SLAVConnects

This site (and app) offers a collection of small, simple, single-task tools, mostly designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult. Most tools will use AI technologies in the back-end to achieve their goals. Currently, this includes OpenAI's models. As the tools and backend improve, the intent is to move to an open-source alternative.

Resources looking at Indigenous place names The ABC has added 35 new videos to our This Place collection! This is offers a fantastic way for students to learn some of the stories and significance behind Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander place names. This Place - ABC Education

Hi Andrew, The ABC has a page to support Media Literacy Week (24 -31 October 2022). There are a range of resources they have put together (some produced in 2018 but still valid) to help teach students to navigate the modern media environment, addressing issues such as bias, misinformation and fake news. Some might be useful resources for anyone wanting to teach about bias, persuasion and manipulation in/by the media.

"Users of the popular social media app TikTok have been using the hashtag #BookTok to share their book recommendations, especially in young adult literature. The videos are short clips and often use comparisons, genres, or feelings to appeal to users. Publishers began to notice that TikTok was actually driving sales and decided to jump on the bandwagon, as well. So how can BookToks help you? This post has three ways you can use them with students:"

The Book Review has occasionally in the past, asked young authors about their biggest influences. For their 125th anniversary, they put the question to a new generation. A simple challenge was put to a group of writers under 40: Name the writer or writers who have most influenced your work and explain how. In the past, many of the US-based "authors contacted were just beginning their careers and they later became some of the most widely read and respected artists of their generation." As part of their 125th-anniversary celebration, the same question to writers of today. They are: Megha Majumdar, Tommy Orange, Alyssa Cole, Emma Cline, Yaa Gyasi, Ottessa Moshfegh, Gabriel Bump

This is a visual search engine for kids powered by Google, offering safe kids web, image and video search.

Factitious is a game that is designed to help students practice identifying real and fake news stories. It has been around fro a little while but the 2020 version of the game features stories about COVID-19.

"Information Literacy that works. Give students and others a short list of things to do when looking at a source, and hook each of those things to one or two highly effective web techniques. We call the "things to do" moves and there are four of them: Stop; Investigate the source; Find trusted coverage; Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context."

Mike Caulfield, who created and advocates for the SIFT method, has explained why the CRAAP checklist is insufficient in these two interviews that are best read in this article

"Some strategies for personalizing and enriching the remote learning experience. Currently, one very popular strategy is the creation of classroom scenes using Google Slides populated with their flexible Bitmojis."

A libguide set up to teach media literacy. Another resource that others may find helpful when trying to teach about challenges that the proliferation of Fake News brings.

"A good list here that shoes that these books are inclusive, respectful, accurate, and informative-they meet the highest nonfiction standards." They are great books to put into the hands of readers (young and old)

Education 2020. With our time spent #remotelearning online, good digital citizenship & literacy skills are more important than ever. This guide includes many tips & resources to help you & your students. Developing digital citizenship with the understanding that Digital citizenship encompasses skills, values, and behaviours that include appropriate and effective ways we interact with people and information through media and technology.

It you are teaching digital literacy skills this is a fun way to reinforce your points. A free game that tests your ability to spot FALSE or MISLEADING News. Offers different levels (6) depending on educational level of students

"Remote learning is a major opportunity for schools to refine their lesson planning and delivery. The efforts of teachers to adapt classes to online platforms has been nothing less than heroic. Now we have the chance to incorporate the ingredients that create effective remote learning, accelerate expertise and enhance the experience of our students.  The rapid shift to remote learning has been unprecedented and we are all learning as we go through this. At its worst, remote learning can be disorienting and disconnecting. We all need to be innovative in creating learning that is engaging and involving for our students. The ideas in this paper are derived from the author's research and work with schools of the air and distance education as well as his work with students who have been unable to attend school due to mental health issues.  "

"The Covid-19 crisis has meant that schools are having to maintain communications with parents and families in very challenges circumstances. Here are some EEF resources to help schools communicate with parents/carers, as well as resources schools can share with families to support home routines and valuable learning opportunities, such as shared reading."

A compilation (annotated) of useful resources for students learning

This is the 2020 Womens Prize for Fiction shortlist. Information on the six shortlisted authors and their books is available here.

An list of Australian bookshops has been compiled here so you can see which Australian bookshops offering home delivery, book drops and drive through pickups.