Paul Mees, sadly passed away less than a week after he made this video message to be played at the Trains not Toll Roads Campaign Launch on 13th June, 2013.

He was always a good speaker: easy to understand and direct - a straight talker. So have a listen - what are his reasons for describing the East West Tunnel as a Mad Scheme?




Some of the words he uses:

- the most expensive
- far more expensive than ....
- value for money
- benefit to cost ratio is.... for every $1 you get 50 cents back
- simply a waste of money
- alternatives: much higher returns on investment
- upgrading existing services so more people can choose rail to get to work
- Los Angeles chose an alternative path
- no money left for substantial projects for at least a generation
- transport policy has to move from roads to rail

Late breaking news: Julia Gillard's last speech as Prime Minister

On the second last sitting day of the Australian Parliament, the Labor Party voted in Kevin Rudd as Leader again. Julia Gillard was deposed from the position - she was ousted from the job.

You can read along with the transcript as she makes her resignation speech. Here is the video and transcript.

Our walk in the Park - tracing the path of the Tunnel

Any impacts within Royal Park will be mostly short-term during construction.... the park will be restored and even improved once the project is completed. ....We are working with the community during planning to understand and minimise impacts in this area.

 from the Linking Melbourne Authority Fact sheet: Royal Park

Today we drove to the western end of Royal Park to visit the site where the East West Link road will come out of the Tunnel and cross Royal Park.

The sun came out and the only trouble we had was finding a park because all the construction workers had parked in the car park. A big thanks to all the drivers including Hang, Huong, Jason and Martin (Anna's father-in-law). None of us got lost, thank goodness.

We did a short walk into the Trin Warren Tam-boore wetlands (no, I don't expect you to remember that name!). There we saw a number of coots - two were even fighting!

Australian coot

We then went over to the Ross Straw sportsfield and looked across to the train line. Somewhere along the train line, the road is expected to come out of the Tunnel and trace a path over the sports ground and wetlands to Citylink. A dozen galahs were feeding in the grass.



After that, we crossed the road to have a look at the billabong wetlands which hold the stormwater (for watering the park in Summer). While we ate a snack, we watched a large swamphen and a black duck at the water's edge.



On the way back to CNLC, we turned off Elliott Avenue and drove up to the top of the highest point in Royal Park at the Netball Centre, just to have a look at the view over the zoo.

--> Weren't we lucky with the beautiful weather? Note: you can find our photos at ESLThree Kidblog.

A walk in the Park - video of Royal Park near City link

Here are some photos that I took the other day when I visited the western end of Royal Park where the East West Tunnel will connect to CityLink.

Term 2 / Week 10: Discussion - Tunnel or Train - putting it all together

As promised last Friday, here is a Dictation to help prepare your ideas for your Discussion text.



Note: - effect (n): The effects of climate change will be felt everywhere.
          - affect (v): Climate change affects the plants and animals living everywhere on planet Earth.

Listen to the text three times. Pause the recording to think and write. Check your writing and listen for full stops and paragraph breaks. When you can't improve your writing any more, you can check your work by looking at the Transcript here.

New resources

• Trains not Toll Roads Campaign - City of Yarra hub for the campaign
• Trains not Toll roads: Council opposes government - gives a good summary of both sides of the argument

Time to Review our Progress with Learning

Last week we started the process of reviewing our Learning over Terms 1 and 2. We are using the Worksheet: Midyear Learning Review and Self-assessment 2013.

We had a good discussion about the types of activities that you find useful to your language learning - both in class and independently outside class.

Video: Best TV shows for English language learners

Here is the video that I mentioned about useful TV shows for language. Many TV shows are difficult to understand but with sit coms (situation comedies) you can often follow what is happening by seeing the action as well as listening to the people. What's your favourite sit com? (Personally I don't have a favourite!)

Other English Language Learning websites

We also talked about a number of useful language learning websites such as VOA and VILC. If you have forgotten what is available and where to find them, go to our CNLCTalks wiki Learning on the Web Page to view the list and click any of the links to try them out.

Which one is your favourite? Why?

Here are the two websites that students talked about on Friday. What do you think about these websites?

• VOA has real news stories spoken slower than usual and you can read the captions at the same time.
• VILC requires you to sign in with our User name: 500vilcst and this year's Password which is on the whiteboard in the Computer room at CNLC.

Community news: Omar wins National Order of Australia award

Are you looking for an interesting community story to read and write about in your Independent Learning Journal? Read the story here.

It's very exciting to actually know someone who has received this National Order of Australia for his work in the community. Omar is employed through CNLC to help Horn of Africa men get employment. But funding for the program that pays for his employment is threatened. Let's hope we are successful in getting the program funded beyond June 2013.

Personal qualities of successful learners

Are you feeling a little tired out by the challenges in Level 3 English?

Video: have you got what Gus has got?

Here are a few videos to help you understand what you need to KEEP GOING.

When you click the link you can view some more videos (and don't miss the Baby Elephant video) that describe the personal qualities of:

• perseverance
• persistence
• risk-taking
• resilience

Which of those personal qualities do you need more of?

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for finding the videos and blogging about them.

Term 2 / Week 8 - 9: East West Tunnel - Arguments FOR the Tunnel

You will need to research both sides of the issue.

Here are some useful resources for understanding the arguments FOR the Tunnel.

Video: East West Link Project Overview animation

More videos are available at the Youtube channel linkingmelb.

The Benefits of the East West Tunnel Link

From the Linking Melbourne Authority website, the eastern section of the East West Link would:

• Complete the missing link between the Eastern and Tullamarine Freeways to relieve pressure on the Monash-West Gate corridor and transform travel around Melbourne

• Improve freight efficiency and connections for major industries in Melbourne’s north, east and south east to the Port of Melbourne and international airports

• Cater for the large volume of traffic already using disconnected roads along the east west corridor north of the CBD between the Eastern and Tullamarine Freeways

• Ease the major congestion bottlenecks on the Eastern Freeway at Hoddle Street

• Help to improve community amenity and on-road public transport (buses and trams) by taking cars and trucks off congested inner-city surface roads. North south tram and bus services currently compete for road space with east west traffic on Alexandra Parade. This severely limits the frequency and reliability of tram and bus services and on-road cycling due to the time given to east west traffic flows.

 What do you think about these arguments FOR the Tunnel?

Term 2 / week 7 - 8: East West Tunnel - Arguments Against

• What do you know about the recent State government decision to build an East West Road Tunnel Link?  
• What is your opinion?

Yarra Campaign: Trains not Tolls

City of Yarra is supporting the community campaign against building the East West Tunnel Toll road.

Researching the Arguments AGAINST the Tunnel

• Read the text: 10 Reasons not to have the Tunnel and the information from the above leaflet at the Yarra Council website to understand the main arguments AGAINST the Tunnel
• View the videos below to help you research the Arguments AGAINST the tunnel.
• Use the Handout: Prepare to write a Discussion about the proposed East West Tunnel to summarise your arguments.

Video from our protest 12 June 2012

Guest speaker, Adam Bandt, is the Federal Member for Melbourne in the Australian Parliament. Listen to his speech. What is Adam Bandt's view of the East West Tunnel?


Community protest at East West Link geotesting site, June 2012 from Carlton NLC on Vimeo.

Speech in Parliament about the East West Tunnel

In May this year, Adam Bandt gave his opinion about the East West Tunnel proposal to the Federal Parliament. He says:

'Building more roads to relieve traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity.'

Practice with Prepositions Part 2

Here's a review of prepositions which follow adjectives: as with the first Prepositions Review slideshow, you can test yourself by reading the sentences out loud and choosing a preposition to fill the gap.

Then press Enter to move to the next slide to check your work. Read the sentence again with the correct preposition.

 

Practice with prepositions part 2 from Jill Koppel

Make a Powerpoint presentation 2: more practice with photos and formatting text

Have you seen our first Slideshow which includes all the students' work from Week 5? You all did a great job and your work all looks good together.

This week we are going to put more images into Powerpoint slides and practice changing the format and layout of all three parts of your slide: Title, Caption and Image. Have a look at the Slide I prepared for you as a sample.

Jill's sample: image on the LEFT this time.

For this practice, I would like you to use images that are high resolution: either downloaded from your phone or camera (or from USB stick) or the ones in our shared folder.

Skills

• Find and open the Presentation you started last week.
• Change Layout of your New Slide to get ready to insert your image on the LEFT side.
• Insert and resize your image.
• Draft and type your Caption text - answering the three questions (you can see above). Get some teacher feedback on your writing.
• Change the Format of your Caption and your Title to fill the space nicely.
• Save your Presentation over the original one you did last week.

New skill: compress your photo/ slide show (to email to someone)

 

Photos that you downloaded from the internet will be quite small: 50-100 Kbs (kilobytes). However, photos from your camera or mobile phone will be much bigger: 1-3Mbs (megabytes) - that's about 1000 to 3000 Kbs. And your family and friends won't like you emailing them something as big as that.

If you want to email (or publish to the internet) your photo image or your Powerpoint presentation, you will need to compress the images (make them smaller). We can do this now (before you insert your image into a slide) OR after you have made your Slideshow presentation.

Here is a useful video that shows you how to Compress Pictures in your Powerpoint presentation.

Term 2 / week 6 - Dictation and some Practice with Prepositions

Write a Discussion on the topic of Graffiti

You can choose one of the following topics:

1. Graffiti should be legalised.
2. Graffitists should be put in jail.
3. Local councils are losing the battle to prevent graffiti.

Your introduction must include your opinion and some supporting sentences, based on experience or facts. This should be interesting enough to invite the reader to read more!

Use the Discussion Plan to start writing more arguments to support your view. Don't forget to discuss the Arguments AGAINST your view and what you think of them.

State law regarding Graffiti

The Victorian Graffiti Prevention Act 2007 recognises graffiti as a crime and acknowledges its potential severity through tough penalties. The offence of marking graffiti attracts maximum fines of more than $29,000 and up to two years imprisonment.

Under this Act, it is illegal in Victoria to:

• mark publicly visible graffiti on property without the owner’s consent
• sell spray paint to someone under the age of 18 unless they have proven it is needed for employment purposes
• possess a graffiti implement with the intention of marking unlawful graffiti
• possess, without lawful excuse, a spray paint can while on or adjacent to public transport property, or when trespassing
• advertise spray paint cans for sale, if the advertisement is likely and intended to incite or promote unlawful graffiti.

The Act outlines what councils can do to remove graffiti from private property and what police can do to investigate alleged graffiti offences.

 

Strategies to prevent graffiti

Which graffiti prevention strategy has been used in the construction of this tram stop shelter on the corner of Johnston Street and Nicholson Street?

Dictation: Graffiti or Street Art?

Here's a dictation to review our vocabulary and prepare to write a Discussion about Graffiti.


Listen to the text three times and check your writing. When you can't improve your writing any more, you can check your work by looking at the Transcript here.

Practice with Prepositions

Here's a review of work we did last term: maybe you have removed these Grammar worksheets from your folder to make space for new work. So, here is a slideshow for you to revise which preposition to use with particular verbs or adjectives.

You will need to click the Next button to check your answer and then go to the Next Slide.

Practice with prepositions from Jill Koppel

Make a Powerpoint presentation: is graffiti art or vandalism?

While we are looking at different examples of Graffiti, it is a good opportunity to search for some photos of graffiti on the internet, save them to your Photos sub-folder and make a presentation to share with the class.

If you have taken some photos on the streets in your neighbourhood, you can also use them. You'll have to save them to your Photos sub-folder in your Folder on the Students' Drive first.

Slideshow: Examples of Graffiti in Melbourne 

I put all your slides into one presentation for people to browse. Now that you can change the size of text boxes and text, you can change the layout of each slide. Have you taken any photos yet? These photos will be a higher resolution than the ones you found on the internet. And they will look richer when you put them into your slide show. - JK: 17 May, 2013

Computer group 3 graffiti presies final compressed from Jill Koppel

Skills

• Pin the Powerpoint program (app) to your Taskbar: this is a good idea because it's a lot quicker than finding it in the Start Menu each time you want to open it.
• Open a New Presentation and type the Name of your Presentation: Is Graffiti street art or vandalism? OR Some examples of Graffiti
• Insert New Slide - and choose the Layout: Content and Captions - see the examples below.

• You can type your title and text, and insert your photo.
• You might need to change the size of the Title and Text boxes, and even the photo too.
• Have I forgotten any skills???

Term 2 / weeks 4 - 5: Graffiti - is it art or vandalism?

Have a look at the following slide show. For each photo, think about the following questions:

• What can you see? Describe the image.
• What is the context (location)?
• Does the art/ graffiti have any useful role or public benefit?

Write a Discussion text to persuade the readers to agree with your point of view.

 

Preparing to write a Discussion

Collect some photos of graffiti that you love (or hate) and share them with others in the class. 

Ask your friends and family for their views on graffiti.

Find out the local Council's policy on graffiti - the Department of Housing's policy on graffiti.
Do these organisations (or other organisations) have any effective strategies to prevent graffiti or remove graffiti?

 

Useful links

• Victorian government: Action on Graffiti policy
• Street art utopia- a blog with examples of interesting street art
• Do a Google Search: 'street art in Melbourne' images: do you recognise any of the images?
• 'Graffiti tags shadow the art above' - article from the Australian, 4 October 2012 
• Tips from City of Yarra on preventing graffiti and graffiti removal
• Locations of Public art projects in City of Yarra where graffiti artists have produced legal street art.
• City of Melbourne program for young people: Do Art not Tags

More images of Street art in Melbourne

Get photos from the internet and create a table in Word

Find three things: healthy food or fast food?

While we're on the topic of healthy foods, here's an activity to practise the following skills:

• search for images (using Google search engine) and save them to your folder (using Save Image as);
• insert images into a doc and resize; 
• insert Symbols, like a tick and a cross;
• create a Table and navigate and edit it.

Click this link to read and follow the instructions in the document.

Can you create a document with a Table that looks similar to this?

Make a Table with different foods

Term 2 / week 3: Fat, fatter, obese

This week we are spending more time reading and writing persuasive texts. Let's review some language that we read in the text Australia needs a Michelle Obama.

Dictation: The two Michelles

Listen and pause the dictation where you need to. Don't forget your punctuation. When you're finished, you can check your work by clicking the link to the transcript of the text here.

Some Links to Michelle Bridges web pages

• Listen to Michelle's Tips here.

• Go to Michelle's BMI Calculator here to work out if you are overweight or obese. You'll need to know your height and your weight. 

• Lastly, grab some healthy recipes here.  

News Headlines at VILC: listen, order and type the list

Here is a great activity to access VILC for online learning and type a Word list using bullet points.

A. Do the VILC Task

Open VILC using our Username (500vilcst) and our latest Password (this changes every year and it is secure - see the whiteboard in the Computer room and write in your notebook).

Listen to the latest News Headlines for Elementary level and drag the items into the correct order (without checking your answers). When you have finished, show your answers to the teacher and then check your answers.

Then click the Book icon to view the transcript of the Headlines.

B. Type the News Headlines text 

Open Word and start a new document called VILC Easy News Headlines for .....[date]....

Type the text for the Easynews Headlines. To see the text, switch between your Internet browser and your Word document using the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

C. Format your Word document

1. Format the heading using Heading 1 Style.
2. Make all the body text Verdana font, size 12.
3. Change the body text to purple.
4. Change all the text spacing to 1.15 Spacing.
5. Select the dot points and format them using bullet points.
6. Type your name and the date at the bottom of the text.
7. Save your doc to your folder, with your name in the Title and Save As into the Teacher's Folder too.
8. Find a photo for one of the stories using 'Google Search' and then 'Images', and insert the photo in the document under the text.
9. Type 4 new words and find their meanings using the Cambridge online Learners' dictionary.

Term 2 / week 1: Junk food - should it be banned at school?

Yum! Jelly doughnut

What do you think about this idea?

Here at Munch for Kids blog is one mother's view of an ideal world.

Which sentences are opinions, experience or facts?

Reading strategies

Here is our List of Reading Strategies from last year. How many of them did you use when reading the text?

What are the pros and cons of banning junk food at the school canteen?

Think about:

• if you agree or disagree or if you can see both sides of the topic
• how you will start writing about this topic?
• a conclusion - a summary of your main points and a final sentence to persuade your reader that you are right

Remember to:

• use the plan to write supporting arguments for each idea
• write in sentences and stay on the topic
• use words from the Persuasive writing Checklist to build your argument
• start a new paragraph for each new idea

Writing process

Think => Plan => Draft => Correct => Rewrite

OR sometimes

Think => Discuss => Plan => Draft => Correct => Rewrite

Revision: Did you watch the video about Australia's First Afghani Lifesaver?

Here's a dictation on the topic of water safety. Press Pause after each sentence.



Here is the text for the dictation - but don't look until you're absolutely sure you can't do any more!

The Swimming song

Well, Summer is over but we don't have to stop swimming - or learning to swim - or dreaming of swimming.

Sarah Deasey reminded me of this wonderful song about our recent topic of swimming.

Listen first without reading the words and then you can follow the words of the song - the song 'lyrics' as you listen.

Lyrics for the Swimming Song

 

This summer I went swimming,
This summer I might have drowned
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.

This summer I swam in the ocean,
And I swam in a swimming pool,
Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes,
I'm a self-destructive fool, I'm a self-destructive fool.

This summer I did the backstroke
And you know that's not all
I did the breast stroke and the butterfly
And the old Australian crawl, the old Australian crawl.

This summer I swam in a public place
And a reservoir, to boot,
At the latter I was informal,
At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.

This summer I did swan dives
And jackknifes for you all
And once when you weren't looking
I did a cannonball, I did a cannonball.

This summer I went swimming,
This summer I might have drowned
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.

Can you do the Australian Crawl? What's another name for it?