Google Maps & Mask Making

Rainforest research with Google Maps
Just a brief update today!  I thought I'd share the map of rainforest information that my class started creating earlier in the year.  It's a good way of getting into a topic early on and for children to share the information they find.  As you can see, the children post using their online rainforest cryptonyms which they choose at the beginning of the year.


View Researching Tropical Rainforests by Y4 Bengal Tigers in a larger map

Hangout with Taiwan
We had our last hangout of the term with Chong Ming Elementary school in Taiwan.

Hanging out with the lovely pupils of Chong Ming

Andy, one of the teachers there supporting our sessions, shared with children that he and his son had recently visited the World Land Trust Borneo Appeal site that earlier in the year our pupils had raised money to help fund.  This has made it all the more real for them!

We were all excited to learn that there's a possibility that Amy, the fantastic teacher we've been working with on this project, may be visiting us at Pedmore before the end of term!


Camp

Children made chilli and flatbread

This went really well and the weather held out for most of the evening.  Google Apps have proved really useful for all the planning children have been doing.  The context and real data children were working with from using forms to find out what everyone wanted for dinner, dessert, drinks and breakfast through to analysing with the spreadsheets and then using Google Presentation to present results to the class have proved invaluable.  Children have found the apps very straightforward to work with.  With project based learninjg, children have found it actually matters that questions are framed in a way which enables them to be answered!  Feedback between class teams has been instant (and occasionally blunt)!  And with this approach, meeting the deadline for your presentations to the class has really mattered - otherwise the person doing the shopping won't know what to buy!

Our school chickens really came through lots of eggs this week.  And many children brought in produce that had been homegrown.  Throughout Thursday and Friday children were cooking chilli, flatbread and toppings ready for one of the evening dinner options.

Mod Roc and Greek Masks

Mask making

I've recently discovered that I'll be working with the same class next year. :)

So for our Domino sessions, we've been getting stuck ancient Greek mask making inspired by the history topic we'll be studying next year.  Here are the children working away on the early stages.

Week 4 of Google Apps & exciting contacts with Brazil & Taiwan

Week 4 of Google Apps for Education

I can't quite believe it's only been 4 short weeks since we launched GApps for Education at school.  Phew!

Assessment week notwithstanding, this week has been PACKED with learning skills, hangout preps, fab news on new partners through our rainforest questionnaire and lots more besides!





Learning Skills

Our learning skills display

One of the things I was keen to do was to involve children in self and peer assessment as part of this project. After getting pupils' ideas on how we could do this, we used questionnaires relating to our school's existing learning skills framework.  Have to say I'm loving the simplicity, accessibility and power of Google forms, so using this format, pupils gave themselves and their rainforest action teams marks out of four for each of the key aspects of learning.  There's more info about the learning skills here - we use children's own definitions of what these mean.


Google Hangout - Chong Ming Elementary School, Taiwan

Chong Ming Elementary School, Taiwan

After a few filtering hiccoughs, we're all set for our first Google class hangout with the Chong Ming Elementary school in Taiwan.

Pupils there have completed our rainforest survey and we're having a planning session in class tomorrow to get the most from the hangout.  It'll be an early start for Year 4 - the hangout starts at 8:00am Tuesday!


Google Translate and a truly amazing offer from ActionAid Brazil

ActionAid, Brazil

From the outset of this project, I really hoped for links with pupils from a rainforest region of the world.  So this week it was JUST FANTASTIC to see our questionnaire had been completed by Celia, Coordinator for ActionAid Brazil!  Celia's heartfelt responses about the deforestation of Brazil's rainforests and the devasting impact of this on local people in the form of mudslides, flooding and climate change have really moved every single one of us in class - sharing an insight that no amount of  traditional study will lead to.

Brazil - earthobservatory.nasa

Celia also wrote asking that I pass on this message to Year 4: 'living in a country very rich on forests - and suffering from a huge deforestation process, I have only to celebrate initiatives like yours'.

Celia has offered to pass our survey on to teachers and children in the region to complete next month.  This is truly an amazing offer considering the work that this will involve.  Says Celia, 'Our children do not speak or read English and also the majority of teachers in the remote areas of Brazil cannot speak any other language but Portuguese.'

Fortunately, with Google translate, this won't be a problem - I've already received translations from several pupils, completed and sent to me this weekend!  Watch this space!


Google Search - Fab Research Sidebar!
On Tuesday I heard the great news about the new research sidebar available in Google docs.  YES!!!! I thought.  And what SUPERB timing! Children could use these for their key questions. So, all fired up, I demoed how to use the tool, pointing out useful features like the citation button but when the children logged on it wasn't there!  After some tooing and frooing I discovered that we're on scheduled releases in GApps - so I've reset that now to instant release.  I'll need to wait until tomorrow to see whether the tool is also blocked by the LA filters.

Questions & Bloom's Taxonomy (image tedcurran.net)

In the meantime, we carried on without the tool - lots of children researched the answers to their questions after school and brought in information the next day.  This process brought out some really good learning - like copyright issues & citation of sources/use of images, reliability of sources, pros and cons of using wikipedia.  Pupils have also had lots of opportunities to ask questions, think about their usefulness in the context of their team's aims and how their questions should be framed.  

Letter writing
This has taken a little longer than I expected.  Second drafts were completed on Friday and children have been sending these to me throughout the weekend.  Here's one to the Malaysian Government from our Rainforest Tribe Kidz team who, as their name implies, are trying to help tribespeople affected by deforestation.  And here's another to Coca-Cola about aluminium cans.

Our playground sculpture

The week ended with some more good news - Bev, our Head Teacher had a letter from the Express & Star commending children for their Living History Project.  This was a fantastic art and local history project led by local artist and former pupil, Luke Perry.  As part of learning about their Black Country heritage, children made chain using traditional methods. 

Last year they helped to arc weld the large metal anchor they made in the playground too!  If you're at a school in the Midlands and you want to give children an amazing learning experience that'll stay with them forever, give Luke a call!

Phew...day two of Google Apps!

We've been exploring Google Apps in class over the last two days.  Can't quite believe it's only been two days...they've loved it!  More about that in a mo...

Over the last few days we've heard in class from Margot James, our local MP and Tanya Blackburn, Head of Outreach at Survival International, an organisation that campaigns on behalf of tribal peoples around the world whose way of life & very existence is threatened by deforestation.  Both praised pupils' efforts to help rainforest people and, in particular, Molly for her Amnesty article about the Penan mentioned in an earlier post.  The class have been really encouraged.

Can 9 year olds really make a difference? 
Over the last few months children have been inspired by the examples of some amazing youngsters.  Here are just two:  Felix Finkbeiner, was a youngster of only 9 when he hatched the idea of planting a million trees as an answer to climate change.  Now 13, Felix's charity, Plant for the Planet, is up and running in 131 countries.  Children shared footage of Felix's message to the Earth Summit in an assembly. Look out for Felix's 'stop talking start planting' gesture to the conference president - children loved that! Cole Rasenberger provides another role model of what tenacity and passion can achieve - his persuasive postcard campaign caused the mighty McDonald's to rethink their policy on the sourcing of packaging.   Result!

Jumping right in to Google Apps
Yep! They've jumped right in with spreadsheets, sites and emails over the last couple of days.  And this is just the start!  I'm introducing pupils to the tools they'll be using for their rainforest projects.  Children are already familiar with Wallwisher from earlier in the year.  They've begun to use the walls to post their ideas for projects.  Everyone formed up into teams today & were given half an hour to prepare and deliver a 2 minute presentation to the class outlining their project focus.  Quite pacy!  Next, teams will be working on their Project Action Videos.  Through these they'll be fleshing out their team's project idea, possible actions for implementation and group roles. Although children's Google Apps accounts were only activated yesterday they were already using them yesterday evening to share ideas.  Needless to say enthusiasm and energy levels are running high..!

Walking a mile in someone else's moccasins
We have visitors from a nearby school tomorrow who've asked to see philosophy & the enquiry approach in action.  To help children explore some of the issues surrounding deforestation, we're going to for a different approach tomorrow.  Children are going to take part in the enquiry as stakeholders rather than as themselves!   They'll be debating the future of the rainforests in role as scientists, environmentalists, loggers and tribespeoples. (Going by some of the chatter at the end of the day today, I should think more than a few will be really going for it by dressing up to look the part too!)

In the meantime, I'm going to have a quick look at this on YouTube for suitability.  Children have heard about how it helped change some hearts and minds over at Mattel and have asked (repeatedly) if we can share it in class.  Pester power!

Google challenge - Be the change!

In April, Google challenged us, using Gandhi's famous words, 'to be the change you want to see in the world'.  With that in mind, I've been developing my action plan. Its  focus: How can project based learning and Google Apps accelerate learning in the primary classroom, develop global citizenship in pupils and make a contribution to sustainability?

Young Reporter of the Year Awards

One of the special things about being a teacher is sometimes experiencing the world from the children's perspectives.  Class enquiries give children free reign to discuss questions they've chosen - without lots of teacher talk! It's always an eye opener and more than a bit humbling.  I highly recommend it! Children  ask the most disarming questions - 'why are people cutting down rainforests when we all need them to breathe?' They simplify issues by going to the heart of the matter - our pupils asked two 'Seven Summit' mountaineers, 'if Mount Everest is so beautiful, why does it look like a rubbish tip now?'   They asked their local MP,  Margot James, 'what have you done to help the rainforests?' and 'what can children do to make a difference?'   Children have an unassailable belief that they can make change happen (obstacles? what obstacles?). And guess what? They can!

Margot James MP visiting Year 4

I've just posted Molly's article on our blog.  As part of our study of Borneo's rainforests, pupils wrote articles about the devastating impact of deforestation on the Penan people.  They reasoned that if the Penan could be allowed to live in the forests as their people have for hundreds of years, then that would be good news for the forests too!  I sent the articles off to Amnesty for their Young Reporter of the Year Awards.  Molly, one of the youngest of the 3000+ entrants, made the final ten!  Wow! 

Be the change you want to see in the world?  I think our young people will lead the way if we give them the opportunity!