Akomai

WANTED! Cool ideas for Science Projects

2011-05-04T22:42:00.000-07:00

We are searching for a great Science Fair project to work on over the next eight weeks. Hannah wants to answer her question.. "How do you make fossils?" if anyone can help. We found this fantastic digital story by Cameron, he looks about four, very cool descriptive story on how he makes a fossil.

What a supportive parent he must have, yay!

Market Day - we're in business!

2011-01-26T11:12:00.000-08:00

Very nervous the first morning and late setting up! Even though it says be set up by 10am, all stallholders we ready to go at 9am when we arrrived. Thanks to Kurstin, I had a lesson on how to construct a Gazebo and we were ready to roll at 9.55... beautiful weather and the comments from people were awesome. My girls are the youngest stallholders her market fee half price! I was so proud of her and her origami demos drew lots of interest.
A really successful day for our whole family, working for weeks to achieve this, a great school holiday project.

My favourite customer was a young guy who brought a bouquet for his first wedding anniversary, telling us the first year token is paper! what a sweetheart.

Thanks to all our friends and family who came to see Paperlicious Origami in action, especially, Miss Page, the beautiful teacher who taught my daughter all about Biz Kids, who happened to be at the markets on our first day, thanks so much!
Big hugs to Kate at Mini-Eco for the garland idea, Shazza for the gazebo, Trace for the table and transport! and Mark from the Art Group for our groovy business cards, posters and labels, they are so professional.

To order origami bouquets, email paperliciousorigami@gmail.com with your favourite colours!

Mini-eco playdough recipe

2011-01-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

Found the most brilliant site for creative and handmade crafts for the kids, we spent yesterday morning making our own playdough colours with flower petals, tumeric and my eleven year old's idea- GERKINS! didn't quite come out the shade of green we anticipated, and the smell sure clears the nostrils! We found a great list of plants that will make every colour and plan to keep experimenting, to see the extensive list from Pioneer Thinking, click here.

To make your own, visit Kate's beautiful website Mini-eco for the basic playdough recipe and natural dye options. My advice though, is to add twice as much oil so the playdough doesn't dry out quick, having spent over a decade making playdough in Early Childhood-if you want it to last, oil is the way to go. I love this idea for playdough because children learn about plant properties and don't need to rely on expensive dye or toxic paint. Kate is a web designer and a self-confessed 'visual junkie', you will fall in love with the photos of her creations from garlands, to beads and her latest post, the homemade guitar, SO COOL !!.

My daughters enjoyed the scavenger hunt for petals just as much as the finished product.

This one's a bit of a cheat on the recipe, with a splash of red colouring, as some petals she found did not make a deep colour. Rose and hydrangeas petals were the coolest giving us a deep red and light purple that kept turning blue, then pink, then purple, very exciting in the pot!

School Children in Business

2010-12-08T23:37:00.000-08:00

What is it?

Biz Kids started in Term Four as a major craft project for five classes of Year 5/6 students, the project culminated in a Market Day in Week 9 which was SOLD OUT in just one hour with the parents, whaanau and junior class clients who attended. This Business of crafty wand sellers was very popular!! Such a COOL idea...

How does it work?

Children in each class had an opportunity to be a Buisness Manager which involved producing a C.V. and craft product description, buisness name and ideas to their Teacher. In my daughters class, for example there were 10 buisness managers who then advertised for employees...giving the remaining students jobs to apply for.

Here is my daughter's ad for her Origami Buisness;

WANTED: Two Creative and Crafty Employees

This job is part-time and temporary.

We believe in turning boring old paper, either recycled and new, into anything using your imagination.

You will need to create products and come up with useful idea.

You will need to co-operate well, be organised, diligent, flexible, creative, independent and hard working.

You also need to have most of these skills wich are;

Good with numbers
Be able to do origami
Be artistic
Measure perfectly
Be extra careful

You will also need a 'can do' attitude!

Pay will be 2 Bart per week.

(Bart is the currency, different coloured paper with various amounts and the Bart Simpson logo on are exchanged by class CEO's on Market Day, $1.00 buys 3 Bart for example.)

Once all employees are hired they are trained and led by the Buisness Managers to produce a craft object for sale. In previous years Market Day has involved food products as well, Teachers found that this disadvantaged the craft making children who worked for weeks then were beaten by the hot chip stand next to them on the day! The logistics of managing baking in the School Staffroom by classes was problematic too. This year Biz Kidz is solely a craft sale day.

Buisnesses work for three afternoons a week prior to Market Day producing their products. All the money made from each Market Day goes toward buying supplies for the following year's Biz Kids Warehouse. It is so gorgeous seeing children's creativity on such a grand scale, children making for children and teaching supporting individuality and entrepreneurship.

Here is a collage of Biz Kid's products, tie-dyed scarves, bath salts, cards, games, finger puppets, stress balls...

What's the learning?

Children learn SO much, from articulating their skills in a Curriculum Vitae, confidence in interviewing and being interviewed, working on a long term goal alongside others. This year the classroom teachers including social networking tools and hosted chat forums for De Bono Hat thinking and discussion on Twiducate. I was quite heartened that most children were logging on, however mindful this is a high decile school and the assumption that most homes have internet access. I have found that parents vary in allowing access, depending on the age of the child ( I have worked with Juniors who are not allowed on the computer at home yet) and Teacher's recommendation... Including Twiducate in homework tasks ensured its success.

De Bono's Hats Picture Source

Curriculum Links?

Following Market Day they assess their writing, Technology, Visual Language, ICT and Key Competency skills;

Establishing role as business employer (manager) or employee
Displaying responsibility in chosen role
Keeping own accurate financial records
Planning Product -includes procedural writing
Making Products
Advertising Products
Presenting Products
Evaluating success of Buisness (Profit/Loss)

Children also tapped into their drama talents for their own video ads, storyboarding funny ideas, dressing up and acting it out for viewing by the other classes...

To view the full video on the school website click here

Where did it start?

I have been trying to find out where it started and by who, but there is lots on the web about Education 4 Enterprise and it's association with the NZ Curriculum, perhaps Biz Kidz originated from this initiative or is the Primary School version of E4E?...

It's definition useful in emphasizing the learning present in such a process;

"...a teaching and learning process directed towards developing in young people those skills, competencies, understandings, and attributes which equip them to be innovative, and to identify, create, initiate, and successfully manage personal, community, business, and work opportunities, including working for themselves."

E4E Quote Source

Personal Reflection

My daughter has gained so much from being a part of Biz Kids. I talked to Teachers and some say how much work it is, and that colleagues are reluctant to take this on. The majority, having seen the results for children, support it to carry on each year and for this I thank them. Term Four can be a term where enthusiasm and energy is lacking, but with this project and the intrinsic drive that creativity creates I think Biz Kids is perfect for this time of year. My daughter learnt to teach and manage others, to develop a successful and beautiful product and to persevere and work towards an event. I have seen her blossom in confidence through this, with the belief that she can have her own business!

To learn how to make items, as pictured above watch you tube tutorials and visit this origami site Squidoo

Since Market Day we have been busy with orders for Paperlicious Origami Flowers and are working towards our first Market Day in real life. My daughter has learnt to stock up, as these are so popular!

This post is dedicated to all Teachers, who don't think of how much 'work' something may be but of its potential to help children learn more about themselves and their capabilities in creative and exciting way! Ka Rawe Kaiako

Children, children what do you see?

2010-08-15T01:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a Voice Thread, planned and created by my ten year old daughter Hannah to demonstrate to her Teacher that she has the ability to act out a story. We are big fans of Eric Carle in our house, Author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar

and this popular children's picture book Brown Bear, Brown Bear.

Over the last week we have visited his website and watched videos of Eric creating the hungry caterpillar and murals for his Museum of Picture Book Art, to view these youself click here.

Eric shares his creative processes in slideshows and there is also a video which my children enjoyed on how to make your very own very hungry caterpillar!

Eric encourages creativity with his stories and has a forum for Teachers to share ideas they have found successful in the classroom, it is called the caterpillar exchange. This is a wonderful way to think about the many ways a story can inspire.
In my own teaching I have read the story and then run a slideshow of the children's own pictures over the day, asking them "Children, children, what do you see?" ... I don't know where its heading but I love that about teaching, will keep you posted!

Enjoy the Voice Thread, the goldfish is hilarious!!!

...This post I dedicate to my very own Mandela, Miss Amanda Jackson in Kahungunu, who now joins the fabulously talented EC Girlz within CORE Education, in their mahi to provide the highest quality and most memorable professional development for Early Childhood services in Aotearoa. Miss Mandela you are my umbrella in a storm and remind me to keep walking through the puddles for and with the children I serve, I thank you with all my heart for this.

All the best for a stunning journey with CORE xxx

ULearn, UThink, UChange, UTeach better!

2010-07-05T21:22:00.000-07:00

One of the most live changing experiences for me was the cross sector conversations and exposure to ideas and experts at ULearn in 2009. I had never even heard of the conference, until my work with CORE in the ECE ICT PL Programme. Click here to check out the team's brilliant spotlights on ECE ICT Innovations from the programme 2006-2009 on the iLead website.

Honestly if the project hadn't sponsored spaces for Early Childhood Teachers to attend and present I think I, along with my early childhood colleagues, would easily misinterpret ULearn as just another primary conference, but we would be so wrong. I was so inspired and challenged by it. My mind buzzed for nights there, its a wonder I slept at all!. ULearn is the largest technology in Education conference in New Zealand, hosted by CORE and in Christchurch every October.

I am hopeful I will be there next year, I want to take my small team of teachers. I remember meeting a principal on the bus back to the main arena after a breakout at ULearn '09 who told me she brings her whole school! 14 teachers, from Auckland...

"It is the only way we can all be on the same page together, if only one or two go, it takes too long for change to ripple through our school."

The fabulous team at CORE on the 5th-9th October, will provide another outstanding conference for Teachers across all sectors, and I hope that this post may prompt or generate interest in attending from readers, go ahead! its worth it!

To find out more about this amazing educational cross sector conference and to registration go to http://www.core-ed.org/ulearn/10

$645 + GST

I've been teaching all day Mummy!

2010-05-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

This week I worked with my daughter and her classmates to learn to use the digital camera, download and produce a visual story in Comic Life or Photo Story 3.

Bryony was a natural at giving directions and patiently allowing children to learn for themselves! When we got home she told me how tired she was from Teaching ALL DAY! The following day, with a little negotiation and some tears she agreed to let others be trained as peer tutors too lol, with the understanding that once you have learnt something-the more you can share it-the more people will learn it, and THAT is what makes a great teacher.

Over two days the children took turns to try photography and digital storytelling with Photo Story 3, another easy programme for young children and nervous teachers to master. The children felt like pilots with the headset on, recording their narration to pictures. As the stories were played back the room went silent and they were captivated by their classmates voices.

I don't think there is anything more rewarding for me and now my daughter has felt it, when children learn something new and are completely in awe and excited by it, wanting to return to it, repeat it and learn more...

That's why I'm a teacher, what a BUZZ :)

To download a free trial of Comic Life click here
To download a pdf of helpful Comic Life notes click here
To download the free digital storytelling software for Windows, Photo Story 3, click here
To watch a tutorial you tube on Photo Story 3 without a drone speaking click here

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity

2010-03-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

A powerful whakaaro on creative genius, Elizabeth's message is to 'keep turning up', even on days where the creativity is not flowing, but to talk this energy, this purpose, this feeling of what you were born to do.
Its a spiritual discussion, without being religious, but takes us back to Greek thinking-that creative ideas and messages came from the divine, to renaissance thinking that someone was a 'genius' to where we are now... in understanding that is just too much pressure to be labelled a genius... and can we accept that creativity is something special that happens upon us.
What I love about Ted Talks is they make me think, they make me think in new ways, and at the touch of my fingertips I can hear worldclass writers, authors, innovators who keep my 'Big Picture' self alive :)

Key Competency potential in application use

2010-02-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

This week I am presenting at Learning@Schools in Rotorua. I have chosen five of my favourite applications which have proven their worth as teaching tools over time with young children. Teachers will have the opportunity to play briefly with each application and be excited by the exemplars of children's mastery of these ICTs. I hope that this session will encourage Teachers to learn and the applications alongside tamariki in their classroom and discover that these strengthen the quality of reporting to parents and whaanau. The Voice Thread below details five more which have valuable roles to play in developing childrens oral, written and visual literacy in meaningful contexts within the school.

If you have any to add to this list, because this is by no means an exclusive or final list, please comment and give a learning experience with it :)

Publishing children's books for free

2010-02-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

This is an online book, shared by David MacGregor, you will find all sorts of free and facinating books on the online publishing site Issuu. This is a small blurb from David;

A short childrens book I wrote and illustrated for my son when he was 4 years old. I lived in another country from him. The book was a birthday gift. It is just an artifact from life. People seem to enjoy it. Some have suggested publishing it commercially - but I am happy to share it here: free for all to enjoy.

The BEST thing about Issuu is the ability to publish your own books and receive comments from other publishers and readers. A few weeks ago Bryony and I worked on this book about two little elephants, She illustrated and I wrote the text. I then took close up shots of the drawings with the macro setting on my camera and cropped the pictures into power point slides. From there I converted into a pdf, Issuu takes really large size pdfs and gives you many formats for publishing.

From there you can easily embed any filp book to blogger, imagine children's generated stories like this onto their own ePortfolio, that's what I plan to put much effort into for my little artist daughters, then we can share with family and friends round the country. This week Bryony and I received a comment from an Issuu reader, who is a graphic designer, praising her illustrations and asking for a series! What a buzz!!

Computer Whispering

2010-02-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

Love these comedian goddesses, have so for years, and am sharing this because it makes light of the intense frustrations we can all feel at times with our much loved and tapped upon, pieces of sophisticated metal. Many of the people's fears of ICT are born from growing up in a generation with old dinosaur versions which did clap out, go blank and crash at random moments, we need to remember how robust these machines are now. While I don't advise you put your cellphone through washing cycle or roll your camera through the sandpit, i have heard more stories about ICTs surviving these incidents than completely failing in a pit of corruption lately. So this is reassuring, one application that I have found useful that I got from my own 'apple man' has been great when thinks are getting quirky;

This free application called Yasu is designed to be the first step in tidying up a mac that has started playing up, just remember to untick the reset permissions so you don't need to enter all those passwords again, if like me, that is a pain and what are my passwords again??? :)

Just Google it! one centre I worked with could not turn publisher documents into pdfs, so we google searched the whole question...
"How to convert a publisher document to pdf on windows?" and found several free applications to download that would help us to do this.

Its taken me a while to change my ways of doing, I would definitely prefer someone to sit with me and talk through applications and I love doing this for others. So in a way I aspire to be a computer whisperer! Until then I am thankful for the internet and google searching for times when a techy is not on hand, besides it is even more satisfying to find it out and fix it yourself!

Teachers flip over it!

2010-02-04T17:31:00.000-08:00

Number #11 in The 15 Gadgets That Changed everything this decade the Flip camera has become a legend in 3 years...

This is a small review for the Flip camera, a camera with several points of difference that make it a great teaching tool. I was first introduced to this ICT in my role as a facilitator in the ECE ICT PL Programme 2009. Over the year it was trialled by ten early childhood centres and proved itself to be worthy of personal, centre and association purchases.

Teachers love the flip because;

It enables you to film children without interrupting their flow of play

Reactions to filming, children assume it is a phone and ignore it, you can hold it right beside them and record without them beginning to show you their funny faces for the camera...or feel shy with it aimed at them.

You can place the Flip on a shelf and record away without the camera shutting down to save power

It has a pop out USB connection and loads straight to your laptop

The quality of footage is equal to most video cameras and surpasses digital cameras as the sound clarity is great

The memory is more than enough, several short movies and presentations can be filmed before a download is necessary

It is light and can hang on a lanyard around your neck and not hurt children as it inadvertently swings away from you

Simple to use, no fancy buttons that you never end up using

Price, now available late last year in retail stores for under $400 its an easier investment to make in a video camera than the more expensive models

So what are the benefits for children's learning?

Increased opportunities for learning experiences of children to be used by the team for digital storytelling, DVDs of learning to be sent home

Accessible to all-amatuer film makers with a steady hand will find this so easy it increases their use of video for reflection on learning

Affordable (well for those centres with adequate budgets for resourcing and those who obtain grants) potentially you could get four members of your team a Flip each for instead of sharing one video camera-which in the heat of the teachable moment can be tricky...not to mention looking for batteries for it or feeling surly as someone forgot to put it on charge!

Potential-could be used as a loan camera for families to record significant events to share back at the service...weddings, birthdays, a child's visit to school..dental nurse...marae

The Flip has a great battery life, charges as its connected to your computer NO MORE CORDS YAY! This means you might want to use it instead of using the film function on your digital camera as that takes up so much memory.

The only downsides to the Flip I can see are;

Unintentionally children and adults learning to use the Flip may delete videos-as it is a very subtle movement from DELETE to DELETE ALL. You could avoid this by downloading it before you use it as this is simple and fast OR even better empowering discerning young film makers to review their footage and delete when necessary as part of the process.

The screen to preview your footage and shoot is a lot smaller than a handy cam, even your cellphone, so previewing is best done after downloads.

Last word: No one gadget is better than another for long, I am not sure of its competitors, there will surely be some. As sure as the sun, the moon and the sky there will be something better, more versatile and cheaper out next year... for now we are well and truly flipped over it!

Provocating discussion and planning for extreme change in our futures

2010-01-31T17:17:00.000-08:00

In this Ted Talk Ian provocates ideas on innovation to come, the ability to regenerate limbs and make the special olympics obselete, the archaic system of governance to cope with global changes to communities, lifestyles and the threats of biochemistry.
Ian also makes sure we consider, who is left out of all this, the poor, the illiterate, he is a realist and I like his thinking. While I am excited about innovation, the more powerful man becomes over the planet and its resources, the more potential there is to share for the greater good and think beyond one's self or to continue to widen the gap between cutures, between rich and poor, young and old, literate and illiterate.
I believe like Ian that the world needs a new model of leadership, one that has representatives of all cultures, gender, age and skill base. I have been thinking about distribution of wealth and power since coming across this image of the APEC economic summit. While Obama would now make a nice visual replacement for Bush in this powerful group, the mix is still sorely lacking females and youth...

My wish would be that children are a huge part of that future leadership model, part of economic and other planning for extreme change in their future communities;
There are many things that can be achieved at local/community level to ensure that children receive the support they need to develop well, are protected from harm and are actively included in the life of their community/city. Children and young people are more than capable expressing their opinions on and influencing decisions about their community/city.

For example did you know that UNICEF NZ is promoting the concept of CFCC? - an initiative based on the Child Friendly Cities programme, inspired by initiatives in Europe. CFCC aims to awhi local authorities to consider the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) as a framework for community development and growth so that children and young people are valued as important stakeholders in any decisions made about urban and community planning. Isn't that a great start!

I can think of one extraordinary kindergarten who respect children's ideas and their rights to plan responses to learning. Carlyle Kindergarten in Napier notices children's wonderings and interests and involve them in planning mini-excursions outside the service. Children select where they would like to go to extend their knowledge, for example on bus conducting or mechanics, and which of their peers would also benefit from this experience with them because they share the same passion or questions, awesome mahi team :)

Some other ideas are...

Co-writing learning stories with children and deciding on next steps for learning
Timely and proactive consultation with whaanau on collaborative responses to the learning story

Active consultation with children on the content and arrangement of group times, rules, routines

Joint decision making in positive guidance opportunities-let the children come up with solutions for consequences to behaviour with respect to each other's wairua

Providing access to children to the most current and relevant information on their world through the internet

Protection of children from harm-take an active stance on educating what it looks like to be a good friend and the expected treatment of others-role model respectful relationships yourself-do you yell across the room at children when you would not accept this treatment yourself?

Instant response to observations of neglect and harm-connecting families with support agencies and advocating for no tolerance to violence-emotional or physical

Giving children choices in the planned and emergent curriculum, a voice in their learning, why not consider doing discussing planning stories and learning opportunities in small groups as opposed to as a team in non-contact

In the future its going to be vital that children have a strong sense of their rights and the rights of others. They will need to make decisions on things we can not yet imagine, the more opportunities we give them to do so, the more likely they are to make great ones!

Just in case you havn't heard of UNCROC or want to familiarize yourself again with children's rights under the convention click here.

Bananas, MJ and the Internet for education and entertainment

2010-01-23T15:36:00.000-08:00

There has been a dramatic shift in the way my children entertain and educate themselves since Google and You Tube came into our lives. I remember hearing about You Tube and thinking why would people put their movies on the net and I scoffed and thought if I want to watch that mind-numbing junk I will check out America's Funniest Home Videos, not!.

Well I couldn't have been more ignorant at that stage, now my children and I find songs we love and the funniest gems to share with friends. You Tube not only entertains-for free, but educates-for free! The next time you think "I need to do a course on that" check out what you can learn on you tube on that particular subject, there are video tutorials on just about everything, how to change a bicycle tyre or make a collage in Picasa 3, a free creative photo application I highly recommend.

I am writing this post is to highlight the FUN and FACTS that can be found by surfing around in You Tube, maybe I'm teaching you to suck eggs or hopefully this will encourage you to use it more in the classroom, in your living room and own learning.

During a family evening we watched Michael Jackson you tubes and the children felt compelled to get up and dance to the point where creativity ignites and Hannah begins to choreograph their moves :)...

...doesn't MJ do that to everybody? his music had no boundaries in terms of age and culture, a bit like the internet although, i'm not so naive to think everyone has access to it. Take Sweden for example, where men have twice as much access than their Japanese counterparts, while Swedish females have triple the average access to internet that females in Japan to read more, click here Isn't this interesting? and surprising given Japan's techological innovation (stats link). Sweden it seems looked to the future long ago and is committed to everyone having high speed broadband, even in remote areas;

Sweden is among the world's leaders in information technology, computer hardware, software, and services. It has the highest number of phone lines (combined fixed and mobile) per capita, as well as the highest percentage of Internet users in the world. Some 74 percent of Swedish companies and 45 percent of households had Internet access in early 2000. World Bank (2000)

The great social commentator and literary genius Stephen Fry debates with Biz Stone, Founder and Chief executive of Twitter on the power of social media for good, he tries to remind Biz that the internet is accessed mainly by the white, liberal and privileged, its a different story in Africa though. Thinking of Aotearoa, even closer to home, we are still on dial-up in most Early Childhood centres and homes due to the high cost of access. I hope all children can one day experience, free wireless internet in their communities.

Just as it is every child's right to become literate, he or she should have the right to become a skillful user of ICT. Children should be able to operate a computer and its functions, and experience ICT as a tool with vast possibilities for communication and information retrieval/sharing. ICT (including the Internet) gives children a medium in which information can be presented in both a linear and a nonlinear and associative way. Children's spontaneous thinking uses associations; ICT challenges young children to associate one thing to another in creative ways (Alexandersson & Pramling Samuelsson, 1998, p. 6).

"Learning through ICT in Swedish early childhood education from a pedagogical perspective of quality", 2003

I think the more people experience the wealth of information there is on the internet and it enriches there lives, the more communities and countries will move to this collective and collaborating platform, but for now I feel one of the 'privileged'. So I will make the most of it, my children are going to be all the wiser, fitter and happier for it!

Education
Take for example your everyday Banana, in my daughters search for the ultimate smoothie recipe, we learnt how Monkeys open their bananas...!

Entertainment

Then we were entertained by the rapping banana, several times I might add, and you can't help but crack up...

But my favourite you tubes off all are the sesame street collection. Easy and quick to watch, they intermix comedy and messages on values, literacy, numeracy, friendship.. and in this one the magical and essential act of using your imagination.

Professional development and community education for people to feel comfortable and confident with ICT in home and educational settings will be essential as we need to monitor the creative opportunities and pitfalls of internet access, while this post highlights the two great entertainment and education aspects of you tubes, it won't forget to mention that there is alot of junk on there too and adult content in you tubes which are disguised as children's. I always encourage you must view them first by yourself if you are not sure, this is pretty quick as you can tell in the first few seconds if a you tube is appropriate for children.

Now here's my pondering and provocation, in what ways are children accessing the internet in your home or teaching environments?

Low Level of Quality= The lowest level of quality related to ICT in education settings is when only one computer is made available for children to use, either individually or together, at the teacher's discretion.

Good Level of Quality= ICT is directed toward specific educational use, and designed to challenge children's creativity. Digital cameras are also being used more and more frequently for advanced digital documentation of children's learning and multimedia programmes, which allow children to express and create their own experiences in text, sound, and pictures, are mostly used in combination with various research and/or development projects. At a good level of quality, children communicate, discuss strategies, solve problems, and have fun together while they use both games and educational programmes, they find their computer use to be meaningful.

"Learning through ICT in Swedish early childhood education from a pedagogical perspective of quality", 2003

Choosing the extraordinary...

2010-01-10T07:36:00.000-08:00

To read Detavio's inspirational Blog, click here Detavio describes himself as a 'servant leader', I have not heard that description yet, but it resonates with me, one who leads through serving others. I feel that naturally as teachers, this is what we do, serve colleagues and families and discover somewhere down the we are leading them in new directions they might not have seen possible. Equally so they reciprocate this for you as their facilitator, coach, teacher and friend.

Is not the strongest influence the stories and passion of others? Energy rubs off on me and I search for like minded souls, I definitely like what Detavio has to say and will keep reading and choosing the extraordinary actions within moments. Detavio also writes about 'going hard' and not settling for the current situation, although fantastic and the best you may have known, there is more if you just imagine and work as hard as Jordan, Obama and the Mother Teresa's of this world. Here is what Detavio defines as the act of going hard at your life...

"Making a commitment to stand, fight, and push the limits in order to follow our passions, be the best in the world, build upon our strengths, and ultimately reach our maximum potential."

Resourcefulness: Something out of nothing

2010-01-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

It always amazes me and makes me feel incredibly proud when I see my children create their own magic from the resources around them. This year, a new year and full of new challenges, one of mine will be to be as content and resourceful as my children. This summer we stayed on the western shores of Lake Taupo, a remote camping ground adjacent to a Marae. The best part about the remoteness was no electronics or toys, which didn't bother my girls at all. Bryony spent an hour creating this sand sculpture of her best friend Grace on an island. I think its gorgeous, it uses the gifts from papatuanuku and makes me smile.

The ECE ICT Professional learning Pilot has ended and now our team has rebranded as CORE Achieve.
Lessons learnt for me;

Positive attitudes to new learning accelerate growth and changes in teaching pedagogy
Relationships of trust and admiration are integral to facilitator effectiveness
Every child deserves a teacher who views them with 'capable' goggles on

and some of the best ideas come when you are mulving your to-do list over at 2am in the morning!...

This Blog now has the purpose of sharing my whakaaro on ako, the intertwined phenomenon that is, teaching and learning.

May this year bring the strengthening of children's rights to be adored, respected and provided with endless creative opportunities. I hope to be as resourceful as my children and create some magic for Kaiako, Tamariki and Whaanau in Tuwharetoa, Tairawhiti, Kahungunu... and who knows where else :) in 2010.

Thank-you Sunny Days Team :)

2009-12-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Invitation to Taupo-nui-a-tia rohe

2009-11-24T17:32:00.000-08:00

Thank You

2009-11-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

To Janine,
Thank you for everything that you have done for us over the past seven months. Your dedication, support and encouragement has enabled us to achieve our goals. We thoroughly enjoyed the Hui, and have come away from it with lots to think about.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
The Frederick Street Team , Frederick Street Kindergarten, Hastings

Informative video on future of ICT

2009-11-10T23:22:00.001-08:00

Trillions from MAYAnMAYA on Vimeo.

Margie's Korero for Cluster Hui this Saturday

2009-11-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

The Wearable Arts Exhibition moves back to Nayland Kindergarten, Nelson.
Presenter: Margie Meleisea for Nayland Kindergarten Team.

One of the biggest losses to the Nelson community was the move to Wellington of its home grown successful Wearable Arts. In 2008, Nayland Kindergarten children and teachers started their own annual visual art exhibition.
This workshop focuses on how children and teachers have used ICT to support the development of visual arts as a strength for Nayland Kindergarten.

An art critic commented that the children's art work was comparable to works seen in the European Art World. Exhibitions remind us of the magic way children see their world and celebrate it through the use of multimodal media. Come and share this journey with us.

Margie Meleisea:
Talofa Lava,
I have been involved with Nayland Kindergarten for 8 years. First as a parent, then chairperson of the committee, administrator and then after completing my GardDip ECE in 2007/08 became the fourth teacher in July 2008. I am currently in my second year of teacher registration.
I am married with four children aged 8yrs to 14yrs. family. My family is passionate about family, music, dance and sport.
(Along with this we are also quite manic at times and very loud!)
I have a background in child protection work and I am passionate about children, culture and community.

Tena Koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa
Me mihi ki nga taonga tuku iho

Ko Margaret Cole raua ko Frederick Neve oku matua tipuna ki te taha o toku whaea
Ko Peto Su raua ko Niupulusu Fui oku matua tipuna ki te taha o toku matua
Ko Elwynne Su toku whaea
Ko Peniamina Su toku matua. Kua mate toku matua inaianei
Ko Margie Meleisea toku ingoa

Ko Tala Meleisea toku hoa rangatira
Ko Penni, Ko Fa’avae, Ko Cole ratou ko Joseph aku tamariki
Ko Penni te matamua, ko Joseph te potiki
Ko Fa’avae raua ko Cole nga tamariki kei waenganui.

Ko Wharepapa te maunga
Ko Matahi te awa
Ko Taitapu toku moana
Ko Palauli, ki Hamoa te iwi o toku matua
Ko Greymouth, Aotearoa te kainga tuturu o toku whaea
Ko Hamoa toku kainga tuturu, engari, e tipu ana ahau Ki Aotearoa
He kaiako ahau ki te kura pepi o Nayland ki whakatu
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa
Kia tau te rangimarie ki a tatou katoa.

Looking forward always
Tofa Soifua for now.
Margie

This Saturday we celebrate ECE ICT PL and touch the future...

2009-11-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Hawkes Bay cluster regional hui

2009-11-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

Kia ora koutou
My name is Amanda Higgins and Janine has very kindly invited me to attend your final eceictpl hui on Saturday. There was a small catch though- that I present at one of the breakouts!! (I am in breakout 3). She suggested I give you a quick run down on what I will be talking about on this blog, so here goes:
The title is Leadership and ICT sustainability:
Life after eceictpl - I have returned to teaching after being the eceictpl Wellington area cluster facilitator for 18 months. I share some of my successes and challenges around ICT sustainability.
Leadership: Last month I was lucky enough to be involved in organising the TRCC leadership conference. I will share some key points from the various speakers about their research around leadership.
Your turn: Using one of the leadership models I talk about earlier, we are going to brainstorm ways you can continue to sustain your ICT learning after the eceictpl project comes to an end.

Please let me know if there is anything else you would like me talk about
My email is amanda.higgins@xtra.co.nz
Looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones!

Sharing Carlyle and Irongate@Ulearn

2009-11-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

Thank-you to those within our cluster who supported us with valued feedback when we rehearsed for Ulearn '09 in the lead up to the conference. Our session was very successful, and both teams spoke extremely well, delivering very special stories to the audience. Some gems from that moment are;

A loan camera can reduce disparity in home resources
Children can build ICT capacity within the Kindergarten context alone, this transfers easily to home
Email is an exciting communication tool, allowing stories form ECE to travel around the world

Boys have a natural curiosity in ICT and this supports and develops multiliteracy
Children can teach adults how to use narrative documentation applications such as 'Comic Life'
Google gives children instant, current knowledge to increase their own and teachers faster than any other research tool to date
Children's own leaving DVD makes an excellent premier film on their last day with popcorn!

Arohanui to the learning communities of Irongate and Carlyle Kindergartens, without your taonga (children) the ECE ICT PL Programme would not be possible and as ataahua!

Play? when and why? because it feels right and great!

2009-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Everyday we choose our attitude, do we mope and complain about everything we are not getting to do or do we smile and try and some some fun in every way possible? This post is about playing, what it does for us and why i think Margaret Carr has chosen 'enjoyment' as the fifth dimension of strength of a learning disposition.

When you enjoy something you learn more, when you move you learn more, when you feel valued you learn more...

I enjoy painting. When I paint the working part of my brain shuts off and I enter a world of colours and choosing the best colour to use, the right wash, the perfect place time to stop and add the outlines. When I paint I am in the zone, i did well at school in Art but I don't really see that that matters now. What matters more is I love doing it, my children love doing it and we get to give it away to the people we love the most.

This painting I did for my best friends wedding, which is the only time I make time to paint, when a significant present is needed, but I'm thinking I should do it way more, its one and a half years since I did that! and schedule it into my day. So I am today! I found my paints to make posters for our Hui and the girls are showing me that you can be 9 and 6 and STILL enjoy a marble run.

Naketa Ferguson, our Auckland 1 ECE ICT PL facilitator told me about the 'play time' at Google;

"At Ulearn I heard in a number of presentations about the Google 20% rule. Apparently all staff at Google get 20% of their time a week to explore their own passions and to play. Rumour has it that most of the new innovative ideas that Google have produced have come from that 20% of time."

To check out Naketa's Blog click on her name and watch a great piano stairway that illustrates the Fun Theory, Thanks Keta!

Back to Art and play, so intrinsically linked and important to me..How did I learn about it?

Did it learn it at School? an article Sharon Carlson found is challenging my ideas on formal lessons beginning at five. One comment from a Cyprus family, there are many from countries responding globally leaped out at me;

"In Cyprus the children start at age six and they have pre-school kindergarten. They start at 0730 and finish at 1330. Many from our village attend universities around the world, so their education appears to be unaffected." Anonymous, 2009

To read more about the latest research after a review of primary school and kindergarten education in England proves formal lessons should not begin until age 6 click here

Sharon shared with me great TED Talks she watches when she is flying or has down time, they are inspirational and watching them is a habit I am forming. This one supports this post that there is powerful learning in play. If you have a spare 26 minutes then i recommend this one by a pioneer in research on play, Dr. Stuart Brown says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults -- and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age. To see this click here

I think I learn best and enjoy it the most when I am moving. Margie Carter's pre-conference workshop explored the possibility of re-representing ideas through Art, and I guess the same goes for ICT. In simple terms if we do this we get 'smarter' Margie says, here is a visual of delegates re-representing a fan to illustrate the power of re-representation with children.

What I think I needed from the workshop too was a physical experience, although I did run round the room taking photos! People sat for the majority of the day and the very next day Gary Stager in his Keynote suggested if the bottom is numb, then its very likely the learners brain is at that point. My Whakaaro is to somehow blend the need of myself and learners. Art and ICT challenges I know would be better performed if I went for a run first. I went to a session with Mel Stopford on "Engaging Learners" where she had a poster up stating: If you want to learn-MOVE. I am looking forward to our Hui where we hear from Cameron Durno on the ways we can move and encourage children to move more in ECE.

"Just an hour a day of vigorous play — running, chasing, games like tag or dodge ball, and even dealing with or avoiding being excluded from these activities — can provide intense skill learning. Physical activity is known to lessen the symptoms of mild attention deficit disorder, and is associated with much lower incidences of childhood obesity. Active kids are also more facile intellectually and perform better academically in the long term." Stuart Brown, 2009

To read more about the benefits of physical play look here; Physical play is more fun than the virtual kind: New York Times

Finally for your viewing and team pleasure I leave you with the FISH philosophy. If we ENJOY what we are doing, children will ENJOY what they are seeing and give it a go. Go go ahead and PLAY, because it feels GOOD, it is RIGHT for us and it only makes our dispositions or strengths in learning deeper!

A parcel from England

2009-10-14T00:58:00.000-07:00

WOW!! We had a special parcel arrive at Kindergarten today. It came all the way from England. Way back in August, Tylah wrote a letter at kindergarten to her family in England. Lots of other children also wrote letters to their families too. We went for a walk to the post office and posted our letters and today Tylah got a reply!! How exciting... We talked about where in the world this special parcel had come from before Tylah opened it. What was inside? We all waited..... A special letter from Tylah's family as well as a book about London for kindergarten and some lollies to
share with all of the children. What a wonderful surprise. It was
so amazing for us all to be a part of this exciting experience.
A special thank you to Tylah and her family for their support
and taking so much time to share themselves with us all at
Irongate Kindergarten. Maybe we could sent some thank you
letters and photos all the way back to England.

Sharing Lucknow@Ulearn

2009-10-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

If you have six minutes to watch this video it will change your life and within it you will hear Severn Suzuki, only 12 years old from the Environmental Children's Organisation, she speaks for all children, including your own. When she exclaims "You are what you do NOT what you say and what you adults do makes me cry at night"... I feel ashamed and propelled to DO all that I can to sustain, appreciate and protect this beautiful earth for our children and the future unknown.

These handouts honour the mahi of the team at Lucknow Kindergarten in creating an environmentally conscious learning zone. Their story was funded by the Ministry of Education, and therefore all New Zealanders, for this we thank you and offer these thoughts...

This intellectual property is protected under Copyright Law. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from the authors Christine Chittock and Janine Durno and contact CORE Eduction Ltd for details. Check out our Programme and first live, global spotlight from Lucknow Kindergarten! Just found it today after Christine and I gifted the extraordinary practices in environmental sustainability and told the audience it was not quite live yet, awesome mahi, well done Te Whanau o Lucknow Kindergarten.

To view the spotlight on the Ministry of Education's Educate website click here

WOW-check out this collaborative tool cluster kaiako!

2009-10-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Ok i am officially really really excited about Voice Thread... I am listening to Kirstin Mac present me with this and I have watched here exemplars with her son and in the classroom...

Voyages With VoiceThread - ULearn09 Presentation

View more presentations from Keamac.

And now I am in her wiki exploring the things I want to know more about and that is... how to use the drawing tool and make account for my girls so they can speak too on my Voice Threads.

A huge thank-you to Kirstin for her tautoko to me in making the most of this application... Kirstin I can't wait to see YOUR favourite voice threads having had so much more experience in this than I so I can share these with the ECE ICT PL Programme in the Hawkes Bay.

Derek's Keynote:ECE Curriculum affirmed

2009-10-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

Weave a story-Derek used an online application called cooliris to showcase his presentation, i am SO migrating from power point to this!!!

The future's not what it used to be!

From gadgets to change in management...Schon "I have believed in an afterlive while I am alive". One day things will be stable again? once this new curriculum comes through things will go back to what it used to be? reflectiv moments for all of us about change being a certainty-why don't we get that yet? really do you? do you embrace it?

Derek talked about his 11 year old son in many contexts. At age 11 I think of my grandmother. When she was 11 it was 1909 -in 1909 they opened up the Sueez Canal. Louis Bleriot was the first man to fly across the english channel-how much we take travel for granted...

Why am I saying all this stuff?

They had no idea, comprehension, like us of what is coming! and the impacts of Sea, Air, Road Travel, electricity in our lives

What do we want for our curriculum?

Connected, confident children
Lifelong learners

Derek showed us a video children had made asking for the kind of Teacher they needed in their classroom at PT England School. What a fabulous idea, what if we had our children, and we know they could!, record their own ad to attract the teachers they want, need, deserve in their centres.

Derek totally validated Early Childhood and our dynamic, child-constructed curriculum as a model of where schools want to be with their curriculum. There were images of children at Manaia Kindergarten investigating a log with the digital microscope and laptops all around them. "These children are coming into your classrooms"... from these co-operative and inquiring environments as connected and as confident as much as their Teachers aspire, he reminded the primary majority audience at Ulearn.

To me I am so aware of how my expectations of people come into play, if they are high then people rise to it! Every teacher from your cluster around the table at dinner last night blew me away with their excitement for learning and intensely reflective conversations. I am privileged to hear and blown away by the wisdom I work with.

Children think differently: Think in 3D-Children have the ability to think about what is behind something and what is beside it, we don't think in 3D, we think of those blue and red glasses and sitting back watching monsters jump out at us!

Up in the clouds-we are so nervous about putting our documents 'up in the clouds' on the internet. We heard from the Dp from a school who is ditching the server on site and using library catalogues online, moodle for organising planning, storing children's eportfolios, videos, podcasts... It's about time we took a leap of faith, my Picasa Albums are working beautifully for me and so mobile compared to a hardrive. I take all images from visits and workshops and upload as I need to and save the concern of loosing the project data of ten fabulous centres in the ECE ICT PL Programme 2009.

Running out of battery life... but hope you enjoy these gems from Ulearn as much as I do!

Keynote:Gary Stager, ULearn'09...Answer tough questions!

2009-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Gary provoked me to be brave, to be real and affirmed an experience in my classroom many years ago...

" If a nuclear bomb was set off next to the classroom would it interrupt curriculum?". He asked.

I remember working in a school that completely ignored 911. We sat in tears in the staffroom and then proceeded back to our classrooms to supposedly do maths!?!.

I could not be an ostrich if I tried with my children telling me "It's the beginning of World War III Miss Durno!"

We walked to the service station and brought the newspapers of the day and made our own captions for images. We analyzed George's Bush's comments "He is angry because bad people crashed the planes into the firemen in the buildings." ... the destruction and emotions of people in the newspapers took over all dialogue for the entire day...

We set about to create our own newspaper of the catastrophic event because we wanted to share how we felt about 911 with other children in our words. When I shared this with the principal, excited about the depth of understanding and empathy of children for those killed in 911 she refused to have this newspaper in the school library "It's morbid, we only talk about the happy stuff with children." I took it back to the classroom and this incredible Newspaper still makes my eyes steam up and fell a knot in my throat, but I'm not afraid of that.

If I went back to that school again now I would have more courage to not only answer the 'tough questions' but to ensure my colleagues and and the leaders around me see the worth in this. Gary's strong message to me was to get excited about the real things that are challenging children's thinking, to do this grab the 'teachable moment'...

Invitation to HB Cluster to comment on Voice Thread

2009-09-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

If you are in the ECE ICT PL Pilot in the Hawkes Bay and have been using any of the fabulous free/low cost and fast applications with young children below. I will be showcasing these at Ulearn next week and want to take you all, well at least your thoughts with me.

I invite you to add your whakaaro on this Voice Thread...

1. You Tube/ Teacher Tube
2. Smilebox
3. Picasa 3
4. Issuu
5. Photo Story 3
6. Comic Life
7. Automotivator
8. Windows Movie Maker
9. Wordle
10. Voice Thread

Thank-you for taking time to do this, all you need is a laptop, internet connection and a few minutes to register to voice thread, upload a proflie pic and text or record your comment using your laptop microphones.

Wordle your blog

2009-09-29T02:41:00.000-07:00

Just preparing my top ten applications for Teachers of young children presentation at Ulearn. My test audience was compelled to make her own wordle for her daughter.

Wordle is an online application where you paste or write a whole lot of text and it creates a word collage for you.

What we discovered is you need to use the print screen key on windows then paste it into paint and crop. From there Picasa found it and we pulled it into a collage with lots of beautiful photos of the child. This got me thinking that a wordle in a collage could be printed as a great placemat for children at home, centre or school to boost self-esteem and create deeper understanding of and relationships with children. Tracey will be sharing her examples in our presentation.

Another amazing trick performed by wordle is to give you a vocabulary stocktake of your Blog. All you do is choose the second option and paste the url of your blog into wordle and click go... here is mine and I am very stoked to see children as the largest and most frequently used word!!

Stealing music steals dreams...

2009-09-19T03:50:00.000-07:00

As an Author would we want someone to steal our words and use them as their own? Why don't we consider Musicians in the same light? You may think you do but you download copyrighted music and burn it as a track on DVDs for children and families convince yourself that it is OK and you are not hurting anyone and after all who is going to mind?...
I had a conversation with Anthony Stretch from The Septembers who have just released their debut album, here is one of their groovy tracks I've been enjoying. Stretch who was raised in the Hawkes Bay reminded me there's something very wrong in that.

When you have worked very hard to make your dream happen in the music industry and people have this belief that it's their right to download or copy songs for free, they are taking what you deserve away, they are taking their dream of making a living doing what you love.

So what's the alternative? as Shazza would say "Consider your content" and get creative with applications like Garage Band If you are a windows user try a site called Morton Subotnick's Creating Music where children can compose their own music and play music puzzles and games. Use the copyright-free music avaliable at muse open, BEST of all have the children play instruments and narrate/sing over their own images. You will give the digital story more meaning and the track will not overtake or distract from the messages in your movie.

Let's start early and help children to love, learn and make music... and who knows...maybe one day they will dream their own album!

Cybersafety Agreement in plain language

2009-09-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

So you've gone to Cybersafety Training, now what will it look like implementing the User Agreement for Whanau and Manuhiri at your centre?...

STEP 1: Read the Cybersafety agreement till you all know it well... I have put it in plain language for you in this post.

STEP 2: Implement Cybersafety Policy and Personnel Agreement first-then you all have an understanding of Cybersafety and the use of ICTs in the team.

STEP 3: Give out copies to Whanau/Manuhiri, ask for feedback, give them time to read, but realize the conversation with them will be most important and memorable. Thats why having a plain language overview like this is so great.

STEP 4: Those who bring it back-copy the signed form and return it to them for their records. Particularly those Whanau/Manuhiri using ICT at the Kindergarten. Any whanau who are volunteering there need to read, understand and sign this.

A great idea from Netsafe is to have their posters AND make your own like this one I made with Picasa Collage for Irongate Kindergarten;

Cameras will be checked in case any images containing children who’s picture can’t be shared is removed, everyone needs to be saying the same thing, and be as casual as possible as for some there is much cyber-fear, for example;

“That’s what we do at our centre so that our Tamariki are protected”.

Define appropriate use and centre related activities-any use of an ICT that does not indirectly or direct benefit tamariki, whanau, kaiako and the wider learning community is NOT appropriate or something done in personal time or offsite.

The Cybersafety User Agreement also states that any image and material brought INTO the service has to be appropriate

If anyone is unsure they talk to the supervisor/head teacher who decides overall what is appropriate, the team all know what he/she thinks is appropriate and are in agreement. This person also must be asked BEFORE you take photos, video-(or anyone in the team if you agree on this.

Whanau/manuhiri need to know that kaiako can ASK to look at anything on these ICTs AND ask for it to be DELETED. They must not save, print, send, copy or share anything illegal or inappropriate. Its best to talk about this as a Team as to how you would support each other in such a situation and protect the well-being of Whanau/Manuhiri.

If you give them any passwords these must be confidential to Whanau/manuhiri While using the centre’s ICTs they musn’t search for anyone else’s files or photos. They also can’t download software to any of your devices.

Any centre files, even if they are on someone else’s ICTs are the property of the centre-this means if you have a student teaher/akonga working on learning stories on their laptop, this is still service property. You need to korero to the student about what will happen to these and their training institute's ethical procedures and consents. The most important thing a student can do is to share these as soon as possible with the Whanau and at the very least by the last day of Teaching Practicum. I had an experience once with an Akonga who had done a study on Bryony and I saw it two years later and did not even know it had been done! I know they will have the best intentions but until they graduate, their study and not your service is on their mind lol

I hope this post helps, and I also invite Carlyle to please post their Whakaaro and critiques on cybersafety tools, Hector the Dolphin Safety Button and Kidszui, how are they working for you?...also have you explored the resources in Hector's World yet?

CORE and NETSAFE would enjoy your feedback as this is currently in development...

"Hector’s World activities and resources are designed to help younger children learn about online safety. These Hector’s World resources are free and are intended to maximise the digital citizenship learning from the Hector’s World episodes."(Netsafe, 2009) After watching the Cybersafety Bullying episode Bryony wanted to watch more and more and told me "You have to tell an adult if someone is sending silly pictures of you to your phone." GOOD STUFF !!

BloggingBeauties@Irongate Kindergarten

2009-09-10T02:09:00.000-07:00

Maria and Serena premier their blog to their receptive colleagues at Irongate Kindergarten.. under the watchful (and helpful) eyes of Janine! Apologies for prematurely posting an invitation on this blog the other day - unbeknown to me everybody got an e-mail alert after I deleted my error!! But many thanks for the excited, if somewhat confused, phone calls of interest and support. We plan to get our team on board and practice some more before launching to our whaanau next term. So we will be sure to let you all know when you too can see what we have been so busy doing. Again, thanks to Janine for enabling and supporting us with our vision. Thanks also to Hunter Park and Manaia Kindergarten for their amazing blogs that have helped us immensely as we ventured into the world of blogging. Watch this space...

Reading resources for emergent literacy

2009-08-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

Bryony set up a Teacher's station in her room tonight and I heard her 'teaching' teddies the alphabet.

The resource she uses is by Butterflies, its excellent and well used from my new entrant teaching days. When I hear children in centres singing the alphabet I mention this resource as it is a great visual one for letter and sound development. Literacy learning is so much more than the alphabet and sounds, love of books has been really integral to Bryony's literacy. She had a library card of her own at age two and Hannah, Daddy and I have read to her every day. Did you know...

Boys will speak 7000 words a day, girls will speak 20,000
If a child knows 8 Nursery rhymes by the time they are 4 - they are the best readers
It takes 1000 stories read aloud before a child learns to read a book alone
Source: Mangere Bridge Kindergarten

Bryony wants to read and write so much, she knows she is missing out on information and will now attempt unknown words, persevering to get it right, but she is nearly six now and this takes time. You will see her reading through "There's a Tiger under my bed" and finding all the emergent words she knows.

It is so rewarding to watch a child driven to learn like this and know that she came to this place without any drilling or prompting from Teacher Mummy. My philosophy is that children need to see literacy in meaningful contexts.

"Skills are useful in a holistic, meaning-making context. This is about noticing, recognising, and using the culture's symbol system for making meaing. Making meaning means understanding or breaking codes-recognising and using the fundamental units, symbols, patterns, and conventions of literacy, mathematics, the arts, and ICT." pg. 8, Kei Tua o Te Pae, Book 16, MOE, 2009, You can see exemplars on the Ministry's Educate site but they STILL havn't got Books 16-20 up yet.

For example writing birthday invitations and listing shopping and guests has been Bryony's inspiration lately! only 26 sleeps to go :)

One term in my new entrant days the children decided we wanted to have a 'family breakfast'. All the children wrote their own invitations in their own way, addressed envelopes and we walked to the post box and sent them. Every family turned up!! actually Joshua's family of seven was first at the door in their jammies, pretty impressive.

I think this was so successful because of the invitations and the children's excitement when these arrived, who says you can't have family connections at school?, its not true, and so worth the effort.

Here is another literacy resource I found on Beverly Kaye's Blog from Manaia Kindergarten. You can make your own name with Flickr, my girls are going to have fun with this!!

Dessert in Dannevirke

2009-08-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

Dannevirke Kindergarten have been exploring the ways they can encourage whanau to participation in the programme. Over the year the Team has made great efforts to manaaki all whanau into the kindergarten. They find whanau spending more time there and when a learning story is shared the whanau is alerted to it immediately so an opportunity for conversation and feedback can be created.

Not satisfied with feedback alone, as Early Childhood Teachers we have always sought partnership with whanau... what does this look like? in my opinion its shared decision making, then a joint effort to respond to children with meaning, so how would this happen?

Notice the magic-a child shares something really important to them, an interest, a theory, a question, a continuous disposition...

Co-author the story-write a narrative with the child that captures this, ask the child to title it, read it through, do they want to change/add anything?, what do they want to say to each picture?... Comic Life is a great publishing application that makes this easy for Children and Teachers to do IN session, why do we continusly do this away from the child who it is for?-are we going to really understand what they want to know more about by osmosis?

Interview the child- Its ok to ask the child, what they like about the story, the interest, what do they want to know more about, if you have some ideas share them and ask the child which ideas they would like to try.... WAIT six seconds for an answer, research shows we wait 1-2 seconds and children need alot longer than this, if you really struggle with this, count it out silently on your fingers beside you he he :)

Whanau involvement After you have told the family about their child, and the ideas you and that child have for a follow up learning experience/s ask the whanau for their help, what other ideas do they have, make a plan for them to be involved, expect it, you will get it, even a very busy parent will WANT to talk about their child and be involved in a big or small way with that is being planned for their child.

Do what you say you are going to do - follow through on your planned response in the teachable moment or a soon as possible, keep your promise and keep realistic, a good plan is achievable.

NOTICE RECOGNISE RESPOND - I would really like to see Teachers strengthening their response to learning, that is where the true teaching and learning deepens. There is alot of pressure to produce learning stories like property sales in real estate, I would much rather we approached them like art. A great Learning Story tells me about the child, the teachers passion and skill in co-construction the love, support and interest of the family and like a great painting is a treasured masterpiece of a very important moment in time.

If you have a work of Art to share or talk about from your service, please respond to this post, alternatively let me know if any of these strategies work for you :)

We could not bare to loose everything!

2009-08-23T00:40:00.000-07:00

Are we still not backing up people?

Netsafe found that 51% of ECE services are still not backing up their precious records, it was still true in our workshop on Friday. Thinking about loosing it all will up the sales of external hard drives this week. Our own Ian now has a corner in the ECE ICT PL Online community which gives some great detailed advice including the fact that the price of External Hard Disks has dropped a lot, it is now possible to get a usb 500GB external drive for under $200.
Hector's Safety Button caused some interesting discussion. The dolphin who swims on the corner of your screen when clicked can cover an offensive image with an underwater scene.

Teachers were concerned that this is after children have been exposed, many are going to try Kidzui as a preventative tool;

"KidZui is designed from children between the ages of 3 and 12 years old. KidZui has a focus on children’s online safety, but they also try to expand the content available to children online. Rather than using filters, KidZui trains and enlists parent and teachers to search out content that is appropriate for children even if it was not designed expressly for children." Wikipedia, 2009. Please let us know how this goes!

Thank-you to all who had so much to offer, ponder and tutor-Kirby in the picture above talked through creating passworded user accounts on windows! Please get your hands on your centre's green booklet Netsafe Kit for ECE, to download a pdf copy click here and make sure your centre is firewalled, anti-viral, backed-up, and modelling safe and responsible internet safety to our global cybercitizens of the future.

It is a child's right under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to

"Collect information from the media-radio, newspaper, television, all around the world AND for them to be protected from the information that could harm them."(Article 17)

UNCROC is about protecting children and young people. It is also about making sure that the voices of children and young people are heard in all matters affecting them. If we are to honour this convention then we must ensure we show them how to navigate, research and blog the internet safely :)

CORE Retreat inspiration

2009-08-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

Last week I flew to Christchurch and met with the CORE team at the gorgeous location of Akaroa. (That's me, front row, far right with the huge smile, loving every minute of being round like-minded souls)
The purpose of our retreat was to come together as a team who are spread around the country and who work with several communities like our Hawkes Bay Cluster spread from Napier to Dannevirke.
We had a fantastic time working in teams to talk about present and future CORE projects. There is a wealth of talent in CORE and no shortage of creative potential. I worked with the people who brought you the Key Competencies site.

How exciting it was to be talking about websites for educating communities which include rich digital stories presented by children, if you haven't watched these already please do!
I particularly like one comment in the students discuss the key competencies area which beautifully summed up the competency of 'thinking' from a child... "Thinking is like chocolate, you can live without it, but its just not as much fun!"

One of the highlights for me which I will bring into my work was to learn more about filming while watching the production of new videos which will feature on CORE Ed Talks, these are inspiring education conversations. One such CORE breakfast talk by Tony Ryan on "Engagement" I found funny, challenging and honest, he reminds me how important it is for Teachers to be doing what they love, I am fortunate to be one of these people at present, CORE in every way allows me this incredible privilege.

To hear Tony's CORE Ed Talk click here, what a great way to start your day, any day where you wake up and there is not a white chalk line around your body is a good one according to 'the Ryan' !! :)

Children learn global citizenship on Panwapa

2009-07-29T01:36:00.000-07:00

Panwapa
Those amazing people at Sesame Street Workshop made Panwapa two years ago to encourage children to be responsible global citizens…its purpose is to…

1. Create an awareness of the wider world

2. Appreciate similarities and value diversity amongst people

3. Take responsibility for own behaviour

4. Participate in a local and global community

What great principals and I can say as a parent I have really enjoyed my daughters experiences on the site as they created their own homes, flags and costumes. The girls are neighbours and can communicate with each other and children around the world by visiting islands, mountains, villages and leaving notes in letterboxes. All this with their own nickname and position in New Zealand.

Panwapa also offers videos of kids around the world and an opportunity to learn about different countries. Mind you I am awfully found of anything which is developed by the Sesame Street Company. Their values of caring, sharing, honesty and knowing ‘who is in your neighbourhood’ are throughout their creations. I certainly like the idea of my children learning about a safe and connected global children’s community this way.

Introducing Picasa 3, free from Google

2009-07-17T01:49:00.000-07:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More technology

This flip book Taster was made for free by uploading my pdf notes made in Power Point for mac to Issuu. You can make your own library of flip books to share too. If I can do it, so can you! last year I hadn't skyped, blogged or attached photos :) This last couple of weeks has been fabulous, i have caught up with my beautiful girls! I have a vet clinic in the bathtub and paintings on the line to prove it. I have also had an opportunity to find out more about flip books as an option for the publishable exemplar for centres within the Hawkes Bay Cluster. What do you think? If you are have trouble opening this try clicking here
The purpose of this flip book is to introduce you to the free photo management application from Google called Picasa 3. Below are links for you to download and learn more...
Download Picasa 3 for windows
Download Picasa 3 for mac
Dowload Picasa 3 Web Albums
Picasa Movie making tutorial you tube
Introducing Picasa 3 you tube
Picasa Collage you tube
Back up photos in Picasa
Geo-tagging photos with Picasa and Google Earth

Parent’s voice is strong at Parent and Child

2009-06-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Parent and Child whose mahi in whanau communication will feature within the Ministry of Educations Web information for ECE. One of our seven one-year centres who are reviewing the shared understanding they have with whanau around learning at the centre have been finding Picasa Collages of the session sent home each day receive a great response. Parent and Child is a unique centre where parents attend sessions, playing and learning alongside their child. There are over 160 families attending this service with teachers providing learning experiences, building connections between families and discussing the learning that is happening for children.

Profiles books and wall displays never seemed to attract parent’s comments but using Picasa to email learning stories and photo collages is generating wonderful feedback and parent’s voices. Lorraine, the Centre Manager at Parent and Child believes this is because parents access this information at a time that is convenient to them. “Response is easy as parents can hit the reply button after viewing the stories and add their comments about the learning occurring for the child”. A further benefit of completing the learning stories this way is that centre families are able to forward these on to their wider whanau including family around the world; resulting in even wider connections with the families.

The extra work learning to use picasa and initial obtaining family email addresses has been well rewarded. “The written feedback from families has just been a joy,” says Lorraine “for once we feel a connection to our families”.

Lorraine adds that for them the use of Picasa “has been a breakthrough. We are able to reach out to our families in a way that has not been possible before. It is truly amazing and we are rewarded by such positive family feedback”.

Hawkes Bay Teachers participate in ICT PD!

2009-05-27T00:31:00.000-07:00

People were challenged to think about what they could achieve now after hearing ‘real’ teachers like themselves share their inspiring work. That teams might blend Art and ICT, by having a computer into the art area or accessing google, You Tube, art rage and tate kids, how exciting for children! I am heartened by the comment that a team made, “We will continue to move forward in baby steps.”. We can all relate to this and achieve it... for many this may mean making their own E-Book or blogging, ePortfolios....or coming to one of the workshops soon.

Cluster Hui

2009-05-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

I am really looking forward to the Cluster Hui on Saturday and hearing the stories of progress so far. How quickly the year is flying by and what a lot of has been achieved by everyone already. I have very much enjoyed my time working with Lucknow, Riversdale and KIDSPACE and accompanying them on part of their journey in the contract.

I have been excited by the progress KIDSPACE have made not only by changing their focus from making posters to blogging but the positive response they have received from parents, whanau and the children themselves who get very excited when they see themselves featuring in a blog post about their learning. Together we have explored the technicalities of blogging, solved problems and shared successes. The other thing that has excited me is the willingness of new teachers to learn and be involved in this opportunity. We are all on this journey together and each one of us can learn something from someone else. I can remember a time, being a digital immigrant, when I felt quite daunted by even the thought of using a computer. There are some wonderful teachers who still may feel this way but are prepared to take up the challenge, and that is what counts.

When I arrived at Lucknow I was blown away with what they had already achieved. They are the movie making experts so if you want any tips you know where to go! What a lot of work they had already done in the first year and a half, about transition from home to kindergarten and kindergarten to school. The teachers have made wonderful treasures to support children in their learning and to share with parents, whanau and teachers to enable a smooth transition. Now the focus has also changed to children documenting the learning using ICT and the teachers are making new discoveries. One of the highlights for me in working with Lucknow was developing their spotlight in which we used ICT to share their culture, not only of bread making but of developing awareness and respect of the environment by children and their community.

I am sure there will be lots of interest at the Hui in Riversdale’s e-books. As the teachers have worked their way through their research they have made interesting discoveries which have helped us all to reflect on our teaching and learning. Some of these findings that come to mind are; the opportunity for children to use the book as it is being made to reflect and visualize the next step in their learning, observing the child who is so quiet and shy but as an author blossoms, the value of children adding their oral narrations, the revisiting and building on previous learning and the strengthening of connections with parents and whanau through sharing the books digitally to name a few.

When my eldest son who is now 31 was at play centre, he wanted to be a "half time builder and a half time archaeologist." At the time the career that he eventually followed as a software engineer was unknown to him. It is almost certain that many of the careers that the children in your care will follow do not yet exist. We need to focus on the skills, attitudes and values that will allow them to have a choice to follow their dreams and become the people they aspire to be.

Many people question why early childhood should be involved in ICT. Rachael Carsen, in her book “A Sense of Wonder,” wishes that every child could be given a “sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.” At our last Hui Lucknow kindergarten shared how the children had watched a butterfly hatch from its chrysalis in real time through the use of a digital microscope. I think they would have gone home that day with a great sense of wonder.
I am now lucky to be able to work with some other centres in Napier and Hastings and so my learning journey continues.

Good luck to you all as you make meaning and continue your own research journeys.

Invite to Cluster Hui

2009-05-07T18:47:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Tips for Presentations

2009-04-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

There comes a time when you will tell or have been asked to tell your research story. This can fill you with excitement and dread and on the day, the urge to flee!...For those of you preparing presentations for our Cluster Hui or for Association Hui or just thinking about presenting at ULearn, yay for you! There are loads of great presenting tips and eResources out there for you. Naketa, our Auckland facilitator has shared this one on Techy Tips for not so Techy Teachers and following the success of centre presentations at Auckland Cluster Lead Teacher Hui you could try presenting Pecha Kucha Style. Whatever you do I suggest you watch Extreme Makeover for Power Point, because it told me so much about the mistakes I was making and reducing the effectiveness of presentations. Some golden rules are to keep to time, Pecha Kucha could help with that as there are 20 seconds of narration per slide and 20 slides which really helps you focus on sharing the important parts with others, another is to rehearse with others and get a feel of where you are going to pause and for how long, you could ask some reflective questions at the beginning and return to them at the end too. A significant part of your presentation must require the audience to participate, think about which parts lend themselves to this and what conversations could be facilitated. All great changes begin with ideas and these are often sparked by conversations, if you want your presentation to be effective give time to a 'talk fest' for the audience not the speaker/s!. Check out Olivia Mitchell's Blog, Elaine, our Nelson/Canterbury facilitator has found this very useful for information on planning and presenting, you can even sign up to receive her guide and newsletter for free. Best of all the ECE Team has created a whole lot of resources to guide you through the crafting and presenting process of dissemination which you will find in the online workshops area in our ECE ICT PL Site.

I am really looking forward to hear you share the incredible mahi so far, there is nothing more powerful for teachers than to hear each other's stories, so be real, be confident and enjoy the moment, say to yourself "I'm going to help these Teachers today" and you will.

A Night with City Children

2009-04-23T04:10:00.000-07:00

Last night I met with a large and vibrant team at City Children's Centre. A community based centre which is dear to my heart as I feel I was 'raised' as a Teacher in one myself from 1997 to 2003. I was fortunate to graduate and join a co-operative and inclusive early childhood community centre like City Children and it was there I really learnt about Te Whariki as a lived experience. In my last years there as supervisor I practiced beside my daughter Hannah, a really special time for us and then I took a new path into primary training and teaching. I believe my courage, strong value base and pedagogy on partnerships with parents and whanau came of age in this collaborative atmosphere, so when I visit City Children I am reminded of my roots and of the hard mahi of kaiako in early childhood. Yesterday was no exception, after a long day this team committed to finding our more about Foundations for Discovery talk about 21st Century Learning and the myriad of technologies which have come into our lives. One story of holding cellophane over a black and white television to give the illusion of colour cracked me up...another of a participants father who was mocked by his Math Teacher when he shared his knowledge of a machine's ability to do calculus "This boy is crazy!"... the huge brick telephones which we saw those labelled as 'yuppies' using and swore we would never buy one...and just what a Blog is?... all great snapshots on Information Communication Technology infiltrating our lives Unfortunately I couldn't get on the internet and show this team some very exciting new technologies, concrete walls don't allow that lol, one day soon wireless will beat that too, so I have sent them these links one to sixth sense technology... a wearable computer YES! the time has come for computers to work with us and not ourselves crouched over them :) and the other link to Shiftables...programmes taken out of computers that you can manipulate, I get very excited by the young boy who uses these to add characters to a story board and create his own movie, amazing! and now I share with you all. Thank-you to City Children for always reminding me where I am from and I hope I return the favour by exciting you about this journey we are setting forth on.

Our Latest Whakaaro

2009-04-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

Lead Teacher Hui

2009-03-21T23:53:00.000-07:00

Lead Teacher Hui was a day full of relationship beginnings, sharing of research journeys and learning about Picasa 3 and its usefulness for photo management and narrative documentation. Liz took us through Photo Story 3 and since the hui Christine at Dannevirke has shared with her team and empowered them to make digital stories of tamariki using this programme. Irene took her knowledge of Picasa 3 from our vibrant Emma back and the beautiful collages on the KIDSPACE Blog are abound, they show Te Whariki in a meaningful and very appealing way... well done Tamara on your developing social skills collage. Cathy's success with self-review and her examples in the team folder, acknowledged by ERO as exemplary just showed us how achievable this self-review will be. Ann Hatherly help us to unpack what self-review is and is not, and she was well impressed with the shared understandings were around the room. I hope everyone continues their connections and shares their challenges and discoveries here on our cluster blog and through the Lead Teacher notebook with teams.

Keynote-Andy Hargreaves

2009-02-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

Today I have the pleasure of being a lone ECE girlie at the very large learning@school ICT conference in our sulphar capital, Rotorua, home to Arawa and cultural icons. Andy is the first keynote speaker, he announces pink shirt day and outs members of the audience and prepares us for a very funny speech where in parts he is stuck to the floor! Andy reminds us that no ICT will have the slightest difference in teaching and learning unless you pay attention to pedagogy and its effect, again good teachers using ICT is the most powerful thing, and not good ICT. Collaborative feedback example he gives reminds me how little we put ourselves out there for colleague feedback, but how powerful a thing for growth that would be... So how is this Programme going for you so far, what do you need to achieve your goals, I bet there are many wishes people share and I am looking forward to tuning into them at our Lead Teacher Hui. Andy takes us back to when teachers entered teachers, the 60s and 70s and disorganization, the market influences on education and governments setting criteria for education...wow we are still doing that, Margaret Carr just presented the last (will it be) set of exemplars on 'Dimensions of Strength' the exemplars have given us a criteria that reflects Te Whaariki, havn't we come a long way into our stength based narrative assessment. Andy warns us about the competitive climate in the UK amongst schools and how this pushes aside our efforts to enhance teaching and learning and sharing of this. I was at a kindergarten the other day where conversations with parents on selecting services arose, parents choosing on the basis of reputation, ICT equipment and resourcing and in some cases elitism - if it costs more it must be superior???

Andy goes on to contextualize in Finland and with the successful company Nokia...did you know Nokia is named after the town of Nokia, sits by the river of Nokia, named after a large furry rodent-think about that when your nokia is beside your ear next :) Nokia were a timber company, that went into rubber shoes, then into cables and then into cellphones... interesting model... if you work for Nokia you change your role every 15 months because your loyalty is to Nokia and not your part, how interesting would it be to change your role in your centre and association perhaps like this, and how well we would understand each other and what each role encompasses...

Andy helped me to step into a principal's hat and the trust and empowerment they need to express, do you have it? If you ring the school now... 'E.T. phone home' then you do not have that trust.

2009-02-05T19:15:00.000-08:00

Hi Janine,

I would love to hear about the new HB centres and what they are looking at.

Christine Chittock

2009-02-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

Haere mai Welcome to our shared space, I am learning about Blogging just like you, this Blog is just for us to share, read, link and learn from each other in the Hawkes Bay Cluster. This year is going to be full of colour and excitement, new friendships and take us to places of possibility.

I am really enjoying meeting and working with you as you create or develop your programme and research focus for 2009's journey into Foundations of Discovery with the Early Childhood Online Professional Learning Community.

Thanks to CORE Education and the Ministry of Education we will be working together to increase ICT capability, transform practice and enhancing learning outcomes for children...let's get this party started! Janine