And well done to all the NZers particularly who took the time to cast their vote.

Download Video: Posted by interwrite at TeacherTube.com.

Here’s the tale of Alligator Alley:

Alligator Alley is a book that my class were reading together at the beginning of the lesson today. We had’read a bit and what happens next? and see if you can guess the ending etc etc. They were asked to talk to talking partners about “What questions would you ask Mrs O’Malley?” During the feedback time one my kids asked “So what’s the difference between alligators and crocodiles?…. (to be honest, I have no idea)

“That’s a good question I say, How could we find out? One thing led to another and this group then typed in “What’s the difference between Alligators and crocodiles?” into Google kids (A few other search engine ideas from Louise, thanks btw). They then scroled through and found Gator Hole.

They then spent ages and ages and ages…and ages finding out EVERYTHING they possibly could about Alligators and crocodiles. They then pulled off relevent extract (and cool pictures) to create a single screen backdrop to their oral feedback of their findings…. The learning intention for the lesson is ‘read…read..read’ who care if they are not reading School Journal Part1 Number 6 2004. This fired their desire to find out. And I bet they read more in that session than they would do normally. Personalized learning in action.

I conclude with a nod to Interwrite for the board, Sitech for the inspiration, my principal for wireless internet access, all of these things came together for my kids to direct their own learning.

I think this is a clear case of my Learning Intention being “Reading for information” but then my kids changed the context ‘on the fly’, and I had the technology available to allow them ‘to go for it’.

My school is part of the Sitech Champion Schools programme. As part of that programme the staff here have been involved with a professional development model that appears to be working. Hardware and software have been purchased for the school and the company has provided many hours of training and professional development in it’s use in the classroom environment.

Private provision is an interesting situation, company’s vary in there product and support available. I would be interested to know of any strategy or framework which guides this aspect of school provision. As the product and support varies from company to company the experience of both staff and students also varies along with the development of ICT within the school. Is this a good thing, or bad?

Perhaps the diversity of provision is advantageous in Early Childhood and Primary phases but I would surmise that as students’ progress through Secondary and onto Tertiary national parity would be more desirable to ensure an ICT literate workforce.

Sitech Learning Zone

English

www.primaryresources.co.uk

www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/index.asp

www.tumblebooks.com

www.education.smarttech.com

www.funbrain.com

www.rainforestmaths.com (Click on Writing fun down the bottom right) 

Maths

Woodlands Maths

www.mathszone.co.uk/

www.smartkiddies.com (Aussie money)

www.mathletics.com.au

www.quiz-tree.com (Maths quizzes) 

Science

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/index_flash.shtml

www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx

www.durackss.eq.edu.au/ifiles/ifault.htm

www.primaryschool.com.au/

www.howstuffworks.com (watch out for popups)

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ 

Others

www.youtube.com

www.teachertube.com

www.video.google.com

www.promeatheanplanet/flipcharts.htm

www.blueletterbible.com

www.enchantedlearning.com

www.thecoloringspot.com 

I then spent all of Thursday panicked that I’d lost my assignment and power point presentation, and that I’d spend all night Thursday redoing it. Fortunately for me a guy called Andy from East Coast Computers came over, took out the hard drive and managed to pull the two documents off. Yippee.

It is only then that the real fun begins. I arrive on the Friday all ready to go, memory stick in hand and the promise of a borrowed laptop.

PRS is a great system…. Classroom response unit. Unfortunately there were a couple of features involved in embedding in Power point that I over looked. There can only be ONE asked question per page NOT the 2 or 3 I had planned, also the Question when it comes up creates a ‘toolbar’ across the top. Couple these two together and you have a rather wonky presentation document with custom animation going off when it shouldn’t. Ahhh!

We were only given an hour so, yep you guessed it, I didn’t get finished. Not only that but we barely got started on applying Higher Order Thinking to a curriculum area. Doh!

Finally I have a deligate say quite openly “I am bored now,” – I mean how should one respond?

Just for the record I, for one, was not bored, Freaked, yes, disappointed, yes, embarrassed, certainly.

Twas a chapter of disasters from start to finish.

Chrissy, on the other hand preformed incredibly well. Her wonderfulworldofwikis presentation was an inspiration to all who attended. She even had someone who created her own wikispace for the presentation she was giving immediately after. Go Chrissy.

Btw I have to mention that she called Vicki the “Wiki Queen”- well in made me smile at the time- probably just one of those ‘had to be there things.

I’ll be there too. Hopefully recording for Edcast, so if you’ve got a presentation you don’t having recorded please leave a comment. Sorry I can’t record Ewan et al (contractual complications I’m told- so sad!) I’ll also be presenting Skypetalkandwrite, so whatch out for that too. Looking forward to catching up with Virtual Friends like Louise and Allanah and Jane

 See you there!

It finally happened, in little old
Flaxmere, New Zealand. The Kid’s Conference.

Kimi Ora, Flaxmere Primary,
Iron Gate and Peterhead came together to showcase what they have been doing with ICT over the past couple of months. We had groups of children demonstrating how Google SketchUp, Art Rage and PowerPoint worked, we had some working with a green screen and my kids showed off their Talk and Write work with Taradale Intermediate School.

What a buzz, kids sharing with kids, teaching each other and enthusing about the possibilities of these applications and tools.

Sitech were on hand to add their input into proceedings and provided additional hardware so thanks for that Kevin.

But it was the kid presenters who really made the day. I was so proud of them all. There enthusiasm for it all practically brought tears to my eyes.

Just a thought from the day, part of a discussion I had with team members down there.

We were talking about how important it is that ALL levels of education jump on board with the new move to Web 2.0 otherwise I’ll enthuse my 7 year olds and get them thinking about broader contexts and incorporating technology use in their work but then they have a further 11 years of School 1.0 to have all that drained from them. Fortunately that is not happening in Flaxmere as the whole Cluster is part of the Sitech Champion Schools Programme, dedicated to teacher PD in the area of technology, so as teachers across the year levels become up-skilled our kids will continue to have those technology opportunities in their learning. (for other pictures from the conference click here)

I sense they are quite privileged in that regard. Are other areas in
New Zealand/ around the globe experiencing what we are in Flaxmere?

Last year in my classroom I had:

Interactive Whiteboard

Data projector

Shared digital camera

School pads

My laptop

Webcam

Headset and microphone

This year I have (added to the above):

PRS – Classroom response units

Scanner

3 networked and wired computers

Wireless keyboard

What I have coming (next term):

3 or 4 laptops for children to access (replacing the networked computers)

Is it too much? Certainly the number of cables linking everything are too much.

How much would it cost to have all the above reconfigured for wireless/ Bluetooth do you think?

I also hope that he gets a chance to share, by way of commenting here, some of the things he was able to glean from his time a Peterhead. All I’d like to say is a huge thank you to Chrissy for her tireless work today and inputting into our discussions about Technology in school today. As always your contribution is invaluable and I appreciate you getting yourself into school for me today. Gush, gush.- And to Voyagers who sat beautifully through a chaotic session with my class today

Back to MY learning…. I am so grateful for what is essentially unlimited internet access for my class. The way my school is organised we have access to all online learning tools and we appreciated as professionals to make professional decisions about the online learning environment of our kids.
Australia, it would appear has huge limitations placed upon school access to the internet. Peter shared a great analogy with me today which illustrates to point beautifully:

“What happens when a couple of kids while playing in the part come across a discarded playboy magazine? Age dependent, obviously, (but we’re primary trained and so our minds think of our own kids in our class) the kids would probably flick through, have a giggle and, if we have brought them up right, either discard it or tell someone. Are we going to issue a blanket ban on kids going to the park on the off chance that they will stumble across a discarded magazine as they play? Of course not, neither should we blanket ban access to the internet, we should educate kids to discern for themselves what is appropriate and what is not, we’re in the business of education, let’s educate.”

Another discussion we had, or was part of the original one?… either way we were talking about the integration of technology in the classroom setting. Why use technology? We discussed how kids today do expect a educational experience to have ‘all the bells and whistles’ and how computers and their adages provide that level of engagement and interest that is required for the digital generation. Kids ‘powering down’ when they come to school may or may not be an overstatement but the reality remains that child level of engagement with technology at home, burning the CD, downloading the music, IM-ing their friends, needs to matched with the engagement on an educational level, the wiki, the blog, the digital story. Schools have access now to new technologies. Peter’s analogy was this:

“He found it interesting that we have a dishwasher in the staffroom, coming from a small 3 teacher school there is no need for one, but to think that if you had one and then expect someone to stand for 30 minutes, run a bowl of hot water and do them by hand is such a waste of a fabulous resource, of course, you’d use the dishwasher! To not would be dumb! So why are we as classroom teachers shying away from technology when its sitting right there, available to enrich, enhance and extend our kids learning?”

I learnt a lot from Peter’s visit. Much of it I am still processing and will be talking to my Principal and Senior management about where education sits with the flattening world.

Thanks Peter.

He was so excited about this and it had such a profound effect on him that he reported to his teacher: ”I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”

It is so rewarding when you impact on a child’s education in this manner. I felt honoured to play my small part. Look out for commen ts by the teachers involved.