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The Le@rning Federation

The Le@rning Federation won the Best Digital Learning Content Award and a Learning Impact Leadership Award at a ceremony organised by IMS Global Learning Consortium in Texas, USA earlier this year.

New series of learning objects for Early Years

Dragon’s jumble: dream – three parts (L7864)

The Letter planet series from the English strand of learning objects models how sounds and letters, or letter combinations, form parts of words and highlights the importance of word order in the construction of sentence meaning.

Another series of learning objects where students can rearrange pictures to complete a story – the Dragon’s jumble series – is now available. Students choose sentences to match the pictures and use temporal connectives such as ‘first’, ‘then’ and ‘in the end’ to show the order of events.

English and literacy

Students learn the art of writing narratives with Writing narratives: narrative flow learning objects designed for Years 7–9. They craft a storyline by selecting items based on a problem/solution scenario and by using appropriate pacing. At the end of the activity, students can print their completed plot outline. Creativity is further developed for Years 10–12 students using Poetry anthology: haiku, sonnet, cyber. The learning objects start with students creating an online profile and reading a selection of haiku, sonnets and cyber poems. These are then rated on the basis of their themes, moods or imagery. Students can create their own haiku and cyber poems, or write the concluding couplet to a sonnet. Additional learning objects have been added to ESL following the release of the first set of learning objects, modified for ESL learners from existing TLF learning objects. Students can explore and classify many small living creatures found in Australian gardens using the Garden detective (ESL) learning object.

More on offer for senior Mathematics students

Trig degrees: sine tool (L9113)

New to the Algebra strand of Mathematics and numeracy learning objects is the Differential calculus series for Years 11 and 12. With Differential calculus, students use first principles to investigate differentiation and are introduced to the language, notation and methods of differential calculus.

Trig degrees enables students to use an interactive unit circle tool to explore sine, cosine and tangent values and to observe symmetries and patterns in the values.

New gizmos in Science

Thirty-one gizmos have been licensed for use from the US-based ExploreLearning. Gizmos are interactive simulation tasks that help students develop skills and understanding in Mathematics and Science. Each gizmo comes with an Exploration Guide containing a step-by-step inquiry-based lesson and a set of assessment questions. Feedback and detailed explanation about why answers are correct is also provided.

New assessment learning objects for Mathematics and Science

Death mask of Tutankhamen (R8323)
Reproduced courtesy of Richard Elliott and Getty Images

The broad purpose of the TLF assessment project is to develop and procure digital assessment materials and tools that support the teaching and learning of Mathematics and numeracy and Science in Years 3 to 12. Some assessment items have been licensed from Educational Measurement Solutions (EMS). TLF has worked with EMS to provide the assessment reports for these items. As students work through each learning object, a printable report is compiled detailing the data gathered and the results and conclusions of the student’s work.

Images from Getty Images licensed

Getty Images have joined the list of TLF partners for digital resources. New digital resources include spectacular images of world heritage sites and icons such as pyramids and the Great Sphinx; contemporary images of natural disasters such as the 2005 tsunami; man-made disasters such as the World Trade Centre attacks and the Bali and London bombings; and DNA and nanotechnology images for Science.

Australian Voices

The first 54 recorded interviews for the TLF Australian Voices project are also now available. They include first-hand accounts from people in the creative arts, medicine, sport and politics, accounts of experiences of war and natural disasters and accounts of working and everyday life. For example, Ray Lawler discusses Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Zelman Cowan recalls Northern Territory Self-government Day.

Waiting to welcome their loved ones home, 1919 (R8592)
Reproduced courtesy of Australian War Memorial

Australian War Memorial and Australian Museum have also joined the list of TLF partner institutes. Licensed digital resources include paintings by official war artists and photos from World War 1 as well as contemporary photos depicting Australian involvement in Iraq. Images of Indigenous tools and artefacts from NSW and QLD, and images of fossils and specimens of extinct and endangered species are also included.

Visit http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au to sample some of the latest content and read about how you can use them in your classroom.

For any TLF specific enquiries, email info@thelearningfederation.edu.au

Rohini Mehta
Communications Officer
The Le@rning Federation
http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/default.asp