In England, we look forward to our birthdays for 364 days a year! We invite special people to celebrate it with us.

    The Presents

    Presents are opened as soon as the children are awake. They can't wait for the birthday cake later in the day!

    The Cards

    Friends and family send birthday cards. Sending birthday cards is a custom that began in England about 100 years ago.

    The Party

    The birthday child will have a party to which friends and family are invited. Visitors to the party bring presents for the birthday child. The children play games such as Musical Chairs and Pass the Parcel.

    The Cake

    The birthday cake is decorated on a theme(主题). A candle for each year is lit and placed on top and the child blows out the candles making a wish. We don't put objects inside the cake as shown on many websites.

    The Bumps

    It used to be traditional for the birthday child to have the bumps. Friends would hold the child by the child by the legs and under the arms and lift the child up and down bumping them gently on the ground. The number of bumps given is the age of the child plus one for extra good luck. As this can be dangerous, clapping is often done instead.

    The Sweets

    Some children do take sweets into school to share with their classmates on their birthdays.

    Shellharbour City Library provides a range of Library Special Needs Services for people who are unable to access our library service in the usual way. As long as you live in Shellharbour City, we'll provide a full range of library services and resources including:

    Large printed and ordinary printed books

    Talking books on tape and CD

    DVDs and music CDs

    Magazines

    Reference and information requests

    You will be asked to complete a “Statement of Need” application form which must be signed by a medical professional.

    Home delivery service

    Let us know what you like to read and we will choose the resources for you. Our staff will deliver the resources to your home for free. We also provide a service where we can choose the resources for you or someone instead of you choosing the things from the library. You can also choose the resources you need personally.

    Talking books and captioned videos

    The library can provide talking books for people who are unable to use printed books because of eye diseases. You don't have to miss out on reading any more when you can borrow talking books from the library. If you have limited hearing which prevents you from enjoying movies, we can provide captioned videos for you at no charge.

    Language besides English

    We can provide books in a range of languages besides English. If possible, we will request these items from the State Library of NSW. Australia.

    How to join

    Contact the Library Special Needs Coordinator to register or discuss if you are eligible (合适的) for any of the services we provide—9 am to 5 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Call 4297-2522 for more information.

    Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave £ 12,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children's playground.

    As a result of his kindness, many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson said that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be a hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky and drank some each day. "I have an injection (注射) in my neck each evening." He told the newspaperman, thinking of evening glass of whisky.

    The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and has a daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the secret of his daily injection.

    The bus was full of the sounds of laughing and yelling fifth graders. They were on their way to the zoo for a class trip. Mario was excited to see the zoo, but there was one problem. It was ten o'clock in the morning, but his stomach was already grumbling(咕咕叫). He reached down and grabbed his lunch bag. Opening it, he saw that it contained a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an orange, and two cookies. Mario sighed. He always had peanut butter and jell.

    “Trade you lunches,” he said to the boy seated next to him on the bus．

    “Okay,” said Mark as he handed his brown bag to Mario．

    Mario opened it and was hit with the smell of tuna(金枪鱼). Mario wrinkled his nose and quickly closed the bag. He leaned forward and tapped the shoulder of the girl in front of him.” Swap lunches, Toni?” he asked．

    “Hmm, okay,” said Toni．

    Mario smiled. This was fun. But when he looked into the bag, he frowned. What a disappointment! A ham sandwich, but no cookies! He had to have cookies．

    Mario turned in his seat. “Want to trade lunches?” he asked Juana．

    “Definitely!” said Juana. She grabbed his lunch and tossed hers onto his lap．

    He opened the lunch bag. Pizza! He reached into the bag to grab it. Oh, no! The pizza was hard. He could hit a home run with pizza that hard.

    Mario twisted in his seat. One last try, he told himself. “Hey, Mona! Trade lunches?”

    Three rows behind him, Mona seemed hesitant: Finally, she nodded. She passed her lunch forward, and he passed his back．

    Mario took a deep breath and opened the bag. It was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an orange, and two cookies. The sandwich was a little squashed(挤压), and one of the cookies was broken.

    Mario ate it anyway. And it was delicious.

    The annual World Economic Forum took place in Davos, Switzerland, in Jan. 23-26, 2018. What did Chinese entrepreneurs （企业家）speak in the forum? Are there some quotable quotes for you?

    Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group

    "I think globalization cannot be stopped — no one can stop globalization, no one can stop trade. If trade stops, the world stops. Trade is the way to dissolve (结束) the war not cause the war," said Ma in Davos, "Google, Facebook, Amazon and Alibaba — we are the luckiest companies of this century. But we have the responsibility to have a good heart, and do something good."

    Richard Liu, founder and chief executive officer of JD

    "Business is not only a way to make money but also a way to contribute yourself, to help people," Liu said in a speech in Davos. "How can we face the fractured (分化的) world? That's the topics of the Davos this year. I think a very important thing in business is cooperation. If we can unite, work together, if we work very closely, I think we can bring more hope to the people and we can build more trust between the people, countries and companies and partners," he said.

    Jane Sun, CEO of Ctrip

    "Tourism is a sunrise industry. Since I entered Ctrip, every year there are new comers, which, first of all, shows that tourism is booming." Sun told Sina.com in Davos. "We invested heavily in ABC. A refers to AI, B is big data, and C is cloud computing. As we continue to expand overseas, these three will be very good weapons for us. So we think those mean opportunity," she said.

    Hu Xiaoming, president of Aliyun

    "In 2018, people will see the development in various countries more closely connected with cloud computing. More manufacturing enterprises and financial institutions will start to use ‘cloud', and cloud computing will increase the efficiency of technology and finance," Hu told Xinhua in Davos.

Teachers across America are struggling to decide whether to view artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT as friends or enemies in the classroom. Our study on whether AI affects student creativity shows that the answer isn't always simple. 

In the study, we asked college students to brainstorm — without technology — all the ways a paper clip can be used. A month later, we asked them to do the same, but using ChatGPT. We found that AI can be a useful brainstorming tool, quickly generating ideas that can spark creative exploration. But there are also potential negative effects on students' creative thinking skills and self-confidence. While students reported that it was helpful to "have another brain", they also felt that using AI was "the easy way out" and didn't allow them to think on their own. 

The results call for a thoughtful approach to using AI in classrooms and striking a balance that inspires students' creativity while utilizing AI's capabilities. The good news is that the students in our study generated more diverse and detailed ideas when using AI. They found that AI was useful for kick-starting brainstorming sessions. 

When it comes to brainstorming with AI, some students voiced concerns about over-reliance on the technology, fearing it might hurt their own thoughts and, consequently, confidence in their creative abilities. Some students reported a "fixation of the mind", meaning that once they saw the AI's ideas, they had a hard time coming up with their own. Some students also questioned the originality of ideas generated by AI. Our research noted that while using ChatGPT improved students' creative output individually, the AI's ideas tended to be repetitive overall. 

The study results indicate that allowing students to practice creativity independently first will strengthen their belief in themselves and their abilities. Once they complete this, AI can be useful in furthering their learning, much like teaching long division to students before introducing a calculator. That's to say, teaching students to be creative thinkers rather than rely on AI for answers is the key to answering the question mentioned above.