St Josephs

Grandparents Day was the big focus for my time here this week. Doug had done a Movie Making Workshop @ ULearn & was keen for his kids to learn the skills. We started with a group of students who will become his classes initial ‘experts’ and support him when the rest of the class has the opportunity to be involved. This is tricky as far as time and management when the only computer capable is the one and only teacher’s laptop… More gear, more gear plzzz…. the tension here is more gear = more $$. Mobile pods would be a cost effective option here – maybe even Apples – some indications of interest from Rae & others who visited the Apple stand @ ULearn.
The focus of the kids Movies was ‘How has school changed since their grandparents were at school?’ Great brainstorming & discussion with the whole class, then the smaller group went off to storyboard, take photos & create their movies. The Computer Mentor team did the same thing too – interesting watching these older kids work – they are really intuitive users of new applications – they can work most things out themselves, helping each other & sharing ideas & discoveries. Mind you pretty simple programme to work with – you just need to follow the instructions down the left hand side!! Gearing up for WebChallenge with some senior students – worked with them as they explored other sites and brainstormed ideas for their own sites. They are all ready to go now – need to gather content, create original content, create some design elements & don’t forget to Register!
Kids set up the dataprojector at the grandparents’ morning tea so they could show their movies – I have never seen so many grandparents in one room at one time!!! Was asked to showcase some learning with ICT while the grandparents did the ‘school tour’ – so worked with a group of 5 & 6 year olds as they used some of the new DLOs (Digital Learning Objects) & revisited some reading sites such as Tumble Books. All totally contrived of course – didn’t fit into any of their learning programmes we were just playing around.
Also lucky enough to work with 2 of my own kids today – Sophie & James – that’s always a bonus!