Facilitator+Visit+Two

**What has been going well?**

 * Senior students were given the website [|www.cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com] and Wacky Web Tales and were asked to explore some web tools, use a tool and share what they have done on their ultranet page – the children loved it – share with the Lead Teacher this week during their ICT time
 * Use [|www.artisancan.org.uk] bookmaker to make their own Picture Book – free to try but only limited options – look at picture books that other people have made
 * Information Resource Room (computer suite and library combined) was opened last Thursday and is being used by all classes
 * Using Easi Speak microphones for children to record themselves reading, listening to themselves read and talk about how they sounded – talked about punctuation and expression – try recording
 * Flip Video camera person of the day – the recording went well but children weren’t able to plug the cameras in and upload the video due to restrictions with their accounts on the computers
 * Active Boards in some classes are being used by children and teachers to explore and investigate events like Christchurch, to learn about favourite authors and to motivate learning – The Lead Teacher showed me how the Active Board can be used for whole-class activities


 * Spelling City being added to some class blogs – in-class and homework – children enjoy working digitally with their spelling words [|www.spellingcity.com]
 * Cluster Maps are encouraging for children – people visiting from around the world
 * Children’s voice each week on the blog includes some work from the classroom
 * Children are taking control over input onto the blog [|www.wonderousone.blogspot.com]
 * Each class in the senior team now has a class blog – Each blog is different; needs to include work by the children and be added by the children
 * Senior Team wiki – links to class blogs – links to numeracy, literacy sites/games []
 * Using online modeling sites via TKI like Digital Learning Objects on [|www.nzmaths.com] is being used by teachers to model and then by children as a follow-up activity at their level, eg. ‘Scale Matters’
 * Trialing new digital tools in the Lead Teacher’s class and then sharing with other teachers within the team
 * ‘Doubles’ (maths), ‘Counting by 5’s’, ‘Jolly Phonics’, ‘Vowels’, ‘Word Family Songs’ youtube clips are being used as part of junior class programmes, using the TVs
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Discovery Time being used to promote: W.I.S.E. school values (Whanaungatanga, Integrity, Show Respect, Excellence) – recording movies/taking photos to record what the children are doing and to reflect on what they have done – would be great if it could be uploaded to a blog to share with family at home (awaiting permission from all parents)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Wacky Web Tales have been used every day in one Lead Teacher’s class – great for being aware of language features and as a shared reading activity – whole class activity after morning tea or lunch on the TV screen – children’s own stories are starting to improve!
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Shortcuts on the team intranet page to get to sites like Wacky Web Tales
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Started up a team blog and experimenting with it’s usefulness – a positive start
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">TV screens are being used instead of modeling books – saved to refer back to later, settling down activities, replacing the whiteboard for whole class activities, using Youtube to research Christchurch earthquake – this led to a mini inquiry on how to keep ourselves safe using the EQC website
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Setting up blogs for each class within the Maharahara team
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Children using the TV when a desktop is plugged in for maths, reading, spelling, them sites that are book marked on the server


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Class blogs - set up so children produce authentic writing about what they have been doing at school
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Spelling City – most teachers in the middle and senior teams have a login and are using this Web 2.0 tool
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">An A4 Action Plan per teacher in the school
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Set up a team blogs using blogger, with the requirement of adding to it once a week – each teacher is an author and can add and edit their blog – a really positive response from the teachers


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The discovery that you can email and text files to blogger from mobile [] or from your computer
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Purchased 2 flip videos to try within the school – used with triathlon, editing works best on movie maker and produces better quality videos than a standard digital camera
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Children are more engaged when using ICTs (anecdotal evidence)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Current and up to date answers to questions, eg. Research on famous NZers, “Flight of the Concords” answered an email from a child
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Powerpoint to be used for a 3 way conference with parents, children and the teacher using photos and goals – next year maybe using video
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Trialing the Digiscope as a “Guess the picture” on the class blog


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Lead Teachers and the Principal shared reflections with the BoT from Learning@School – One Lead Teacher did a presentation in Keynote on “Into the Book”, Another Lead Teacher shared her iMovie and the Principal talked about and shared about Google Calendar and where to next with Google Docs.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Creating a journey of the year in Keynote
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I Can Animate


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Ultranet public pages have been pruned back
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Most teachers are using Active Boards every day as a part of their programme – having an Active Board Play morning in the holidays
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Had a demonstration of Word Wall – clickers to text in answers – can be used with Active Board – templates can be found all over the world
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Learning goals are being included as part of the appraisal system
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Teachers will be logging what they are doing that matches up to the goal

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Where would we like to go next?**

 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Junior children still learning to log onto the computers in the suite
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Student accounts restrict children from uploading via USB to computers (eg. flip video, cameras) - how to get around this barrier


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Being able to link children’s digital work onto the blogs
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Skills and techniques, eg. Keyboard skills – when? how? – Typing Tournament
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">TV to be used as an integral teaching tool in classrooms
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Continue to develop own class blog and get some release time to work alongside other junior team teachers to help them set up their blogs
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Permission slips need to be returned from parents to allow children’s photos, first names, etc.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Children to use flip videos and cameras to record what’s happening and reflect
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A team blog to link with home using posterous [|http://tearawaru.posterous.com] – do a survey to find out internet access at home
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Get teachers within the team to start adding to the blog, teach the senior children to contribute to the blog and get them to teach the younger children – reflects the learning model within the team – Whanaungatanga
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Experiment with a wiki as a hub for the team that has links
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Experiment with Web 2.0 tools to share with the team
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Sharing ideas with teachers on what they can do with their classes and how and when to include them into their class programmes


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Pros and cons of wikis vs. blogs for authentic children’s writing
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Setting up a wiki with individual children’s logins and pages so they can all edit their own page at the same time if need be
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Setting up an RSS feed in Outlook to view changes made on class wiki
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Using the Privacy settings so that only members can view and edit
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">How to view youtube clips without the clutter - [] try this link as it adds a plain white or black background and doesn’t offer suggestions
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Or, embed the youtube clips into your blog (you may need to create a new blog just for videos because blogger doesn’t let you create a separate page to use for showing videos)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The joys of tabbed browsing


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Buddy classes would be great - Cluster will be organising this at the end of Term Two


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Begin integrating ICT into Literacy and Numeracy times by including a Web 2.0 activity into the group rotation (have them bookmarked on the class blog)


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Ultranet – being evaluated, looking at alternatives, maybe Wikis or Blogs
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Evaluate alternatives to MUSAC
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The shift in attitude in students towards using computers as learning tools not just gaming machines