Last Weekend's Learning

Last weekend I went to EducampChCh to share MyChatPak and also to push my own learning further.  Everyone loved what all of you have been doing with MyChatPak and how confident you're becoming in sharing your learning with others.  I felt very proud of the effort you put into your learning and it's fantastic for others to be able to see what I see every day!

I've included the Google Presentation from the day for you to have a look at.  There are some incredible tools that we can use in the classroom but we need to keep in mind - always - the central question - What impact will this tool have on teaching and learning?  If it doesn't have a positive impact then is it just a 'cool tool'?  We need to be able to be clear about the learning behind the tool.

Have a really close look at the SAMR model of technology integration - I really loved this and learned such a lot about it.  This may be the tool that we use to decide on the impact of a particular tool or app that we want to use in our teaching and learning. 

As always - I'm really looking forward to hearing YOUR thoughts.  You always make me think more deeply and critically about what I do in teaching and learning. 

What About This For A Writing Prompt Team??!!

Facebook can be a great tool for learning and I use it a lot for this.

Have a look at these writing prompts.  How would YOU use them?  How will we use MyChatPak with these?  Add your ideas below as comments and then... GO FOR IT!!!!!

Choose two or three characters and write a narrative or dialogue.  What other text forms would suit this?  Poetry?  Letters?  Imagine the possibilities!

Source: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreTeachers

MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FABULOUS TEACHERS AND LEARNERS

Thank you so much for one of the best teaching and learning years ever!!

You have taught me a great deal about who I am as a teacher and learner and hopefully, I have done this for you too.

I can't wait to see what we all get up to in 2013!!  In the meantime, stay safe, keep an eye on this blog - and your own ones - for comments, challenges and other bits and pieces and keep adding your thoughts.

I will also keep you updated on what's happening with MyChatpak and your epals.

Missing your senses of humour and great attitudes towards your learning already.

I will always believe in all of you.

Miss H :-)

Room 4 Educational Software Developers

We've been up to all sorts of things in our room over the last term.  (You will see a lot more on the students' individual blogs).

One of them has been the opportunity to take a tool developed in part by a friend of mine and develop an educational teaching and learning tool from it.  We've even had the opportunity to rename it from MyVcv - it's original name and purpose, to MyChatpak - the educational spin-off!

This will now be forever known as the product that was developed by Room 4, 2012, at Henderson Intermediate School, Auckland, New Zealand.  How exciting is that??!!

If you click on the link below you will see what we've been doing.  We'd love some feedback on this.  How else could it be used?




https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByurP5fdVrIoWk1vUnc4UE02Z1U