Louise has been in touch about a teacher she used to be taught at school by. Louise was re-united with her at a training session a while ago. Her name is Mrs O’Neill and she works in St Margaret’s PS. Well, Mrs O’Neill told Louise straight out in the training session that there was absolutley…
‘no way she’d be doing any of this techy malarky!‘
Fair comment you might say, well, Mrs O’Neill has recently been in touch with Louise. She sent Louise some ‘evidence‘ that she’s using and lovingTeach-It. She sent the world tour mind map that the pupils did as well as some guitars that they’d made and some pictures of their very colourful classroom wall.
I think that it is fair enough to say that Teach-It can change hearts and minds!
The key messages from the conference have now been drawn up as a set of very cool cartoons. The cartoons are available for anyone to use to help teach about Internet Safety and Responsible Use.
“These pupils are S5/6 at Craigie High School where they are studying Classical Studies. They were struggling to get their heads around all those Greek names and Eastenders-style plot lines, so we decided as a group to animate the myths – storyboarding and animation made them more accessible, broke the stories down to their key components, and made the pupils think about things like emotions and relationships between the characters.”
“I was really happy to get the chance to get some Teach-It input. Lots of great ideas there for us to use in the classroom”.
Mr McLaughlin.
We also have been sent some of the animations the pupils produced as a result of their great teacher and Teach-It. Have a look below and see what you think.
It took four hours on the bus from Auckland to Rotorua through some amazing scenery. My first impression was that it was a pretty cool little town but once I’d had a look around Rotorua I was pretty dumbstruck. It is absolutely stunning here……so what if it’s a little pongy from all the sulpher. It totally rocks!
In the evening I experienced a Polynesian Spa and I’m pretty convinced that my joints, hair, nails and skin have benefited from all the minerals in the water. From my hotel I practically step outside my front door and step into the hot baths unlike a priest named Father Mahoney who trekked 80 Kilometers in 1878 from Tauranga to Rotorua to bathe in a hand-dug, fern and manuka-fringed thermal pool exactly where the beautiful Polynesian Spa is now.
Father Mahoneys’ arthritis was greatly alleviated from bathing regularly in the pool so the hot mineral spring water now have quite a ‘therapeutic’ reputation. All I can say is that the view from the pool took my breath away and I felt wonderful afterwards :0)
I was delighted to run two breakout sessions at the Rotorua Convention Centre for the Learning@School Conference#latsconf. My first session was ‘Google Earth in a Social Science Context‘ and my second was ‘Use of Online Games in Primary‘ (with a bit of Web 2.0 flung in).
The teachers that came to both sessions were lovely and reaffirmed to me that Kiwi’s are the nicest people on this earth. Nothing is ever a problem, they always seem to be laughing and having fun and I can honestly say I’ve witnessed more random acts of kindness in these two short weeks than in my whole life.
There were a couple of moments that stood out for me this trip and get a special mention. The first was drinking an AWESOME smoothie at lunchtime – the sweetest, most yummiest thing ever. The second was taking my shoes off at the end of the day and walking back to my hotel in my bare feet. There was something so comforting about doing that.
I LOVE that the pavements here have no dog poo on them. How amazing is that eh? Clean streets.
Looking forward to my two sessions tomorrow then the real fun starts – I’m going backpacking from Friday.
Well I’m here and I’ve been so busy I’ve hardly been on my mac.
SO where do I start? Flew London-Seoul-Auckland – it was a mammoth flight but I was surprised at how easy it was. Once I’d watched four movies, eaten my breakfast at tea time and my lunch at midnight, read a few trash mags and crashed for a few hours (literally 3) we were nearly there!
Jet lag wasn’t a real issue although my two boys were awake from 4am two days in a row which nearly killed me. Anyway, I don’t have a huge amount to say except I’m loving New Zealand. I like the fact it’s not roasting hot (although the humidity is a bit of an issue esp at night) I love the food and the wine and the people are extremely nice.
So far we haven’t travelled a huge distance – I thought I’d explore in and around Auckland for a week. On our first day we visited Mission Baywhich had a nice beach and was a pretty laid back place with some nice restaurants. We’ve also been to the Zoo(I don’t normally like them but I was very surprised at how spacious and fab it was) and fed a kiwi. We’ve kayaked which the kids thought was amazing (having been assured that there are absolutely no sharks in NZ – am I a bad mother for lying?!) We’ve also been across to Davenport and seen some fantastic beaches.
Tomorrow we are mountain biking in Woodhill Mountain Bike Park and Thursday plan on heading to Auckland museum to learn a little.
So, just really wanted to say ‘g’day’ everyone and hope you are all not missing me too much.
It’s confirmed…Louise will be speaking at the Learning@School conference in Rotorua, New Zealand on 24th and 25th February!
We have been invited to speak about 21st Century Learning and how we approach the use of technology in the classrooms of Britain.
There are a great many people who have been involved in professional development programmes throughout New Zealand in the past few years. The Learning@School conference provides a wonderful opportunity for practitioners to share what has been happening for them as well as an opportunity for the international education community to take part too.
The Ministry of Education sponsors this annual Information and Communication Technologies Professional Development (ICTPD) conference at the Energy Events Centre in Rotorua, to be held from 23-26 February 2010. There will be a powhiri and a special reception for all of our conference presenters on 23rd February.
Aptly named ‘Embedding New Technologies across the National Curriculum‘ Louise’s presentation will promote what we call ‘Eduvation‘, combining Education with Innovation, Inspiration and Application.
Course Aims Include:
- Explore a variety of ICT technologies and apply them in a classroom context
- To develop lesson ideas using ICT to engage learners
- Experience ‘Eduvation’ through the eyes of the learner
- Practice and apply Games-Based-Learning, Social Media and ICT to the curriculum
Technologies explored:
- Google Earth
- Digital Media
- MP3/MP4
- Games Platforms – Guitar Hero/Nintendo DS/Nintendo Wii
I recently had the pleasure of working with teachers in the Borough of Havering, London. The 7 schools that attended were given Teach-It packs and virtual access by their very kind LEA www.haveringict.edublogs.org.
HUGE thanks and many hugs to Dave Smith@haveringict who is leading the project and Naree Salee who organised practically everything to help the day run smoothly :0)
I was delighted at how enthusiastic and motivated staff were and I’m really excited about working with them to link Teach-It to the National Curriculum. Here is what I covered over the half day that we worked together: Teach IT Havering (PDF)
Dave Smith sent us an email afterwards simply saying ‘Great product, great delivery, great company’.
Some teachers have been in touch since with information on how they are using the Teach-It so far:
Ann Penn has used Wordle in class to create a simple but effective display using the children’s suggestions for connectives which they thought was ‘cool’ while Jenny has used PicNik – linking it to her literacy lessons with work on creative writing – landscapes. ‘It was very effective‘ she said ‘and very simple‘, ‘but most importantly the children loved it’.
Since our training some teachers have asked for advice on helping pupils to use the internet responsibly as some sites in Teach-It require teachers to lead lessons more than others. We have decided to produce this information and put it on the virtual version of the pack. So Havering staff please bear with us and we’ll have this to you asap.We look forward to working with Havering in the future and watching the legacy of the Teach-It unfold.
Here is some video footage of one of the teachers rockin’ with Guitar Hero!:
Hi my name is 'Doobs' and this is my Blog. As you get to know me I would like to get you thinking.
How do you Engage, Enthuse and Inspire the 21st Century Learner?
Do you Innovate as you Educate?
Do you see ’social’ schools as the norm?
Can you offer your experiences to this new network that will allow us to truly ’share good practice’ for the benefit of our Learners?
Are you, like me a teacher or educational specialist who wants to make use of Web 2.0 technologies?
Can you answer these questions or are you that person? Then you are in the right place!
