struggling with powerpoint?

You might sympathise with this then..... and no- wonder project teams this is not a subtle way of telling you that you have to make a power point for our open hui on the 6th!! :) Shall we check the Senior teachers next presentations and offer them friendly critique? Hmmmmm Perhaps not! Just Joking guys!

supporting transition to school...

Well done to the team at Parsons Ave Kindergarten who are exploring how digital media might support transition to school. Here's a copy of the clip made by Tyler- Jay, with the support of Ann, Anne, the staff of Levin East school, and his mum about going to school - we all went on a school visit together and Tyler showed us around and explains his ideas about school visiting processes and what happens at 'his' school. Some of his topics of photograph were interesting and we enjoyed spending time looking at the images and sharing them with his friends. His voice over was great - the first time he'd tried something like this. The idea for this clip is to have it available on the children's computer for easy access when children choose to investigate. Tyler- Jay's mother reports all visitors to his house get to watch his DVD! He was certainly keen on sharing it with our Kindergarten friends and explaining some more! We also have several copies of it on DVD so we can share this with other families of children going to this school. Next steps- lets see if children  who weren't part of the making of the DVD find this information useful.....and lets make one for other feeder schools!

digital technology can't do everything!

Don't expect computers to do everything for you! teachers remain the most important part of the process! both as educators discussing what is on the computer with children and accessing peripherals to maximize engagement, as participants in the decisions about what should be on the computer, and continuing to capture the teachable epiphany in the format most accessible to the learner, her peers, and her family. Here's the challenge!

One of our hundred languages?!

Kudos to Paremata Kindergarten for supplying this work..... and Cerys and her whanau for letting us post to the blog. The team are very clear that what happens on their two adjacent children's computers will reflect the planned programme - ero noted this particularly. Having a hearing challenged child with a very able teacher aide means that work in the programme reflecting this is also represented in the digital material easily accessed by children. Here's a clip of a child ( not the deaf child) accessing a clip showing us the sign for the national anthem that the teacher aide had participated in making. Way to offer opportunities to be inclusive! Great work Cerys in setting yourself a learning challenge and showing us mastery with practice of our national anthem in sign. The digital component allows her to practice to her hearts content and not just when a team member can support her. Maybe you'll teach it to me Cerys when I visit this week? I've included the clip that she was looking at too.....

How wonderful that the team recorded this and communicated it to her very appreciative family - a great way to collaborate on a learning journey the child has chosen for herself.... They used photostory so that the soundtrack of the clip she was looking at was part of the revisiting process for all the stakeholders in Cerys's learning journey. ka pai to mahi!

The hundred languages...

Here's an old and well known philosophy- but a goody. I have to say that when this was written originally - if there was 100 languages then there are at least 150 now! great to see this digital way to get across your philosophy for the school.... definitely a great exercise for a teaching team to be involved in.

Games can lead the fight against boring teaching....

Ok- this is something we know well in early childhood. I am being a bit of a devils advocate here- this link is to an article by a secondary english teacher advocating gaming to embed english skills. Not the sector you would expect this in perhaps? so if we are historically  better at delivering learning through play curricula- shouldn't we be continuing to lead the charge at learning through play in the 21st century? click this link to interface magazine.....Games can lead the fight against boring teaching.

Storytelling and ICT

Here's a topic that quite a few teams have thought about this year. Some have introduced digital cameras for children to use and once comfortable, encourage children to use these images to voice their own stories - either digitally or printed. One has children creating stories using images based on their interests. Some have digital files on their children's computers of favourite stories and a range of props such as books, puppets, magnets etc to aid engagement in the process. One has these files to feed into dramatic playscripts that are current alongside literacy outcomes. Here's some ece research that backs up the benefits I have seen over and over where the digital storytelling has been implemented consistently and well.... click the link to see the research.. Storytelling: Keeping it Complex- Keeping it connected by Jo Colbert of NZ 

Here's a PowerPoint child's story ( or two!) done in this association some time ago... A new feature of PowerPoint is the ability to turn the finished one into a movie... yay!

 Here's a child's voice hard copy story using publisher with child's photo of their work and transcribed voice on the spot....also this association a while ago.....click on it once to make it a bit bigger if you like.

and here's a few examples of children's stories.... involving making their own and others images into a movie documenting interests of the moment.( photostory)

 

 

thinking ethics....

http://www.teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/guidelines Here's a useful site- the NZ Teacher's council has had a reference group looking at ethical issues around use of social media. In terms of this project the most obvious applicable areas might be image sharing, blogging, video sharing etc. We as an association prefer to keep the useful nature of facebook to more housekeeping and notice based uses rather than teaching and learning partnerships.... I quite liked the videos they have put in the resource tab as examples of things to talk about.

ICT to make learning more complex.....

here's a synopsis of some of the research results undertaken by the then team of Pukerua Bay Kindergarten into ICT, teaching and learning. These are the signposts the kindergarten identified as common behaviours in their learning stories showing some ICT inclusion in some part of each episode as contributing to better learning outcomes.... a result not to be sneezed at. Self review with qualitative data....

putting yourself into stories.....

I have been a fan of jibjab from way back- some of you might be more familiar with the 'elf yourself' holiday ecards. I remember using this with a group of 4 year olds keen on dance genre and the experience of putting themselves in a dance sequence of differing genre not so easily found at kindergarten such as square dance, disco, and swing, was a great addition to the 'strings to our planning bow'. Now the founders of jib jab are parents and have started a storybots site where you can put children into stories etc. In my view this isn't useful unless the children are a little familiar with the story??? but another way for children to interact with literacy. take a peek at this.... I like stories!

Kindergartens today....

Here's a very recent DVD that creates a thumbnail picture of Kindergarten - where we came from and in today's world... This is a case in point about the use of media to communicate your philosophy and wider programme to the learning communities you are working in partnership with- or potentially working with. On the same train of thought....It was interesting to read the latest book from Margaret Carr and Wendy Lee " Learning stories: Constructing Learner Identities in Early Education' referring time and time again to either DVD or the use of image or digital files and ways to cross boundaries between contexts.