Eastnet Cluster Expo 2010

I was fortunate to present at the Eastnet Expo last Wednesday. View the slideshow and supporting materials below. Despite some technical hiccups I thoroughly enjoyed presenting using skype and the share your screen facility. The idea behind my workshop was to share my recent journey into Action Research with other professionals.

Digikidz Workshop for Eastnet Expo 2010

View more presentations from Shelly Park School.

In organising this workshop I reflected upon my experience from last year's workshop eLearning for Little People at the 2009 Eastnet Cluster Expo and tried to progress from that experience.  I took a different approach when preparing my slideshow this year where I incorporated some aspects of Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and also video examples to share with the audience.  The workshop began smoothly with the setting the scene clip Piano Stairs from http://thefuntheory.com/ :



The idea behind this being that when learning is fun, children are engaged.  Shortly afterwards the audio started fluctating on skype which was disappointing.  Possibly it was a bit ambitious to expect to be able to share my screen and talk for 50 minutes without any problems.  So we quickly went to plan B: I rang the classroom that the workshop was being held in at Elm Park School and spoke on speakerphone.  Once we'd turned down the volume on both my laptop and Belinda's, who was helping me at the NZ end, from this end it there was a bit of an echo but not at the other end which is a relief!  Fortunately this didn't mean I ended up running over time and I was pleased I didn't get flustered, probably because I'd already thought through all the possible problems and was prepared!  There's a lot to be said for practise and preparation before presenting.

I hope the attendees at the workshop found it worthwhile.  I am excited to see if anyone adds to the Discussion section of my wiki and have created a How to sheet to support them to do this.

XMind - Mindmapping Tool

I downloaded and used the XMind tool to help me plan out how to structure my presentation for the Eastnet Cluster Expo and hopefully ULearn 2010.  I am sure other things will occur to me as I go through the process but I am happy to have a plan.

Microsoft Mouse Mischief

Click this link http://www.microsoft.com/multipoint/mouse-mischief/ to download Microsoft Mouse Mischief to encourage interaction between your powerpoint slideshows and groups/whole class. You need wireless mice and are able to see which mouse has given each answer so you can identify who has given each one! I have just downloaded this add-on and will try it out tomorrow, woops make that today as it is 12:01am! If this is good I know lots of teachers in my school will be excited as there are many ppt users especially in Years 3 and 4.

Eastnet Cluster Share 20.10.09

Just participated in the very worthwhile Cluster Share at EPS last Tuesday. Our ICT team leader KP put together an excellent and humorous powerpoint to share our journey thus far with the Contract and to look to the future. As she was on leave I was operating the slideshow. It was a bit nerve racking as we had quite a challenging presentation being the only school to ask for audience participation using laptops with an internet link to scribblar. That was definately one of my favourite parts even although it was a bit tricky to get all set up, thanks AS and BJ, but I think it was worth it. It was interesting to see that during the first task the adults got very involved in testing the capabilities of the tool without realising their ideas would be shown on the big screen! This illustrates things to be aware of when using this cool web 2.0 tool in your classroom! Thanks to JS and NB and the Senior Management team for helping hand out the laptops to people. (I will put the links to the scribblar rooms on soon but cannot view these at school at the moment!)

I am keen to use scribblar with a teaching group and some roving laptops and am looking at how I will incorporate this into my programme this Term. I might try splitting the class in half and myself and my teacher aide work with a group each to type their ideas into the room. Watch this space as I will no doubt have a few things to say after I've tried it!

I was also interested to note that all of the schools showed video in their presentations. Waimakoia have flip mimos and we have a couple of slightly inferior quality flip videos which the children love using as they are so simple. We did discover during the putting together of our presentation that the zoom quality and sound quality are not great on our flip videos and KP and I looked into the flip mimo at the IWB conference. However, I did notice that a lot of staff and students in all the presentations seemed quite nervous or unsure of being videoed and I am keen to find out this time next year what changes there will be in this area. KP and I definately want to create a quiet space which could perhaps be a media room which is not affected by bells ringing etc as it's pretty tricky trying to find a quiet, filming space with no interuptions here at the moment!

It was really neat to see what other schools have been doing but I must admit to being a bit preoccupied with making sure I had everything all set up for our part to properly pay attention! Congratulations to all the staff and students involved everyone can be really proud of their efforts. Thanks to EPS for hosting a great event and I look forward to the next one!