Toko School

3 days with Toko this week. Enjoyed the aerobics first thing in the morning - thanks Kelly you got us all moving and tuned in for the day. Supporting Infolink with Kelly, Claire & Megan - brainstorming & question mapping. Playing around with Inspiration & Kidspiration. Practised some PowerPoint skills with Kelly's class in preparation for the presentation of their topic study. These kids will in turn share their expertise with others in their class. Plenty of computers in the classroom certainly makes it easier to get through the learning. No 3 seat stuff here :-)
Looking at Richard's term plan on the staffroom wall - all this man seems to do is drink coffee!! :-)
Worked with & observed some senior students as they worked with some of the Learning Objects from the LO CD - it was interesting to note the clickety, click, click nature of kids as they approach anything on the computer - its their natural way of finding out what this will do for them. With LOs they may need some time to play and explore but then there needs to be time to model & guide - perhaps use the data projector to work through activities together. Have clear learning outcomes - "We are learning about..." supporting and building on current learning. Richard used these well to support the topic they were learning about in maths - reinforcing previous learning. Certainly the feedback from kids was given the choice this was way better than doing things from textbooks! :-) I agree
The kids showed me the wonderful work they had been doing on Mountain Safety & had created Posters in Fireworks to illustrate these rules. It really made a difference to their published work to see backgrounds incorporated from pictures they had taken up the mountain the week before - bush scenes, sky, waterfalls etc.
Look forward to coming back next term.