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.

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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?

From Virtual to 3-Dimensional!

The year 4 children at Woodford were delighted to have the opportunity to meet their 'virtual' teacher, David Kinane. After a week in Prague at the International Federation of Information Processing conference, David took the opportunity to visit us at Woodford. We took advantage of the visit to continue our inkscape sessions. Using to ICT suite, whiteboard and projector the children could now see in 'real' time the new skills that were being taught. In this case how to trace their own portraits using the pen and calligraphic tool to create a 'digital' image of themselves. The children worked hard and were encouraged to celebrate being stuck, as this was the forefront of their own learning. Layers were added over a photograph and then a face was created on one layer with eyes on another before the eyes were 'cut' through the face!

A special school dinner had been requested of shepherd's pie followed by apple crumble and custard, which he said was his favourite school dinner when he was a child.

David also took the opportunity of visiting the infant school with letters from children at Meadowbank. After a question and answer session with the year 4 children, he taught them a popular game that the children play in the New Zealand playground.

The day ended when David shared his and Meadowbank's vision for ICT with the joint staff of Woodford Schools. A real inspiration and long may our partnership continue to flourish! Thank you David for your time and enthusiasm!

Jack: It was a great experience and I will always remember it. The game ‘six square’ that he taught us was great.
Sam: It was good to meet Mr Kinane face to face.
Rebecca – Mr Kinane looked different in real life!
Lauren: Mr Kinane’s accent was very different to ours.
Joe: I enjoyed meeting somebody from the other side of the world.
Maya: It was fun, having him teach us in ‘our’ ICT suite.
Megan: It was enjoyable and I learnt that although NZ is on the other side of the world the people aren’t very different to us.
Megan: I got stuck, but I got there in the end.
Charlotte: – Mr Kinane told us that if our brains were hurting we were working hard! And they were!
Andrew: the day with Mr Kinane was great because we learnt a new game for the playground and we learnt some new Inkscape skills too.