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After publishing online newspapers, the PFL V class has now made available to the wider audience an online magazine with fictional news articles. The magazine is called "A Tela" which means "screen" in English, as a way to represent the different news you may see on TV or computer screens. The magazine has three separate sections:  Recent Events, Science & Technology, Culture & Travel. Anyone can read the articles and make comments by accessing the publication at the Issuu site shown below. The class worked collaboratively to develop the design style of the magazine and some students created the cover. A Google Presentation file was used to house all the articles under the same design, so each student was responsible for copying a master slide and adding his o her own content. A PDF version of this Google Presentation was then uploaded into Issuu, making the online magazine very easy to do. You can access the magazine below. A snapshot of students'commen...

In Ceramics, a reflection journal practice that has been done on paper is now transferred to the online world. Ms Ariani asked her students to create individual blogs to host their journal reflections. The advantage of an online reflection journal is first of all to the students, as they will collect an easily accessible and shareable portfolio of their progress as artists. There is also the advantage of being able to easily illustrate their reflections with pictures of their final work and work in progress. Students can also add links to resources and research they may have done for the work, making such background information easily available not only for the reader but also for the student. The power of seeing one's own work nicely displayed and easily accessible cannot be underestimated. Apart from that, the fact that students can start to see each other's journals can be a powerful way to encourage more reflection and also positive critique. So we will be looking forward t...

Gamification means applying certain gaming elements to the teaching and learning process. It appears at the Horizon Report 2013 as one of the technologies that will have a strong impact in higher education in the near future. Graded's Innovate 2013 Conference hosted some gamification sessions and our Biology 9 teacher, Ms. Beck, was excited with the concept therefore deciding to apply it in her DNA Genetics Unit. Two elements of gaming that are very important and actually mix together involve " storytelling " and " challenge ".  In a game, a fantasy aspect is key to transport the player to another world where a challenge will take place. Below, you will see the storytelling and the challenge for the DNA Genetics Unit. It involves groups of students trying to unlock the secrets of DNA, which takes us to other elements of gaming which are " cooperation " and " competition ". The competition element in the DNA unit involves cooperation within g...