MESC LEARNING COMMONS
MESC - Learning Commons Online
Have you checked out our website yet? You will find access to a wealth of information that will help you with your research, creating a bibliography, understanding copyright and digital citizenship, accessing ClickView video programs and newspaper indexes, as well as finding out about new resources added to our Library collection.
Please explore what we have to offer and let us know if you need assistance with anything. If you have any questions about the MESC Learning Commons and what we can do to help you, then please email - library@mesc.vic.edu.au
There is a link to the 'Library' under the Compass portal or you can click here - http://mesclibrary.global2.vic.edu.au/
Between Covers Book Club
Our book club time has changed to Friday lunchtimes and all students are welcome to come along. Bring your lunch and meet us in the Learning Hub at 1.20pm.
This year we have set ourselves a challenge to each read 20 'types' of books by the end of October. These include a picture story book, a biography, a title recommended by a friend, a book that became a film, a book that has a character with your name, etc. I have attached a 'challenge sheet' if you would like to join in or do this at home.
"Blind Date with a Book"
7C Global Literacy students were recently invited to select a 'book date' from our display which had been set up to celebrate Library Lover's Day. They then took time to get to know their 'date' (read the book!) and report back on their experience. This was a lot of fun as they selected books wrapped in brown paper and only had 4 clues as to what it may be about. Students then had to read these and report back using our special review sheets. It was a fun morning listening to their reports and whether they had 'bonded' with the book/author and would be borrowing more along this line or that it was such a 'terrible experience' that they would never read one like this again! Many students said they were quite surprised at how they did enjoy their book as they would not normally have selected it - just goes to show you can't judge a book by it's cover!
Library Monitors
Our Library Monitors have been helping with some great displays, processing new titles and helping other students to borrow and return their books.
We have a great selection of titles on display at the moment - there's sure to be something for everyone to choose from for the upcoming holidays - from crime fiction, to graphic novels and manga titles, to more 'blind dates' and latest titles on the 2017 Inky Awards list.
Crinkling News
Crinkling News is a 'national newspaper for young Australians' and one which we subscribe to here for our students. Last year a few of our Year 7 students were lucky enough to have articles and book reviews published in the newspaper for others to read. This year they are celebrating their first year of publication by asking readers to describe, in 250 words or less, a time you got lost - and how you found your way back to safety. It was very exciting to hear that an entry by one of our Year 8 students, Holly Bromage, was selected to be published in this week's edition of the newspaper. Saffron Newey (editor) was praising of Holly's article "We would love to publish this in next week's paper. It is written so well! I expect Holly will be writing page-turner novels at some stage." and Holly will not only see her story in print but will also receive a '30th anniversary edition' copy of Where's Wally!
"My Alpine Adventure"
by Holly Bromage (Year 8)
On a recent weekend in March my Venturer Scouts unit were camping at Mt Baw Baw in Victoria and were finishing our weekend off with a morning hike along the Alpine track. After a 20km orienteering ‘bush bash’ we returned to our campsite to pack everything up and hike out 6km to our car for the trip home to Melbourne. We knew it would be a fairly easy 6km hike as there were only two hills to get there. Off we went down the home stretch and our leader David called out to remind us to wait at one of the campsites near an intersection of the track on the way out.
As I admired the scenery around me I was also watching out for the two boys who were ahead of me and I knew I should be seeing them really soon because I had been walking quite a while on my own. Suddenly I could feel my phone in the back of my bag vibrating and stopped to answer it. I see that it’s my dad calling - “Hi Holly, how's your hike going?”
“Yeah everything is fine, just walking on my own at the moment” I reply. Dad pauses for a second then he says “Holly you need to stop and wait where you are. We think you are lost and the police are looking for you and you need to call your leader David now”.
“What are you talking about”, I reply. “I’m not lost. I know exactly where I am.“
“Well Holly, no one else does, they think you’re lost. I’m going to go so you can talk to David now - bye” “Ok Dad, talk to you soon,“ I say.
I then sit down on a large rock nearby and call my leader David, however it goes straight through to voice message. Then I receive a call on my phone and I answer - “Hello?”
“Hello, this is Jason from the Police Search and Rescue Squad. Am I talking to Molly? ”
“Yes, you’re talking to Holly” I reply.
“Polly?” he says.
“Yes, ok, Polly” I sigh and looking up at the trees around I know that I’ll just need to be known as ‘Polly’ today because the phone reception is really bad.
Jason asks me a lot of questions about my location, how old I am and if I’m hurt - “ I’m 14 and I’m fine” I reply.
He tells me to sit tight and wait for further instructions and not to use my phone to save the battery, but I still had my portable charger with a full battery with me so I was fine for now.
I ‘sit tight’ for 3 hours on my rock being eaten alive by mozzies and leaches, as the sun goes down and it starts to get cooler. My leader David arrives and is relieved to see me safe. I ask him how far away I was from the rest of the group and he tells me that it is about 6km and we still had another 6km from there to get out of the bush.
I scoop up my rain jacket, phone and charger throwing it all in my bag and swiftly zip it up. Swinging it onto my back, we head off with our head torches lit so we could see the slippery muddy track we were walking on. Eventually we made it out of the bush and still had another 1km along the road to get back to the car and the rest of our group. However when we got there they had already headed home as it was dark and very late.
Up to that point I had walked about 30km and my leader about 35km and still we had to drive home which was another hour and a half but we had a lot to talk about so it went extremely fast. After talking to my parents and assuring them that I was fine, I finally got into bed at about 2.30am.
Getting lost in the Australian bush, along the Alpine track, is something that I will never forget.
