It’s been a busy week one way or the other…. We launched our e-learning initiative for the school, and I had the chance to talk for an hour to the whole staff about Web 2.0 and the imperative to adopt flexible approaches to learning online. Much of the material I covered was very introductory, but nevertheless essential to building understanding in order to move forward.

Teachers are no different to students in this regard.

Scaffolding and guidance are requisites for quality learning.

I was delighted to receive a message on Facebook from my colleague Andrew Hiskens, Manager, Learning Services Division, State Library of Victoria about their latest effort to support students and teachers.

I highly recommend a visit to ERGO. This site is fantastic! Andrew says:

Ergo took about 18 months to develop. It was designed to be a tool to assist secondary students in learning to research (hence pared back words, images with rollovers for visual learners and short video clips from writers, historians and scientists). We then coupled that with unique resources form our own collections largely around the history of Melbourne and Victoria.

The site is a practical guide to research, essay writing and studying and shows how to find resources, write great essays and prepare for exams. It also has a huge range of original documents and images.

The idea of the site is to help students make their work the very best it can be! And we know that that means excellent research, writing and study skills.

The site includes:

• easy to follow guides to research, essay writing and study skills
• over 500 digitised resources from the State Library’s collections
• worked examples available at point of need, illustrating bias in primary sources, how to understand an essay question and much more
• video interviews with prominent authors, historians and artists including Helen Garner and Nobel Laureate, Peter Doherty
• teacher and student resources with a focus on critical literacy and thinking processes

Thank you State LIbrary of Victoria for supporting students and teachers in Victoria, Australia and beyond!