Student Voice - Our kids expect it

Crazy Clever Kids

Our kids expect to have a voice in their learning - and so they should; including the details of what the music is like that they have to listen to while they wait for the audio bridge to be opened. We have advised Student Council to take this up themselves with Asnet Technologies who manage our audio bridge :-)

Here is their conversation:
" Halfmoonbay: (13:40) hey everyone
  Halfmoonbay #PowerMovesOnly: (13:41) Hi blackmount
  Halfmoonbay #PowerMovesOnly: (13:41) Hello everyone
  Tylah: (13:43) hi everyone
  Halfmoonbay #PowerMovesOnly: (13:43) hey
  #N¡k¡: (13:44) heey
  Tylah: (13:44) do you ever get sick of listning to the music on the phone??????
  Halfmoonbay #PowerMovesOnly: (13:45) noo
  Halfmoonbay: (13:45) yes yes i do
  #N¡k¡: (13:45) hah
  Halfmoonbay #PowerMovesOnly: (13:45) thats why in the next student council we may discuss the music on the phone
  Tylah: (13:46) i get sick of listning to "please wat for thee chairperson to join the conference
  Halfmoonbay #PowerMovesOnly: (13:46) we got really cool music on ours yahhh
  Tylah: (13:47) me too today but don't get it very often
  #N¡k¡: (13:47) please wait for the chairperson to join the conference
  Halfmoonbay #PowerMovesOnly: (13:47) hi rachel
  Halfmoonbay: (13:47)
  #N¡k¡: (13:47)
  Rachel Roberts: (13:48) hi Tylah we would give you the chairperson pin but then you guys would have phone parties without us!
  joseph&kase: (13:48) hey
  Tylah: (13:48) yeah  its ok i just figured out to mute it when it gets really aannoying"

TaraNet Students Rate their Online Learning

 

Half or our students think that learning online is just as good as face to face. While the other nearly half think that it is better than Correspondence. A big tick for the VLN :-)

Interesting to note too that one of the biggest challenges our students face with their online learning is the quality of their school internet connection – roll on UFB (ultra fast broadband)!

ICT Connect

ICT Connect was an initiative discussed at our recent PPTA ICT Task Force Meeting (full minutes here). Instigated by the New Zealand Computer Society, it is aimed at encouraging young people into ICT careers, this website gives examples of CVs, tips about first jobs, links to NZ tertiary's that offer ICT courses & profiles of people within ICT Careers. ICT Connect also organises for people from ICT careers to speak to students – I can feel another Digital Conversation topic coming up. The NZCS also support YMedia a great challenge for tertiary students.

eHui 2009

 

TaraNet elearning students met at Stratford High School to prepare for the year ahead. It is good to see Stratford High has students enrolled on the VLN this year. Also a changing trend from previous years is the number of our own TaraNet students in our own classes. Last year we had only one, all others were cross cluster enrolments. Our Spanish class is completely made up of TaraNet students, followed by Physics with 6 of our own students. All other eteachers have one or two TaraNet students, except for Joel’s Stats class which has none.

Unfortunately Coastal & Patea were unable to join us today but we VCed into Patea so the students there could join in part of the day & experience a VC with other students.

We followed the usual agenda of discussing expectations of what VC learning is all about. See above the students collated PMIs. They have a pretty accurate preconception of some of the ‘characteristics’ of being an elearner. Certainly more accurate than students contributions to this discussion in previous years perhaps an indication that the VC & elearning is registering on the radar of our schools’ community. This is the first year we have had students sign a contract to acknowledge what is required of them as an elearner & also to assure them of support they will receive as an elearner. This is useful also as it  involves parents as they take it home to discuss with them. Most VC students are responsible learners but occasionally they need a  reminder to keep them on track.

Also during the day we went through technical procedure of using the VC equipment, invited an experienced elearning student speak with them and explored the TaraNet website and the VLN Student Module.