ejourney with technokids

After three nights in Barcelona, we were able to see many of its best attractions. There is so much to see as the slideshow below depicts.

I see…

The photo above is a stall of lollies!!! The Spanish love lollies and this stall was so colourful that it took my eye but I resisted temptation and did not buy any.

I hear….. bang, bang, fireworks, crackers, bang, crackers, crackers, bang!!!! It is a festival day, of St John the Baptist,  here today in Barclena so there is lots of entertainment, fireworks, bonfires etc I have jumped out of my skin so many times as people just throw crackers in the streets.

I smell…… only my poor old aching, tired and weary feet.

The markets are sensational. We are right near Las Ramblas in a small pension.

A pleasant day was spent touring around some of the tourist attractions of SW London. London is actually built up of many historic villages that have ’stitched together’ over time.

The morning was spent looking at the historic village of Kingston which manages to combine historic buildings with an state of the art modern shopping centre. A traditional Sunday roast meal of roast beef which included yorkshire pudding was enjoyed at the Cardinal Wolsley inn and then the afternoon spent touring the Hampton Court Palace and gardens. This historic complex inclued the tudor home of King Henry VIII and the palace of William III and Mary II.

Enjoy the photos that we took in the slidehare below.

“Patience is a virtue” or so my mother always taught me! After queuing for 1 1/2 hours to get our boarding passes in Melbourne, a 23 hour flight to London that arrived 1 1/2 hours late due to engine problems in Melbourne and  another 1 1/2 hour queue to clear immigration in London, we finally arrived at Putney, our destination in London.

Having travelled halfway across the globe, our body clocks were out of of synch. On the first leg of our trip, we were treated to dinner and breakfast. After our stopover in Hongkong, we were given breakfast and our next snack was supper with offerings of hot chocolate or peppermint tea!!!! We have gone from the chills of winter to the balmy, rather humid air of summer and from a time zone of gmt+10 to gmt.

Once our boys returned home from cricket, they decided to take us to a local Spanish restaurant, to educate us on Spanish food offereings before we go to Barcelona on Monday. Many small dishes including, chirozo, champignons, sardines, a variety of potatoes and sauces, a fascinating egg dish, like a big thick pancake etc. We were treated to a window seats on the second story with views over the busy street below. The food was tasty and very satisfying. Below summarises some of our experiences and I shall write them as Ms Murnane often requests of you, in the context of what I see, hear and smell:-

I see………

• busy streets with pedestrians and dense but moving traffic, dotted with red double decker buses and black taxis.
• narrow streets, with multistory buildings all adjoining, only window boxes for a front garden and no backyards.
• beautifully, yet modestly dressed ladies in the latest fashions, complete with chic hats, queued at the ATMs to withdraw money to supplement their losses at the races.
• elegant men in grey suits, white ties (as the races at Ascot had finished for the day and these people were all embarking on the restaurants and bars for an evening meal.)
• diners eating outside on tables in the warm, balmy evening air.
• a fight where one person was knocked unconscious to the ground (he soon regained consciousness)

• 5 flights of stairs leading me to my bedroom     

• Russia defeat the Netherlands in the soccer final (see me supporting Holland below!!)

I smell…..

• the poignant slight musty smell in our son’s centuries old, 5 level apartment house
• aromas of different foods cooking as we made our way to the Spanish restaurant

 I hear…

• screaming planes flying low over our dwelling every minute or less, commencing their descent into Heathrow.
• trains rattling past our window, (as the railway tracks are just below us), moving their passengers to the centre of London
• the occasional sound of  sirens from emergency vehicles in the streets below
• people moving around in our building announcing that they are up for the day, so I too, will arise and see what journeys I can take today. (Four boys share the apartment)

Meet London, one of the world’s largest and greatest of cities!

…………………….I need you to tell the Londoners what you can see, smell and hear back at home so they can ‘feel’ the huge contrast. Write it as a post, copy your post and paste it back as a comment to this post. Look forward to hearing from you all.

I hope that I am able to teach you and share with you some skills. Now I would like you to teach me about txt talk. I have been brought up on correct and formal English. Your world involves both this and sms txt talk.

 Years 9 and 10

I need 2 posts this lesson:-

1. Write up 3-4 sentences in your

 sms txt talk that you might use on your mobile phone. My challenge is to interpret them via a comment on your blog. Then, you need to read what I have translated and correct my mistakes and tell me the words that I did not understand, by adding a further comment back. Challenge me as hard as you can.

2. Should students blog? Why? I need you to justify this as fully as you can, providing arguments to your school, families, communities and the Education Department to allow blogging to continue.

 Today, we experienced an amazing session. It was Friday 13th, in the school library with a combined year 9/10 info class and the grade 3/4s (as  it was too wet to play sport outside). Our principal had just left on a plane for the US, but we beat her there as we had an appointment at 10 am with a school from New England in the USA, at 8pm Thursday 12th.

Skype allowed us to videoconference with exceptional clarity. The audio did not falter on our end and the video was quite clear. A web cam and desktop mic were our means of communication. After 8 weeks or so of connections via shared blog posts and live blogging, our finale was this videoconference of ’show and tell’. A live bird, a New Guinea eclectus parrot, and three baby birds started the show off, followed by vegemite, a meat pie with sauce, a footy, Essendon footy jumper, a netball, webkinz, toy koala, banksia flowers etc.

Collaborationnation showed us their dunkin’donuts/drink, baseball cap, basketball top, district flag, Disneyworld souveneir. They explained the origins of their national anthem and sang it to us with gusto. The girls demonstrated cheer leading and jazz ballet steps and chanted mugzy to taste test vegemite from a teaspoon to prove it was a food. We responded with a demonstration of netball and the singing of our national anthem.

The responses from students has been resounding in that they wish to continue on with this style of learning and both countries’ students have begged their teachers for more. However, the US students finish their school year next week and we change semesters. It is certainly to be hoped that we can continue to collaborate next semester with a new group. Below is a brief presentation outlining some of the ’shows’.

Read these student posts to see what students feel about our current schooling and the online collaboration in comparison:-

Flurogreen, Tawney, Leecie, Lauren, Mugzy

The fabulous part about all this collaboration, is that it triggers further research from the initiative of students. Paul Bogush has forwarded on this finding on our infamous vegemite from his students after yesterday’s videoconference. We had promised to send them a tube of vegemite, but now we will have to abstain. However, I have been since informed it was a hoax.

Hannah has asked for the following questions to be answered as part of her English project which reads….

Hi guys, as part of our English class we have to find out the types of difference, the consequences of difference and the importance of difference. I need your HELP!! Would you be able to reply in a comment the answers of the following questions?

So, Hannah, I shall answer them for you here on my blog as it is a bit long to put back into a comment.

What’s your favourite food? – stirfries
What do you do in the weekend? – goto the footy usually or garden, but I haven’t been so much this year. I used to go and visit my Mum and take her somewhere. On Sunday, I goto church.
You’re favourite T.V Show? – any travel show eg Getaway
Your favourite Celeberity? Princess Mary of Denmark
Your favourite genre of Music? Rock n roll
What do you do in your spare time? I bunch flowers, garden and love the internet
What’s your family makeup? (brothers, sisters, parents) I have one brother, both of my parents are dead.
Your family origin and date of arrival? I was born in Melbourne, Australia on 12th March, 1952
What’s your favourite possession? My digital camera
An issue or value you care about? The education of students
Your age? 56 years

This week we will celebrate a special end to our collaboration with another nation. Over the last few weeks we have got to know each other by sharing blog posts and live blogging. On Friday the students from collaborationnation will return to their school at 8pm to share a videoconference or webcast with us.

In order to make the best of this session, you are asked to:-

Do a show and tell?  “Bring in one object that you love and explain why, sort of thing…”  
 Mr Bogush wrote:-
“My kids are posting their answers to the blog post–it is soooo hot—they are letting us out early today.  Suppose to get close to 100 degrees, but it is the Connecticut humidity that really makes it miserable.”

Here in southern Australia, it is quite cool and we are lighting fires or switching on heaters. We look forward to our session with you on Friday.
Aussie students I need you to:-

•  write a comment back on this post, suggesting some of the items that we could bring for show and tell, and why. Also make any suggestions about what you would like them to bring in and show you.
• reply to  nrs08 answering his prompt for the week as a post in your blog. Add a suitable image. Copy and paste the text of your post as a comment in nrs08’s blog.
• goto the collaborationnation site and make comments on some of the blogs.

Here is my answer to which is your favourite holiday…

I am with the majority of students, in that Christmas is my favourite holiday. There are 5 weeks off school over summertime. Our new school year starts at the end of January. At the beginning of Dec we put up an artificial Christmas trees with lots of decorations throughout the house. We hang fairy lights all around our outside patio. Two weeks before Christmas my family looks for a pine tree growing on the side of the road to bring into our lounge room.  The smell of the pine needles permeates the air and gives it a Christmas feel.

We get together with family, have lots of presents and enjoy  a  roast turkey, lamb, beef, chicken and ham with hot vegies lunchtime meal. At night we have cold meat and salads. For the last two weeks of these holidays, we go camping in a caravan to Pt Fairy - a lovely seaside town where we go swimming in the sea every day.

At our recent Oz/NZ teachers flash meeting, we were encouraged to give our “wow!!” factors of the week. It was so good to see that @tasteach (Sue) said that hers wow factor was meeting us on our recent trip to Tasmania. I met Sue through twitter and have followed her journeys with student blogging closely.

At times Sue has commented

• on many of my student bloggers’ posts. 
• frequently on mine and been a wonderful proof reader for me.

Her great group of students has commented both on my blog and my students posts. I really value student feedback on my blogs as this is an outcome we rarely encourage from students in our normal classrooms and work. Sue’s students have been very active in both their blogging and commenting and have worked their connections around the globe.

So, when the school trip to Tasmania was planned, Sue said she and her students would wait at the gate and wave to us on our day trip to Pt Arthur. We were delighted that our coach driver stopped near their school entrance and we quickly alighted to meet our online connections in real life. It is always so special to meet people face to face (f2f) and this was a special time. Thanks Sue and your bloggers for both the online and the real connection.

This week it is the turn of a student from Collaboration Nation to post a prompt. You can find the prompt at http://nrs08.learnerblogs.org/2008/06/08/my-favorite-holiday/ First you will answer the prompt in your blog, then copy that post and paste it as a comment back on nre08’s blog. The prompt is copied below:-

My favorite holiday is Christmas. I celebrate it by decorating my house with items that represent winter and Christmas. My family gets a tree in the begining of December and we decorate in the week before the holiday. We have no school and having my family over to eat on Christmas Eve. We stuff our selves with seafood and pie. Its delicious.

 So my question for you is this:What is your favoite holiday and what are some traditions you have?