Teaching across the world - again!

The second of our 'teaching across the world' sessions took place today. Despite skype dropping out a couple of times the children were able to follow David's lesson and today they highlighted the shares they wanted to buy and then linked them to their stock portfolio tables, ensuring that the company name, current price and hence the buying price were recorded. There was certainly more interaction between David and the children via the chat facility in dimdim so David could respond to specific questions.

BubbleShare: Share photos

Dimdim Success

Today saw the first sessions for our Stock Exchange competition. The sessions were led by David Kinane offering his expertise on web queries in Excel. The children could hear and see David via our free Skype video call and they could see his desktop using the shared desktop feature of Dimdim once we had all joined his meeting.

BubbleShare: Share photos David explained the challenge for the students over the coming weeks, made more difficult in the current stock market climate!! We are looking to see which school (exchange) has the best trader, making the greatest percentage gain on their initial investments (virtual not real).

The session included using Google Finance to look at stock performances over a period of time. The children soon noticed the downward trend in stocks recently!

The web link for linking to Excel was from MoneyExtra.com importing the data from the FTSE 100.


Our sessions will continue next week after the children have researched stocks as possible investments.



You can read David's perspective on his blog, Turning the Supertanker

New collaborations on the horizon

Next week will see the start of two new collaborations between the students and staff of Woodford and Meadowbank. The year 6 children will undertake a challenge on the Stock Market, using Excel to track stock shares of up to 1000 units in their own currency. David Kinane will teach the Woodford children, via a free Skype call and Dimdim's shared desktop feature, how to add a live web inquiry to excel. The challenge for each trader in the Exchanges (schools) is to choose their stocks carefully and over a period of time track the profit / loss, selling and buying new shares where appropriate. The trader with the greatest % gain on their initial investment will be our best trader. We will post examples of the children's work here over the next few weeks.
The second project will be a collaboration of groups of children from each school designing and creating a global themed game using GameMaker. Again Woodford children will benefit from the expertise of David Kinane in the basics of using GameMaker. The children will use a wiki to collaborate: sharing ideas, discussions and resources to ensure that tasks are allocated to each member of the team.

We will share our collaborative triumphs, despairs and progress regularly via this blog. Who will be a best trader? Which "Exchange" will make the best gain on their initial investments? Who will create the most interactive and challenging global game?