Although our students only move on to secondary college in late January next year, transition programs and information evenings are being held now. Students in the northern hemisphere and parts of Asia move on soon. So, they have been asked
what are you looking forward to?
what are you nervous about?
moving on together….do we have much in common with the world?
Students from England, Bangkok and our school here in Australia, have written a post about it and answered the questions on a voice thread. Listen to their comments!!!
Thanks MrKp for setting up our voicethread and encouraging us to share with you.
Results from our online survey (using google forms) of three schools, each from different countries are now all in. The results from google spreadsheets is now exported to MS Excel and stored on the student drive. Follow the instructions below to show the results using a powerpoint presentation. Goto www.slideshare.net and register.
Follow directions to find the exported, raw data from the survey between, Denver, Hawkesdale and Nabblus.
Sort it
Calculate the average/household for each item.
Graph the results for each gadget
Insert appropriate headings
Grab a screenshot using printscreen, paste into MS Paint, crop and save as jpg.
Paste each graph onto a slide in MS Powerpoint.
Find a map for each of the cities and towns
Add to a powerpoint slides
Summarise and report on the findings
Upload your saved powerpoint file into slideshare
Embed in your blog
Check out the following student posts to see some great results flurogreen and leecie
Here is the live google form that Alison Saylor designed for us to fill in.
If you need help at embedding a live google form into a blog, read the great post by Tom Barrett.
Hmmm….. The warts will show up big time, this week!
Student Achievements
…the warts
One of our most prolific bloggers in grade 6, accidentally (I still dont know how) deleted his blog
logged in to the http://ms1001tales.wikispaces.com site to only find that another of our grade 6 boys had managed to edit the ‘gorgeous’ front page and put his personal photo and ‘about me’ page on there. Horror of all horrors!!! A quick ‘edit this page’ deleted his ‘about me’ page, but I quickly emailed Jeff Whipple to ask him to restore the original front page. It is now as it was!!! Whew!
attempted the impossible with grade 4 and 5 students and failed miserably, despite having the help of two year 9 students and a student teacher. Tried to finally enrol remaining students onto the 1001tales wiki, asked them to place comments on to the Thai student blogs and required a post of them. One boy ended up under the table!!! And it seemed as though out of this class of 28, I had 20 students hot on my heels requesting help. The wiki enrolments were fraught with problems too. Next week, will be a much simpler task. Groan!!!! Not such digital natives after all!!
Anzac day public holiday, a strike half day and a teacher professional learning day, meant I missed my 9/10 classes and the posts for collaboration nation will have to wait until next week.
…..and all
year 8s were successful in commenting on student posts from Costa Rica, and again I heard squeals of excitement from students when they got their first comment back
year 7 students were settled into their blog tasks, which allowed me to commence their ‘camp in a sentence’ into a voicethread. Will finish next week, and each student will embed the VT into their blog post.
Grade 6s wrote a post on Anzac Day
Heather Blakey managed to rescue the deleted blog!! Thanks a heap Heather.
Personal achievements
Jess and I used Thursday as a TPL (Teacher Professional Leave Day) to reflect on our accomplishments at laying the eplanks in a virtual classroom floor and to plan our future directions. Added to our wiki on eplanks re our achievements. Discussed how we could get more staff on board web2.0, and proceeded to interview a secondary English teacher and podcast her opinions and comments, and then enrolled her for a blog, much to her excitement. All steps taken will be podcast and available soon.
worked with some individual primary school staff helping them with blogging mechanics
‘Walk in walk out Wed’ = first session. Two staff attended but we worked together on their needs (email problems, music grabbing for network use etc), and placed work on our intranet. A very productive session!
enrolled for the after school online session with Marcus Torres in May. (He is visiting Australia)
took part in the online session with Oz/NZ teachers using flashmeeting.
Student blog of the week
Goes to teddaoo, a year 8 student, who has worked so hard at establishing a social network. She has made so many comments on other global student blogs, and the red dots are finally appearing on her cluster map! She has also completed all tasks that have been set her.
Have not attempted my google reader so my favourite blog post of the week will have to wait
(A New Brunswick student asking me a question via skype.)
Time of lesson: New Brunswick 8:45am, Australia 9:45pm
Teachers involved:Jeff Whipple, Chad Ball and other interested Canadian staff; and me, Anne Mirtschin (Australia)
Venue:
Nashwaaksis Middle School / Devon Middle School School District 18 Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada and
the study, my home, Hawkesdale, Australia
Prior learning:
existing wiki, with resources set up by Chad Ball, the teacher in New Brunswick
questions posed by the students in reply to the message by Chad, posted on the facebook bulletin board.If any of you have a good question for our Australian webguest, please post it here. Add your name, write your question down and bring it tomorrow morning. You may have the chance to ask.See the questions.
lots of digital images of Australia put into 4 powerpoint presentations
wiki setup with MS Powerpoint presentations, using slideshare to embed them into the wiki.
internet access
nerves of steel!!
Lesson Plan:
Introduction: introduce myself and my country with a map of Australia.
Lesson: Walk through the slideshares on the wiki, indicating ‘next’ so Chad and his students can be viewing the same slide as me, as I talk to these students about our culture, country, town, school and farm, stopping for questions along the way.
Conclusion: Question time for staff and students.
Evaluation:
Self: There were many questions which is always a good indication. My voice broke up somewhat but overall skype and the line were okay. We dropped out once but were soon back online again. Such a powerful learning experience that textbooks can never give.
Jeff: kids loved it…isn’t skype wonderful kids couldn’t stop gabbing about presentation all day…so excited…you are so right about textbooks…primary sources are as close as our connections to the world…current, authentic. thanks sooo soooo much…the kids haven’t stopped talking about you, the learning, and your “funny” accent…
Chad: As it was still pretty early when we came online, the students were all pretty sleepy, but that didn’t stop them from talking about you all day! I would really like to see this communication continue, if you are interested. How many students have you got? Maybe we could do some type of e-penpal idea or something of that nature. I would love to have the kids share some of their teenage lives with each other.
Part of our ‘de-brief’ when we were done was to review some of the pics and video from your website. I also had the kids write a few quick notes to you.
It was incredible,
Its just so different from what is normal here. I probably would of never found any of that out if it wasn’t for that presentation!
That was soo cool! it was real awesome of the cool things i (and everyone) learned, I think i’m gonna do some research on more later…
i really liked the fact that we were actually talking to her. not just in email. i thought all the pictures she showed were pretty sweet. also, i thought it was cool how we are used to different surroundings and habbits.. yes, we dont say put your bookbag in the boot… i still find it awsome, though. i love australia so much! (not to mention thier accents!)
I thought that was so cool, for anyone who missed that, I wish that they could have seen it!
that was an EXCELENT, presentation. I LOVED IT.
it was very interesting, and i think that getting to learn chinese
is a very diffrent thing then what we learn here.
THANK-YOU SO MUCH. :
i dont really understand why they learn chinese… i dont really think that makes much sense
Hi Mrs. Mirtshin
We were just watching you video and we wanted to know what bubble taps were.
I really enjoyed seeing and listening to her.
I learned a lot of new things
i loved her accent. when she said RIGHT-O ! hahaha !
Hello again..
I jsut wanted to say thanks again for taking the time to talk to us abotu Australia. It was really interesting and i learned a lot!.
it was swet
her accent was cool, but the conection kept breaking up
but it was till sweet
thanks allot for sharing some of the intersting facts about were your from and for taking the time out of your day!!
I thought that it was great! And I love her accent. Plus, we got out of Math!!! It was really fun and I hope we can do it again.
Mrs.Mirtschin,
Thank you very much for taking your time to teach us about where you live. I thought i was really interesting to learn about how different it is from here.
thanks again !!
Awesome presentation and pics. I’m gonna look up some more stuff on Australia… We should have a field trip there lol it would be fun…
Yeah we thoguht the presentation was cool, and the web-cam thing was a really good idea. We both learned lot’s of new things about Austrailia.
thank you Mrs. Mirtschin, that was really cool… and i hope that someday i will come to australia, and now that i know a little bit about australia i will be able to understand things there even more.
for anyone who missed it, it was a very awsome presentation.
you should have been there.
Thank you for teachiing me lots of things that i didnt know about Australia.
P.S. I LOVE YOUR ACCENT!
Thank-you for teaching us stuff… PS. Kangaroos are cute!
Thank you for teaching me so much about your home, Australia. I learned a lot of really cool stuff, and I hope that some day I can go there to explore for myself.
jsut wanted to say thanks for talking with us today and taking the time to teach us more about australia. hope you have a grate day MATE, or nignt i dont know
I that it was to cool that we got to talk to you this morning
Thank you lots
hey mrs. mirtschin
thanks for teaching us about australia it was fun thanks again
Thank you Mrs. Mirtschin for teaching us alot about Australia and what it is like to go to school there and about the farms and the sheep and everything. I enjoyed listening to you talk and asking you questions thank you for your knowledge that you shared with us.
thank you i learned stuff that i dident know about befor
i really liked the presentation you gave!!! thanks bunches
good stuff, cool last name
That was really interesting! It was pretty wicked awesome in my words. -lh
i thought that was a really interesting presentation. i can’t believe you can EAT kangaroo! gross.— emma.
P.S- her accent is AWESOME.
Lucas: thanks for doing your awesome presentation! ps: i would like to try kangaroo
Stephen: thank you for taking your time to do that it was great!
Thank you very much for your time. I really enjoyed listening to your presentation. I thought it was very interesting and very well done !
Thank you so much for staying up late to talk to us. I thougth it was really fun and nice of you. Hopefuly we can do it again sometime!
Thank-you so much for staying up late and talking to us about Australia.! I learnt a lot just from that presentation. : ) . It made me want to take a trip to Australia! That would be pretty sweet .! Anyway, THANKS SO MUCHH! : )
Thank you for the grate moring here.
Thank you for geting ous out of the frst 2 class of the day!
Thank you!
I learned a bit from the presentation this mornig!
I wish I could visit Australia sometime!
The students are excited, I am nervous! Time to prepare my lessons for today and it is taking me quite a bit of thought and preparation.
Why would that make me decidedly nervous, you might ask? Well, I am in Australia and my students attend Nashwaaksis Middle School / Devon Middle School School District 18 Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. They are studying a unit on Oceana and about to study Australia and NZ. So, I will talk to them about life in Australia, our cultures, our school, my small rural town and the farm we live on.
Their teacher, Mr Chad Ball put up a bulletin message on his facebook page, seeking potential questions from the students and some of them follow. I think this would make an excellent exercise for my students to complete the answers to, on their individual posts.
Katie: What kind of animals do you have there? And how are they different from the ones in Canada?
Barret: This is my question, are the schools in districts like they are here? Is there early immersion there as well?
Caity: what are the two most commun languages used in Australia?
Craig: I think that it would be cool if we could possibly get a person inAustralia to do a live webcast in class.
Daniella: If you were in the outback is it true that there are houses out there that are under the ground???? If so how were they made?
Amanda: What sports do you play there? Any sports you do that are different from around the world? What are the most popular?
Megan: I was wondering whats so special about Australia ? Whats so special down there ? If you were walking down the street, what would people there be wearring ? ( shorts, jeans, hoodies, t-shirts ? ) What is your favorite thing about Australia ?
Adam: How many animals are indigenise to Australian?
Emily: How many years do you go to school before colledge or university?
Tyler: Can you sand surf in Australia? if so Have you?
Jane: Do they have all four seasons in Australia? And what are the differences between our seasons and theirs?
Katelyn: Are the foods in Australia the same as in Canada or do they eat weird things like ants ???
Lauren: umm… well i guess a good question might be… have you lived in australia all of your life?? If not, how long have you been there?? or maybe what school do you teach at there?? (just some ideas)
Cassie and Morgan: What do they wear? What type of food do they eat? Are there places that are better to live in than others, if so why? Are all of there catch phrases
“CROYKIE”? Does the Kangaroo population in the outback outmatch the human population?
Patrick: is there a different way of teaching in Australia,then there is here in Canada?
Laura: what are the common sports that they play in Australia.
Rene: do aussies have like pet sheep and stuff .. any different animals then cats or dogs…
Nicole: this will sound random, but like in the olden days families used to be huge (with a lot of people) and have lots of kids, now a days the families are smaller, so down in Australia are the families larger then our normal families?
Chantele: what language they speack most other then english, and what kind of cutlures?
Sarah: Why is their english so much different then ours, with words like ‘mate’ and stuff?
Stephen: Whats it like to have all those weird animals around?
Hannah: what knid of animals do you have there? are they all the same as here? are there school’s or just class room? what language do they speak there?
Gwen: What are some of the biggest cultural differences between our country and yours?? Or i it mostly the same?
Periods 3 and 3, my year 7 and 8 IT students filled in a simple online survey form re entertainment gadgets in their home. The teacher who had set it watched the results come in.
The extroadinary part of this statement is that my students are in SE Victoria in Australia and the teacher watching the details being entered immediately was in Florida. Alison instantly placed a comment on the google spreadsheet to say she could see it all as they completed it, even before half my students had hit submit. So, my students watching the output via a datashow could also be amazed at this immediate activity and watch their results appear on our shared google sheet.
Last year, I worked with Alison Saylor, on google spreadsheets. Prior to this we set up a “Guess where I am from” where students from each school, had to work out in 20 questions or less, using only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers, where each school was.
This year, we will work together again, as both our IT classes are currently learning spreadsheets. Google has introduced this wonderful survey form, which can be set up and attached to a spreadsheet. The link to the form is given to potential respondents who fill them in and then submit the form. Hey presto!!! The answers are immediately added to the original spreadsheet.
So, using skype this morning Alison and I worked through the forms trying to determine an efficient and effective method of getting student responses form 4 or more possible schools in Florida, Hawkesdale, Palestine and England.
Alison set it up and as I had my classes almost immediately after offered to trial it. The link to the form was saved on a word document and saved on a public drive on our school network. My students then logged on and copied the url into their webpage. The form appeared and students had to ensure they filled in the Hawkesdale sections. They were asked how many TV sets, radios, cell phones (mobile phones), dedicated game stations, digital cameras etc exist in their households.
When all results are in, we will work with the figures, average them out and write up reports, summaries, comparisons and evaluations on their blogs. We think it will be interesting to compare across the globe.
Who do you think will have the highest household average for each item?
(Make sure you check out the wonderful, varied and interesting comments that the students have made at the end of this post.)
Hello from Hawkesdale, Victoria, Australia
Hello, I am Anne Mirtschin, an information technology(computer studies) teacher in Hawkesdale, Victoria, Australia. It is now autumn and any deciduous trees are starting to colour and lose their leaves. We are a small school of 250 students from prep to year 12 (5yrs – 18 yrs). We are hoping to work together, on blogging, with a school from the USA. Their blog page is entitled “Collaboration Nation”.
In order to get to know each other a little better and thereby, evaluate similarities and differences between our two countries, schools and cultures, I would like to ask you two questions.
1. What is the best thing about living where you do?
2. Tell us why your school is unique?
Please write a post anwering these questions. Then add them as a comment to my blog. Students from both schools are to do this.
Next week, Mr Bogush will write the question a post and it is then hoped that one student per week from alternating schools will write a question for posts.
Grade 6 students are working with schools, including USA and Spain, on a youthradio site. Our students invented words that they felt should be in the English dictionary. We then recorded their words and meaning into audacity, converted the audio to mp3 and produced a podcast.
Our words are as follows:
Greenage: a green colour
Tracli : animals that climb or live in trees
Bool : boring, but cool
Delimbia: an unknown planet
Annoyzgonzola : someone who is annoying but you don’t know how to tell them
Honkey doodle doo: a really bad dancer
Cakeacola : cake with coke in it, or coke with cake in it
Hogglewoggle: a pig in a blanket
Abbracigiggles: someone on a bike who wears braces but instead of tyres they are pogo sticks
Chesstick: a person who loves chess
Mummarola: mum turning the TV off on your favourite part
Grade 6 students have been busy making their cards over the last few weeksto send to 24 schools situated in Perth, USA, Canada, Italy, Hawaii and the Arab Emirates as part of the From Me To You project. Emails have been sent back and forth to organizing staff generating enthausiasm and a little knowledge about the countries these cards are going to. One of our cards was sent to a Ronald McDonald house in UK. Each one of our cards contained a personalized note from a student and outlined a little about the student, where they live including Victoria and Australia.
Google search revealed the identity of the strange area abbreviations and the world map had to be consulted to find the actual locations. Then we set about making our cards. Below is a photo of our class.
Global projects are a wonderful project to get involved in. Social networks are established, natural student curiousity arising from comments made in emails, cards etc activiate learning and there is an authentic recipient of their work. Please enjoy the following movie by a grade 6 boy using MS Photostory to show some of what we did.
hard at establishing a social network. She has made so many comments on other global student blogs, and the red dots are finally appearing on her cluster map! She has also completed all tasks that have been set her.
(A New Brunswick student asking me a question via skype.)
