Manawatu ICTPD Cluster

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Wow, I have to say that are some amazing things happening in our cluster junior school classrooms. After you see some of these examples you will know that juniors can do anything. Judith at Whakarongo School is a great person to prove this theory right. In Room 3 students are encouraged to take risks and utilise ICT as a tool in their learning. Judith has been utilising many forms of ICT in her literacy programme. Have a look at her blog to see some of the great learning that has taken place.

This example shows a response to a reader “My Best Bear”. B was the letter of the week. Students bought their favourite bears along to school. They took photos of them and then bluescreened themselves onto their bears. They then recorded through the isight camera a description about their bear and inserted this onto their page. This includes muli-literacies and was a rich learning experience for the students.

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You can walk into Judith’s room at any point of the day and see technology as a transparent tool. New entrants are moving around with the digital camera taking photos for a purpose, using comic life to showcase their learning, using KidPix as a creative tool, using their blog to showcase their learning and open up the walls of the classroom. We encourage you to visit the Room 3 blog and leave a comment for the students.

After a PD session with the Senior School Teachers at Whakarongo School they went back hooked on Samarost 2. I also introduced this to the Principals and Lead Teachers at our contract variation meeting and then couldn’t get them back on task. Had an email the afternoon after from one of the Principals who had finished the game at home that night!

Anyway, Carissa from Whakarongo used Tim Ryland’s idea of Myst III Exile as a tool to motivate creative writing. Go and have a look at their class blog and see the rubric and examples of writing. Really powerful learning. After discussing this with her she said that she wished she knew about this earlier in the year because the quality and motivation of the writing was amazing. Have a read and comment on their blog

I am sitting in sunny Nelson at a Regional Cluster Meeting at Brightwater School. The focus of the day is sustainability. So I am looking forward to getting some great ideas to share with the cluster. Have a look at the Tessa’s Centre 4 Website and check out the links to specific website and examples.

Some of the questions that were discussed:

• From experience in your cluster, what do you want to sustain?

• What elements or barriers might hamper sustainability?

• How might we overcome these barriers?

Have a look at the WIKI with the ideas that people came up with.

This is an area that our cluster needs to seriously discuss as we approach our third year of the cluster. What is it that we want to be sustainable and how are we going to achieve this? It has been really interesting listening to peoples responses over the day as everyone seems to have the same issues. One key area that was discussed was based around Principals and their role within the Cluster. Some clusters struggle with Principals that are not on board…the thing is that teachers within the school need to see that the Principals are committed and supporting the project/initiative even if it is not an area of strength. Have a look at Mel Rodden’s research on facilitating for sustainability. All of this information can be found on Tessa’s Centre 4 page. We skyped Vince Ham and Mel Rodden and asked them the same questions that we discussed over the day. Have a look at their responses on our Wiki

Sorry I have created many links, but thought it would be useful for people to see the process that we went through.

Tomorrow we are visiting Brightwater School and looking at Inquiry learning. Appleby School with a focus on Key Competencies and Ranzau School looking at Vision and Inquiry journey. I am really looking forward to seeing what is happening in each of these schools. Inquiry is a huge focus in our cluster at the moment and I am looking for good PD for me for next year so that I can support the schools in my cluster. So if anyone knows where I could go to get further development in this area please let me know. I am happy to travel for this.

I was looking at Ewan’s blog again today and saw he had posted some more ideas on gaming as a motivational tool for creative writing.

It was amazing to see that Kim has tried Samorost 2 as a tool to motivate writing. Check out her blog! The students have written some fantastic introductions. She has also evaluated this process using the six hats.

I have just ordered Myst III Exile and am amped and motivated myself to trial this with some middle or senior students. I was in a staff meeting the other day where teachers were discussing the lack in motivation for writing, especially from some of their boys…imagine the excitement and willingness to write if they could also play a quality, thought provoking game while developing deeper language features for their writing. Here is another one of Tim Ryland’s clips. Listen carefully to the language that the students have produced…sent shivers down my spine!

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Tony Ryan’s workshops are always interactive and motivating. I went to two of his at Ulearn. One on Engagement and another on Web 2.0 Intelligence. The key premise was

Collaborative classroom environments support your students in learning more effectively

He discussed the idea that group work has negative connotations in the classroom, as it is always one person that does all of the work while the rest slack off. He believes in deep collaboration.

While in this workshop Tony discussed the notion of Second Life, Third Life and Fourth Life, with a huge focus on First Life. He made links to stress conditions for teachers such as

• Eustress
• Distress
• Hyperstress
• Hypostress

Eustress arising only in motivating situations, for example giving a presentation. We need this stress. The other forms of stress are the ones we need to worry about. Distress is created by situations out of our control, Hyperstress is being overloaded/burn out and Hypostress when you are unchallenged. Tony talked about ways that we can minimise our stress levels through stress busters. I really thought that all teachers should have heard this!

We discussed Web 2.0 things like Second Life which intrigues me. I think too often people look at the negative side of these programmes when there are so many positives. Like Tony says look at the solutions, not the problems (green light thinking). Have a look at the You Tube clip below to have an intro to Second Life. Just think of the potential for collaborative online learning in an environment that is rich, real and relevant for students.

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Here are some websites that Tony recommended:

PlotPD

School Aid

Tony Ryan

Gaming as tool to motivate creative writing

I was lucky enough to attend to one of Ewan McIntosh’s workshop on using games for motivating creative writing…WOW! I thought I wasn’t a gamer, but got slightly addicted to one called SAMOROST 2…I stayed in the workshop room over afternoon tea to get to the end of the game. Go and have a play yourself…I think you will find it takes a lot of thinking and logic to work your way through to the end. You can’t tell me this is not educational! For some people as soon as you say gaming they think of war, killing, violence etc but these games are seriously great! And the graphics on Myst III Exile are breath taking. Myst is only $15.00 and is really worthwhile. I am going to buy one so if you would like to borrow it to see what you think just flick me an email.

Check out this You Tube clip and see Tim Rylands using it with his class. The language that is produced it amazing.

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If you are interested in trialling this idea please let me know. This would be a great research programme that would allow for us to measure whether ICT is improving students learning. This workshop was definitely one of the best from my Ulearn experience. Have a look at Ewan’s Blog he has heaps of great ideas and research to ponder.

Vox Pops

Do you know what a Vox Pop is? Well, nether did I or the people that we interviewed.

Check out some examples:

Is it scone or scone?

The vaux vault

Have a look at Ewan’s blog and read his ideas for making your podcast more pro.

“A Vox Pop is the ‘Voice of the People’. They are made up on many responses to the same question. Vox Pops are a quick way to gauge public opinion on an issue. They can be serious or just fun. Best of all they are very easy to make. (TheCrew)”

Over the past week I have been at Ulearn 07 up in Auckland at Sky City. What an amazing experience being around such positive and motivated delegates and presenters who where all their to further develop their ideas and pedagogy about facilitating learning in the classroom. For those of you in the Manawatu Cluster Ulearn is being held in Christchurch next year, so start thinking about who would benefit from a conference like this. This year Parkland and Whakarongo sent 10 people. This is a wonderful opportunity for networking, sharing and learning. The Keynote speakers this year were of a high caliber with Ewan McIntosh, Helen Baxter and Tony Ryan. Over the next few days I will expand on some of their thinking in my posts.