uLearn11+Reflection

From Jan C-H Thanks to the generosity of Otairi School’s donation in 2010 to Taihape teachers, I joined 15 local teachers and principals to attend the Ulearn Conference (1600 delegates) for 4 days of exposure to the greater usage of computers with the ultimate outcome being to increase student achievement. Added to that was my personal desire to learn of further possibilities, for our geographically isolated school, to network and extend student achievement via computers. To begin the programme, a Pecha Kucha-style presentation of 7 speakers spoke for 10 minutes each on a topic dear to their hearts. Some were serious and some were light-hearted e.g. //“Don’t spit the dummy: why online learning is child’s play.”// The first keynote speaker: Dr Jack Bacon, from USA, whose daily work is on the management team overseeing the construction and operation of the International Space Station. He gave a humorous anecdotal history of ‘education’ from his ancestors, which he could trace from 1066, until the present day. Another keynote speaker was Dr Jan Herrington from Murdoch University in Perth. (She had a sense of humour about the All Blacks defeating the Wallabies.) Her research on mobile learning (can’t do that in the Turakina Valley) authentic learning and tasks for e-learning was food for thought. Interestingly the theme of giving students authentic tasks for Inquiry learning was to pop up regularly throughout the Conference. Breakouts: 1. Secrets of Microsoft was a swift introduction to knowing what programmes can be downloaded free. 2. Creature Collaborations was a new twist on the old one sending a school mascot (remember we got a pukeko from Ngamatapouri School?) around the world. It was the motivation for writing projects and collaborating via email with schools around NZ and overseas. http://authenticict.wikispaces.com/Creature+Cllaborations 3. Mahara and Moodle are programme names for putting student portfolios online. The speaker had also used these two programmes for a Junior Technology unit. (Cross-reference: TKI site under ‘teaching’. 4. ICT in Science for students to engage in Science in an interactive manner. [|www.brainpop.com] 5. Enabling e-learning. We trawled through the NZ Ministry’s endorsed site called TKI to find the newly-released online opportunities for professional development modules that can be completed at on pace and own need. (4 stars) [|www.elearning.tki.org.nz] facebook.com/Enabling.elearning www.vln.school.nz 6. Kiwi Kids News. Is a website from a Rotorua teacher and his class that is updated daily with relevant and safe news articles for students. The webpage also includes videos, polls and a weekly homework task based around current news. [|www.kiwikidsnews.co.nz] 7. Financial Literacy. Some practical ways to engage learners. (My idea of a Monopoly-fest was well received.) Class Blogs: An Auckland school teacher uses her class blog to put the students’ writing out to the world for comments. http://littlevoiceslittlescholars.blogspot.com/ Continued.. I learned about the Web 2.0 tools of animoto, capzles, Flickr, Twitter, and iMovie’s to improve the student’s speaking, writing and reading. *****
 * ULEARN Conference in Rotorua: October 2011**
 * (Cross reference: TKI site under ‘teaching’ for tips to begin a class blog.)**
 * 8. Using e-sites for planning. //Iugo// which is a web-based planning tool, used by a bigger school, to have time-saving solution to planning. (The story of this South African teacher’s journey to NZ and into the Catholic education system was most enjoyable to listen to.)**
 * 9. Howick Intermediate gave away timetables and bells to have students planning their own learning. Their system for tracking all the students’ learning journeys and all the necessary reporting was inspirational.** **

From the Trade Exhibitions….. 1. Teaching station/interactive whiteboard (two weeks free trial) 2. Reading Resources online (30 day free trial) 3. Papanui Junction website (30 day free trial)

And from the Entertainment….. 1. Plenty of food 2. The formal dinner (to which the Taihape group chose black and red as our theme, with the compulsory b/r fascinator) was superb!!!! A rugby theme - a skilled trio of actors, known as the Outwits, gave a hilarious history of rugby - with rugby shaped menus and two large screens showing RWC spectators. The live band!!!!!! What more can I say?

From Carol Two things from Ulearn that are working for me in the classroom. My final breakout was with Rachel Boyd on stories with an e twist. Her page is worth looking at but I am particularly interested in in her section on digital photography - although she has a jnr class her site has a lot of good ideas for starting digital photography with all levels. http://rachelboyd.wikispaces.com/Digital+Photography Last week we have looked at the parts of a camera, functions and how to take a closeup photo and how to download photos. This week is messy as we have craft day, pet day, with a trip to a trip to the town library & pool thrown in for good luck. However, next week looks like being as close to a normal week as possible this time of the year so we will be looking at taking photos from - a birds eye view - a snails view - eye level Then learning how to edit the photos. This will (hopefully) lead onto using some of these photos in a podcast - the second great breakout I attended. John O'Regan has uploaded his presentation to the Ulearn site (Podcasting in the classroom). He uses GarageBand but when we had an attempt at podcasting in week one using kidpix and GarageBand, we couldn't get it to upload onto the kids portfolios so redid it on iMovie instead. I'm learning as much as the chn