ICT AT McKINNON

WELCOME TO NEW TEACHERS

This year we welcome Mr Calum Munro and Ms Emma Holmes to our teaching team.  They are full of enthusiasm for our programs and will be a source of fresh ideas for us.

CHROMEBOOKS

All the year 7 students seem to now have their ChromeBooks and we look forward to assisting them to use these wonderful tools as efficiently, effectively and safely as possible.  The year 9s are now the only year level without one-to-one devices, but luckily the school has plenty of available computer resources to assist.  As many general year 9 classes as possible have been located into computer rooms and there is still access to computers in the Library (before school, lunchtime and after school) as well as the A04 computer lab being available at lunchtime for students.

YEAR 9 CONTROL TECHNOLOGY

Year 9 Control Technology has moved from C02 to its new home in F01 with an adjacent storeroom capable of storing all the equipment - in particular our new sets of Lego EVA.  This convenient access to the equipment should provide much better access for completing the learning tasks.

CODE CLUB

Code.Club will be continuing this year on Mondays at lunchtime in A03 commencing Tuesday 16 February.

APP REVIEWS

Continuing on from last year's newsletters, we hope to include some more App Reviews.  Any student trying out an App is invited to write a review and submit to Ms Hatch for inclusion in a future newsletter.  There are so many apps out there, let's help each other by sharing our experiences.  Our new, regular feature in the newsletters this year will be Convention Checks - giving you advice to help your ICT solutions be more effective by following current conventions.  Some may help you save time too.

Diana Hatch

ICT Learning Area Manager

CONVENTION CHECK

With our world so keen on doing things efficiently, the current convention is to omit abbreviation full stops altogether.  For example, you should now put St and not St. Rd and not Rd in addresses.  For names you have T S Eliot, not T.S. Eliot and McKinnon S C and not McKinnon S.C.

If you decide you want to put in the abbreviation full stops, then you must put ALL of them in, one after each letter - I.C.T. or P.E. - and in this case you can leave out the space between as well.

These are not rules, but conventions so only offered as advice.  Whichever way you choose to use, just ensure you are consistent with your choice.

Diana Hatch

ICT Learning Area Manager