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Macrat’s word of the year: COPYWRONG
COMPETING WITH ‘FAKE NEWS’ THAT WAS RECENTLY VOTED THE 2017 WORD OF THE YEAR (WOTY), AND THE 2016 WOTY ‘POST-TRUTH’, YOU MIGHT WONDER WHY WE HAVE SELECTED ‘COPYWRONG’. The short answer is: Because it is wrong to infringe copyright. This year has brought the question of copyright into sharp focus at the Macrat office,...
‘Antony and Cleopatra’, a play for the 21st century
'THE SHAKESPEARE PLAY MOST LIKELY TO FEEL ESSENTIAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY' Three decades ago, Herman Northrop Frye, whose contributions to cultural and social criticism earned him widespread recognition as a literary theorist, described Antony and Cleopatra as ‘the Shakespeare play most likely to feel essential in the...
Next-Generation Learning
21ST CENTURY LEARNING VS NEXT-GENERATION LEARNING We talk a lot about 21st century learning but Global Digital Citizen team member Andrew Churches suggests that the term “Next Generation” learning may be a better description now that we are almost twenty years into the 21st century. His take on the 8 habits of...
Media Literacy and Fake News
Students today have access to online information all day every day, and at the same time there are more and more fake news websites being created and shared unthinkingly. It is essential in this environment that students be guided in how to evaluate online information. Several web resources are now available to...
Infographic Tools
CONVEY INFORMATION IN AN APPEALING MANNER Many of today’s students have a preference for visual media over text-based ones, so the use of infographics has become popular for conveying information in an appealing way. With numerous free tools available online for creating infographics, you can get your learners to sum...
To Ebook or Not?
Are eBooks still the rage that they were 3 years ago? Being the dinosaur that I am eBooks, Kindles and other electronic devices just don’t work for me. Give me a book that feels and smells like paper and I’m a very happy reader. Still, as I am in the publishing world, I have not been able to ignore the hype...
The Ratpack comes of age
To celebrate the Ratpack’s 21st year in production, Macrat plans to honour our regular contributors by including a short biography in this year’s issues. One of our contributors responded with the following message: “21 years of the Ratpack! Can it be? I have every issue from the first volume, filed in lever-arch...
Does it matter when your child starts school?
DOES HOLDING BACK YOUR CHILD A YEAR MEAN THEY WILL DO BETTER AT SCHOOL? The answer to these important questions – of course – is dependent on the child – and it also depends on the school and the teachers at the school. By law, in South Africa, children should start Grade 1 when they are six years old – or more...
Create authentic-looking newspaper articles
A great way of getting learners to re-create their understanding of a topic in a different medium is the use of the newspaper report, with headline and article. An easy to use and fun digital tool on www.fodey.com allows them to do this with an authentic-looking result. At this website learners are able to type in...
Americanah or Washingtoner?
Greetings fellow teachers... yes, it's the great divide again. Do you go for the classic and enjoy a brief classic, with issues about gender and class? Or are you keen to explore the life of a young Nigerian, who blogs for a living? Either way, you're in for a treat. What made me elect "Americanah" as my choice of...