Year 10 computing students have recently entered the DET Connected Learning Awards for student websites.
The Connected Learning Awards are run by the NSW DET to provide students with opportunities to engage with real-life situations, where they can develop skills in communicating, collaborating, self-directed learning, problem solving, researching and publishing their findings. This year’s theme is ‘Earth’. The open nature of the theme allows students to include work from a range of KLAs in any way they wish. I’m very pleased with the entries.
click here to find out …

SICHUAN , China – One zoo in southwest China has its hands full with 16 baby pandas. The Sichuan Wolong Panda Protection and Breed Center is dealing with the results of a breeding boom where 16 pandas have been born.
The brood includes five sets of twins. The cubs are weighed and measured every five days (see pics) The heaviest tips the scale at just over 24 pounds, while the lightest weighs about 11 pounds. The pandas are due to stop suckling soon – just about the time they’ll start learning …

This might be a very useful resource for teachers and students:
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
Pressdisplay allows you to view digital versions of hundreds of news publications from around the world.  You can print out high quality pages, instantly send articles to your blog and carry out a number of other useful functions. 
*This does not just show the online version of the news; they are the actual print publications in digital form.  A free account does have limitations in how many pages you can view per day, but it’s still pretty cool.

There are several options available for those who wish to create a weblog.  Which option is best and why?
Free Blogs
http://edublogs.org/  This is a good option for teachers creating a class blog with students as (as far as I know) is the only free blogging site the DET portal does not block. 

Uses WordPress software with a limited range of functions
Has fewer layout options than WordPress, fewer widgets etc.
Is much the same as WordPress, described below

http://wordpress.com/  WordPress is a very popular option.  It’s free and easy to use but has some limitations. 

Does …

If you have a blog, every post you make is automatically published to an rss feed. What’s an rss feed? To find out more; read this page
Rss feeds have the potential of attracting larger audiences to your publications. If you’d like to get your feed listed in my feed directory free of charge go to this page and submit your feed details.

Stuck for an image for your blog post?  You can quickly and easily create newspaper clippings like this for your blog or website using this site:
http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper
Just enter the your newspaper’s name, headline and a brief news story and click ‘generate’.
Download the image and upload to your blog and et voila!  Very simple to use.

There is also a cigarette packet (anti smoking) generator here:
http://www.fodey.com/generators/cigarette_packet