Thanks for the great idea of the newspaper Rachel

(created at The Newspaper Clipping Generator)

Lead Teacher Meeting

Today's meeting started with another snippet from the New Zealand Curriculum Draft 2006 E-learning and pedagogy.

Using ICT, students can:

• enter and explore new learning environments, overcoming barriers of distance and time
• join or create communities of learners that extend well beyond the classroom
• experience customised learning that allows for individual, cultural, and developmental differences
• use a range of tools to save them time and allow them to take their learning further.

Cluster PD Day
Planning is well underway for our end-0f-year Cluster PD Day. We have a number of volunteers to run workshops but are still looking for more. If you, or anyone else you can think of, would be willing to share your knowledge/skills with us, please let Kay know asap. You might have skills in a particular program, or have 2-3 good ideas for incorporating ICT into a learning area, or age group, or thinking skills, or .....

Consider sharing the load and working as a team - it would be great to bring students with you too!

ULearn06
Remember the ULearn Conference being held in Christchurch during the September holidays. The conference is based around 10 Key Questions, for Leaders and Learners.



For those not attending the conference, there are still many oportunities available for learning, contributing and sharing before, during and after the Conference:

Reading & Discussions
Media Presentations:

• blogs
• podcasts/vodcasts
• keynote and spolight videos
• 10 Key Questions wikis
• 10 Key Questions online discussions
• conference newsletter
  

For more information, and to take up any of these opportunities, go to:

www.ulearn.org.nz

(login with your ICTPD Online username/password or create one for yourself)

Bring Hollywood to your Classroom!
For access to thousands of video clips, go to www.youtube.com. These are great as starters, or perhaps you would like to upload your own videos for sharing.

To include a video in your blog, simply upload to youtube and either link from your blog, or imbed it in to your blog. Easy instructions are available on the site or contact me for more information.

Don't forget about www.rockyou.com - you can create a slideshow here for inclusion in your blog. See how Rachel from Mapua has used it.

Towards 2007

Today I picked the brains of our lead teachers for ideas for our end-of-year cluster PD day. We are planning a 1/2 day, with a keynote speaker and a selection of workshops for teachers to choose from. PLEASE consider offering to take a workshop - maybe a couple of you together, or better still bring some students with you.

We are also looking ahead to next year, and are looking for ideas for a whole-cluster Inquiry Learning project. For this, our first project, it will probably be aimed at years 7 - 10. There will be planning meetings organised next term to begin work on this project so keep this in the back of your mind.

Also at this lead teacher meeting, we had a quick look at ArtRage2 and PhotoStory. PhotoStory is a free Microsoft program which makes movies much the same as Movie Maker, but only uses photos. It is therefore even easier to use, includes it's own background music (or add your own), and has interesting panning and transition options. It works like a Wizard - you just keep clicking Next between steps - and is ideal for children and teachers alike.

ArtRage2 is a painting program for both Windows and OS X- we tried out the free trial version which is a great little program with many options. It requires users to apply the same basic techniques as regular painting - the brush runs out of paint after a while; you wash the colour off in a glass of water; you can blend two colours together; ink smudges if you rub it straight away; and you can load an image to 'trace'. It's a great way to create a painting in a digital format that can be used to illustrate stories, add to digital portfolios, movies etc.


Even better news is that the full version of this program, which allows you to sprinkle glitter, paint with gold leaf, silver foil, and other metallic colours, can be purchased for NZ$32.50, and only $1 per machine for licences. Information regarding this option has been sent out separately to lead teachers, or can be viewed in the Software for Learning section of TKI. Read about ArtRage at www.ambientdesign.com.

Remember - if you are thinking about units of work for next term (or next year) consider sending me a copy to see if I have any ideas for including ICT.

Subscribing to Blogs

This morning our lead teachers continued working on their blogs. We:

• Added an email notification form to our blogs (blogarithm)
  
• Removed the navigation bar at the top (can no longer click on 'Next Blog')

We also went to www.blogarithm.com, created our own accounts, and added the URL's from each others blogs. Now, whenever one of our blogs has been updated, we will all receive notification and can go in and have a look. Receiving feedback (comments) is a tremendous motivator for children (and adults!) so please - add comments to some of the blog entries.

Some more things you might like to try on your blog:

• add a hit counter
• add a 'clustrmap' to show where your contributions are coming from

Just click on these objects on this blog - the links will take you to the sites I used (or find your own).

Here are some of the blogs that have been created in our cluster:

Motueka High School Outdoor Ed

Brooklyn School

Phys Ed

Mapua School Room 5

Room 9 Motueka South School

Te Whanau o Pakarana
Hello

tasmankids

Room 2 Riwaka School

For help setting up your own Blogarithm account, see your lead teacher or email me. If there are other blogs you would like to subsbribe to and you are looking for an easy way to manage them, you should think about using a Feed Reader. You can then use RSS feeds to have new blog entries sent to you automatically, and stored in a central place, rather than having to go to the individual blogs. Once again - please ask for help with this if you have trouble.

Don't forget - it's the feedback that makes Blogs so powerful, so please add your comments to others blogs.

How do you like this slideshow - created at www.RockYou.com



| View

ICT with Junior Classes

Several of our junior teachers took up the opportunity today to attend a Sharefest of ICT Ideas for Years 1 - 3. This session was organised by Waimea Cluster, and held at Henley School. Below is a brief outline of the ideas presented:

ICT in the Junior Classroom

(Ideas and tips for working with Years 1 – 3)

HINTS

• If going to a computer lab, bring maths toys, lego or similar to alleviate boredom as it can be VERY slow getting everyone logged on.
• Have a look at Photostory: similar to iMovie (free download)
• www.youtube.com – can post videos on here and link to your blog
• when learning a new program, allow a couple of sessions for children to play/experiment with the program.

IDEAS

1) Children create PowerPoint story book. (6 x 1hr sessions)

• Use saved images, or children create their own in Paint. Avoids inappropriate images, wasted time searching clipart.
• Plan ahead – decide which words you are going to use in your book, and which slide layout.

2) iMovie/Book

• Teacher created iMovie of own to demonstrate
• Students took own photos using digital camera (talked about: focus, distance, can see face). Children chose a place they liked in playground, took each others photos.
• On school trip, children took photos (decide before you go who is going to take photos).
• Children drag photos to computer (need to talk about files etc).
• Children inserted their photo on to their own page, and wrote stories beneath it. Book printed out – laminated and bound for classroom use.
• Narrations (as written on their book page) recorded by children to go with photos, and added to imovie.

3) Class Blog

• Once a week – photos and stories.
• Comments on blogs are motivators for writing
• www.youtube.com – can post videos on here and link to your blog

4) Maori Myths/Legends retelling (Art/language)

• Children created their own paintings in Artrage to go with story
• ArtRage – free download sufficient. Can use for ‘tracing’ ie photos can be added with ‘transparent’ layer on top, and traced over, recoloured etc.
• Paintings were added to Photostory, and children added their re-told stories to create book (max four pages).

Blogging Again!

What a great session today - well I enjoyed it anyway! Our lead teachers all set up their own blogs - they all found it easy to do, with very professional looking results. The uses are varied:

• Janine and Julieanne set up class blogs for Room 5 at Mapua, and Room 9 at Motueka South. Within the hour the Motueka children had added comments with suggestions for their blog. Nathan wants to know if he can add his PowerPoint to the blog - sorry that's not possible, but what you can do is take a copy of one of the terrific drawings, paste it into 'Paint' and save it as a picture. This can then be uploaded to your blog (see drawing here teaching the Japanese word for 'rubber').
  
• A communication tool for Josh, our Outdoor Ed teacher to transmit information and photos to students and parents. With an option on the blog for parents to have an email sent when the site is updated, this will be very easy to manage. Of course the permanently archived entries will also be great - no more searching for old newsletters! Have a look at www.mhs-outdoored.blogspot.com
• St Peter Chanel - Jill created a team blog to replace the old email system of sharing photos and work with a teacher in Australia. I know this will be so much easier and far more exciting seeing your work on a webpage!
  
• Todd set up a department blog for the PE dept to communicate/discuss departmental issues - an easy way to have a discussion without being tied down to a meeting time.
  
• Kelvin created a blog for "A discussion of teaching and learning plus related issues surrounding Brooklyn School, Motueka". Really interesting first entry - why don't you have a look: www.brooklynmotueka.blogspot.com
• Sara's blog for the bi-lingual unit at Parklands, is "to comment on the mahi of our tamariki, keep in contact with the kaiako and enjoy the journey of learning with us".
  

This is just a beginning for us - I can't wait to share the journey you're embarking on!

Jill's ICT Experience

"I started off with a unit from TKI on using technology for a "Toys and Games" unit. The unit was written by another ICT cluster. It involved the epals* website to correspond with other cultures about their favourite toys and games, and comparing them to ours. I found the epal site a bit difficult to navigate. After sending off a dozen or so emails to various countries we finally received a reply from a very enthusiastic teacher in Melbourne. This wasn't the cultural difference I had been hoping for but it was a start. Anyway we (as teachers) emailed about what we wanted our kids to learn from each other and then we had a go at emailing photos which was a flop as we were trying to send too many at once. We corresponded through our own addresses rather than going through the epal site. We then reverted to the old-fashioned system of posting work samples and digital photos as well as Movies on CD. So although we used digital cameras and MovieMaker, the original idea of the epal website and emailing wasn't happening. Both classes were really excited to see each other on the Movies. We used the data projector to show the movie. The Melbourne teacher and I are going to continue to swap children's work and for this term's letter writing unit we are going to write letters on paper to send, as well as email. It's great fun having an epal class and my kids just love receiving work from their epals. Rob (the Melbourne teacher) and I email quite frequently. So although the original unit didn't quite work out as planned we made good use of ICT and are continuing to learn about it as a class."

*www.epals.com

Jill Harrison, St Peter Chanel

Top of the South Facilitators Meeting

At the Top of the South facilitators meeting on Friday 23 June, the facilitators, Directors and management teams from discover IT Tasman, Waimea and Waimea South clusters, and National facilitator Greg Carroll, enjoyed a practical day of sharing knowledge and ideas.

We discussed the 'how-to' and 'why' of various social software applications, in particular Del.icio.us - social bookmarking.

What is del.icio.us?

del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. Use del.icio.us to:

• Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, restaurant reviews, and more on del.icio.us and access them from any computer on the web.
• Share favorites with friends, family, and colleagues.
• Discover new things. Everything on del.icio.us is someone's favorite - they've already done the work of finding it. Explore and enjoy.

You can start your del.icio.us account at http://del.icio.us/

Kay's favourite for the day: I love the way Brightwater School is using Blogs to build relationships with their parent community. The class blogs they started are not only an excellent writing exercise, but have had an unexpected spin-off. The children are enjoying getting feedback on their blog from parents, including parents who don't live with the children! What a great way for parents to keep in touch with what their children are doing, and offer encouragement and support. How easy it is to allocate the writing task to one or two students once a week - add a photo or two and Hey Presto! You can view the blogs from the Brightwater School home page: www.brightwater.school.nz

NetSafe

Today our Principals were invited to attend a session taken by Robert Minahan – School Education Manager for Netsafe: The Internet Safety Group, the Ministry of Education’s agent for cybersafety and online security for NZ schools. 'Stand-outs' for me were:

As teachers/parents we should look out for:

- Instant messaging – MSN, Googlechat etc

- Chatrooms – MSN Groups eg Rate Girls – girls are including a lot of personal information, including photos.

- WARNING: If you see these on your child’s MSN screen: POS (parent over shoulder); TOS (teacher on scene) then you’d better have a look at the conversation that was going on before you got there!

- Growing interest of teenagers in: myspace.com / bebo.com: bebo includes all schools in New Zealand (and the rest of the world). Teens are adding their schools, mobile phone numbers, photos (some very provocative). Death threats have been added against teachers – currently with police.

- COMING SOON: (currently beta) imbee.com – blogging and social networking for kids ages 8 - 14!

- Grand Theft Auto: R18 but many kids using it. Can download many ‘extras’ like ‘Hot Coffee’ – uncensored dating. Includes rape scenes.

- Beyond normal curiosity: Pro ana websites: anorexia and self-harm – support and encouragement for our teens to continue with this lifestyle choice.

- Christchurch website “Perfection” one of largest sites of its type in the world.

- Cybertechnologies which can interact with cypberspace: PDA’s, iPods – show movies etc as well; cameras; data storage – easy to upload/download information eg programs / viruses – size makes it easy; memory card from camera will also store text etc; cell phones with pictures.

You should have:

- Policies and procedures

- Use agreements – signed usage agreements are essential for students, ALL staff, student teachers – you can develop your own or use those available from NetSafe (recommended)

- Electronic security (filtering software)

- Community education (staff, parents, students)

NetSafe Kit for Schools (2003) should be in your school. If you have mislaid yours, you can download from www.netsafe.org.nz . While you’re there check out the section for primary school children Hectors World – see the wicked wee educational movies they have developed for little people at http://www.hectorsworld.com/

Google Tools and Services

At our Lead Teachers meeting on Friday, we spent some time looking at a few of the multitude of Tools and Services available from Google.

Please take some time to have a look at the Google Tools and Services that are available, as I'm sure you will find it's a great time saver in the long run! In particular we looked at:

Google Images: remember that not only can you search for images only, but you can also choose the size of images displayed. This is particularly useful if you want a larger image, as this will help prevent the distortion you get when enlarging small images.

Google News: Google News gathers stories from more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide, and automatically arranges them to present the most relevant news first. Topics are updated every 15 minutes, so you are likely to see new stories each time you check the page. Pick the item that interests you and you'll go directly to the site which published that story. You can choose to display the Top Stories from New Zealand, or quickly and easily set up a News Alert. A ‘News alert’ is an email that lets you know if new articles make it into the top ten results of your Google News search. This is a very efficient way of tracking current events, or special events that your class are following.

Google Services: Click on ‘more’ to go to Google Services. A Directory Search can be useful if you’re just looking for ideas for your classes, with no specific topic in mind. Try Special Searches to find things specifically for Apple Macintosh.

Search Tips: Click on About Google on Google homepage to find links to Help and How to Search and some interesting search tips in Google Web Search Features.

Did you know: Type a word in the Google search box. If it has a dictionary definition, the word will appear in the right-hand side of the blue bar that stretches across the top of your search results.

For one-word terms, "[definition]" appears next to the word. Clicking on that link will display the word's dictionary definition.

If a query contains more than one word, each word will appear underlined. Simply click on a word to view its dictionary definition.

www.googleguide.com - Interactive online tutorial on using the search engine.

Wiki vs Blog

Today I launched the discoverittasman Wiki. Initially this will be used to share information about the IT Heroes in all our schools - those brave souls who dare to go where they have never been before!

By seeing both a BLOG and WIKI in action, and hopefully taking part, you will soon understand the difference between the two. In brief:

These are both internet-based but differ from other websites in that:

BLOGS (web-logs) are kept by one person, and others may add comments.

WIKIS are websites which can be authored collaboratively by many people. The most commonly known example of this is Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org/) - a free encyclopedia which anyone can edit. They currently have 1,163,999 articles, and 1,530,075 registered user accounts!

What a great way to communicate with other students in our cluster:

• What about a shared book review wiki? Do you have people who maybe aren't so keen on reading, but would rush to finish a book so they can put their book review on the internet?

• How about learning vocabulary - work with students from other schools to perfect those tricky definitions.
  

Lead Teacher Meeting

Yesterday we had a look at "Hot Potatoes" - a free, easy to use program which enables you to create interactive Web-based teaching exercises which can be delivered to any Internet-connected computer equipped with a browser. All you need to do is enter the data for your exercises (questions, answers, responses etc.), and press a button. The program will create the Web pages for you, and you can then save them to your server. You can get your own copy from: http://hotpot.uvic.ca/

As most of us only have one or two computers in our classrooms, why not try using these as extension exercises, or tests before students move up a level etc... Give it a go - and have fun!

First Round of Workshops

There has been a lot of interest in our Word Processing workshops, and lots of 'Oh ... so that's how you do it!' Great to see so many there and a huge thanks to Don at Tasman School for hosting us today, and demonstrating his new SmartBoard.

If anyone has any ideas or special requests for things you would like to create in future workshops, please let me know. Also, if you didn't quite finish today's task, or would simply like to repeat it, please come along to Parklands next week where we will repeat today's session, with more of a focus on using Macs.

Let's get blogging!!

There has been a lot of interest from our teachers in blogging so ... what better way to learn about it than try it out for ourselves!

I will use this blog to keep a record of happenings in our cluster, and hope you will all have a go at adding a comment at some stage. This blog was created at www.blogger.com, is free (is there any other sort?!) and easy to use. Let me know if you get stuck.