And a new year begins...

King Kong our class mascot

A new year and for me this year, a new class!  My new class have chosen to call themselves the Year 5 Dolphins.  They've met their new classmate Xaviar - he's a bit unusual as he's invisible and gets into all sorts of mischief.  Xaviar has introduced everyone to his chimpanzee (are you keeping up?!)  The chimp has already become our class mascot and children have named him King Kong.  King Kong is already leading a busy social whirl if his diary is anything to go by!

The children have their new ocean cryptonyms - everything from a blob sculpin to a sea cucumber.  And they've already begun putting their cryptonyms to good use by posting on padlet some of the things they'd like to know about the ancient Greeks who we're studying this year.  Here's their wall in progress.

What we'd like to know about the ancient Greeks - our wall on padlet

Our new set of 1:1 devices has just arrived in school for Year 5.  They're the Surface RTs - I gather the discounted price was really too good to pass up.  I've had a quick look at one of them and on the plus side I like the touch screen and the usb port.  I'll need to get used to not being able to load them with some of my favourite programs as you need apps from the Windows store. I'll let you know how we get on with these as the year rolls out.

A busy year!

On the Google stand at Bett 2013

 It's been a busy year: In September I moved back into Year 5 after six years away and, on the Google front, I took part in the Prague Summit last Autumn and in January I took a turn on the Google Bett stand sharing how I've used Google Apps with my class.  More recently, in May, I returned to the Association of Learning Technologists - this time round helping out on the judging panel. All interesting and worthwhile experiences for which I'm grateful!

Connect All Schools

In class, Year 5 took part in the International Learning Circles through Connect All Schools.  As we all had experience of this from last year, I think we all felt up to speed with what was involved and somewhat more organised and able to meet the various deadlines involved in taking part!

For one of our partner's projects we were able to draw on our local history project work from last year - something which showed just how rooted this has become in the children's sense of place.

  
Capital Cities of the World

London

Our project was 'Capital Cities' and the inspiration for this was one of the highlights of Year 5 - our trip to London!  Needless to say, this spring term trip is always eagerly anticipated and this year was no exception.  Every moment was jam packed so although for many pupils, this was their first trip away from home & family, with so much to see and do there wasn't too much time to feel homesick!  Click on the picture of London to see some of the contributions from our Learning Circles partners.

London Tour Guides

This year, pupils became London tour guides which involved choosing a famous landmark or site, researching it and then scripting an informative and engaging presentation as part of our exploration and discovery of London.  Pupils also used their computer skills to create multimedia presentations to share with families, next year's Year 5 and, of course, our Learning Circle partners.

Pupils created voiceovers using their iPodtouches and then overlaid these on the videos they'd created using their Animoto (educational) accounts so that they could combine pictures, text and a music backing track.  Here's a tour of Baden Powell House, originally the Headquarters of the Scouting Association and now a youth hostel.  It was where we stayed in London.

Hurricane Sandy

At the start of the year, last September, Hurricane Sandy featured prominently in the news.  As two of our Geography topics for the year were 'Water' and 'News from around the World', Sandy seemed particularly relevant and pupils worked hard to find out all about the hurricane and its effects from a number of news feeds before creating their own broadcasts showing the huge impact on those living in the region.

It turned out to be particularly poignant for me as I have family in Long Island - thankfully all safe - but still living in temporary accommodation while their house is being rebuilt!  Pupils again made good use of their iPodtouches to create their movies.  They were also able to share their research through Voicethread.  Here's one of the news broadcasts created by pupils.



 Christmas

The Three Kings

Although it may feel a little odd to mention Christmas in August, I do want to give it a mention in the round up of the year.

Every year, Year 5 create the designs for the school Christmas cards and over the last few years this has involved a digital element.

This year pupils created designs in pastels and then used GIMP, the image manipulation tool, to transform their designs using a mosaic effect.

The picture on the left shows one of the five designs chosen for the 'official' school Christmas cards.  Of course all the pupils were able to use their completed designs for their families.

Festive Story Spiral
As you can see from the picture of the Three Kings and our storyspiral, although the theme for the designs are traditional, the digital element has given it an effective modern twist.

For those interested, the story spiral on the right is generated through Photopeach.  Photopeach has a selection of tracks you can choose from to accompany your artwork and work can be displayed as a story or as a story spiral.  I think there's now an educational version too.  

Talking Textiles
Over the last few years, as I've highlighted elsewhere in this blog, Art has been a big feature of our work.  This year we've been involved in a lovely project where pupils share their love of some of the Greek myths and legends we've read.

Three lovely ladies, Jean Lewis-Millward, Sheila Allen and Barbara Henslow, very generously gave their time throughout the summer term to help children turn their designs into textile based pictures.  Here you can see some of the (nearly) completed panels which will go on display in school in the Autumn term.

Learning Technologist Award - Reflections and thanks

I was honoured to accept the Learning Technologist of the Year 2012 Award on Wednesday evening for my work on accelerating children’s learning through an enquiry led, technology enabled approach.

Attending the Association for Learning Technology Awards' ceremony was a humbling and moving moment for me, particularly in light of the awesome learning technology projects out there (past and present) led by some truly inspirational educators – many of whom have inspired me!

Although the award is called 'individual', an accolade like this is never just about the recipient. This one recognises the children - their enthusiasm, their learning and all those moments that make teaching so special. I particularly wish to thank Bev Hartland-Smith, my Head Teacher, for her encouragement, enthusiasm and inspiring leadership throughout my time on her team. My thanks too to our Deputy Head, David Dunn and the School Governors for their support. I hope the award also says great things about Pedmore Primary school and what it’s like to be part of the team here and of course, the wider support the school has always been fortunate to have from the super team at Dudley Grid for Learning and RM.

I thank Martin, my husband and our two sons Luke & Max for their fantastic support and encouragement.

Lastly, I want to express my hope that by sharing the learning benefits, other teachers will feel encouraged, just as I have been, to use technology to help children learn.

My presentation to the panel:

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.

Bengal Tigers - Seal of Approval Awarded!

This week, despite hurricanes, we had another hangout with Taiwan...our second Bottle Top Art Day and...the Bengal Tigers awarded their seal for the first time ever!  More about that later!

Taiwan Hangout

My class - ready to hangout!

This time, my class, the Bengal Tigers, were presenting to Taiwan.  Children worked SO hard creating scripts and then learning their lines - they LOVE the real context our hangouts provide.  They included many aspects of our Earth Caretakers Project. 

Children's presentations went really well but our second hangout of the week had to be postponed because Taiwan continued to be affected by severe hurricanes.  We were very glad and relieved to hear that everyone is safe in Chong Ming and we've rearranged for next week.  (Video to follow!)
 

Securing the bottle tops to perspex!

Bottle top art (day 2)
We also had our second bottle top art day.  We're likely to need a bit longer before this is completed because the scale is quite big and the process of sticking and then screwing down the bottle tops is taking longer than originally anticipated.  But, as you can see from our pictures, it's really coming along now!

There's been lots of interest and lots of staff and children have helped by bringing in extra browns and golds because we found we were running short of these colours.  Thank you everyone!  Next time, hopefully we'll be able to complete it and put it up in the playground in its permanent home.

Our orangutan is coming along well!

Breaking news....Bengal Tigers' Seal Awarded!
The Bengal Tigers are extremely pleased to report that AT LAST we've heard from a company that actually answered the questions we asked about recycling and the use of sustainable packaging!  And what's more, children were impressed with the answers too!  This feels groundbreaking!

Over the last 12 months pupils have written MANY letters but companies smoothly (or perhaps not so smoothly) have side stepped all our rainforest action teams' questions.

Well done John Lewis!

So....DRUM ROLL....the first company to be awarded the Bengal Tigers' official seal of approval is......JOHN LEWIS!   Well done John Lewis!

On a sadder note, the children were very concerned to read reports that wood fibres from prime rainforest land in Indonesia have been found in the packaging used by KFC.  I know children are keen to write to KFC about this matter!  They've also been listening out for news from the Earth Summit in Rio - mostly though, the feeling is one of disappointment.

Next week we are having the last hangout of the term with Taiwan.  Children will be sharing their Earth Caretakers presentation with more pupils at Chong Ming Elementary.

Our summer camp
We will also be having our summer camp.  In small teams, children will be using Google Forms to collect data about everyone's requests for food, drink and activities.  They will then be analysing the data and making presentations to the class about options chosen.  There's nothing like real life Maths is there!

Pedmore's chickens

I've mentioned before that children are growing lots of their own fruit and vegetables for our camp and we're also hoping to use eggs from Pedmore school's very own chickens!

Minimising the air or freight miles of anything the children need to buy will be a priority too! 

Hopefully the sun will put its hat on for us on Friday....

Orangutans & our bottle top art (day 1)

work in progress

Bottle top art and orangutans
Our keenly anticipated bottle top art day at last arrived on Wednesday!  We all had a fabulous day - even the sun came out!

Before half term children had created some lovely rainforest inspired designs and we settled on a picture showing an orangutan with her baby and in the canopy layer a toucan and macaw.

macaw artwork

Endangered
The orangutan was inspired by our focus on Borneo which, with Sumatra, provides the last two natural habitats on earth for the orangutan.  100 years ago there were 315,000 orangutans - now it is estimated that there are less than 7000 and this beautiful animal may be extinct in the wild by 2015.

The children feel that we may not be able to do much to help, but we should try to do whatever we can.  'Be the change you want to see in the world' - Gandhi

sorting, counting and sizing bottle tops

The children transferred their designs onto card and then from card onto the perspex.  Meanwhile, other groups were busily using Google search to research rainforest tree species so that they could come up with leaf designs for the background.  A further group were counting and colour and size sorting the bottle tops the whole school community has been collecting since September.  There were over 1500!

rainforest leaves

Later, children began the process of sticking these onto the perspex.  Next time they'll be drilling them on so that they'll be really secure!

As our video shows, our bottle top art is a work in progress.  We're hoping to complete it next week and put it up in a leafy, tree filled section of the playground.  Meanwhile children have begun to develop their ideas for a world themed playground.  Watch this space!

  Replies to our rainforest letters

So far children have had two replies to their rainforest letters.  The Animal Savers Team heard from Marks & Spencers in reply to their letter about packaging and the Rainforest Orangutan Team received a reply from Coca Cola about their use of plastic bottles.

Although the Animal Savers are pleased to read of M&S's 'Plan B' both they & the Orangutan team were more than a little disappointed to find that, on close reading of their replies, there were NO responses to their questions.

The M&S reply referred the group to their website for answers so they will be having a look there.  But I think it's fair to say that, teams are already drafting new letters to these companies!


Hangouts with Taiwan
We were delighted to receive another invitation to not just one, but two hangouts with pupils in Taiwan next week.  Towards the end of this week children have been busily scripting their presentations in preparation for our hangouts.  They are going to talk about our Earth Caretakers project.  We'll let you know how these go.

Year 4 Summer Camp

Summer camp planning

In less than a fortnight, the Year 4 Bengal Tigers will be having a summer camp on our school field.  Children plan it in detail and this includes budgeting for food and other things we'll need, menu planning and deciding which games will be played and other activities.  

This year, because children are so focused on 'being the change' they've decided to try to cut out air miles for food bought and better still, they've been working with their families to  GROW THEIR OWN fruit and vegetables.  Fantastic!     

Hanging out with Taiwan & dabbling with Ngram Viewer - Wow!

Weeks 5 & 6 of Google Apps proved to be every bit as pacey as the first four.   And that notwithstanding class assembly rehearsals & performance shoe-horned into the few remaining timeslots.  Just as well this is our half term week - I think we've all needed a bit of time for rest, reflection & relaxation!

Hangouts to the East & to the West!

...to the East with Chong Ming Elementary in Taiwan...
  

Marine artwork

I arrived at school to prepare for our first ever hangout - it was early and nearly deserted and therefore unusually quiet.  After making the obligatory cup of tea (a MUST for me!), I was dismayed to find a fuse had blown and all the lights and electrical sockets in my classroom were out.  Fortunately, after a quick fix, I was soon up and running again and racing the clock to pull out the wires from my class computer and plug them into my laptop, sort out sound and projector and try to angle the tiny camera so that there was a view of my pupils as they streamed in an hour before our usual start time.  Although it all felt a little bit haphazard and unfamiliar, but hey presto,  suddenly four classes from Chong Ming Elementary School, along with eight teachers, their principal and technicians appeared on the class whiteboard.  Hurray!!!!

Marine artwork

Unfortunately, I don't think our friends in Taiwan had quite as good a view....that day must have been our first sunny day in about 9 months (it certainly felt like it!) so we were either bathed in dazzling sunshine or, with the blinds down, plunged into semi-darkness.  Nonetheless, our hangout was up and running.  We had a Q and A session - my pupils were stunned to hear that Chong Ming hours are from 7:30am to 4:00pm and, I think, most impressed to hear that the favourite TV channel is Discovery.  We were all pleased to hear that teachers and pupils would be following the Olympics this summer.  Without hesitation our partner school responded to a question about favourite sports with a resounding 'SWIMMING'!

Pupil's artwork

Next Chong Ming pupils gave a series of presentations, in flawless English I might add, about their wonderful marine life artwork made from recycled materials.   Overall, a great success I think for a first hangout.  The techology worked seemlessly and the future possibilities are very exciting.  I think it would great to start an 'Interesting Ways with Google Hangouts' if there isn't already one available in Tom Barrett's excellent interesting ways series.

Pupil's artwork

My children have since used Google to complete their Art Critique forms to provide feedback on chldren's super artwork.  We are planning another hangout in the next fortnight, this time with presentations from us about our Earth Caretaker projects and from Taiwan more about their marine life environmental project.  Many pupils have requested we also exchange ideas and get to know one another through a pen pal arrangement - I think Google Apps would bring an exciting dimension to this too.   

...and to the West with Elizabeth Morrow in New Jersey...
Later that week, I joined our Year 2s for another hangout - this time with the Elizabeth Morrow school.  Once again there was a Q and A session and then our children gave some mini-presentations about life at Pedmore school.  I'm really hopeful that we'll be able to develop this link with Sarah Rolle and her pupils when the new term begins in the Autumn.


So, apart from hanging out, and madly planning for our class assembly, what else have we been up to?

Exploring Ngram viewer and 'tellling the story of the graph'

aaa Wow!  I've just got to say 'wow' about this very nifty Google tool!  I wasn't sure what my pupils would make of it or what would come out of a session based around it - but it exceeded my expectations!  I briefly demo'ed to the class and then asked children to come up with some search terms.  We searched for the words deforestation, tribes, aluminium, packaging and logging from 1800 to 2008.  Children then share ideas about the meaning or story of the graph.  They began by looking at 'tribes' in isolation and soon began to suggest links between the different lines.  What an insight into children's thinking, reasoning and understanding this provides!  Have a listen to a few of their ideas!

Designing logos

Our rainforest action teams wanted a highly visual way of responding to and critiquing the replies to our letters that we're hoping soon to receive from companies and Governments.  So they decided to create team logos as a 'seal of approval'.  Here are some of their designs!

Google search tool
At last!  Available in school on children's netbooks!  Hurray!  We celebrate in class each little step forward because sometimes they're hard won.  That said, we've had some great technical support from the lovely people at RM who are trying to help with making Google tools available to us without compromising the filters that are there for children's safety.  Thank you, Dudley RM team!

It's a feature of this style of learning that children ALWAYS have lots of questions throughout their projects.  Pupils need information to find out about the topic, to write great letters, to respond to the replies they get, in short, to become really informed.  So it's great to have search in Google Docs up and running.  In school!  What a great learning opportunity!  We've already talked in class about what it means to 'cite' sources, use of images from sites in our docs, how we can begin to get an idea of the reliability of information based on its source, the usefulness of search terms and how we can refine these to access the results we're after.  And my pupils are 8-9 year olds!  Pupils will use search with or without our input - it's the nature of the world they're growing up in.  But this tool brings the discussion and learning into the classroom so that children will learn how to use search in an informed and skilful way.

...and a word about Blogger in school
 Blogger is at last up and running too, after a fashion.  Children can create and edit posts but must wait until hometime before they can view their blog - or another pupil's come to that!  The stop-start nature of making this tool available has meant it just hasn't gotten off the ground as a means for children to 'blog the learning journey' as they go along. 

Google translate and 'gallery walk'
The children have continued sending out their letters.  Google translate has proved invaluable for letters going to destinations where English isn't the first languages - for example Malaysia.  We're all very excited about what the replies may bring.  Based on the experience with last year's Year 4, I suspect the children will need to hone their higher order reading skills when they receive some of the replies. 

Some letters aren't quite ready yet and it's for good reason that redrafting is an essential feature of project based learning.  I'm hoping to organise a 'gallery walk' with the help of some of our older pupils so that they can kindly and constructively critique children's first drafts.  Should be a great learning opportunity for all parties!

So what's next?
I've mentioned the up and coming hangouts and the gallery walk.  We've also got an annual camp event at the end of this month.  The children want to make it as sustainable as possible so they are going to be planning and adapting menus based on reducing or even eliminating the air miles of ingredients and trying to choose forest friendly sources for the things they'll need.  We've also got our big bottle top art day coming up soon too!  Watch this space!