Wine Not Network - Toko

Thanks Richard, Cathy & Kelly for hosting us at Toko this afternoon. Thanks also to Richard (Barnes) for sharing your Matau kids blogs with us. Lots of discussion about the access to a wider audience & the associated improvement in the kids written language, alongside that was discussions about how to keep our kids safe online in such an environment - using the blog tool settings to have all comments posted to the Principals address & raising kids awareness of issues associated with interacting in an online environment and how to deal with this. If you are interested in setting up your own blog go to www.blogger.com - follow the online instructions to register and set up your blog & then tell us all about it!! Cathy walked us through a webquest she had used with her kids and described how they extended from this into written language and then movie making. Cathy has posted information about this at this Interact link. Richard shared examples of how their kids had used Movie Making within the Prep programme to create snapshots of school life (eg Jones Cup Day) and using Flash to animate the retelling of Maori Myths and legends. Using these tools across the curriculum is another way to present learning that involves just as much 'work' & definately more engagement & no dumbing down of cognitive skills. Kelly shared her story of the email buddies her class have been corresponding with - how this was structured for kids to be able to use the email programme efficiently and they types of interchanges they had with a class of children from Wimbledon. Some concerns about their buddies during the time of the London bombings and how they hope their kids will continue to write now that the UK class has moved onto a different teacher. (They are sharing a hotmail address) Thanks to those who made it out this afternoon - good to see you all there - next Wine Not Networking at Eltham (maybe a hands on Apple time) Bring a friend :-) !