What a Week!

Have been flat out exploring setting up e-portfolios which is really exciting. Need to set up the children's blogs this week. They are so motivated and excited. They can't wait to begin them and add to them. It's so exciting to see children who don't really enjoy writing, passionate about being able to email their epals, add to their blogs and share their ideas with others around the world. Now, if we could only just add a few more hours to the day. Keep smiling. :-)

Kath Murdoch

What a fantastic day of learning from an inspirational person!
She certainly has a great way of encouraging self-reflection. Just imagine where we can go as learners with our children.
I want to get the thoughts and reactions of my class to the video of the 12 year old speaking about children. I've added the link to the class blog so that they can log their thinking.

Promethean Learning Level 1 Course

Hi everyone. I've enrolled in this course, (have actually been enrolled for a while but have not got my act together to start it yet!!). It's free to sign up to and covers all the basics of using the Activboard. You can complete it at your leisure - just as well - and I wondered if anyone else was interested in registering and completing it. It goes right up to a Level 3 course - free as well.

Thought it might be something good to explore with a group. Could be an hour after school each week? A couple of hours a fortnight? Most of the initial activities they take you through are quite short and easy to apply. Anyone interested?

Digistore

http://digistore.tki.org.nz/ec/p/home

Have spent some time exploring the whole of digistore. Have used it a lot for maths but have not put a lot of time into exploring everything else that's on it. Huge resource for English. Very interactive. Lots of comprehension activities.

You can create your own learning pathways and store your resources on the site under Myross Bush. You can also give each student a PIN so that they can complete the work online and teachers can see what knowledge the students have gained and where the next learning steps are.

Amazing number of resources for all curriculum areas.

Just use the same password that we have for the Maths Digistore section.

If anyone's keen, I'd love to spend some time after school one day exploring what else is on the site and build up resources for us to use. :-)

A Term's Reflection

I've been reflecting on how far we've come in such a short term. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. The amount of ICT that is being incorporated into the learning day is outstanding. It's been a great motivator for all of the children.

I've also loved sharing ideas and working with everyone experimenting and learning.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

This Week's Exploration

I am really excited about helping the children create their own blogs. I know they will run with it and explore all the possibilities of blogging. It's exciting to see how they are already discussing ways to show their learning on the blogs.

Last week they ran sessions on using the Activboard to create puppet shows. This developed from the afternoon Craig spent working with them. They will need to show me again I think!

Just love the way they grab the technology and begin applying it straight away.

Have begun the Level 1 Promethean Course - a brilliant way to upskill and reinforce the work Craig is doing with us. Can't wait for the holidays to be able to have an extended play. Very lucky to have an Activboard at Deep Cove to be able to do this.

My holiday jobs are to complete the basic sign up for the children's blogs and to set up their e-pals. We should have a contact class or two by the start of Term 2. Very exciting. Another way to apply and share their learning. A wider audience for their writing too.

Exploring Comic Life

We are exploring using Comic Life to show our learning this week. A real buzz to see how excited and confident the children are in using their skills to teach others.

Our next step is to begin to set up the blogs and attach them to our class one.