Teaching Dispositions for Learning with I.T.

This may be of interest to those utlising ICT in the classroom:

Ngutunui Enviro School is super digital!

Wow - this is a beautiful country school on the way to Kawhia where my wife and I love to holiday. We always pass it and I think... what a wonderful place that woudl be to work. As it turns out, there is a job going there and I've had a snoop online.
The junior class's wiki is amazing! The flashest wiki I've ever seen - I am so impressed.
The senior class have been thinking of others and doing work on their wiki and their excellent class blog to help the Christchurch quake victims. They also share their work online for others to enjoy and give feedback on.
Ka pai!
I think what I love best is the commitment to Enviroschool values. 
That sure is an 'onto it' school :-)

What kind of skills do you think you need?

Students... What do YOU think you need to learn about relating to ICT?
List the skills here.

ICT Citizenship at Peachgrove

Here are some links to resources for learning about Citizenship at Peachgrove:

http://education.citizenship.govt.nz/


http://education.citizenship.govt.nz/primary/teachers

http://www.blogger.com/goog_1265605989915

Opinions about citizenship

responsible citizenship - an opinion


Digital Citizenship with Hector

So, what is Citizenship? Why should we think about it? How does it affect us?

Work in groups of two or three to develop a PowerPoint presentation or an online equivalent
[e.g. Google Document, blog, wiki*] to state your case for the importance of being a responsible citizen.

If working online you also need to include digital citizenship as a theme.
 

* Please check first for permission.

N.B. Please use internet information properly by re-writing it in your own words and putting a reference after your statement saying where you got the info from.

e.g. Citizenship is about belonging to a country and being legally allowed to vote in that country's elections. - http://www.citizenship.com/

The concept of the Citizen was very important in ancient Rome.

ICT PD Day at Smiley's Lovely School

What a powerhouse group!

Teachers need to learn too

teachers need to be learners to be able to help students be better learners - see Angela Maiers quote:

"Teachers need to be great learners to lead great learners. I believe that learning is a lifelong journey, an ongoing exploration and way of life. I challenge myself and others to always be striving to find and share big ideas in every million dollar conversation."

Her blog is a repository for some interesting thoughts and resources... enjoy

What can we do with computers?

Having seen the results of your Aussie Rules computer skills test, I realised there might be some fundamental 'stuff' you kids should or could know to help you develop your computer literacy.
I looked at the wise and wonderful Suzie Vespers ICT wiki and found a page which has someones list of what US 7th graders should be able to do. You will not know all the software or applications, and that doesn't matter, but you coudl checkout what you can do off the list. Maybe you will investigate some of the other things online and report back to us all if they seem useful or interesting.
Enjoy ;-)

http://saintmichael.wikispaces.com/seventh

Charlotte's Web

I've seen many very cool spiders this week and dreamt of them too.

When I was younger I really loved Charlotte's Web. Here is Mrs Freeman's class book review site thingy...

http://charlotteswebm3.wetpaint.com/

Cool teacher's blog...

Here is another teacher's blog for you to investigate. It has a post about "an amazing lady" [Suzie Vesper - cool name!] that might inspire you with new ideas for integrating ICTs into our term four inquiry projects.
Let me know if you discover anything useful or exciting and how you might use it.
HUZZAh!

Snowgirl's ICT ideas

Thanks Snowy for the great suggestions in your comment from another post. I shall paste your ideas here for the class to consider. I think there are many things here we could do straight away if we are sensible.
Thank you so much!

Snowy said...
I think that it would be really good if we could have a PDA phone. We could use them in so many ways:
-We could take photos with it.
-We could video people.
-We could video the progress of the sustainable garden with it then put updates on the blog.
-We could video people having interviews with it, then we can look back at it.
-On field trips we could, take pictures and then send them to the blog.
-We could use the programes on there such as microsoft word to make notes on a field trip or do small presentations on it.
It can also be used in many different ways other that the ones i said.
Our blog is also an awesome ICT.
-We use it to communicate with people after school, if you are sick, in the weekends and in the holidays.
-We use the blog to if we are just about to go on a field trip.
-We use the blog to share information, debate problems, talk about new and old topics, and keep in touch with our newish friends in New Jersey.
-We also have other friends in other parts of New Zealand.
-We can see on our cluster map how many people and whereabouts in the world people have been looking at our blog.
Bye, see you at school
6:51 AM

to our audience

I suspect quite a few people are checking out our blog [over 10,000 last year], but hardly anyone ever leaves us a comment.
We in Room5 would reeeeeeeeeally appreciate anyone taking time to contact us by leaving a comment.
Mr Teehan in New Jersey has been superb in this respect. Thanks to Mr Teehan and his class, who we now blog with and hope to share podcasts, etc, once we get out IT issues sorted at this end.
I know there are classes in NZ with great blogs so please contact us to allow a sharing of ideas and friendship. It seems odd that our only friends so far are all the way over in America. [cool though!]

Room5ians - would you enjoy blogging with kids from other schools in NZ? What sort of things could you do together to make learning more interesting or fun?

Prizes for the most innovative, creative, exciting ideas.

The trouble with ICT is...

Actually, I am quite passionate about integrating ICTs into our classroom programme, but I'm finding it quite difficult at present due to a whole lot of problems cropping up. Basically, we should have finished our Hamilton Inquiry unit already, but we can't get simple things to work and therefore we can't get our assignments finished.
Our Marvin digital stories would be great... if we could make them.

Please list here all the factors you can think of that are slowing us down...

HamiltON homework

By the end of Week One , Term Two, you need to have your own blog and on this blog you need to include the digital photos you have taken of Hamilton, [or ones you have found on the net]. If you took normal photos and have prints, you can scan them and post them. Anyone who does not have the equipment at home needed to do this can do it at school.
This must be achieved by Friday Week One.

You must then comment on this post saying your photos can be viewed on your blog.

The second task is to outline on your blog or in your topic book what your digital story is focusing on for the HamiltON inquiry project.

The third task is to create a storyboard outlining how your digital story will work. Step by step, image by image and with the text and any other explanation of what your Marvin characters might do to help narrate your digital story.

You will then create a digital story using the Marvin software. It is just like Powerpoint but with extra characters to help make your story more exciting for the audience.

The Digital story [using Marvin] must be no longer than 3 minutes in length, have no more than three Marvin characters in it, and be focused on the topic, not the use of characters or the inclusion of unnecessary actions.
The dialogue must be used sparingly to complement the written information. You must use your images of Hamilton [or those related to your personal theme] as background images.

The Hamilton inquiry, Marvin digital story, must be finished by week four of this term.
We will use the computers at school to get the work done in class time. Your homework is to upload the photos to your blog as stated at the beginning
You may include voice over narrative, music, video clips, scanned artwork, etc, for extra credit.

The best digital story will win a fabulous prize - Annick the Researcher and Elaine Her Majesty will introduce you to more information about exciting prizes and will judge the competition.
You will be competing against Room9!

Any questions?

Digital Story Telling workshop

Our friend, Elaine ["Her Majesty"] Bliss, came to school to teach us about Digital Story telling. We watched Sasha's digital story called "The Dress", which is about her relationship to Mr Woody's beloved grandmother, Gwendoline Violet Tucker.

Qu. What aspects of her story were effective in drawing us into the story?

Elaine went on to outline for us the important elements of digital story telling. These apply to all our story telling:

1. Point of view - what understanding or realisation are you trying to communicate to your audience?
2. Dramatic question - the hook; something that draws in the audience
3. Emotional Content - love, fear, etc
4. Your Voice - you narrate and you make it personal
5. Economy - these are brief stories with a simple message
6. Personal story, risk taking and emotional safety - we must respect each other

Also, think of the story as a circle or loop - begin somewhere and bring it altogether at the end.

We will use these techniques to create a digital story to explain how we relate to Hamilton.

Everyone's story will be different.

rules of our blog

rules of our blog need to be discussed in class and agreed upon together. we must commit ourselves to sensible worthwhile blogging behaviour. it is for fun and learning but not for silly behaviour or attention seeking. we will need to use correct english, show respect to other bloggers and set a fine example fo rothers to be inspired by.
i am proud to be your new teacher - i hope we will enjoy our online learning adventure together.
:-)
please post ideas for blog rules and cybersafety ...

ideas for ICT integration please

Hey educators, parents, Room5ians, kids from other schools - how can we use mobile phones, pda's, digital and video cameras, interwritepads, and so forth, meaningfully in class? how do we deal with the costs? does anyone use p.d.a. phones or use mobiles for remote learning, sending info to a class blog or anything? i'm imagining using a powerful mobile phone to video something off site, like at an art gallery or museum, add narration and send it to this blog for class use. how do we do that?

ideas please.

Does anyone want to do joint class projects with us?

[Are you still out there Pitt Island school???]

digital story telling

as a means of self expression, summarising, presenting outcomes, evaluation, reflection, etc, digital story telling* is a potentially powerful tool for learning and one that teaches technical and thinking skills, covers many key competencies and engages 21st century learners...

"Children see things in very unique ways. Capture that special view by allowing them to tell the story. Give them the chance to use photographs, videos, and audio recordings to create projects that will combine art and history, as well as reinforce reading, language arts, and research and technology skills."
- Christine Paradise, a 3rd grade teacher at Steed Elementary school

[found in...]
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/


* digital story telling uses digital cameras, still images, sound recording, narration, basic editing to make a concise anecdotal summary of an experience.