Tuesday, 20 November 2007

Lessons around the World!

The last couple of week have seen some really exciting developments in the links between staff and children at Woodford Junior and Meadowbank Primary. Here at Woodford the Year 4 children have been taught by the IT Director of Meadowbank, David Kinane! How, you may ask is this possible? 11,000 miles between us and a thirteen hour time difference. The power of technology and ever increasing Web 2.0 tools meant that those miles and hours disappeared in cyber space! A Skrbl board for demonstrating and communicating, a webcam, a microphone and a free video call via Skype enabled David to teach the children how to use vector graphics program Inkscape.



During the first sessions the children were "shy" and did not communicate with their New Zealand Teacher, however the second sessions saw such inhibitions disappear and dialogue taking place.



The lesson created great interest here, with the local newpaper printing an article, as well as a small note in a national paper the following day. Governors, staff and Local Authority representatives were all amazed at how the children took the lesson in their stride.



They (the students) seem to just accept there is someone teaching them that is half way around the world and 13 hours ahead - I find it absolutely amazing - must be my age!! (Jill Bailley International Development officer for Plymouth)



We hope that is the beginning of many such lessons. Helen Hardie is already looking forward to teaching in New Zealand in 2008.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Print Christmas Coloring Pages.



The slideshow above reaveals the interaction between David and the Woodford children as well as the spiders they created under his instruction. We hope to publish those here once they are completed! Arachnophobes look away!


The videos below captured some of the sessions from the Woodford ICT Suite.




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello we liked your movie and also thoght the idea of the spiders they looked relly createve and cool

relly good work!!!!!!! looking foward to some more fabulus work!!!!!!!! :)

from
sam and matthew :)

Anonymous said...

Hi i'm Isabella cope.
me and my class went to athletics
yesterday and on the 800 m run
I came 6th and in the 60 m sprint I
came 3rd.

Anonymous said...

Hi I'm Charlotte and I was taught by Mr Kinane. I think that I'm really lucky to be taught by someone over 11 thousand miles away on the other side of the world!

Anonymous said...

Hi Im Andrew
I really enjoyed Mr Kinane teaching us from New Zealand. Thankyou!

Anonymous said...

Hello Im Chloe and I really enjoyed
doing the spider it was great fun and I relly enjoyed doing the legs!
...bye

Anonymous said...

Hi Isabella and the other kids. How strange it is to communicate with you via blogging and you are (a) my daughter and (b) only 9. I will get used to it, it just seems a little weird to us oldies... :-)
Regards
Simon Cope http://www.SolarEnergyHouse.com