Exploring the Key Competencies

Today I worked with a group of Year 5 students and we explored what the key competency ‘Participating and Contributing’ meant to them. We brainstormed our ideas ( see our skrbl) and mapped them before searching for powerful (copyright free) images to help tell our story. The students then chose a tool to build their story, most chose bubbleshare or image loop.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Delicious Christmas Recipes.

It would be interesting to repeat this activity after more work with this key competency and see if the children’s understanding of how they can participate and contribute has developed.

$$$ Discount for ICT Skill Development

This looks like a great deal for school staff and whanau especially if it is used as part of a varied e-learning professional learning programme and if staff are given time to utilise this tool.







The Ministry of Education, through the Software for Learning programme, has negotiated a special group rate for schools to subscribe to Atomic Learning. Basically Atomic Learning is a web-site that provides video training on a range of commonly used applications. The key learning in each application is organized into small chunk sized videos so to your needs can be met quickly.
To get a taste for Atomic Learning try out the free web 2.0 tutorials.
Costs: The normal price of Atomic Learning is NZD 1.85 per person per year, but the reduced group rate has the potential to reach NZD 1.50. In addition, the minimum cost per school has been reduced from NZD 1,100 to 600 (plus GST), and schools of less than 325 teaching staff and students can avoid the minimum charge by combining with other schools. All Atomic Learning subscriptions ancillary staff and parents receive free access.
This offer is good for orders placed in the month of November 2007.

For a limited time, you can access the full library of Atomic Learning software tutorials by using the information provided below.
www.AtomicLearning.co.uk
Username: NZ
Password: atomic
For more information contact: murray@envision.co.nz

Education Special

The November Netguide is definitely worth the $5. This issue has an education special and looks at:
Technology in NZ schools – Lots in this article about the ICTPD project and e-fellowships.
Online Learning Resources by Yvonne Blanch
These articles provide a good overview without all the jargon of NZ’s approach to ICT in schools. Might be worth sharing with BOT’s and community.

The Winners of the School Web Challenge are also showcased in this issue – congratulations to Rachel Boyd whose class took out the primary section.
Web Challenge Results

Pedagogy and Tools

I am still wading through the rich material from the recent ‘K12 Online Conference’. I liked the work of Anne Davis from the USA. Her presentation ‘Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools’ went that one crucial step further in facilitating transfer to the classroom.
Anne looked in-depth at 13 web tools and provided teachers with an overview of each tool and most importantly information on how each tool could be used to enhance student outcomes on specific learning objectives. In effect this presentation provided mini-lessons that centred on the pedagogical use of web tools.
Each web tool is analysed using the following format. The example below is direct from her presentation material and focuses on a tool that generates newspaper clippings.

Objective: Summarizing
Web tool: Newspaper Clipping Generator
Use of tool: Students take an article or a blog post and make decisions as to what to include, what to delete, and what to substitute in order to summarize.
How it facilitates learning: The challenge of condensing the summary requires students to engage in a fun way to review and revise their own notes and the notes become more meaningful. The publishing of the summary on a blog makes it interactive as the students help each other to learn to synthesize information.
Blog posts:
• A Tribute to the Blogicians on Blogical Minds
Additional strategies to use with students to facilitate learning and thinking:
• Students could paraphrase short paragraphs.
• Students could use this to post celebrations of good thinking in class by other students or other students they connect with online.
How To: This one is so simple. The 'Newspaper Clipping Generator' link listed above takes you to the site. All you have to do is type in the name you want for your newspaper, the date, headline, and your news story.
To download your newspaper, click on the link at the bottom of the generated image. This will take you to a link that directs you to 'Click here to save your newspaper'. You can click on 'Save to disk' or 'open it in a photo software program.
Then students can include this on their blogs. Note that direct linking to the newspaper clippings doesn't work; the images are deleted after a short time span.

For more of Anne's work check out the following links :
Wiki with more of the above.
Full presentation.
Anne's Blog.

Music composition competition - Jane and the Dragon

CORE Education, in partnership with Weta Productions, is creating an educational web site for students and teachers based on the TV series Jane and the Dragon.

The first activity, the Music of the Middle Ages Composition Competition, is running throughout Term 4, 2007.

Author and illustrator Martin Baynton has provided the lyrics for two songs, and schools are invited to have students compose and record a piece of music for them. (This would be suitable for a whole class or a group of students.) This may be using ICT to record authentic instruments, editing sound files, or using music software to compose and record melodies. You might choose to have a small group do this, or involve the whole class. Find out more about the composition competition on the Knight School website - teacher notes, curriculum links, research material... http://www.janeandthedragon.school.nz


Competition closing date: 7 December, 2007