E Pals

In May I blogged about e pals. http://www.epals.com/
For the second half of the year, my class has been connecting with a school in the states through our wikis. This has been very exciting for the kids, and has created a great learning opportunity on many levels. We received a parcel from them, and then put together some things to send to them. The kids selected some art work and two books to send. They took great pride in selecting the things to send.
https://cheltenhamsch.wikispaces.com/MICDS
Have a look at our record of the parcels.
http://geo-squirts.wikispaces.com/
Have a look at our epals wikispace. This school has connected with several school around the world, and keep track through their wiki. I think this a great idea.
Give epals a go.

Leadteachers' Day

On Monday spent the day with lead teachers for the Feilding ICTPD Cluster. Had a great day with Suzie Vesper. She showed us her leadteachers wiki. "It's on the wiki"
http://leadingict.wikispaces.com/

Thanks Suzie for another great resource.

ULearn08

What great experince, I enjoyed the whole thing.

I have gained a greater respect for twitter, over the conference. I loved the way people posted links to great wikis and sites during the conference. One way of getting something from a break out you were not attending.
Why not try twitter.
To be informed educators we need to collaboate, and share with each other.
http://twitter.com/home

Twitter is one of the top 25 must have tools. Follow the link to read more.
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Top100Tools/twitter.html


Create your own twitter account and start to follow. You never know what you will find.

Video

After much problem solving, by both pupils and teacher, this group of children finished their video, and have embedded it on their blog, and on Aimee's page on our wiki. The kids used the digital camera and movie maker to put this together.
This inquiry learning project promoted the skills of team work and problem solving.

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d9bf95ea0e85a90c125c

"Inquiry teaching needs to be cultivated if we are to develop students able to thrive a unpredictable, but potentially exciting, 21stC. " Canadian educator Sharon Friesen.

Bruce Hammond has recently blogged about Sharon Friesen's ideas on Inquiry teaching. An interesting read. "Leading and Learning"

Video

Sometimes things just don't work out as you expect, and you are forced into another direction. Is this problem solving?
I couldn't get the video camera to talk to the computer, even though I know I have done this in the past. So the group of children who were making a video had to be redirected onto plan b. I introduced them to PhotoStory3. I am sure this will do the trick.
One of the other members of the Feilding ICT Cluster had put a post on the cluster wiki about photostory. Thanks Jenny it is so easy to use.
Have a look at our cluster wiki. Under school showcase there are some interesting things being shared.
http://feildingictcluster.wetpaint.com/

Video

Next week I am going to aim to get video uploaded onto the class blogs.

Conservation Week

This week is conservation week. To help the children refocus on the enviromental work we had done in the past, I introduced them to two great sites.
Tree People

http://treepeople.co.nz/Home.mvc/

The children had a lot of fun joining this site, inviting friends and family to join them. They each made a pledge that would help the enviroment.
My pledge is to recycle paper, and take reusable bags to the supermarket. I am getting there!
I really recommend this site to other classes.

The other site we used was the conservation site. There are great videos on there that were easy to watch. We found one about Turakina Beach, which we had visited a few weeks ago to plant Pingao.

Another site well worth a visit.


www.conservationweek.org.nz