Newsbytes

Term 3 - Week 4 and 3/4 This term is going with a hiss and a roar. Our whole school went to camp in week three. We had an absolutely awesome time. We experienced all the elements - wind, rain, sunshine and snow. The children had such an awesome time and experienced a lot. Week 4 saw the school hit with the flu and bugs. However, they are a hardy bunch and all are back at school now. Both classes have been working on sharing camp work on our wiki. Both classes have been using Comic Life, diary entries and photos about camp. So if you have the chance take a look. It certainly is a busy time for the cluster at the moment with two lots of sports and the Kainui Concert coming up. I can't wait to see what each school's item is. Cheers Liz I found this on Classroom Concepts website and thought I would share it with you. It might be helpful for those who struggle with adverbs. media type="youtube" key="FWYmEICNgOQ?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Term 3 - Week 3

Sorry this is a bit late. I have had an upgrade of laptop - whoop! so was laptop less last week. Hi everyone, hope that your term has started well. It was great to see lots of people at Awahou for the cluster meeting.

I want to talk about using the flip camera. A group of students used the flip camera to create a movie and it was really easy. They took clips of what they want to put in then we dragged them into the create movie and they joined all together to make a great little movie. For all of you competent Flip camera users, this may not seem that great. But it has just shown me the next step in what we need to do to use the Flip camera.

The other main task that I have been implementing is some basic goals for each teacher to try and achieve. I have included the document but bear in mind this is written specifically for my school. I hope that it will be a good way to get them more committed to using e-learning through these 3 simple ways. I will also upload a questionnaire that i used with my staff about their progress.

I hope that everyone is staying healthy. Here is something to make you think. Take care and see you all soon Ginny media type="youtube" key="Fnh9q_cQcUE" height="385" width="480"

Term 3 Hey there team just thought I would get the ball rolling for this term. How are you going with your follow through of our new wiki pot luck. Lets be accountable to each other and try and get something new onto it every 2 weeks.  Have just added some clips relating to basic facts good to have them on the desktop so kids can use as a resource.


 * media type="youtube" key="G3pq1ay8l-4" height="151" width="192" align="left" ||  || media type="youtube" key="YL3PtlxYkZ4" height="151" width="192" ||

I have also attached my next term inquiry plan following the Trevor Bond model. Feel free to look, revamp or use and if you want to come and see any of us at Awahou we would welcome you all (maybe not at the same time.



Here is the plan for this term's newsbytes. Catch ya later alligators Week 1 - Kath Week 2 - Renee Week 3 - Ginny Week 4 - Liz Week 5 - Linley Week 6 -Nina Week 7 - Bernie Week 8 - Kath Week 9 - Liz (Ginny will be overseas) Week 10 - Linley

 Catch ya Kath



 Week 9  I enjoyed our trip to Ruahine School. It was interesting to hear what different people asked the Ruahine teachers about how they did inquiry and I gained more insight about their inquiry for other viewpoints. I found that the further up the school one went, the better the children's grasp of what questioning was. As with most subjects, in the juniors there is major scaffolding and teacher led inquiry compared to the seniors, where many could follow inquiry reasonably independently with minimal teacher support. It was also interesting to note that they had similar issues with the groups of 3 and what to do with the 'terminal sitters'. Where e-learning use is concerned it was mainly internet use to search for the information and according to the children I spoke with it was not all the time. I was really pleased that I got to view the new entrant class after school ended. While they did inquiry in the class it was heavily teacher led and the issue of how to get new entrants understanding what a question is, was a common theme.  My class has been doing statistics and I came across this site that the class could make their own bar graphs after doing their survey. [|Grapher] Liz How observant are you? Check this out: media type="custom" key="6392613"

 Week 8  Hi guys - realise I am 2 weeks late but finally have done all my portfolio reports so have a breathing space. Looking forward to our day out Monday. We meet at Bunnythorpe at 9?  Will charge up the camera and video batteries!  Here's a good wiki worth looking at for help as a lead teacher []  It has great ideas including a job description for lead teachers, Strategic plan ideas, running PD, teacher inquiry,managing equipment and purchasing, idea for classrooms and cyber safety issues. <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> Another good idea from Michael Boddy(Kairanga) is to have a child taking turns to be the "photographer of the day" taking any photos they choos e as long as it doesn't interrupt anyones work and no posing! They then have to sort out the photos at the end of the day, delete any rubbish and save them to their own folder. Just a thought! Have a good week, hope you had a good thought provoking session with Trevor Bond...we did! <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> See you Monday <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> Linley

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> Week 7 <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> Lead Teacher have created a wiki to share our teaching and learning between cluster schools. All teachers are expected to join this wiki to share their 'best practice'

Week 6 How are you all going. I am starting the ball rolling audio conferencing and I have pin numbers for all. Ginny and I are trialling it on Monday and then I can show you all on Tuesday. Sifting through the interface mag I found this[| blog] which has an interesting analogy towards inquiry, let me know what you think? Kath

Week 5 - Extras Hi all - just some late stuff for the newsbytes - thanks to Kathy who has filled the gap already..... Ginny has already done a bit of introducing Cyber Safety with the Digital Citizenship website. As an offshoot from that you will find this handy website called NetSmartKids [] Here you will find clips for introducting the ideas of staying safe on the internet to a younger group of students. Great for whole class sharing via a projector and screen or you can direct students to the specific link and they can work their way through the games for reinforcing. Give it a go....

Nina

Week 5 Hey there team, after doing a bit of 'surfing' I found these two slideshares. I think they could be great toshre with your staff at an ebyte time in staff meetings. media type="custom" key="6170809" media type="custom" key="6170833"

<span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #f60909; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Kath

Week 4

We have started looking at Digital Citizenship and I have started this week using the online module Digital Citizenship - Cyber Safety wikispace. This online seminar/resource has been created to: <span style="color: #173519; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">If you are interested go to digital citizenship <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Don't forget that the milestone needs to be completed by this coming friday, May 17th <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> If you want something a little interesting check out [|Stixy] A fun on line collaboration that you can share with friends and family. <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Hope you have a good week. <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Ginny
 * <span style="color: #173519; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Address the current trends of Digital Citizenship with links to Ministry initiatives
 * <span style="color: #173519; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Create some dialogue around the trends associated Digital Citizenship - the connected confident learner and the influences that impact on clusters and schools in general
 * <span style="color: #173519; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Create a blended learning opportunity where we can contribute our wealth of knowledge to support each other and to help address common needs
 * <span style="color: #173519; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Encourage on-going dialogue through synchronous and asynchronous engagement both face-to-face and online while modelling appropriate use of technologies
 * <span style="color: #173519; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Encourage trialing new ideas and reflective practice for improved outcomes for students

Term 2 Week 3 <span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Well we are on the journey of using the SAUCE model and I am excited by how this might look. We are completing a unit called 'my way is better than your way'. <span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> Product of the week <span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> This has been a fantastic investment for me this term. Students have been able to record onto the easispeak then straight onto a podcast. I use [|mypodcast.com] to share my podcast. <span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> Thank you to Caro from Newbury as I now have[| smartkiddies] set up for all my students and they love it. I can manipulate what they can do and ensure they are covering the focus of the term. <span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> Check out the [|Commonwealth Games] site .

Catch you all later <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kath

Term 2 Week 2 Hi everyone Here we are back onboard with the newsletters and we have a roster for our Lead Teachers to contribute a weekly update. If one appears a little slow to arrive, you could always help by providing information to your Lead Teachers - the more good news we can showcase the better we like it.

//**Cluster Conference**// A big thanks to all of you who came along in your holidays and contributed to make this a worthwhile event. Something like this always gives back in proportion to the amount you put in. Hopefully it will also provide a platform for you to take a few more risks (in an ICT framework) and get on-going benefits from expanding your repertoire and increasing the relevance of the work we put in front of our students. Don't forget to complete the post conference survey here. Note that most of the questions require an answer and your response won't be sent if you ignore the error messages. We really need feedback from everyone and I will be reminding you.

On Monday we had the Lead Teachers meet at Bunnythorpe for our termly meeting. As usual the day covered a huge range of issues including: each persons role in their school, the events of the first term, use of staff blogs, the Cluster Conference and their workshop sessions, conference feedback survey, use of Survey Monkey, requirements for Milestone 5, GOOGLE Docs, issues in schools and across the cluster, ULearn Conference in October, future LT Days, the return of Trevor Bond, use of the MoE AC Bridge, the rest of this year, future of the cluster post 2010, NewsBytes, use of facilitator in weeks 3 & 4. There was also the sharing of ideas and the support that we have come to expect from this fantastic group of people who not only teach their classes but are responsible for looking after our schools ICTPD needs as well. Please try to be patient when they aren't exactly where you want them and can't always solve your problems. Please remember to thank them when they do offer support.
 * //Lead Teachers Day//**

If your Principal and Lead Teacher are looking a little on edge recently, it could be because it's time to be accountable to the Ministry of Education for the funds we use for the ICTPD Contract. Hopefully it won't actually be too stressful and we can really take pride in our success so far this year. If you are asked for evidence of student achievement I'm sure you will have examples close at hand and digital evidence is especially welcome.
 * //Milestone Report time//**

From all I've heard, Trevor Bond was a success story from the conference and most people seem really heartened that "doing inquiry" might not be such an impossible task after all. Hopefully most of you will be starting the journey sometime soon. We have already started planning for Trevor's Return visit. The format is still being worked on but it will involve him working along side you with a real Inquiry of your own.
 * //Inquiry//**


 * //Something to try//**




 * //Something to look at//**


 * //Something to ... avoid ?//**

I'm in schools weeks 3 and 4 so let me know if I can help. Best of luck for the rest of the term. Cheers Bernie

=Term 1 Week 9= =And yes, I feel very lucky to add the last posting for the term. Just one quick question...WHERE HAS THE TERM GONE??? Well, I'm sure its been the same for all of you - busy but fun!!! Today, Ginny and I spent time planning our GIMP session for the ICT cluster conference and we both learnt sooooooo much. We sat back and giggled about becoming GIMP expects in such a short amount of time but thanks to Youtube we are now the fountain of GIMP knowledge :-) I can confidently say, this is a great program for your class, especially if you have seniors. It can be used in many different ways; photo editing, image manipulation and design, designing spectacular posters, flyers and notices and so much more fun and learning.= =It would be great if you could download this program onto your laptop prior to coming to the conference as you will use it for our session. Its a free download - here's the address: http://www.gimp.org= =I'm not going to give any more away so you'll have to come along to our GIMP session if you want to Get Into My (your) Photos...=

=Enjoy your holidays and see you at the conference, Regards, Renee Timmins= = = =**Newsbyte Week 8**= =Time is moving fast towards our cluster conference. I am enjoying working with Linley as we prepare our presentation for the conference. I have looked at some of the presentations available and would happily go to several except that they are at the same time. I am looking forward to our conference.= =Such a lot has been happening. We all seem to be on similar learning paths with individual blogs to reflect on our professional learning and getting children using Mathletics.= =Wireless in schools seems to be a precious commodity in town as our school hosted the new Hokowhitu ICT Cluster here on Monday.= =I have been surfing the internet and have come across several interesting e-learning game sites. Most of these are good for practice activities. If you get a chance have a look at these.= =www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk= =www.primaryresources.co.uk= =www.e-learningforkids.org= =Hope the rest of your term goes well and I will see some of you next week at the sports here at Bunnythorpe.= =Regards Liz=

Newsbyte Week 6
===<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Teachers and Students are finding it hard to think that the first term is almost over, the weeks are moving rather fast and so is e-learning. === ===<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">As a staff we have set up individual blogs to reflect on professional readings that we complete each week. We started off in a notebook and now at the end of staff meetings we reflect on our own personal feelings and discussions we have had as a staff online. === ===<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">The senior class has started up their own blogs as well. This is to share their work throughout the year. It is a bit of a task to get 29 blogs up and running and thanks to Bernie we managed to get all the class with their own blog. (Now to remember their passwords, even when you think we have got it covered by recording them down, they still have trouble logging in – oh well just keep working through it) === ===<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">We have set up Mathletics for the school this year and the children love it. They play at any chance they get, and they target areas they need to work on and practice. I love the fact that you can check who is doing what as well. It has been great to incorporate into our maths programme as well. === ===<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Term 1 is all about setting goals, so in the first week the children set themselves swimming goals. In the junior room photo’s were taken of the children at the start of the year swimming and for their evaluation of their goals, photos will be taken again of their progress, it is amazing what they can achieve in 5 short weeks. Hope you are enjoying your term and look forward to seeing some of you at swimming sports tomorrow. ===

==Regards Ginny ==

<span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 145%; text-align: left;">Week five already. <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 145%; text-align: left;"> Good to see so much happening across our schools. Colyton has worked our way through blogging for professional reflection which is still at the fun stage. I hope we can maintain this and sustain the progress. <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 145%; text-align: left;"> I'd be interested to see if any cluster schools are embracing the kids own tech tools and using them for education eg cell phones and ipods etc. I started asking kids to record tasks for evaluation on their phones which has caused a bit of division for those that do not have these tools. I've backed off a little and the kids have been using the school video with the same results. <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 145%; text-align: left;"> Having good early success with senior contracts which allow year 8's total autonomy over their school day. It is a neat way to allocate school resources as they have to attend workshops during their week and then book stuff eg data loggers, laptop cameras etc. The most organised get in first. I'd like to have all year sevens involved too but there is a power of work setting it up. I'll keep you posted.

<span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 145%; text-align: left;"> Cheers, <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 145%; text-align: left;"> Might catch some of you tomorrow.

<span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 145%; text-align: left;"> Colin

<span style="color: #f60909; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%; text-align: left;">Hi all - Well my week has been very fruitful with the visit to Awahou on Thursday. Despite getting lost on the way there ( yes you can ask yourself how that may happen but I assure you I have only been there twice and on both those occasions someone else was driving!!!) Anyway I saw some wonderful uses for e-learning in Kathy's class and I enjoyed getting out and about to see something other than inside my own classroom. Oh how a visit can open your eyes and get you motivated to try new things. Thanks Kathy and Awahou. Well as mentioned on the lead teacher day - I discovered a nz site [|www.smartkiddies.co.nz] where you can enrol your students under your class name and it works pretty much like mathletics. You can set the tasks for them to complete and the kids can customise it for their own character. You just cant compete against others in the world. All the same I think its going to work in the classroom and at home.Wireless has now been installed and the laptops will be up and going on Tuesday. The will also use these for Ziptales - available from [|www.curriculumconcepts.co.nz] for an online reading programme.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #f60909; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%; text-align: left;"> I have taken on board some of Kathy's ideas and have placed some youtube clips on my wiki in preparation for Monday morning's motivation session about 'citizenship' so we'll see how that goes.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #f60909; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%; text-align: left;"> We are also learning to appreciate NZ music and youtube clips come in handy for showing the music/video to the kids before they start learning the song - it helps them connect with it a bit better and they can sing along once they know the words....just something a bit different.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #f60909; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%; text-align: left;"> Nina

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: left;">Term 1 Week 4 <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> Hi everyone well I think I have just got in time for the Week 4 newsbytes. This week I have been teaching my guys how to add a link to their wiki page ( and after showing them I get "man that is easy"). I love the way they actually embrace technology far quicker that us. I have started 4 of my students on a trial of e-profiles using google docs once they are established I will allow you all to view and give feedback. This is one of my goals this year to establish google docs in the class. After the small amount of work we have done with them they are really loving it although like most technology there are restrictions. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> I found this cool site [|bubbl.us] I am using this tool for the purpose of writing. Students will brainstorm possible short story topics then share onto their wiki page. Will probably get them to do it in pairs (we all know that two heads are better than one). <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> How are your blogs going. As a staff we have decided to write one blog together and we have allocated 15 minutes at the start of each staff meeting to write on the blog. Our focus goal is. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ef0b61; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 143%; text-align: left;">"Use ICT tools to show evidence of learning throughout inquiry" <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Some of the ways we are doing this is recording their wonderings using <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">**video**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">**Looking forward to hearing what you are all up to. Nina came and visited on Thursday and I am going to see her next Monday. Lets make use of each others skills and plan to visit each others schools because there is alot of great things happening.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">**Check out this cool you tube clip.**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">media type="youtube" key="2lXh2n0aPyw" height="344" width="425" <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">**Kath Lauridsen (Awahou)**

<span style="color: #56c1f0; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 225%;">What did happen last year? <span style="background-color: #ff00ff; color: #ffec00; display: block; font-size: 225%; text-align: center;">Check out Newsbytes 2009 <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 180%; text-align: center;">Link here

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