FutureInTech-Xmas Trees

We were lucky enough to have Douglas and Mark in last Thursday with the FutureInTech programme to promote electronic resources in schools.  8 Year 5 & 6 students spent the day creating their own Christmas Tree with lights and then programmed the trees to light up with music and flashing lights by writing their own code.

Electronics is going to continue to be a growth industry in the 21st century so it is great to have this opportunity to spark some interest in this area within some students.  Thanks alot to Mark and Douglas whose enthusiasm and patience made for a fantastic day.

Buddy Reading

It is so important to remember that one of the best resources we have in our school to improve learning confidence and performance is our very own students.  Below is some video footage of some Year 4 and Year 2 students enjoying their learning side by side.  There was a lot of training that went into preparing our Year 4 tutors but I think the effort is well worth while.

Jump Jam Victory!!

I had the pleasure of attending the South Island Jump Jam finals on Saturday in Rolleston to see our two teams compete against the other finalists.  This was our first year of competing in the Jump Jam competition so we were happy just to get through to the finals of the Year 5-6 Novice section and the Year 7-8 Novice section.  However we have done absolutely brilliantly with our Year 5/6 girls winning the competition for the best routine and also getting the overall prize for the best costume!  South Island Champions!!

Our Year 7/8 team also did well, finishing fourth.

The students have all been very committed to their teams, turning up to regular lunchtime, after-school and holiday practices to ensure they were all looking polished and professional.  I hope the students have all gained a lot of confidence and enjoyment from taking part in this physical and competitive experience.  It certainly looked like they were all enjoying it that is for sure!  It is no small feat to be 'crowned' South Island Champions for anything, in this case it is for Jump Jam-something that is very, very popular in most schools.

A huge thank you must go to Lucy McCaughan who took the initiative to get this up and running in our school.  She also committed a lot of hours to training the teams up and choreographing their routines.  Jenny Gaughan also spent a lot of time creating the awesome navy costumes for our Year 5/6 team so it was great for her to be acknowledged at the finals on Saturday.

We have 3 awesome trophies on display in the office foyer so come and check them out!

Jump Jam Stunners

Check out our awesome new Jump Jam costumes for our Year 5 & 6 team.  I hear a rumour that their routines are looking just as good as the costumes themselves.  Thanks Jenny for whipping these up for us, you are such a clever lady!

Peter Jackson Hopefuls

Teaching is one of the best jobs in the world I say!

Yesterday a team of teachers from our junior/middle team were exploring the use of the 'Trailer' feature in the iMovie App at an E-Time professional development session.  The final result is above.

It is so inspiring to see staff arrive back from a session like this so enthused and motivated (in the last week of term too).  No doubt they will be hatching ideas and plans for their classes over the term break to motivate and inspire the children in their classes just as much as they were yesterday.

One of goals with the integration of this technology is to try our best to focus on the creative uses of it.  This is a great example of how we could use it in this way.  Reading? Science? Writing?  The potential is huge.

Check out the trailer-I think it will make these ladies famous!!

PuppetPals-First Try

One of our Year 7 student's shared this PuppetPal movie with me this afternoon.  This was her first try at using it.  I was suitably impressed that I thought it was worth sharing via my blog.  I enjoy seeing children who have taken the novel they have read, in this case 'The Hatchet' by Gary Paulsen and share their learning in such a fun and engaging way.  In this case the student has not only learnt alot about reading but she has also problem-solved her way through presenting this piece.  I know her next production will be that little bit better too.

App to Try

Last week as a staff we had our very first iPad Breakie, a voluntary professional development session to introduce a new iPad App or generally share some of the cool things we can use them for in the classroom.

I think it is a great idea to share some of these Apps with the wider school audience too.  So here goes for this week.

This week I want to share with you the app, 'Draw Something'.  If you have played the game 'Pictionary' then this App attempts to do something similar with the difference being that you are playing with someone else who is online.  I think this a fantastic way for children (and adults) to exercise their creativity while also learning some new vocabulary and putting their spelling skills to the test.

There is a free version of the game, as well as a paid one, and it can be used on both Android and iOS (Apple) devices.

This is also a relatively safe environment to introduce children to the concept of social networking which is increasingly becoming more and more accessible for children in all sorts of forms.  Remember is always a good idea to know what your children are doing online and who they are communicating with.

All you need to get started is a device to run the App on and an email address.

House Olympics-It's Not All About Reading & Writing!

One of our focus areas this year is to raise the profile of our school houses and student leaders.  Today the senior students organised and led an Olympic House Day.  It was brilliant to see our senior students leading so effectively and the students having so much fun in their flash new house shirts.

I know schools place huge importance on the learning areas of reading, writing and maths, as we do at Swannanoa, but these days provide opportunities for students that are difficult to replicate in the classroom.  The students develop valuable confidence from their interactions, becoming more familiar with each other and building a culture of support, mutual encouragement and working together.  These are vital components of any school that make a massive contribution to how students perform academically.

Well done senior students, I look forward to our next house day.

Building Confidence by Leading Learning

I visited Room 3 today and saw what I thought was a great example of an older student building their own confidence by leading a learning activity.  The Room 3 students love this time each week when Ami visits and reads to them.  I was so impressed with her questioning skills, they were simply brilliant!

First QR Activity-Cool Stuff R8!

The reading groups in Room 8 are getting creative with how they can improve their reading achievements. I have worked with groups to generate QR Codes for the short movies they have made as part of their reading activities.

The students have been so motivated and have had such rich discussion about the text that I wanted to share this learning with you all.

I know our movie-making skills will only get better!!

The QR Code below will be put on the back of the 'Hunger Games' novel they have been reading for next year's students to enjoy.

Wonder what this is all about? What is a QR? Get the QR reader on your smartphone and scan the code below to find out!

iEducator Tour of North Island

This week I have been lucky enough to visit 7 North Island schools this week as part of the iEducator Tour run by Apple Distinguished Educator, Stuart Hale.  The amount of innovation and motivation of staff, students and parents at these schools when integrating the use of digital technology has been inspiring.  It was great to visit schools who have been leading the way with the introduction of mobile technologies such as iPods and iPads.

On Monday we visited Hingaia Peninsula School and Summerland Primary in Auckland.  Hingaia is a new school with innovative classroom spaces where 3 classes and 3 teachers share a central area and 4 'breakout' spaces are attached, including a fully kitted out performance space with green screen and stage.  I was also really taken with the variety of furniture available to support student learning preferences.  Summerland introduced us to their culture where collaboration was to the fore and innovation was encouraged.  There was a wide range of ICT tools being used.  A couple of the online maths tools being used look interesting too.  Click on the links and leave some comments below on the what you think of the sites:  Maths Whizz  & Xtra Math.

Tuesday brought a visit to Point England School in South Auckland.  This is a Decile 1A school where all Year 5-8 students bring along their own netbook!  It is amazing what can be achieved with huge buy-in from the community.  Parents have really seen the benefit of students becoming competent online learners-each student hosts their learning online with their own google site.

In the afternoon we visited Bucklands Beach School who are integrating Google Apps for Education effectively with each student hosting their own E-Portfolios in this way.  A big thank you to our very articulate host students.  Any teachers out their, make sure you check out Lenva Shearing's (Bucklands Beach's DP) Cool Tools for Schools Wiki if you haven't already.  This is an awesome resource, freely available to anyone so check it out.

On Wednesday we visited Tahatai Primary School in the Bay of Plenty.  We were again welcomed with some wonderful thinking around their 'Above and Beyond' topic for the year.  Check out the cool animation James (Russell Street DP-Palmerston North) and I created with the help of our clever tutor, Campbell (Y6):  Rocketeer Animation

This is a quick and easy way of creating animations using KeyNote.

Yesterday we visited Selwyn Ridge in Welcome Bay, Tauraunga.  I haven't been here for 10 years and it is awesome to see the continued focus on creative, student centred learning and a high level of rich learning that makes the most of digital technologies.  One of the things I really want to take away from here is the range of student-led initiatives being facilitated by students with enthusiastic teachers alongside.  I would love to see some of these groups established at our school-media mob, scoop team (newspaper-with 'reluctant' writers), cooking crew and more.

We passed by Berkley Middle School on the way back to our hotel and checked out their initiatives with the introduction of iPads.

It is a huge privilege to be able to visit other schools and have them put time and effort into sharing their innovations and practice with us.  A huge thank you to all the schools we visited and for Stuart who has shared his passion for learning and technology right through the week.  Great to meet some other passionate educators too.  Don't forget to keep in touch.

Back to school next week with some wonderful ideas to add to our school and make it an even better place to work and learn.  Our keen teachers will receive plenty of new ideas and will have plenty to think about as we move towards embedding more technology use within our learning programmes.  These are exciting times for us all!

E-Learning Strategy

It is an exciting time for our school with the launching of our E-Learning Action plan.  This document sets the direction for our e-learning over the next 3 years as we aim to integrate the use of mobile technologies (iPads, laptops, iPods) and other internet-based learning tools into our learning programmes.  We hope by doing this we can enrich the learning of our students and equip them well for an ever-changing world out there.

Below I have provided a link to my presentation for the evening and within this there are further links to some research I have conducted and a discussion document you can add too (go to the last page of the presentation for the links to these).

If you came along this afternoon or tonight, thanks for coming.  A big thank you to some of our junior and senior students who shared some of their learning with you.

E-Learning Presentation

Impromptu Jump Jam

I thought this was pretty cool in our playground.  An impromptu lunchtime Jump Jam session.  Check out some of our real groovers, including Mr Brown and Mrs Williams.

Music Lessons

Kathy Stephens, our specialist music teacher is doing a wonderful job sharing her passion for music with our students.  It is catching too!  Check out our 5 year olds learning ukelele.

Aranui Visit

We had a wonderful day last week with Aranui School. Thanks to the wonderful support from parents on the day and the hard work by our friends in Aranui. Here is a link to the photos from the day:

Aranui iMovie

E-Learning Action Planning

It has been a long time coming but I have some new inspiration to add to my blog. If you are not already following my blog please do so. I love to get regular feedback.

After our successful Fair on Sunday and a very positive 2 years financially for our school I am taking some time at the moment reading about the potential for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in our classrooms. The use of a range of ICTs within classes at all levels has the potential to significantly change the way our classrooms operate and increase the level of engagement of our students and also their achievement levels. If done without thought and strategic planning it also has the potential to be an expensive exercise with few results.

Our school vision which is based around the statement, "Swannanoa Achievers will be well equipped to thrive in an ever-changing world" reflects a strong belief from our community that technology will be a big part of our students future.

The face of technology in classrooms is constantly changing so it is vital that we create a clear pathway for incorporating ICTs into our classrooms that is strongly connected to what we believe makes a difference to learning outcomes and will help us achieve our vision.

After reading articles relating to ICTs in school a couple of key points have already emerged for me:

1. The introduction of new technology and software should always facilitate the key purpose of higher levels of thinking. That is, it shouldn't be about the technology, it should be about the cognitive processes that the technology can ignite in students.

2. For successful integration of ICTs there has to be a significant shift in the ways teachers view their roles (especially as the children get older). Most students have a natural curiosity and understanding of technologies and teachers are going to have to come to realise that there will be situations when their role is not one of the expert but more the role of the coach-setting the purpose for learning and encouraging a cycle of reflection or inquiry by the students.

Just a couple of thoughts for now.

What do you think about the introduction of new technologies in our classrooms? What would you like us to consider when putting together our action plan?